fc\KKvK K K 
 
 Klti
 
 
 

 
 THE 
 
 NEW NOBILITY 
 
 A STORY OF EUROPE AND AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 JOHN W. FOKNEY. 
 
 " You see yon birkie ca'd a lord, 
 
 Wha struts, and stares, and a' that, 
 Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 
 He's but a coof for a' that ; 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 His riband, star, and a 1 that ; 
 The man of independent mind, 
 
 He looks and laughs at a' that. 
 The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 The man's the gowd for a 1 that." 
 
 BCENS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STKEET. 
 
 1881.
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 1881.
 
 PS 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE whole idea and scope of this volume are my 
 own and some of its early chapters ; but the body 
 of the book, especially the middle and last passages, 
 is the work of my gifted personal friend, Kev. Wil 
 liam M. Baker, of Boston, Massachusetts, who kind 
 ly responded to my invitation to edit and finish the 
 "New Nobility." He has written much for the secu 
 lar press, and has had a large clientage ; but I think 
 that he has never shown more talent and heart than 
 in the assistance he has given to me in these pages. 
 
 J. W. F.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB- PAGE 
 
 I. THE WRATH OF THE GODS .... 5 
 
 II. MERELY A MECHANIC . . ... 8 
 
 III. FAMILY TRAITS . . . . .11 
 
 IV. APOLOGY . . . . . . 13 
 
 V. THE TROCADERO ..... 15 
 
 VI. EAEL DORRINGTON . . . . 18 
 
 VII. FIRST ACQUAINTANCE . . . .22 
 
 "VIII. THE PARISIAN PALACE OF PEACE . . 24 
 IX. THE AMERICANS ..... 27 
 
 X. GEORGE HARRIS BREAKS HIS SILENCE . . 33 
 
 XI. AN AMERICAN EVANGEL . . . .39 
 
 XII. A RETURN TO NATURE .... 46 
 
 XIII. HASSAN PASHA ..... 52 
 
 XIV. LOVE FIFTY YEARS AGO . . . 56 
 
 XV. BROTHER AND SISTER . . .59 
 
 XVI. ISHBA DHASS GUNGA .... 63 
 
 XVII. WOMAN AS A SLAVE . . . .69 
 
 XVIII. IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION ... 74 
 
 XIX. THE MARBLE LIE . . . .79 
 
 XX. THE BIRTH OF ADVENTURE ... 83 
 
 XXI. ISIDORE ATCHISON, ARTIST . . . .87 
 
 XXII. FATHER AND CHILD .... 90 
 
 XXIII. COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY . . . .95 
 
 XXIV. MATBONLY SUGGESTION .... 100 
 
 XXV. A DESCENT . . . . . .103 
 
 XXVI. "THE HAMMER AN' DOWN wi' 'EM" . . 108 
 
 XXVII. YANKEE ADVICE . . . . .115 
 
 XXVIII. DIVINE PATIENCE .... 122 
 
 XXIX. AMERICAN GIRLS . . . . .127 
 
 XXX. HOP FUN . 134
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGH 
 
 XXXI. THE ARTISTS . ... . .139 
 
 XXXII. THE NEW CHINESE .... 146 
 
 XXXIII. A CHINESE EEPAST . . . .152 
 
 XXXIV. ALI KHAN 159 
 
 XXXV. THE NOBLE DUKE . . . . .166 
 
 XXXVI. THE LOST WIFE .... 172 
 
 XXXVII. THE FEMALE PHILOSOPHER . . .177 
 
 XXXVIIL THE ANATOMIST .... 183 
 
 XXXIX. THE OLD ARTIST . . . . .188 
 
 XL. DANGEROUS WAYS . . . . 193 
 
 XLI. ACHILLES DESOHAEDS . . . .199 
 
 XLII. HERR ZOODLEPLAUNTCH . . 203 
 
 XLIII. THE PIRATE OF THE PEN .... 210 
 
 XLI V. IMPERIAL LOVE . . . . 216 
 
 XLV. IN PURSUIT . . . . .222 
 
 XLVI. PERPLEXITY ..... 229 
 
 XLVIL THE YOUNG ARTIST . . . .235 
 
 XL VIII. THE LAY BROTHER .... 242 
 
 XLIX. DILUTED BLOOD ..... 248 
 
 L. CREATIVE JOY ..... 254 
 
 LI. THE YEARNINGS OF NATURE . . . 258 
 
 LII. M. PORTOU, ANATOMIST . . . 264 
 
 LIII. THE ROMANCE OF RELIGION . . .269 
 
 LIV. THE INEVITABLE .... 277 
 
 LV. ART AND HEART ..... 284 
 
 LVI. ST. PETERSBURG . . * . 289 
 
 LVII. PRINCE KALITZOFF .... 295 
 
 LVIII. THE DEPTHS . .... 301 
 
 LIX. INTO PERIL ..... 308 
 
 LX. WOMAN'S WIT . . . . . 314 
 
 LXI. THE CROWING OF THE RED COOK . . 318 
 
 LXII. THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHBIST . . 325 
 
 LXIII. THE LAST DAYS OF THE EXPOSITION . . 336 
 
 LXIV. TRANSITION . . . . 344 
 
 LXV. STRUGGLE ...... 350 
 
 LXVI. A RUSSIAN HOME .... 356 
 
 LXVIL IN PRISON . . . . .362 
 
 LXVIII. RESCUE ..... 368 
 
 LXIX. DAWN AGAIN ..... 375 
 
 LXX. TELEGRAM ..... 382 
 
 LXXI. CULMINATION . . . 390
 
 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WRATH OF THE GODS. 
 
 THE Middle Railway station at Brussels is very like all 
 such establishments on the Continent. Clean, decorous, and 
 well attended, it is as different from an American depot as 
 a French railway carriage is from an American railroad car. 
 There is a bureau where you buy your ticket, another where 
 you wait for your luggage until you have seen it weighed, 
 and then pay for it, and three rooms for the first, second, and 
 third class passengers. You enter the one answering to first 
 class, and wait till the train that is to carry you to Paris rolls 
 into the large and well-lighted station. The doors of the 
 several carriages stand wide open ; you select and secure your 
 seat, then look around to study human life, so interesting in 
 this foreign multitude. Brussels is a lovely city at all times, 
 with its parks, galleries, cathedral, fountains, boulevards, 
 theatres, and factories ; but on this beautiful August day 
 it was specially attractive, and there was an unusual bustle 
 at the railway. The silver wedding of King Leopold and 
 Queen Maria had just been celebrated ; and the last of three 
 days of processions, music, banquets, and speeches, all the 
 populace taking part, had closed the night before in a blaze 
 of illumination. Thousands of foreigners had come to enjoy 
 the spectacle ; the two sovereigns were much beloved, and 
 the King had made himself particularly agreeable to the fac-
 
 6 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 tions still warring upon each other in the Legislature and the 
 press. 
 
 The Middle station was thronged with tourists, and addi 
 tional carriages had to be added for the departing visitors. 
 The guard was sounding the farewell whistle, and closing 
 the doors of the carriages, when two men bustled into the 
 smoking compartment just as it was being locked for the 
 journey. In a moment the last signal was given, and the long 
 train moved toward Paris with the noiseless ease peculiar to 
 the iron roads of the Continent. It was a lovely morning. 
 A copious rain had cooled the air and freshened the autumnal 
 roses which poured their fragrance into the open windows. 
 There were now four men in the smoking section ; two, seated 
 in opposite corners when the others came in, were quietly 
 enjoying their after-breakfast cigars. They were dressed 
 for the journey in dark colors, and it would have been diffi 
 cult to decide their nationality. They might be French, 
 German, Prussian, American, even English. They bore the 
 stamp of gentility, and they resembled each other closely 
 enough to be father and son. There was no doubt about the 
 other two, as they lighted their cigars and began an animated 
 conversation. They were English in dress, manner, and move 
 ment, and, when they spoke, the dialect was unmistakable. 
 
 " I never saw a more beautiful woman," the younger ex 
 claimed to his companion, " never a more perfect style and 
 presence." 
 
 "And never have I seen you so carried away. She is 
 indeed lovely. Did you mark her voice ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and that completed the charm. She was not 
 French, not Italian, nor German ; and, although she spoke 
 without accent, I do not think she is English." 
 
 " You are too bold ; you startled me ; you tried to enter 
 the compartment ; and I was amused at the easy dignity 
 with which the elder lady informed you that the coupe was 
 reserved." 
 
 " Yes, that was admirably done. I am eager to find out 
 more about them."
 
 THE WRATH OF THE GODS. 7 
 
 " Do you know, I half suspect they are Americans ? " 
 
 " Impossible ! What, that elegant creature the product 
 of the vain and vulgar Yankee race ! " 
 
 " Come, come, old man ; there you are again ! What 
 have the Americans done that you should be so unjust to 
 them ? " 
 
 " I have no patience with them ; and I never meet them 
 that I do not feel repelled. My disgust is instinctive. You 
 say I am unjust ; I reply, that if I am, I can not help it." 
 
 " Well, I do not care to dispute the point ; but I predict 
 that you will live to repent your hasty judgment." 
 
 The younger Englishman, and the most impulsive, turned 
 to the two other men in the smoking section, who were quiet 
 listeners, and as if he expected, or rather exacted, their ap 
 proval, suddenly exclaimed : 
 
 " You have heard this discussion. Am I not right about 
 these Yankees ? " 
 
 It was a blunder, made worse by the characteristic Eng 
 lish insouciance of the question ; and both the silent stran 
 gers started as if the question had been a blow. After a 
 brief silence the elder who had laid a firm grasp upon the 
 shoulder of his companion as if to hold him down threw 
 his cigar out of the window, and said, in a low and severe 
 voice : 
 
 " I am an American ; and I will add that, if I thought 
 you had known it, I should have resented your insolence at 
 once." 
 
 " What, sir, my insolence ! " said the Englishman, quick 
 ly rising in his seat ; at which the younger American stood 
 up as if to defend his father for so indeed he was. 
 
 "Yes," said the elder, as he sternly motioned his son to 
 silence and his seat. " Yes, your insolence. I have been 
 forced to listen to your abuse of my country ; and I should 
 have treated you with the contempt you deserve, if you had 
 not asked me to endorse your language. But now I almost 
 thank you, and in return I will give you a little gratuitous 
 advice. Be sure, as you grow older, to think twice before
 
 8 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 you attempt to air your prejudices in the presence of others. 
 My country people are full of faults, and have much to learn 
 from others ; but the last school I would advise them to 
 study in is the society of the English, of which you seem to 
 be a very fair specimen." 
 
 These words were spoken deliberately, in a cool, culti 
 vated voice. The American was angry, but collected and 
 dignified. He looked like a man of character, and as the 
 clear, incisive sentences fell from his lips he gazed steadily 
 into the Englishman's face, who, on his part, turned upon 
 him a fiery and astonished stare ; but, before he had time to 
 recover himself, the long train stopped at the busy railroad 
 town of Mons, the most important station after leaving 
 Brussels, where there are two trains for Paris, one hundred 
 and twenty miles distant. The doors of all the carriages 
 were unlocked and thrown wide open, as is customary, to 
 allow the passengers to alight, and the four men found them 
 selves descending to the level platform of the Flemish sta 
 tion in silence. While the two Englishmen were smarting 
 under the strong language of the American, the latter, taking 
 his son by the arm, quietly walked into the carriage in which 
 the two ladies were seated who were the innocent causes of 
 the explosion. The Englishmen saw their unpleasant dilemma 
 at a glance ; and they had no time to recover from their new 
 surprise, when they were hurried back to the smoker's re 
 treat, as the train moved off on the route by Traumont, Com- 
 piegne, and Creil, to the gay capital of the French republic. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MERELY A MECHANIC. 
 
 GEORGE HARRIS was born in one of the oldest of the 
 American States, Pennsylvania, on the 30th of September, 
 1817, and was nearly sixty-one at the opening of our story.
 
 MERELY A MECHANIC. 9 
 
 Trained in the common schools under the great system in 
 stituted by Thaddeus Stevens and George Wolf, afterward 
 perfected in the Philadelphia High School by men like Alex 
 ander Dallas Bache and John Sanderson, he was a black 
 smith's apprentice before fifteen, and the owner of a little 
 shop in old Spring Garden before he was nineteen. He was 
 a good workman and a close student, and his intelligence 
 and ingenuity soon attracted attention ; he had no rich 
 friends, but he was a careful reader of the busy world around 
 him. His forge and anvil were his college ; and the little 
 he had gathered at school prepared him for the great future 
 which accident opened to his young ambition. 
 
 One of the dreams of these early days was the beautiful 
 vision to which in after-life he gave practical expression. It 
 was the legend of the " Iron Worker." When Solomon's 
 Temple was about to be opened, the blacksmith, finding him 
 self omitted from the invited guests, boldly marched into the 
 temple just from the forge, and taking the king's own seat, 
 insisted that, since it was he who had made the tools with 
 which the builders wrought, without him the splendid dome 
 had never been constructed. King Solomon heard the ap 
 peal, and the blacksmith sat by his side at the royal feast. 
 
 When young Harris was pushing himself into business, 
 full of health and vigor, he was unexpectedly called upon 
 by an agent of the Russian Government, who had been re 
 ferred to the ambitious and skillful mechanic, and invited to 
 visit St. Petersburg, to undertake the equipment of a great 
 Russian railroad ; to construct machine-shops, to build loco 
 motives and carriages, and to educate in skilled labor the 
 youth of the Empire who might be the leaders of the next 
 generation. 
 
 It was an unexpected call, and yet the High School boy 
 found himself equal to the new responsibilities ; he gathered 
 around him men of capital by his brains, and his frankness 
 won mechanics like himself. He called them in from other 
 cities and States, and by his energy and intelligence pleased 
 his royal employer, improved his own fortunes, and made a
 
 10 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 name for high credit and integrity, which was freely awarded 
 to all his associates. His organization was in a few years 
 one of the most effective in Europe, the model for many 
 others. 
 
 Russian and American diplomacy have had a long and 
 congenial relationship ; and nothing is more interesting than 
 that the two great antipodean systems should have come so 
 near together. The Continent, given up to absolutism on 
 one side of the globe, has gravitated to the republicanism of 
 the Continent at the other. Peter the Great, the anonymous 
 Muscovite shipbuilder, who traversed Europe, at the begin 
 ning of the eighteenth century, as a common laborer, was 
 only the antitype of Benjamin Franklin, the American print 
 er, who traversed the other end of the same planet at the 
 close of the same century. Each had his mission and each 
 executed it. 
 
 When George Harris and his assistants left the United 
 States for St. Petersburg they had rare advantages. The 
 workers in iron in the first century of American indepen 
 dence, from Franklin, with the key that attracted and directed 
 the lightning, to Fulton, Fitch, Watt, Arkwright, Stephen- 
 son, Siemens, Edison, and 'others, have been the pioneers 
 of a destiny that is a religion in itself, the missionaries of a 
 new and powerful evangelism. 
 
 By a strange coincidence the State of Pennsylvania seems 
 to have supplied most of the American ministers to Russia, 
 and most of the builders of Russian railroads and Russian 
 ships. Since 1814, of the forty-nine ministers and secretaries 
 of legation appointed by the President of the United States, 
 twelve have been citizens of Pennsylvania. The presence of 
 such citizens at the proud court of the Russian Czar as Wil 
 liam Wilkins, James Buchanan, George M. Dallas, Andrew 
 G. Curtin, George H. Boker, and Bayard Taylor undoubt 
 edly prepared the way for the skilled mechanics, manufactur 
 ers, and shipwrights who were called from the same State 
 to the Russian capital by the successive emperors of that 
 great autocracy.
 
 FAMILY TRAITS. 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FAMILY TRAITS. 
 
 ALL genuine women grow into manners ; society is their 
 true school ; imitation is their final finish. They carefully 
 copy the rare styles, sunned and ripened by the ages. The 
 quickness of female intuition is an inspiration. How magi 
 cal their skill in colors, in costume, furniture, flowers, and 
 music ! How refined and rapid their perception of the 
 right tone of the voice, the best pose of the body, the sweet 
 est expression ; and when their natural gifts are turned to 
 books, and the young mother teaches herself and trains her 
 child at the same time not only the finest manners but the 
 best morals, there is nothing more enchanting ! 
 
 Such was Margaret Harris, the wife of George Harris, 
 when she was seated with her daughter in the railway car 
 riage at Brussels. Ten years younger than her husband, her 
 daughter was born in St. Petersburg nineteen years before, 
 having twice visited the United States with her parents and 
 her brother, the last time during the Centennial Exhibition 
 of 1876. 
 
 If there was a close resemblance between George Harris 
 and his daughter Mary, and this although the father was as 
 rugged in appearance as the daughter was beautiful, in her 
 his strength had refined itself into loveliness, but it remained 
 strength all the more. There was nothing between mother 
 and daughter to show their relationship except the voice ; 
 and by that organ the family could be traced. Nature is in 
 nothing more cunning than in the magic music of the human 
 tongue. One may lose the trace of a face, the years that 
 have surged between the outposts of youth and age have 
 utterly changed the features, and you have stood wondering 
 before the stranger till the old, unf orgotten tones recalled the 
 friend as if from the grave of the past. 
 
 So, when you heard Mary Harris, you also heard her 
 mother and her brother. If Longfellow could have listened
 
 12 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 to her voice, he could have more truly written that " The 
 intellect sits enthroned on the forehead and in the eye ; and 
 the heart is written in the countenance. The soul reveals 
 itself in the voice only." 
 
 Taller than her .mother, and lighter, she had the startling 
 beauty that comes with golden hair and dark eyes, and when 
 she spoke you thrilled at the sweetness and depth of her 
 voice. Its clear metallic ring was like a challenge, and there 
 was an invisible echo (if I may be pardoned the paradox) 
 like the sound that follows a melodious bell. Her tone at 
 first seemed a defiance when she answered you ; but it was 
 only the consciousness of perfect innocence, and the mastery 
 of a pure woman over herself. Fond of her mother and her 
 brother, she was very proud of her father. She cherished 
 her mother, but she had a possession in her father ; at once 
 a property, a partnership, and a worship. His views of men 
 and things were hers, and he was equally her teacher, her 
 protector, and her guardian. Educated, if not by him, at 
 least under his eye, nothing aided him more than her literary 
 excellence, her knowledge of languages, her grace in society, 
 and her precious good sense ; and the world at first regarded 
 her more self-willed than sentimental. 
 
 But at last, much the strongest resemblance was that 
 between Mrs. Margaret Harris and her son, in personal like 
 ness, because in identity of character. That identity lay in 
 the common sense ; common, at least, to these two. 
 
 " I am sorry for the dispute in the carriage with the Eng 
 lishman, because it seems to have disturbed your father," 
 said Mrs. Harris to her daughter, the morning after their 
 return from Brussels, as they sat together in their Paris 
 apartments at the Hotel Bristol. 
 
 " Yes," was the reply ; " it was awkward, but I can quite 
 understand my father's anger. It was impertinent on the 
 part of the stranger. But then it was very like some of the 
 English. There is nothing upon which he is so sensitive 
 as an attack upon his country." 
 
 " But he is usually so prudent, and he specially dislikes
 
 APOLOGY. 13 
 
 anything like a scene. I wonder what the exact cause of 
 the altercation could have been ? " 
 
 " And I have asked Henry, but my brother is as reserved 
 as my father." 
 
 It would have been easy to satisfy her curiosity, but 
 George Harris was not sorry to let the matter drop, although 
 he could not help thinking about it a great deal. 
 
 As to the son, he was this much like his mother that, 
 when he evaded explanation, every one felt with him that 
 the matter was of importance, and that he had not as yet 
 accomplished his purpose, whatever it was in regard to it. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 APOLOGY. 
 
 THE splendors of the foreign embassies in Paris have not 
 been lessened by the successes of the Republic. But the 
 English Legation, the German Legation, the Italian and 
 Russian Legations, the Chinese and Turkish Legations, are 
 far more palatial than the humble offices of the American 
 Minister. Paris, like London, is a diplomatic center, and 
 the rival movements of Russia and England are as keenly 
 conducted and as vigilantly watched as they are in St. Peters 
 burg and London. It was a day reception at the Russian 
 Minister's. The Grand Duke Alexis had come over to see 
 the Exhibition ; and the imperial droschka, with three fine 
 steeds abreast, had been a new attraction to the cosmo 
 politan pleasure-seekers, as it sped out of the great horse- 
 show on the broad boulevards on the opposite side of the 
 Seine, and dashed up to the embassy. Crowds were pour 
 ing into the gates of the Minister's hotel, and he stood in his 
 gilded saloon to welcome his guests. The handsome prince 
 had just alighted from his Cossack chariot as George Harris, 
 his wife, daughter, and son were ascending the flowery stairs
 
 14 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 leading to the drawing-room of the Legation. Nothing 
 could have been more graceful than the recognition of the 
 Americans by the Grand Duke. That lovely day shone 
 down on no lovelier creature than Mary Harris ; nor in that 
 brilliant throng was there a more pleasing sight than the 
 family of the cultivated American. All nations were repre 
 sented in their beauty, wealth, and learning, and in their 
 highest rank. The Prince of Wales was present with his 
 retinue on his fortnightly visit to Paris, and, together with 
 the royalties of other powers, had come to the Russian levee. 
 To these were joined all the ministers of the French republic 
 and the representatives of the other powers. After due 
 homage to the Russian Minister by Mr. Harris and his fam 
 ily, and as he was conversing with other Russian friends, 
 and his wife and daughter were engaging their American 
 acquaintances, the rare charms of Mary Harris attracting 
 universal admiration, a well-known English diplomatist ap 
 proached George Harris and addressed him with easy famili 
 arity. They had met in Washington during the Rebellion, 
 while Lord Lyons was the British Minister, at the house of Mr. 
 Seward, the American Secretary of State, who held Mr. Harris 
 high in esteem, and they had frequent subsequent interviews. 
 
 " I want to ask you a kindness. Some days ago you had 
 a dispute with a young countryman of mine in a railway car 
 riage on the way from Brussels, and this is the first time he 
 has seen you since. He is here this morning, and asks to be 
 presented to you, that he may apologize for his part in the 
 affair " ; and the envoy waited for the reply. 
 
 " It was a hasty and awkward difference," said Mr. Har 
 ris ; " and I am almost sorry myself for my own impatience 
 with the young man." 
 
 " Then I feel that I am not mistaken in your good na 
 ture," the diplomatist responded, as he beckoned to the 
 young Englishman of the smoking compartment, who quickly 
 advanced, and the envoy spoke : 
 
 "I am glad to make you better acquainted with Lord 
 Conyngham, Mr. Harris."
 
 THE TROCADEBO. 15 
 
 And the two men shook hands, the handsome nobleman 
 remarking : 
 
 " And I beg you, Mr. Harris, to accept my thanks and 
 my apology at the same time. You treated me as I deserved, 
 and taught me a lesson that will last a lifetime." 
 
 " Let me reciprocate your frankness at least. If my ad 
 vice proves to be so useful, I am not sorry for the necessity 
 that made me offer it." 
 
 And with some more words the young nobleman lifted 
 his hat and stepped aside, but soon returned with a lady on 
 his arm, who laughingly greeted the other Englishman. 
 
 " This is my sister, Lady Blanche, Mr. Harris, who must 
 be my intercessor with your wife and daughter, to make my 
 forgiveness complete." 
 
 It was so quickly and gracefully done that the lady was 
 almost instantly introduced to the two American women who 
 stood close to her ; and it took only a few minutes to include 
 Henry Harris in the general reconciliation. 
 
 Even the British statesman, who had been in diplomacy 
 nearly forty years had served in Greece, Italy, America, 
 Turkey, and France never witnessed a more interesting 
 scene as he watched these pleasant courtesies, and certainly 
 never saw two more charming or more charmingly contrasted 
 characters than these two lovely girls, Mary Harris and 
 Blanche Conyngham ; and the elegant courtier, as he left 
 the new friends laughing and chatting, quietly whispered to 
 Lord Conyngham, " Has she come at last ? " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TROCADEBO. 
 
 BLANCHE CONYNGHAM was more than an English girl of 
 fashion. The only daughter of a peer of the realm, and sis 
 ter of the heir to a large estate, she was as unspoiled as if
 
 16 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 she had been reared in a lower sphere. She was fortunate 
 in the rare gift of unconscious beauty, and when she met 
 Mary Harris and her mother she captivated them by the 
 honesty of her manner and the candor of her conversation. 
 To say that she was pleased with them was to repeat what 
 all others said who first met these superior women. The 
 three rode to the Exhibition in the same carriage, leaving 
 the three men to follow ; and they had a little feminine talk 
 as they rolled up to the main door of the Trocadero ; but 
 they were meanwhile silently occupied in a mutual and wo 
 manly inventory of each other. 
 
 " You are not strangers in Europe, that is easily seen," 
 said Lady Blanche. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Margaret Harris ; " I have been a long 
 time abroad, and my daughter was born in Russia." 
 
 " I have never seen your vast country, but I read about 
 it a great deal ; indeed, I think about it every day. Do 
 you return soon ? " 
 
 " Next year, and for good. This is our last visit to Paris, 
 and I feel a little sad at leaving familiar scenes and dear 
 friends." 
 
 " But then we have a home awaiting us, and many who 
 long for our coming," said Mary Harris. 
 
 As Blanche looked at her, a new light filled her eyes, and 
 the rich voice of the American girl touched her heart. Mary 
 studied the bright English face opposite with a sweet 
 smile. 
 
 The crowd was hastening along the broad vestibule of 
 the fantastic temple, and strains of music poured through 
 the wide edifice, while the silvery waters dashed ever the 
 broad steps under the towering fountains with their gigan 
 tic figures, and from the sweeping balconies of the Trocadero 
 you saw the animated perspective leading to the main temple 
 of the Exposition. As the ladies descended from the chariot, 
 they found Lord Conyngham, George Harris, and his son 
 already arrived to receive them. Naturally the young noble 
 man walked with Mary, Blanche and the others following
 
 THE TROCADRO. 17 
 
 down the broad stair to the great highway over the bridge 
 across the Seine. 
 
 " These World's Fairs are schools, not shows, to me, and 
 they always give me rather saddening reflections. There is 
 so much to see and to think of, that I tire at my own in 
 capacity," were the first words of the young man to Mary. 
 
 " Yes, I can quite understand," she said ; " but I always 
 take refuge in gratitude to God that all these wonderful 
 things were made by his creatures, and so are a kind of 
 worship of him." 
 
 " I never heard such a view of the Exposition ; but it 
 is very true," was all the other could say. 
 
 "Is it not the right view?" she asked modestly ; "how 
 much better these modern manifestations of the industry 
 and skill, the science and genius of our men and women, 
 than the preparations for conquest and war ! They seem to 
 me to mark the contrast between the past and the present." 
 
 This was so different from what he had expected, and so 
 different from what he had been accustomed to, that Lord 
 Conyngham could only look and listen. At last he said : 
 
 "I do not think our English women reflect so deeply as 
 you do, and indeed I have not heard those of your country 
 speak like you ; but it is very agreeable." 
 
 Mary made no reply, but, looking back, she said to 
 Blanche : 
 
 " Lady Blanche, you must rescue me from your brother. 
 I frighten him by my sermon, and then he flatters me. Is 
 that his way ? " 
 
 " My brother is not easily frightened, and, like most 
 Englishmen, not much given to compliments, but I think 
 you have been surprising him. What is it, Alfred ? " 
 
 " Only this : Miss Harris has been giving me a new cause 
 of the good wrought by these World's Fairs." 
 
 " I am neither philosopher nor prophet ; but nothing," 
 Mary added, " overcomes me as a woman more than these 
 evidences of human improvement, as I see them in such 
 places, and I can not help thinking that when our fellow-
 
 18 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 creatures show such great powers, they are new witnesses of 
 the greatness of God. It can mean nothing else." 
 
 " Mary was curiously affected at Philadelphia two years 
 ago," said her father, joining the group. " When she first 
 saw the Corliss engine in the American Exhibition, she said 
 it overcame her like the sermon of an eloquent preacher, 
 and I confess it impressed me the same way." 
 
 " Now, father dear, we will change the subject, if you 
 please. May I not ask you to show me the English pictures, 
 Lord Conyngham ? There is one Turner that you must ex 
 plain. It is quite beyond me." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EARL DORRINGTON. 
 
 EAEL DORRINGTON, the father of the young Lord Con 
 yngham, had a weakness for Paris, and belonged to that 
 large class of Englishmen who always seek the Continent in 
 November. He was so much attached to Nice and the 
 South of France that, with his long absences there and in 
 the gay French capital, he was almost a stranger in his own 
 ancient halls. He took little or no interest in public affairs, 
 was rarely seen in the House of Lords, and beyond a sort 
 of idolatry for his daughter Blanche, lived in and loved the 
 world that had always treated him as one of its spoiled 
 darlings. He was not yet sixty, and there were few hand 
 somer men, and none more blameless or gentle. He was a 
 sincere aristocrat, and inherited as a part of his family 
 religion a firm conviction of the inferiority of the common 
 people. Of his own purity and perfection he was so sure 
 that he felt no pride in them. They were a sort of property 
 as inseparable to himself as his hands or his head. He no 
 more doubted that he was placed apart from those not 
 well born than he did that his valet and his butler were
 
 EARL DORRINGTON. 19 
 
 created only to wait upon him. His daughter was his 
 prime minister, and although all his generosity was vica 
 rious, the world believed that the luxurious Earl was lib 
 eral or benevolent on his own motion. But Blanche was 
 his almoner. She had large sympathies and quick percep 
 tions, and freely indulged them, and as she accompanied her 
 father in most of his travels, and wrote his name in all her 
 charities, generally without consulting him, he had an un 
 deserved reputation for good deeds not his own ; nor did his 
 languid manner stand with the public as a contradiction to 
 his registered charities. He was too well bred for contro 
 versy. He accepted Blanche as the most perfect of her sex 
 his wife having died when Blanche was born and he 
 rarely questioned her actions. The Earl and his children, as 
 he called them, had the best quarters in the old Hotel Meu- 
 rice, on the Rue Rivoli, now richly renovated, and as they 
 only met at dinner in their superb private parlor, that was 
 the occasion for the report of the day. They were not often 
 alone at that hour. Their English and foreign acquaintance 
 was large, and when they were not engaged with others they 
 had invited guests of their own. The luxury of the rich 
 English nobility is nowhere more lavish than while they are 
 in Paris. They enjoy life in a quiet and costly exclusive- 
 ness, and if one were to attempt to describe what is known of 
 their outlays, one might fear to be misunderstood. A few of 
 the wealthy commoners go beyond them, but, as the titled 
 British families are nearly all very rich, they live lives of 
 almost fabulous extravagance, and when they settle down 
 for a season in Paris their expenditure is boundless. The 
 English nobility as a rule have large estates and incomes, 
 and Earl Dorrington was one of the most fortunate. 
 
 He was first in the drawing-room, waiting, in full dress, 
 for his son and daughter, who had given the day to the Rus 
 sian reception and the Exposition Universelle, and as he sat 
 looking over " The Times " we will take his photograph. He 
 was, as has been said, a man of sixty, with iron-gray hair and 
 short whiskers, a face without a moustache, and that quiet-
 
 20 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ude which comes of inherited independence and comfort. 
 Tall, like his son Alfred, the young lord, he had less of the 
 affronting self-assertion of the latter, and more of the win 
 ning air of his daughter. Men who do not work themselves, 
 and have others to work for them and attend to their slight 
 est wish, fall insensibly into a contempt for others. Such 
 men are an intrusion, and worse, to sensitive minds, and the 
 more so because patricians such as these come at last to a 
 conviction that they own what they never deserved. But 
 the Earl had a gift of hiding this trait, and rather won upon 
 those who disliked it in others. There were no guests to 
 day, and he waited pleasantly for the entrance of his son 
 and daughter, and greeted them warmly as they came in 
 from opposite doors. Certainly they were a handsome pair. 
 The young lord had his father's height, and as he stood 
 forth in his black costume and white cravat, his long, shapely 
 English limbs, and his fine head rising from his broad 
 shoulders, his striking face laughed in the consciousness of 
 perfect self -enjoyment. Blanche looked like him ; but, in 
 her delicate blue dress, a deep-blush autumn rose in her hair, 
 her small, white, unjeweled hands, a bright solitaire in each 
 delicate, shell-like ear, and her sweet face all aglow, she was 
 rather a contrast than a comparison. Her father saluted her 
 with his best grace, and led her, like a knight of the olden 
 time, to her appropriate place at the head of the table, seat 
 ing himself opposite his son. 
 
 " And what of the day, sweetheart ? " was his first greet 
 ing as he took his sherry and declined the soup. " You have 
 had heavenly weather for your ride. Pray tell me all the 
 good^things you have seen ? " 
 
 " First of all, papa dear, I have seen a charming Ameri 
 can ; and so has Alfred ; and we are both in love, if you 
 please." 
 
 " What, at first sight ? An American and what is his 
 name ? " 
 
 " It is a lady, your lordship, and although this is my first 
 look, my brother is more fortunate."
 
 EARL DOBRINGTON. 21 
 
 Needless to say that the Earl knew nothing of the ad 
 venture on the rail, and he replied, with very little curiosity 
 in his tone : 
 
 " One meets all the world in Paris, yet it is not necessary 
 to fall in love with it, even at second sight. The Americans 
 are always demonstrative ; I prefer to read about them." 
 
 " Then, dear papa, these are exceptions. They are almost 
 as composed as if they were great people, like the English ; 
 and, you know, we are the greatest on the round globe. At 
 least, that is your opinion." 
 
 Then Alfred spoke to the Earl : 
 
 " These strangers have interested me. They are a better 
 strain than I have been accustomed to. They are quiet, ac 
 complished, wealthy, and gentle, and the father has a sort 
 of English pride of country ; the mother is very well poised, 
 and the daughter is an angel." 
 
 " I never hear," the Earl said in reply, " of an American's 
 pride of country without a smile. As I never dispute, es 
 pecially with strangers, I listen to and wonder at the Ameri 
 cans. They have no past ; no great families ; no great lead 
 ers ; no literature, and no gifts of governing ; and no mat 
 ter how well-bred or educated, they amount to nothing. They 
 are the green fruit of the orchard. The world must be con 
 trolled by educated experience. All experiments are tempo 
 rary. Mankind was born to be managed by the ripe minds. 
 It was so in the Pagan eras ; it is so to-day ; it will be so to 
 the end ; and America is only an accident, and accidents are 
 sudden and suddenly perish. We may improve by the acci 
 dent of its existence, but we shall survive and dominate." 
 
 Such was the school of Lady Blanche and Lord Conyng- 
 ham. They talked for a long time over their elaborate din 
 ner, and this was all that was said about the Americans ; but 
 Mary Harris was not one soon to be forgotten by the young 
 nobleman.
 
 22 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIRST ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 GEOKGE HARRIS and his wife and children regarded Lord 
 Conyngham and Lady Blanche with interest. The father 
 was impressed by the manly deportment of the young lord, 
 and Mary Harris was pleased with Lady Blanche. Mrs. 
 Harris saw more than the rest, and Henry, her son, like 
 most brothers, only regarded Conyngham as a very well- 
 bred snob, without once thinking that his sister was the 
 magnet. 
 
 George Harris quietly observed : 
 
 "The young lord is a type of his class a very large, 
 and, I fear, an increasing class, the chief ingredient of 
 which is the conviction that other men are born to contri 
 bute to their wants and luxuries. These people can not un 
 derstand mankind. Not to know is born in them. I do 
 not complain ; it is their destiny. Nor do I expect them to 
 like the United States. If I had been spoiled as they have 
 been ; if my ancestors, instead of honest, hard-working peo 
 ple, had been raised to give command, to obey nothing but 
 their own instincts, and to expect all below them to fawn 
 and flatter, I should to-day be as much in love with myself 
 and as fond of thinking others my inferiors as these simple 
 moles, the amusing drones of the British nobility. You can 
 not expect an eagle from the nest of a peacock. Like makes 
 like." 
 
 "But, father," said Mary with beautiful animation, "do 
 you not think that the daughter Blanche is the exception 
 that proves the rule ? She seems a different sort." 
 
 " And so she does. I was quite pleased with her naivete. 
 She has courage too, and talks sometimes as if she knew 
 more than she cared to tell. Did you observe how long she 
 stood before that very bad painting of Mr. Lincoln in the 
 poor collection called the American Art Gallery ? " 
 
 "You did not hear her questions about him," said Henry.
 
 FIRST ACQUAINTANCE. 23 
 
 " I had to ask mother to help me out with the story. She 
 was much affected by the narrative of his low beginning, 
 trying career, and tragic end. We are strange creatures to 
 these English," he continued, " but not more than they are 
 to us. It is a fashion, I think an affectation, with them not 
 to know anything about our country, and I have more than 
 once been vexed, for I never begin to talk to them about 
 home, by an Englishman asking whether I lived in North or 
 South America." 
 
 "But, father dear, you often say that events are com 
 pelling the English to appreciate our country," was Mary's 
 rejoinder. 
 
 " Yes, my darling, but compelled appreciation can not be 
 sincere. It is like the respect that comes from fear, a senti 
 ment that begins in envy and ends in hate. I am sorry to 
 believe that the English rulers will always regard us in the 
 one or the other light. Even now they are divided between 
 envy and hate." 
 
 " But, father, not the English people." 
 
 " I said the rulers ; no, thank God ! not the English peo 
 ple ; and that increases the feeling of the rulers a feeling 
 daily strengthened by their dependence on us and our inde 
 pendence of them. Our Declaration of 1776 was but the 
 first step toward our independence of them, which is yet to 
 culminate and give place to such a dependence of England 
 on us no, such a unity of England with us as few dream 
 of as yet." 
 
 " Do you not think, George, that the success of the Union 
 army left a severe scar on the heart of the English aristoc 
 racy ? " quietly asked Mrs. Harris. 
 
 " It is not pleasant to know this, but I meet it almost 
 daily, and it is often difficult to keep down my anger among 
 the English. I could not believe how deeply they desired 
 our defeat ; and now that they are suffering more and more 
 in their trade, and getting deeper and deeper in debt, and 
 we are improving daily, and even competing with, instead of 
 buying from them, their resentment is only natural. What 
 2
 
 24 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 folly in them to fight the inevitable ! Not even English 
 pluck is sufficient for that, and they must know that we and 
 they are but at the beginning of vast changes, and all in one 
 direction." 
 
 And this was the other side of the medal. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PARISIAN PALACE OP PEACE. 
 
 No just ideal of the Paris Exposition would have been 
 possible had it not been preceded by the Centennial at Phil 
 adelphia, two years before ; and as nine or ten millions of 
 people witnessed the latter, they need only be assured that 
 its French successor, though unspeakably grand and com 
 plete, lacked many of the unforgotten peculiarities of the 
 American memorial. In one respect they were much alike. 
 They had the same transcendent mission. Before the Amer 
 ican International all the great Expositions had been royal 
 saturnalias, originated and organized by the Russian Czar, 
 the British Queen, the French Emperor, the Austrian Mon 
 arch, the Belgian King, or the German Kaiser, and the 
 resulting rewards were almost exclusively scattered among 
 court favorites. The assertion was common that art was the 
 offspring of aristocracy, that genius only ripened under a 
 regal sun, and that a modern republic was another name for 
 severe utility. The Philadelphia Centennial dispelled the 
 offensive dogma by the grandeur of its scheme, by its superb 
 perspectives, architectural and rural, by the almost articulate 
 perfection of its marvelous system, by the magical variety 
 of its machines, by the solved problems of its inventions, and 
 by the almost inspired succession of its other developments 
 in art, science, agriculture, and mechanics. The connoisseurs 
 of Europe who came to criticise remained to applaud ; the 
 foreign artists who feared that their models might be stolen
 
 THE PARISIAN PALACE OF PEACE. 25 
 
 remained to copy those of the Americans ; and the people 
 of two worlds mingled in admiration before the novelty and 
 majesty of the spectacle. No court favorites absorbed the 
 awards of this republican jury. Impartial judgment and 
 refined discrimination settled the prizes on the meritorious, 
 without reference to rank or condition ; and they may now 
 be found in every European capital, the recognized badges 
 of republican good taste and justice. The French Republic 
 followed in turn, and this was its triumphant season. The 
 prophets who predicted failure were silent before its mag 
 nificence. Never before had French genius a grander oppor 
 tunity ; never had art reveled in a more complete temple. 
 The air was full of freedom. There was a carnival of classic 
 liberty. There were order without arms, culture without 
 coercion, temperance without austerity, and subordination 
 to laws made by the people themselves for themselves. The 
 festivals that crowned this unequaled pageant were all fes 
 tivals of peace, and Paris proved to her foes that the best 
 way to govern the French people was to govern them least. 
 The trade of soldiers and the crime of war, that guilty satur 
 nalia of France, the Third Empire, the fierce logic of the 
 Commune, and the grim German conquerors, had perished or 
 passed away, a succession of horrors, the ghastly harvest of 
 force, the grim holocaust of an incredible treason. The 
 American Centennial was the apotheosis of freedom in the 
 New World, a better and brighter deification of human 
 rights because sanctified by the blood of the martyrs, and 
 the French Exposition was the joyous feast of the deliver 
 ance from despotism of one of the oldest nations in the Old 
 World. Both had been satiated with internal conflict ; both 
 were tired of the horror of brother warring upon brother ; 
 and both sought and found safety in these magnificent ex 
 pressions of industry, reconciliation, and fraternity. 
 
 And it was in this spirit that all the nations came to 
 Paris in that year of our Lord. No one failed to catch the 
 contagion of the example. No orator was needed to empha 
 size a lesson that spoke for itself always and everywhere.
 
 26 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 For the first time the European monarchs saw that the 
 European masses would fight no more save for themselves. 
 A new gospel of progress had been declared. The French 
 Republic meant victory because it meant peace. As you 
 walked these long corridors, crossed these golden pave 
 ments, and looked down these glittering perspectives, the 
 monarch you met was the multitude ! And he felt that he 
 was master. He came from all the human climes : the 
 swarth Nubian, the silent Chinese, the passionless Turk, 
 the stolid Swiss, the ruddy English, the ebon Moor, the light 
 Caucasian, the grave German, the gay American, the black 
 African, the olive Italian, and the frowning Spaniard. What 
 a fable to say that mankind prefers to be ruled by mediocrity ! 
 What a lie to insist that hereditary government is essential 
 to civilization ! The world is getting wiser, and the pro- 
 foundest lesson it is acquiring is that the kings of men must 
 be kings of mind, and that inherited titles are no more com 
 petent to control humanity than inherited disease. The citi 
 zen of a republic is judged by his character and his record, 
 and " in a republic a title is no more than a counterfeit bank 
 note." 
 
 The greatest wonder of the Exposition was that it hap 
 pened when it did. The wounds cut deep into the face of 
 the fair city, in '71 and '72, were still unhealed. The marks 
 left by war were visible almost at the very doors of this fes 
 tival of peace. German soldiers, who marched beneath the 
 Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elyse'es in full 
 panoply of battle, with their music of victory echoing and 
 re-echoing from the walls of the closed and barred houses, 
 sipped their petits verres in the cafes of the Exhibition, and 
 talked like brothers with men hardly more than yesterday 
 their deadly foes. To stand in the courtyard of the Grand 
 Hotel de Rivoli and look over upon the ruins of the Tuileries 
 was almost to smell the cans of the petroleuses. The rising 
 walls of the new Hotel de Ville recalled the yells of the fren 
 zied Commune, and as you saw everywhere how Paris now 
 rejoiced you could not but remember how she wept ; you
 
 THE AMERICANS. 27 
 
 thought of the immense sum France had surrendered to Ger 
 many, and then of the vast expense of the great world's 
 show, and you had to honor this people for their indomit 
 able courage, energy, and perseverance, and to marvel at 
 their seemingly inexhaustible wealth. They had failed in a 
 war which they had undertaken with hearts as light as upon 
 a, fete day, and confidence so strong that it would have been 
 treason to think of disaster. They had cried -^ Berlin/ 
 until they believed no power, divine or human, could save 
 the cohorts of King William from defeat. They were 
 crushed by the terrible result, and Paris lay bleeding nigh 
 unto death. But they dried their tears, they opened their 
 workshops, they rebuilt, they redecorated, and they called 
 the world to come and visit them. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 No American family was better known in Europe than 
 that of George Harris, and this for two reasons. First, be 
 cause they seemed to be almost omnipresent. You saw them 
 in Rome, especially if you went where new streets were being 
 opened where excavations were bringing to light an earlier 
 and nobler era than that of the Caesars ; most of all, would 
 you be sure to see them in the new schools and churches 
 wherein is being nursed the infancy, at least, of a grander 
 epoch than that of the Popes. If you seated yourself in the 
 magnificent Scala of Milan, you were sure to see at a dis 
 tance, if not the father or the mother, certainly Henry Harris 
 and his sister. The family came upon you as you lingered 
 under the lindens at Berlin ; among the treasuries of ceramic 
 art in Dresden ; along the picture galleries of Vienna, or as 
 you drove in your droschka down the streets of St. Peters 
 burg. Perhaps nowhere did the father and son find as much
 
 28 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 to interest them as in the English Parliament. The Chamber 
 of Deputies, in France, was more exciting, but they were too 
 well acquainted with the French not to know that the history 
 of France is but the explosive utterances of a national char 
 acter, from which, and through the future also, the sparkle, 
 the foam, and the intoxication are as inseparable in the man 
 as in the champagne springing from the same soil. 
 
 " The English are slow of movement," George Harris re 
 marked to his son one day, as they sat in the Strangers' Gal 
 lery during a debate in the House of Commons, " but they 
 never recede. Of course you and I know the sure result to 
 which England is tending, but I admire the ponderous slow 
 ness with which it advances. See the scorn and apathy with 
 which so many of them are listening to John Bright. Look 
 at him : his whole manner is that of a man who is slowly 
 straining as if to lift a vast weight. He knows that destiny 
 works in and with him, but that it works with imperceptible 
 omnipotence." 
 
 " And I was thinking," his son replied, " of the colonies 
 of England. Apart from its general influence over other 
 nations, it drags after it half the world in its vast dependen 
 cies. Like a locomotive drawing an enormous train, and 
 upon an up-grade too, it must move slowly." 
 
 "Yes ; and the work given England to do has devel 
 oped," the father added, " both English pluck and English 
 brawn. But were ever people so unlike as the French and 
 the English ! No wonder that for so many centuries they 
 regarded themselves as natural enemies, cat and dog, bound 
 to fly at each other on sight. Each does its own work in its 
 own way." 
 
 Neither father nor son uttered it, yet both added it to 
 himself, " And America is the power which impels both." 
 
 But there was a second reason why George Harris and 
 his family were so well known over Europe. Whereveryou 
 met them you could not fail to be struck with their appear 
 ance. In Italy or Germany ; in Sweden, Russia, or France ; 
 by porter and by prince, by concierge at the door of their
 
 THE AMERICANS. 29 
 
 hotel or by the nobleman who received them at dinner, by 
 wayside peasant and by king, queen, or czar, father and 
 mother, son and daughter, were regarded as belonging, in 
 some way, to the nobility. The parents had sprung from the 
 common people. At one time they had been very poor, had 
 to struggle hard and to live scantily, yet with success had 
 come something more than merely the aspect of wealth. 
 
 "Look at Disraeli over there," Henry Harris had said 
 to his father at a dinner given by the Mayor of London ; 
 " why is it that you would know that he is a public man if 
 you were to meet him by Lake Nyanza ? It is the same of 
 Bright, of Gladstone. You can see that they have been long 
 accustomed to face opposing or applauding multitudes. 
 Their countenances are noble, yet worn like cliffs washed by 
 the seas." 
 
 " Every man wears his character in his face," the elder 
 Harris replied. "At last, my son, we always know people 
 for what they are ! Lord Conyngham, for instance I read 
 him from the moment he first spoke to me." 
 
 " But a young man grows, changes," Henry Harris has 
 tened to say. 
 
 " Yes ; and I saw that in him, too ; possibility of change, 
 docility of development, if I may so style it. Strange to 
 say, it was this which checked my anger, even in the first 
 moment of exasperation at him. But we will not speak of 
 that again. Besides, hush ! we can not catch what that gen 
 tleman down the table is trying to say." 
 
 " Why can't the man say what he has to say ? " Henry 
 Harris murmured to himself. " Why will an Englishman 
 persist in mumbling, hesitating, repeating, whenever he rises 
 to make a speech ? Because great men write illegibly under 
 press of business, lesser men do so too ; they will, in that at 
 least, be like the Rufus Choates and Horace Greeleys. 
 Prime ministers hum and haw in Parliament, and, there 
 fore, Tom, Dick, and Harry must do so too. But I will lis 
 ten if I can." 
 
 The family of George Harris seemed to live in public,
 
 30 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 and it was a very broad public, since it embraced all Europe, 
 with occasional visits to Egypt and Syria. Had they been 
 in America, they could have contented themselves upon the 
 banks of the Hudson or the Delaware. There they would 
 have been happy even in a home comparatively secluded, and 
 surrounded by friends few and choice. Being in Europe, it 
 was different. "Wherever their home might be for the time, 
 as pleasure or business demanded, they were always " abroad," 
 so far as feeling went. 
 
 " That is one of the peculiarities of the Americans as of 
 the English," Lord Conyngham remarked one day to Henry 
 Harris. " Arabs and Turks, Spaniards and Russians, people 
 wonder at us wherever we go. ' Why can't they be quiet ? ' 
 they say to each other of us. ' Is their own land so dreadful 
 that it is impossible to live there ? ' I don't understand it 
 myself. We have a St. Vitus's dance ; we can't settle down 
 to save our lives." 
 
 " I suppose," Henry Harris made answer, " that it is part 
 of our force. Our mission is to revolutionize the world, you 
 know. We are missionaries, you observe, my lord. So long 
 as there remains a Chinese locked up in his ancient costume, 
 a Turk in his harem, a Zulu in his jungle, we must go after 
 him." 
 
 " They certainly will not come to us," Lord Conyngham 
 replied. 
 
 George Harris and his household seemed to be, as has 
 been said, almost everywhere, and yet wherever they went 
 they-carried their home with them. Mr. Harris had married 
 his wife because he had loved her, and as they strove together 
 to establish themselves in the world their mutual affection 
 had deepened as part of their mutual development. As their 
 children grew up they had been taken into the close com 
 panionship, and therefore into the steady growth of the pa 
 rents. Before leaving America the father and mother had 
 been separated from the rich more by their independence of 
 spirit than by their poverty. From the great mass of the 
 laboring poor they were held apart still more by their habits
 
 THE AMERICANS. 31 
 
 of thrift, of self-denial, of deliberate purpose to lift them 
 selves to higher levels. Thus, and from the outset, the 
 household had been nurtured into the nearest intimacy with 
 each other, as aloof from those around them. When they 
 came to Europe this feeling was naturally intensified. The 
 pressure of business, stern and steady, their ignorance of 
 the ways of the people about them, as much, sometimes, as 
 of their language, the deepening of the intention to advance 
 in things to which all lesser success was but a stepping-stone 
 all this had tended still more to isolate the household from 
 the world about them, and to throw them upon themselves. 
 Had they remained in America, they could not have been so 
 thoroughly at home when together as was now the case. 
 
 " At last our happiness lies in that," Mary Harris said to 
 her brother, as they walked together one day through the 
 wonders of the Exposition at Paris ; " whatever we see dur 
 ing the day pictures, statues, machinery, distinguished peo 
 ple, marvels, absurdities whatever we see or hear during the 
 day, is really enjoyed only after we have come together at 
 night, and while we are talking it all over together before 
 we part for the night. Besides " 
 
 " Well, besides what ? " her brother asked, for his sister 
 had ceased to speak, and seemed indifferent to the brilliant 
 scene around her to be thinking instead, her eyes cast down. 
 Neither of them observed that Lady Blanche and her brother 
 were examining a superb set of Limoges faience near them. 
 
 " Besides what ? " Henry Harris repeated. 
 
 " I ought not to say it ; " the fair girl lifted her laughing 
 eyes to her companion's ; " but do you know, I never see any 
 body I think quite as much of as I do of those at home." 
 
 " Of course you love them most ; I do." 
 
 " Yes, but it is not that ; you mustn't make fun of me, 
 Henry, but I can not help thinking that my father and moth 
 er are superior to everybody I meet. If the French Govern 
 ment had said to father, ' Here are the millions ; we do not 
 understand such things, and you do ; build an Exposition 
 Building for us ; ' don't you suppose he could have done it
 
 32 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 at least as well or better than it has been done ? When I 
 saw Marshal MacMahon for the first time I said to myself, 
 ' If my father had commanded in your place, he would not 
 have been whipped by Von Moltke, I can assure you.' It 
 may be absurd, but last night at the opera I thought, while 
 the people were applauding the prima donna so vigorously, 
 * Ah ! if you only heard my mother ! ' ' 
 
 " Why, she can not sing ! " and her brother laughed aloud. 
 
 " No, but she could if she would. Look at what my fa 
 ther has made himself. Suppose he had gone into music in 
 stead ; and so of my mother : there is nothing on earth that 
 they could not do if they tried." 
 
 " I suppose you think father would have made an excel 
 lent czar ? " her brother asked, humoring her affection. 
 
 " Certainly ; I have never seen the Emperor that I have 
 not said to myself, ' I only wish I had the opportunity to tell 
 your Majesty so,' " the sister gravely replied. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " her brother exclaimed, and they strolled 
 on. But the sister did not tell him that she had almost as 
 exalted an opinion of him as of their father. There was not 
 a picture she passed, a statue she saw, but she entertained a 
 secret belief that Henry could have done it a little better if 
 he had given his attention in that direction. The brother 
 would not have expressed it, but, really, he had the same 
 feeling toward his father and mother and sister. Had their 
 lineage been the best in Europe, the members of the house 
 hold could not have had greater pride of race. Their line 
 extended back, it is true, not for a thousand, but merely for 
 some sixty years or so ; instead of a hundred ancestors, val 
 iant knights, belted earls, noble dames, there was only one 
 father to boast of and one mother ; yet, and because an entire 
 genealogy was condensed in these, they were that much the 
 more prized and loved by their children. 
 
 " I suppose," Lady Blanche said to her brother, when the 
 others had passed out of hearing, " that it is their belief in 
 themselves which gives them the bearing of princes." 
 
 "And the odd thing about it," Lord Conyngham replied,
 
 GEORGE HARRIS BREAKS HIS SILENCE. 33 
 
 " is that they never do or say anything that looks like boast 
 ing. They assume their nobility as matter of course. They 
 are curious people, the Americans. I am every day more 
 eager to understand them. I have had men who toadied to 
 me until I could have kicked them into the kennel," he added 
 to his sister Blanche ; " but, in the case of young Harris, if 
 there is to be any toadying, by Jove ! it is Zwho must do it. 
 He is a modest fellow, and yet you feel toward him as if he 
 were a royal duke." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GEORGE HAKKIS BREAKS HIS SILENCE. 
 
 AMONG many curious places in Paris, old and new, there 
 is none more cosmopolitan than " The Bodega," occupying 
 the corner of the Rue Rivoli and the Rue Castiglione, part 
 of the costly hotel-palace, "The Continental." Its furnish 
 ing is a mass of gilding, carving, mirrors, upholstery, mag 
 nificent repoussk, altar-pieces, and bold arabesques, oil paint 
 ings, mosaics, and furniture of inconceivable shapes and 
 prices. The Bodega is to this huge pile what a chapel is to 
 a cathedral ; what a wine vault is to a great castle. It is 
 the resort of the daily cosmopolitan multitude, who come 
 there to smoke, to lunch, and to enjoy the distillations of 
 their various countries, while they converse and trade. The 
 various wines and liquors are exposed in pipes, and the cus 
 tomers served by draughts drawn from the spigots by the 
 active servants of the place. English, French, Germans, 
 Italians, Americans, Dutch, Mexicans, Turks, Africans, India 
 princes, all ranks and nations, gathered here during the Ex 
 position, from morn till night, and even English ladies did 
 not hesitate to meet here for their ale, sherry, port, and gin. 
 One saw them frequently, and frequently alone, and, al 
 though you never saw them insulted, you never met at the 
 Bodega an American woman. Upstairs are spacious parlors
 
 34: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 where almost every day men of all nations meet to gossip, 
 large rooms looking out upon the Place Concorde and the 
 gardens of the Tuileries, and sometimes you meet odd char 
 acters and have curious views. In this spot some friends 
 had met together by themselves. Yet the ample doors were 
 wide open, and the scene was free to all, and quite public. 
 The impromptu speech, given presently, had numerous im 
 promptu auditors. 
 
 There was a large party men of all nationalities. Two 
 handsome rooms were thrown open, but the company mostly 
 gathered in the one with George Harris, where there were 
 plenty of chairs and easy lounges and American rockers. 
 The Frenchmen and other foreigners could all understand 
 English. Everything was very cheerful. For a while light 
 subjects only were started, but presently they came upon a 
 more serious topic, and one from "home." It was a marked 
 sample out of those cases now and then occurring in the 
 United States, where a newspaper editor had exposed the 
 private life and wickedness of a candidate for public office, 
 and even mentioned his relatives with opprobrium. The 
 enraged candidate had deliberately sought the editor and 
 shot him dead. 
 
 By insensible degrees, as this affair was discussed, it 
 rapidly assumed a gravity which spread like a cloud over 
 the assembled groups, and became a sort of rallying-point, 
 or center of defense, for the Great Republic and its society, 
 institutions, and prospects. There was a small minority on 
 one side ; on the other was the majority among them sev 
 eral Americans with plenty of out-and-out denunciations, 
 and rueful prophesies of evil to the land where such things 
 seemed characteristic and ingrained. 
 
 As the voices raised and multiplied, and matters became 
 almost threatening, a gentleman who was standing in the 
 door sang out : 
 
 " Here comes the Old Gray. Now let's hear what he has 
 to say about it." 
 
 The person so designated as he entered the room was
 
 GEORGE HARRIS BREAKS HIS SILENCE. 35 
 
 received, it was plain, with affectionate welcome by all the 
 Americans. Many rose and advanced ; every countenance 
 lit up. Imagine a man of slow movement, six feet tall, 
 stoutly built, with blue eyes, red and tanned complexion, 
 white or almost white beard, mustache, and hair very pro 
 fuse, quite untrimmed, and the latter falling over an enor 
 mous shirt-collar, snowy clean, flaring wide open at the throat, 
 free of necktie, and with proportionately vast cuffs, turned 
 over at the wrists. The shirt-collar and wristbands, with 
 their unusual blanch of copiousness, having first been ob 
 served, you saw that the name by which his friend announced 
 him was fully warranted. He was dressed in an entire suit 
 of light English gray, loose sack-coat, trousers, vest, with 
 overgaiters on his ankles, all of the same material. Nor must 
 the hat be forgotten, a soft nutria, mole-colored, broad- 
 brimmed, and of specially generous crown a characteristic 
 hat, the kind which travelers will remember seeing in New 
 York and some of the old Southern cities. 
 
 Answering the friendly greetings of the crowd by a few 
 words, but plenty of expressive nods, smiles, and hand-clasp- 
 ings, he accepted a seat near George Harris, while a brim 
 ming glass of red wine was filled, and put by his side. 
 
 " You are just in time," said Mr. Harris, " to settle this 
 quarrel of ours ; " proceeding to state the points of the ar 
 gument the case that the American newspapers had been 
 printing and commenting on, while the foreign press found 
 in it a typical bit of democracy, an omen of disruption. 
 
 The Old Gray leisurely proceeded to drink before he 
 gratified their inquiries. There was quite a silence through 
 the rooms. What he said came out slowly at first ; then, as 
 objections, questions, and cross-questions accumulated, he 
 went on with more decision and animation. 
 
 " I am in the midst of friends," he said, looking around ; 
 " not only fellow- Americans, but fellow-Europeans. If you 
 really want my notions and theories, you must allow me to 
 give them in my own way." 
 
 We will not undertake to render literally what followed.
 
 36 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 The minority rested in peace, content to leave their case in 
 the old man's hands. The majority comprised some very 
 skillful and able speakers. All were entirely courteous, yet 
 heavy blows were struck upon both sides. We will content 
 ourselves with giving the gist of the new-comer's utterance. 
 
 It was an advocacy of freedom some would have called 
 parts of it a rhapsody. It was no rhapsody, however, for 
 the American possessed all the cautiousness and even wari 
 ness of Monsieur Thiers himself, but more heat and emotion, 
 and had learned, though less in books and systems, far more 
 of men and actual life. He boldly defended the spirit of 
 license in the press, in legislative assemblies, in criticism. 
 " Excesses are unavoidable they prove the rule," he said. 
 " Weeds even show that the soil is rich. Nature itself is 
 freedom. 
 
 " I speak strongly," said he, " because I find many good 
 people who think the only remedy for too free action is in 
 severer penalties and tighter restrictions. Do not misunder 
 stand me either. Of course, the rules of the civil, criminal, 
 and common law, the same in all countries, must be abso 
 lutely adhered to and enforced. Then I believe in immense 
 margins for America, and for all modern peoples ; they are 
 necessary to growth and development. I want a tough, 
 gristly, athletic race, in my country, North and South. I 
 want a proud, full-voiced, even turbulent democracy ; and if 
 we can't have that without some excesses and evils as how 
 can we ? I will do the best I can with the evils. Believe 
 me, we are to revise and reconstruct some of the hitherto 
 accepted points of public opinion for the use of the New 
 World. Not the great laws of right and wrong, for they 
 are eternal ; but under them, and fully owning them, we 
 are to take our own way as, indeed, we substantially have 
 done now for a century. Of that way, the States, as they 
 now stand, are the fruit. 
 
 " The principle of freedom, I do not object to your call 
 ing it license, carries in its train not merely its own great 
 good, but many great evils, like the principles of Nature it-
 
 GEORGE HARRIS BREAKS HIS SILENCE. 37 
 
 self. Few understand America few even of her own chil 
 dren. As I said, she proceeds on her development in her 
 own way, perhaps unwittingly to herself, on immense scales, 
 like those of geology ; her aims are vast ameliorations in 
 the future ; she is unable to stop her mighty strides to heal 
 every temporary fault and defection. 
 
 " Compacted as we are to be for, as far as now appears 
 to me, our Union is indissoluble our varieties and paradoxes 
 are immense. Our republic is not only a new dispensation, 
 a new departure in itself ; it needs a new dispensation of 
 free speech, free criticism, tough cuticles, unprecedented tol 
 eration. What, more than these, can supply that tremen 
 dous concrete and perpetual attrition our diverse elements 
 so need ? 
 
 " We are certainly blocking out and dovetailing together 
 in the United States the great democratic edifice of the 
 coming world, not for or out of ourselves merely, but out of 
 all races British, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, French, 
 Italian and as the legitimate result of past time. Not for 
 the States alone, I say ; the United States of America is mere 
 ly a model in small for the United States of the World ; the 
 whole world, and all lands, and all good men and women 
 are inextricably involved in our success. 
 
 "Yes, few understand America. I have sometimes 
 thought I have not met a single person who fully appre 
 ciates her. The most hardy, most patriotic, most sublime, 
 most balancing spirit of time and humanity yet more 
 heroic than the old Greek or Roman is to-day brooding 
 in our average American-born people, in the agricultural re 
 gions, and the good strata of workmen in cities. It is a la 
 tent, generally slumbering power, but sometimes it awakes. 
 It will always certainly awake when fit occasions come. It 
 awoke in '61, and took shape. It put down the Secession 
 revolt. The politicians with their rings and frauds ostensi 
 bly manage our politics, I confess, but the people back of 
 everything really hold the last tremendous verdict, and will 
 give it and relentlessly execute it whenever they choose. To
 
 38 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 me it is enough. Any day, any moment, the power I speak 
 of and it is unerring, deathless, willful may burst into ac- 
 tionj quick and resistless as lightning. Then the evil birds 
 of our politics will scatter to their dark holes, like the swarms 
 of bats they are. My friends, few know the real America. 
 It does not know itself. It is not on the surface. 
 
 "Not more surely is the material universe, with all its 
 contradictions, one grand scheme of development, often 
 through rough and forbidding processes, than the American 
 Union is. It is never going to be great in conquests, as 
 Rome ; nor in the classic arts, as Greece ; nor rival the spe 
 cial points of the Middle Ages ; nor compete, at least, I hope 
 not, with the current European capitals in their bon ton, or 
 operas, or the special refinement of the few, or what they 
 call culture and society. Though ' ladies and gentlemen ' are 
 included in its scope, it is quite indifferent to them, and could 
 get along perfectly well without them. Not so other na 
 tions ; in those select classes flows the heart's blood of other 
 nations. But we are a People, averaged, dilated, religious, 
 sane, practical, owning their own homes fifty millions, as 
 the next census will show sublime masses, such as the world 
 never saw before. Faults enough there are, and miseries 
 enough, and frauds enough, and the poor and unemployed, 
 no doubt. Yet where else is Man so brought to the front ? 
 Where are the ideals of all enthusiasts, and all the past, al 
 ready so realized ? " 
 
 As the old man ended there was silence for a short time. 
 His earnestness had made a deep impression, not only on 
 the foreigners, but on the Americans themselves There was 
 not only such vehement faith, but such original touches, 
 novel presentations, such weird effects withal, it almost 
 seemed as if the " spirits of the mighty dead " were hovering 
 in the room. 
 
 Jefferson, Rousseau, Hegel, Buckle ay, old Socrates, 
 and a greater than Socrates would have found, if so, that 
 their hopes, ardors for humanity, their overarching dreams, 
 were here alive and active to-day, adhered to without dimi-
 
 AN AMERICAN EVANGEL. 39 
 
 nution, without remitting a particle nay, with increased 
 confidence, perfect trust in God's purposes, and demands 
 larger than ever, tempered well with but undauntedly meet 
 ing and in defiance of all the exceptions, sarcasms, evil 
 prophecies, of the most inveterate pessimist. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AN AMERICAN EVANGEL. 
 
 THE American Chapel, Rue de Berri, Paris, with its 
 simple front and plain interior, in the midst of numerous 
 costly and venerable Catholic monuments, resembles a 
 Quaker woman in the midst of a crowd of jeweled queens, 
 and its ministrations are almost as exclusive as the Roman 
 service is universal. It is, like all the purely English church 
 es on the Continent, attended by the traveling and resident 
 English and American Protestants, and avoided by the Catho 
 lics of the different races. The prevailing Continental reli 
 gion is Romish. An Italian, French, or Spanish convert 
 to Protestantism is, or was, almost as exceptional as a recu 
 sant Hebrew or a Christianized Turk. You are told by the 
 priests that there are no changes from Catholicity except to 
 infidelity, and that outside of Switzerland, Germany, Hol 
 land, Sweden, and Norway, Continental Europe is complete 
 ly subservient, skepticism excepted, to the Pope. In France, 
 however, the real leaders of aggressive thought and purpose 
 are certainly not in this category, and they thoroughly repre 
 sent the French masses. There the republican chiefs accept 
 the mission of .war upon priestly domination in politics and 
 education as second to if not a part of their party philosophy, 
 and the people support them. If the leaders do not logically 
 drift into the Protestant faith, it is doubtless because there 
 are too many Protestant creeds and doctrines ; hence, too 
 many divisions. The French republicans hold that the mod-
 
 4:0 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ern Catholic Church is the conscientious foe of all human 
 liberty ; that no doubter is ever permitted in that microcosm, 
 and that such a doubter never raises his voice until, like 
 Luther in the past or Hyacinthe or Dollinger in the present, 
 until a Lacordaire, Lamennais, or Montalembert appears to 
 cry out against abuses which periodically overthrow dynas 
 ties and thrones. These men insist that the Roman hierar 
 chy is a political machine and nothing more ; that it can live 
 only in the atmosphere of slavery, aristocracy, and privilege ; 
 that its armies are the cohorts of ignorance, bigotry, and 
 suppression of speech and the press ; and that there can be 
 no genuine liberty in the world until the Catholic Church is 
 radically changed or utterly destroyed. Protestantism is too 
 divergent and discordant for such strong minds. None of 
 the republican leaders of France are demonstrative in church 
 matters, while the Orleans and Bourbon princes are nothing 
 if not Romanist, and the late Napoleon and his Spanish Eu 
 genie derived from their Catholic connections incalculable ad 
 vantages. It is only of late that the Gospel, and in a form 
 more primitive even than Protestantism, seems to be revolu 
 tionizing France, and at its deepest foundations, because 
 among the very humblest of the people. 
 
 The Protestant chapel in Paris was a common ground for 
 American and English worshipers. The British Dissenters 
 and the American Unitarians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lu 
 therans, and Methodists, were specially attracted every Sun 
 day during the Exhibition, and the Harrises were very regular 
 in their attendance. It was announced that a young clergy 
 man of Philadelphia, a friend of theirs on his visit to Paris, 
 would preach on the coming Sabbath. Lord Conyngham 
 and Blanche were only too glad to promise their presence. 
 George Harris had a great desire to induce the Earl to hear 
 the young divine ; but, knowing his nature, and his indiffer 
 ence to all things that savored of religious dissent, and his 
 inherited respect for the Church of England, not to speak of 
 his growing belief that American ideas and inventions were, 
 to use his own words, " undermining the institutions of Old
 
 AN AMERICAN EVANGEL. 41 
 
 England," he concluded to speak to Blanche, who instantly 
 responded : 
 
 " I will secure his attendance, Mr. Harris, never fear, and 
 think I can pledge him for the sermon ; " and the dear girl 
 made her demonstration to the Earl with all the cunning im 
 pulse of her sex. 
 
 " I want you to ride with us to chapel on Sunday, dear 
 papa," she said the next morning at breakfast, in the tone 
 she always used when she wanted to be most acceptable to 
 her fastidious father. 
 
 " Certainly, Blanche ; I have never attended our service, 
 I regret to say, since my arrival in Paris." 
 
 " It is not our service," she said ; " it is the American 
 chapel, and you are to hear a very interesting young Ameri 
 can clergyman, and I have mortgaged you for an hour, if 
 you please, sir." 
 
 " Blanche, when are you to finish this American craze ? 
 I confess I am getting dreadfully bored, and now I am to be 
 dragged to the altar to be scolded by a Puritan in the pul 
 pit. No horror is more terrible to me than to be forced to 
 listen to one of those dogmatic doctors of divinity who 
 glory in hammering their auditors into their conclusions. 
 No, Blanche ; I must be excused. I am satiated with Yan 
 kees." 
 
 " No, you are not, you darling, handsome papa ; not sati 
 ated, but fascinated." 
 
 " What do you mean, Lady Blanche ? How fascinated ? 
 I am incapable of such an emotion." 
 
 Not even Blanche could have induced the Earl to go if 
 she had not been able to say in conclusion, of the preacher : 
 " His wife is a lineal descendant of the famous Lord Colling- 
 wood, who succeeded Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar, and 
 whose mausoleum at St. Paul's you admired so much." 
 
 So Blanche carried her point as usual, and at the time 
 fixed the two families attended church. There were too 
 many prominent people present to make even this distin 
 guished party more attractive than others ; but a lovely
 
 4:2 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 woman is always a sensation, and charming Mary Hams was 
 too well known not to be a special magnet. Character is 
 that element in a woman that disarms envy, and Mary, ad 
 mired by men, was worshiped by women because, while she 
 knew a great deal, she assumed to know nothing. Lady 
 Blanche, herself an English beauty, and as beautiful for her 
 good sense as for her honest heart, was of a haughtier bear 
 ing, as was natural to her rank and personal charms. The 
 Earl and George Harris and Mrs. Harris sat together, leav 
 ing the four young people in the second pew from the 
 chancel. The young preacher was indeed the American 
 Lacordaire. That Frenchman, who died before he was sixty, 
 and who was one of the great triumvirate of which La- 
 mennais and Montalembert were a part, tried to harmon 
 ize the largest love of human liberty with fervent attach 
 ment to the Catholic Church, and he employed journalism, 
 with his two associates, as an early agency in his mission. 
 The American also had served as an editor of a great news 
 paper, and to that school was undoubtedly indebted for his 
 large-hearted liberality and copious command of language. 
 Lacordaire was singularly graceful in form and style, and 
 seized upon the current topics of the times when he at 
 tracted his immense audiences at Notre Dame, and the same 
 was true of the American. 
 
 The minister emerged from the vestry while the organ 
 was sending forth a strain that seemed like the song of a 
 choir of angels floating in from a distance. He ascended 
 the sacred desk with an air of grace and dignity which at 
 once attracted attention, and even the old Earl yielded to his 
 conviction that the American presented a fine presence, for 
 he leaned over to his daughter just to ask : "Are you sure 
 that he was born in the United States ? " 
 
 " Quite sure," she replied. " The Harrises tell me that 
 this is his first visit to Europe." 
 
 The Earl made no reply, but he fixed a searching gaze 
 upon the minister, which was scarcely removed during the 
 service.
 
 AN AMERICAN EVANGEL. 43 
 
 As the music died away the speaker arose, and, taking up 
 a neat gold-edged hymnal, he announced those beautiful lines 
 by James Montgomery : 
 
 " Our God is present in this place, 
 
 Veiled in celestial majesty; 
 So full of glory, truth, and grace, 
 That faith alone such light can see." 
 
 The singing was congregational, and at its conclusion a 
 Scriptural lesson was read, and a very fervent and compre 
 hensive prayer was offered. Then another hymn was sung, 
 and a collection taken for the benefit of the British Bible So 
 ciety, which had incurred a great expense in consequence of 
 the free distribution of the Divine Word at the Exposition. 
 The appeal for a liberal contribution was not in vain. The 
 collection plates were well loaded with napoleons, which the 
 Earl did not fail to regard as a very proper recognition of a 
 " British " society. 
 
 After announcing the text, which he did in a peculiarly 
 reverential tone, the clergyman alluded to the promised thou 
 sand years called the millennium. Millennial glory was the 
 burden of prophetic song. It was the grand object of predic 
 tion from one end of the sacred book to the other. He then 
 brought to view some of the most important instructions of 
 the Bible touching the great subject, and after a learned but 
 brief exposition of the doctrine, he led his hearers into the 
 contemplation of the present as contrasted with the past, with 
 the view of showing what mighty changes must be wrought 
 in the condition of human society in the centuries which yet 
 lie embosomed in the future. 
 
 He said : " On the banks of the Rhine stands a noble and 
 colossal triumph of Gothic architecture, the foundation of 
 which was laid over six hundred years ago. Tens of thou 
 sands of ardent pilgrims have entered Cologne for the sole 
 purpose of beholding the perfection of its marvelous details. 
 And where the Tiber quietly rolls under the shadow of St. 
 Peter's there is an imperial collection of rich paintings, rare
 
 44 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 marbles, and elaborate frescoes, which are serving the world 
 as models, for we have no such ideals in these times. We 
 gaze in admiration at these contributions from the human 
 brain and heart and hand; but they issued out of along, 
 slow growth, from a point far back and low down in the past. 
 Go back into that past, and I predict that you will discover 
 little to praise. You will find a very rude virtue among the 
 few nothing more. As one of my gifted countrymen once 
 said : ' Were you to sleep where men slept then, and eat what 
 men ate then, and do what men had to do then, you would 
 break out into the most piteous moaning and whining and 
 complaining that ever afflicted human ears.' 
 
 " In that long, dark night of the world there were a few 
 men who, according to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, carried 
 in their brains the ovarium, the eggs of the next century's 
 civilization. They have been given to every age, and they 
 have not lived and died in vain. Their names start to life as 
 we think of the marvelous changes which have taken place 
 in the aspect and condition of human affairs. And as we 
 are so far in advance of what has been, so the future shall 
 exceed everything that is on these lines of thought, genius, 
 industry, and happiness. 
 
 " Since I have been in Europe the cry of ' hard times ' has 
 fallen upon my ears without cessation. It is very painful to 
 see the condition of the struggling masses in these old coun 
 tries the men who do the real work that a few may live in 
 princely luxury. I pity those who lie at the bottom of so 
 ciety, sans comfort, sans money, sans friends, sans hope, sans 
 everything. Oh, let us sincerely commiserate all who must 
 suffer so dreadful an experience ! But I pray you to remem 
 ber what your ancestors were in those centuries long gone. 
 England was once a wilderness, and the Greek and Roman 
 merchants used to give shocking accounts of the ferocity of 
 the nomadic tribes that lived there. Where the great cities 
 of London, Birmingham, York, and Carlisle stand to-day, 
 your ancestors dwelt in the rudest huts, with the ground for
 
 AN AMERICAN EVANGEL. 45 
 
 a floor, a hole in the center for a fire, and another in the roof 
 to let the smoke out, and the skin of a wild beast served as 
 a door. It was many generations before the people lived 
 better. 
 
 " England is like another land. But it has a very large 
 quota of poor people. So have we in America. But cross 
 the Atlantic and you shall see a wonderful country, not only 
 in extent and in population, but one that is truly the best 
 poor man's country on the earth. You shall see the real 
 civilization of this age : vast flourishing States, crowded 
 with toilers who are better paid than ever their class was 
 before ; noble institutions for free education ; great chari 
 ties in every city and town ; broad avenues and streets, 
 paved, swept, and lighted ; good drainage everywhere ; 
 substantial houses for rich and poor, in which the chambers 
 are carpeted and decorated ; cheerful fires and light ; libra 
 ries and music ; paintings, and engravings, and etchings ; 
 churches, and asylums, and newspapers, and so on ad infini- 
 tum. Truly, we can not be thankful enough that we live 
 in the nineteenth century. Our civilization is brightening. 
 Its sun is gilding the mountain-tops of the future ; a still 
 better day is dawning on the world." 
 
 The effect of this fresh and peculiar style was seen on 
 even the English, as the American proceeded to speak of the 
 dawn of intelligence and the advance in letters, art, and sci 
 ence and government. The discourse closed with a pane 
 gyric on religion, in which the clergyman said : 
 
 " Even of much of the skepticism of the times, it must be 
 said that it is a struggle to find out what the truth is. Like 
 old Aurelius, men are stretching out their hands for some 
 thing which the abstractions of the schools can not give. Like 
 one of the Latin sages, they want a God who can speak to 
 them and lead them. And they shall yet be satisfied in Him 
 who could look through human eyes, and shed human tears, 
 and hear with human ears, and love with a human heart. 
 Reason does not rise up against the divine and human one 
 because he is not real, but because he is an unparalleled and
 
 46 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 startling fact. St. Paul was right : ' Without controversy, 
 great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in 
 the flesh.' 
 
 " And as the world moves on to its brightest and best day, 
 God has written on its horizon, in letters of light, ' Pro 
 gress ! ' Humanity is looking toward fairer skies, and God, 
 who beholds all the dwellers upon earth, bids them ' go for 
 ward,' as he did his ancient people. There may be Red Seas 
 and broad wildernesses and open enemies yet to be met and 
 mastered, but they will all disappear as the spirit of the liv 
 ing God leads the way." 
 
 Here the service ended with an earnest prayer, a song of 
 praise, and the apostolic benediction. 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE. 
 
 THERE is a certain magnetism in men as in minerals, espe 
 cially when it is aroused by any exciting cause devotion to 
 country, for instance. It draws men together into an army 
 which strikes and slays as if it were with a single sword. It 
 so chanced on this occasion. Henry Harris had some time 
 before this been brought into a degree of companionship 
 with Lord Conyngham. The nobleman had apologized so 
 heartily for the rudeness which had characterized his first 
 meeting with them that the family had made a point to show 
 him how entirely they had forgiven the matter. But Henry 
 Harris was specially attracted to Lord Conyngham. They 
 were both young and full of an energy which had not been 
 sapped and squandered in vicious indulgences. Moreover, 
 there had been a certain outspoken boldness in the conduct 
 of the exasperated patrician which showed that, however 
 wrong and violent, he was not a mere fop, smiling and nerve 
 less.
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE. 47 
 
 Lord Conyngham had long been familiar with the repu 
 tation of George Harris. He knew that, like Peter the Great, 
 he was one of the creators of commerce and wealth, and he 
 admired him as one always admires force. Moreover, the 
 young lord had stirring within him the ideas of a new era, 
 and one of these was that he who organizes men into bands 
 of skilled workmen is nobler than even a Frederick the Great 
 with his thoroughly drilled grenadiers ; that the master me 
 chanic who hurls his iron across an empire in railways is 
 nobler by far than a Napoleon who sweeps it with grapeshot. 
 The mortification of the young man at discovering who it 
 was he had so thoughtlessly offended was intense, the more 
 so as he came to know the family better, and he cordially 
 reciprocated every evidence of their good-will. 
 
 One day when there happened to be, as was often the 
 case, a sharp discussion at the Bodega concerning America, 
 many things said by Americans present had savored of 
 boasting. Lord Conyngham chanced to be standing near 
 Henry Harris. Neither took part in the discussion, but the 
 American had observed with pleasure the interest with which 
 his friend had listened. There was a rising color in the 
 young nobleman's cheek, a kindling light in his eyes, which 
 caused Henry Harris to say to him : 
 
 " Of course I believe in America, but you must not think 
 that we believe in brag." 
 
 " By no means," the other hastened to say. 
 
 " Thank you ; but if there be a thing," Henry Harris 
 added, " which I particularly detest, it is anything that looks 
 like self-conceit. We had an American statesman of brilliant 
 qualities and splendid services whom neither my father nor 
 myself could endure. If you look at his portrait, or his bust, 
 you will understand why. He is the very symbol of arro 
 gance. I saw a marble head of him in the Exposition last 
 week, and I almost shook my fist at it when no one saw me. 
 ' For you,' I said, ' to have your head thrown back in haughty 
 defiance is sheer affectation. Other men might do it, but 
 although pure yourself, you know our political defects too
 
 4.8 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 well.' There are faults in our American civilization, my 
 lord," Henry Harris added gravely, "terrible evils, which 
 may wreck us some day. Our country is colossal in this also. 
 Besides, for me to be conceited because I happen to be born 
 in the Great Republic is as if a fish were elated because it 
 was born in the Atlantic. But I must leave you." 
 
 " I will walk with you ; " and as they gained the pave 
 ment Lord Conyngham added, " Where do you happen to be 
 going?" 
 
 " My sister and mother begged me," the other replied, 
 " to meet them by a certain old statue in a little forest near 
 Versailles. They have taken a sudden fancy to have a kind 
 of picnic. Here is my carriage." 
 
 As young Harris said it, he saw a species of desire yet 
 hesitation in the eyes of the other which caused him to add 
 frankly, " If you have nothing better to do, my lord, I would 
 be delighted to have you ride with me." 
 
 " Thank you," his companion replied, " but I also am en 
 gaged to ride with my sister Blanche. Versailles, did you 
 say ? " 
 
 The other caught at his meaning. " Join us there," he 
 begged. " It is a glorious day ; my mother and sister will 
 be delighted to see Lady Blanche and yourself." 
 
 And thus it came to pass some hours later that these five 
 persons were seated together upon the rustic benches in one 
 of the most secluded nooks near Versailles. Lord Conyng 
 ham and his sister had come on horseback, but at the urgent 
 invitation of the American ladies Lady Blanche had dis 
 mounted, " if only for a moment," they said, and with her 
 brother had sat down among them. 
 
 " There must be something of Eden itself in the air to 
 day," Mary Harris said, after they had talked for a time 
 upon a variety of topics. " I could not endure to stay in the 
 house. Paris itself was too close and confining. I am like 
 my brother I want to be in the open air whenever the sun 
 shines." 
 
 Evidently all present were of the same opinion. It may
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE. 49 
 
 have been the verdure of the grass beneath them, the trees 
 clustering about them as if Nature would clasp them to her 
 bosom with the embraces of her leafy boughs, the soothing 
 seclusion which came to them like the sound of tempest upon 
 the roof in the distant roar of city noises, but the same mood 
 was, for the moment, upon all. They were wearied with the 
 wonders of the Exposition, and the repose was, for the time, 
 more delightful than sleep. 
 
 And thus it was the most natural thing that Henry Harris 
 should find himself talking at last of his wildwood experi 
 ences. Two years before he had returned to America upon 
 business for his father among the iron mines of the West, for 
 it was one of the peculiarities of the railway king to go, so 
 far as possible, to the fountain-head for his iron, as he did 
 for his science and his principles. His matters had taken 
 less time than he had supposed, and young Harris had ac 
 cepted an invitation from a hunting-party, and had gone a 
 thousand miles or so farther west. He could not sit still as 
 it came back to him now. Getting upon his feet as he talked, 
 he stood beside one of the towering trees, his hat cast upon 
 the turf, his cheeks glowing. 
 
 " I had been upon the steppes of Tartary, but this was 
 different," he said. " It was not only that the American 
 plains were more fertile, and every way better stocked with 
 game, and beautiful, but that I realized that it was the New 
 and not the Old World I was in. Here was neither peasant 
 nor czar. Ah, ladies, you can not imagine how delightful it 
 was ! " And he told them of the prairie, rolling east, west, 
 north, and south, like another Pacific ; of the peculiar trans 
 parency which made the remote mountains by day and the 
 moon and stars by night seem so near ; of the keen exhilara 
 tion, as if there were champagne in the very air and oxygen 
 even in the brilliant moonlight. 
 
 " Of course," he went on, " it was fun alive spearing big 
 fish in the canons, shooting deer, charging down upon buffalo 
 moving in battalions. And then we had a hand-to-hand fight 
 with a cinnamon bear or two. It looked like murder to kill
 
 50 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 prairie-hens and antelope, but your conscience cheered you 
 on instead when it came to a fair fight with a grizzly. You 
 see, it was by no means so certain that he would be the one 
 to be killed. It was a question even more doubtful when, 
 soon after, I had an unavoidable ' difficulty,' as it is called, 
 with a desperado from Pike County. You must pardon my 
 enthusiasm," he added, hesitating, and with something of a 
 flush, "but I found myself back in my boyhood out there, 
 and it makes me a boy again merely to think about it. Boys 
 like to eat, you know. Well, I never knew, even when I 
 was a hungry boy, what sincere pleasure there is in eating 
 as I found it to be then. When we rode of an evening 
 into camp, tired, wet, with perhaps a bruise or two ; excuse 
 me, but, ah ! how delicious the coffee did smell, and the trout, 
 the wild honey, the juicy buffalo-steaks, the bits of antelope 
 and venison. These Frenchmen, with all their sauces and 
 cookery, know nothing about it. They do not have the appe 
 tite, you see appetite which is at once boundless and ex 
 quisite ! " 
 
 " Why, Henry ! " his mother said, " we would think you 
 were " 
 
 " An epicure ? No, madam," her son interrupted her with 
 a joyous face ; " I was Adam back again in Paradise ! One 
 never knows how delicious a drink of water is until you 
 stop from a hot ride, to lie down upon your breast at a moun 
 tain spring, and drink, with your face in the water, and 
 drink, and drink, and dr " But his words were drowned 
 in laughter ; he seemed to be so much in earnest. 
 
 " And there is sleep," he began again. 
 
 "Sleep?" Lady Blanche asked, opening her beautiful 
 eyes. 
 
 "Yes, Lady Blanche, sleep," the other persisted. "In 
 this artificial life of ours we lie down and wake up as a 
 matter of course. No one thinks anything of the quality of 
 his sleep. It was different out there. We would halt at 
 night, kindle our camp-fire in the bottom of a hole for fear of 
 drawing the Indians upon us, cook and eat an enormous
 
 A RETURN TO NATURE. 51 
 
 supper. Then every man would change his horse to a new 
 patch of grass. We staked them out, you know. After 
 that we would lie down, our feet toward the fire, our heads 
 upon our saddles, in the deep, soft, aromatic, mesquit turf. 
 Next you took a good look, as you lay, at the immeasurable 
 sky overhead, thought of the almost immeasurable America 
 about you, inhaled a full breath from the pure air, drew 
 your felt hat over your eyes to keep out the sun-like splen 
 dors of the moon and stars, and then you slept, slept, slept! 
 It was like like eating pudding," he added, with a laugh. 
 "There was an absolute pleasure, gratification in it, satis 
 faction ; I mean such, I suppose, as babies have. Ah, when 
 you woke in a flash, with the sun high up, it seemed to be 
 all over in a moment, but it was grand ! " 
 
 The young American had become a boy again as he 
 spoke, and a very handsome one, the ladies thought. His 
 enthusiasm had changed those around him into children also. 
 It was a sensation wholly new to Lord Conyngham and his 
 sister. Accustomed from birth to a ceremonious life, one of 
 routine and social tyranny, nature asserted itself in them. 
 They recognized the truth of what young Harris had said, 
 as thirst does water. 
 
 " A leading English magazine lately spoke," Lord Conyng 
 ham said, after a good deal of further conversation, " of 
 your "West under the title of ' our great wheat-fields ; ' ours, 
 you observe. The fact is, we are at last but one people." 
 
 It was sincerely assented to as the party broke up. So 
 far as England and America were represented by those 
 present, the unity of the Anglo-Saxon race was becoming 
 apparently a substantial fact. Possibly this idea occurred 
 to Henry Harris with special clearness as he took leave of 
 Lady Blanche. The young nobleman had carefully refrained 
 from glancing at Mary Harris when he laid down his propo 
 sitions, and the American girl must have had some other 
 reason for coloring so when her eyes fell in the general 
 assent which followed.
 
 52 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HASSAN PASHA. 
 
 As has been said, wherever in Europe the household of 
 George Harris chanced to be, the place they enjoyed most was 
 that which for the time they called their home. Whether it 
 was in their rooms at the hotel, or under the striped tents 
 which shielded them from a Syrian sun, it was there they 
 found, whatever the landscape which lay around them, how 
 ever interesting the city in which they sojourned, their chief 
 happiness. However fatigued by the travel or the wonders 
 of the day, an hour or two was sure to be spent by them 
 together at night in summing up and comparing impressions 
 as to the events of the hours going before. This was to the 
 older, as to the younger people, really the most enjoyable 
 time of all. 
 
 Upon one such evening in Paris, not long after the little 
 episode at Versailles, the family had been passing in review 
 all they had seen in the Exposition since their coming. 
 Except the father, each had given his or her opinion as to 
 what had been best worth seeing. 
 
 " And now, papa, what do you like best ? " Mary Harris 
 asked in the end. 
 
 " The people," her father replied. " The pictures, the 
 various fabrics, the machinery are interesting, of course, but 
 I am most interested in those from all parts of the world 
 who have produced the objects we all admire. From the 
 first I have found my attention riveted upon these. Many 
 of the wonders in the Exposition are duplicates, but no two 
 of these men and women are exactly alike. Whatever the 
 nationality, people," Mr. Harris added, " interest me there 
 is no other word which expresses it beyond their art, their 
 science, their religion. Every day I find myself turning 
 more and more from what a man says or does to the man 
 himself." 
 
 " The future of the world and it will be as much more
 
 HASSAN PASHA. 53 
 
 wonderful than to-day as to-day is beyond a century ago 
 the future," Henry Harris assented, " is with the people." 
 
 And this was another peculiarity of George Harris. To 
 Earl Dorrington, the multitude through which he passed 
 was little more than a swarm of insects. If pressed, he 
 would have acknowledged that he belonged to the same 
 species, and yet the habit of his life was to except English 
 men from men in general as the heaven-born superiors of the 
 rest of the race, and himself as of a divinely appointed line 
 age, even more loftily superior to the masses of England 
 than were these to such lesser infusoria as the Spanish or 
 the Italians. The last Bourbon of the line, Henry V, as 
 he styles himself, was not more intensely a legitimist. 
 George Harris was, on the other hand, in ready sympathy 
 with every man he met, and from whatever country. En 
 tirely at his ease with earl as with czar, he was almost as 
 courteous to his courier or his porter as to these. To him 
 the grand old Tory nobleman was but one of many millions 
 of men, in not one of whom there was not something to 
 deplore, but much also to admire. The Earl was insular, in 
 plain words, provincial. The American was metropolitan, 
 a noble of the Order of the Universe. The fact must be 
 added, if the Earl was proud, George Harris was, in a sense, 
 as much more so as his order was grander and more enduring. 
 
 It was by reason of his interest in people that George 
 Harris was never so happy as when in conversation with 
 some one among the throngs in Paris who was a distinct 
 type of his own land. Among these was an Oriental per 
 sonage Hassan Pasha by name who was known all over 
 Europe for his reckless splendor of living, the high stakes 
 he played at the public gambling-tables and at private 
 games of hazard, the great sums he had lost and won, his 
 profligacy of morals, his elegance of manner, and the ele 
 vated positions he had held in the foreign and domestic 
 service of his government. It was his wealth and family 
 influence, rather than his personal qualities, which paved the 
 way to the important dignities which he had enjoyed. There
 
 54 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 was something sphinx-like in the expression of his features. 
 The eye scrutinized you with a gaze that seemed to pene 
 trate your inmost thoughts, but it revealed nothing of tl*e 
 workings of the mind and heart of its master. It was clear 
 and lustrous, as the Oriental eye always is, but it seemed to 
 be trained to absorb, not reflect impressions. It was drilled 
 and disciplined to such a degree that it never lost its self- 
 control, so to speak. There was a studied reserve in his 
 conversation and bearing, also, that puzzled and mystified, 
 and yet fascinated. Piqued at the impenetrability of this 
 strange nature, one was always seeking to find some crevice 
 in the armor through which a lance might be thrust. He 
 read others, but he would not allow them to read him ; not 
 that he was a better judge of character, but because he had 
 perfect mastery of himself. He had asked to be introduced 
 to George Harris that he might make the acquaintance of his 
 daughter. 
 
 "I have always admired," he said to Mr. Harris after 
 ward, " your countrywomen. In the East we are accustomed 
 to one style of beauty, but the Americans seem to blend 
 together the choicest charms of the finest types of the Old 
 World. I presume it is from the commingling of races. As 
 Rome was formed out of various peoples, and a new and 
 improved race was created, so the Americans in every sense 
 of the word may be regarded as a new stock, strongly differ 
 ing in many respects from their ancestors." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Mr. Harris, " the moral stagnation of the 
 East leads to physical degeneracy." 
 
 " Not at all ; physically, the people of the East are among 
 the finest specimens of humanity. From them sprang the 
 great Aryan race that has overspread the world, the fore 
 most in the march of civilization and in intellectual ability. 
 The only difference between you and us is that Christianity 
 promotes progress, free institutions, and activity in every 
 department of life. Mussulmanism is perhaps too conserva 
 tive, too much inclined to adhere to the past, and too dis 
 trustful of the future to plunge into the bold enterprises
 
 HASSAN PASHA. 55 
 
 which keep Christian countries in a state of perpetual agita 
 tion. I admit your superiority in the arts of civilization, 
 but I do not think the time will ever come when the West 
 will subdue the East. The Orientals follow the practices 
 and profess the religion which, bating certain modifications, 
 the progenitors of Christianity professed four thousand years 
 ago. Mussulmanism, instead of being a dead faith, is not 
 only at this day professed by nearly two hundred millions of 
 people, but it is spreading with wonderful rapidity over 
 pagan Africa. By the aid of twenty million Moslems resi 
 dent in China, it threatens to become the dominant religion 
 in that vast empire, and it is undermining in India Bud 
 dhism, Brahminism, and all other of the opposing Eastern 
 creeds. The Moslem Caliph may be compelled to abandon 
 Constantinople to the Giaours and to retire with the faithful 
 into Asia, the cradle of our faith and race, but that will not 
 blight the prospects of Mussulmanism." 
 
 " Is woman," timidly asked Mary Harris, who was pres 
 ent, " for ever to remain in the East in her present abject 
 condition ? " 
 
 " We do not look upon her position in the same light you 
 do," the Oriental replied with a bow and in smoother ac 
 cents. " She is with us precisely as she was during all the 
 Patriarchal period, such as is described in your holy book, 
 which you call by the same name as we do ours the Bible, 
 Koran, or Book. We do not think she was created to in-- 
 vade man's sphere, but always to be his comforter, helpmate, 
 and slave. When she leaves the domestic retirement which 
 is the proper theatre of her existence, we think she loses her 
 natural delicacy and unsexes herself." 
 
 " Well," replied Mr. Harris, " I see I can not convert you 
 to our way of thinking. I must confess I admire to a cer 
 tain degree the confidence you feel in your destiny and the 
 faith you have in the future ; but how is it that with all this 
 Oriental intensity of feeling the Turks have always been so 
 friendly to the United States ? I hope it is because you 
 sympathize with our people and their institutions."
 
 56 
 
 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Don't deceive yourselves," answered the other. " We 
 like the Americans simply because they let us alone and do 
 not interfere with us as the English, Russians, and French 
 are constantly doing. The truth is, we know very little 
 about you, except that in a short time you have become a 
 powerful nation, and that you are undermining the prosperity 
 of our enemies. We wish you well, and that is more than I 
 can say of other Christian nations. But let us dismiss this 
 discussion, for we are trenching on subjects of conversation 
 unsuited to neutral ground such as this." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LOVE FIFTY TEAKS AGO. 
 
 ONE evening the family of George Harris were assembled 
 as usual in the parlor of their hotel. They had seen of late 
 many a painting, historical and otherwise, but, unconscious 
 as they were of it, they themselves composed a group which 
 contained within itself profound significance. Beside her 
 husband upon the sofa sat Mrs. Margaret Harris, a certain 
 breadth in her brows, a soft yet steady command in her eyes, 
 which breathed of motherhood and serene common sense. 
 Place a crown upon her head, a scepter in her hand, and she 
 would have satisfied your conception of an empress, and yet 
 she was saying to her son and daughter: 
 
 " Yes, when your father married me I was as poor as 
 himself. As you know, Henry, my father was a wheel 
 wright. He was as honest and industrious as my mother 
 was good and loving, but misfortunes came. My brothers 
 died, my mother became an invalid, my father was disabled 
 by the falling upon him of a wagon beneath which he was at 
 work. I was not more than fourteen when the support of 
 the household devolved upon me. It is strange," Mrs. Har 
 ris added, thoughtfully, " I was a frail, timid girl, yet the
 
 LOVE FIFTY YEARS AGO. 57 
 
 very pressure of things seemed suddenly to change my whole 
 nature. I worked for a dressmaker, I walked miles at a 
 $ime to carry my bundles to customers, I read and went to 
 school as much as I could between times, and my health 
 became strong. It was as if a new life had arisen within 
 me ; I was happier than I could possibly have been other 
 wise. And then " 
 
 " And then I met her going home one Saturday," her hus 
 band interrupted. " Her face was at once the brightest and 
 the best I had ever seen. Such a thing as marriage had not 
 entered my mind before. How could I afford a sweetheart 
 and wife, with the attendance at concerts, the confection 
 ery, and dresses it involved ? Yet as soon as I saw that open 
 face, as sweet as it was sensible, as strong as it was pure, 
 as" 
 
 But the wife had laid her hand upon her husband's lips, 
 blushing as she did so like a girl, and the son and daughter 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 " Oh, well," the husband continued, holding his wife's 
 hand in his own, " I was a hard-tasked mechanic, working 
 all day, and reading as much as I could at night. Nobody 
 as I was, your mother took compassion on me, and " 
 
 "I only hope you will be as true and manly a man, 
 Henry." It was Mrs. Harris's turn to interrupt now. " To 
 me your father was the king of men, but I would not allow 
 even him to help me support my parents. We loved for 
 a long time before we could unite our fortunes. It was a 
 year after, first my mother and then my father died, that we 
 were married." 
 
 " It is not often we talk of such matters," Mr. Harris 
 added, " but let me say, for once and all, that my marrying 
 your mother was the wisest thing I ever did. From our first 
 acquaintance we were companions in the truest sense of the 
 word. I have never taken a step until after consultation with 
 my wife. In every practical sense, she has been of inesti 
 mable help to me," and the husband lifted the hand of his 
 wife to his lips, and kissed it. Sincerer homage empress
 
 58 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 never had, but the son and daughter glanced at each other 
 with a smile. There was nothing they had known better, 
 and from their childhood, than the influence upon their 
 father, as upon them, of their mother. 
 
 " Let me say only this," George Harris continued, " that 
 your mother was of most service to me when I began to 
 prosper. It is almost impossible for a man not to become a 
 little intoxicated as money begins to pour in, but it was your 
 mother who calmed me in prosperity as she had aroused and 
 encouraged me in our days of adversity, for we had dark 
 times also, I assure you." 
 
 The man who spoke was broad of chest and strong of 
 limb. There was a certain square solidity about his counte 
 nance. His head and beard were white, his eyebrows bushy, 
 his manner, like his voice and his gait, was steady and de 
 liberate. For more than half a century he had dealt so 
 closely and exclusively in iron that his entire nature had 
 assimilated itself, in the best senses at least, to that metal. 
 So much was there of system and of sternness in his whole 
 aspect, that his imperial employers, as well as the thousands 
 whom he employed, understood, and from the outset, that 
 here was a person not to be trifled with. That he was not a 
 tyrant, a Nero of the workshop, a Caligula of the tunnel and 
 the railway bridge, was, and to a degree of which even he 
 himself had no conception, owing to his wife, for although in 
 a purely womanly sense, she was stronger than he. Not that 
 he was not always iron, but that, in the uncooling ardor of 
 his affection for her, he was as molten iron in her hands, and 
 she gave direction and shape, and in a measure of which she 
 herself was unconscious, to all that he was and did. 
 
 " I do not know how we came to talk of such things," 
 George Harris continued after a while, " but there is one 
 thing more I wish to add, and then we will speak of some 
 thing else. The longer I live, Henry, Mary, I am satisfied 
 that the grandest quality at last is that most uncommon of 
 all things, which we call common sense. Let me say it but 
 this once, my dear Margaret your mother, children, is the
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 59 
 
 most sensible woman I ever knew sensible ! You are laugh 
 ing, Harry; well, perhaps I have said that before. But I say 
 it now because I want to tell you what is the secret of her 
 sense, of all sense. You know I am not a religious man. Al 
 most all my life I have been so situated that it was impossi 
 ble for me to go to church, even to know when Sunday came 
 for that matter, at times at least. Very well. But, from 
 the hour I first knew her, the soul and sweetness of your 
 mother's excellent sense has been her steady faith in God. 
 That is all." 
 
 At this moment visitors were announced, and soon after 
 the parlors were a scene of lively conversation, a little excel 
 lent music now and then, and a good deal of laughter and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 AMONG the many American families in Paris during the 
 Exposition there was none whose rooms were more fre 
 quented than those of George Harris. There were some in 
 which there was a more lavish display of wealth, others in 
 which literature and art had a stronger sway, but in none did 
 people seem to enjoy themselves more. No one asked him 
 self or herself why it was, but there was a certain alternative 
 from Parisian life therein which was turned to as a relief. 
 Neither in the head of the family nor in his matronly wife 
 was there a particle of affectation, and the children of such 
 parents had too much of their father and mother in their life 
 long training, as well as in their blood, not to resemble them. 
 Once properly introduced, and you felt as much at home 
 with Henry Harris as if you had come upon him on a fishing 
 excursion. He was most like his mother, especially as there 
 was much of her gentle energy, too, in his eyes and bearing. 
 He had not struggled upward as his father had done ; had,
 
 60 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 so to speak, none of the scars of the contest. The prosperity 
 of the family began before he was born, and he had been 
 carefully educated. In fact, his father would gladly have 
 given him a university training. Like most men who had 
 educated themselves, Mr. Harris had a sort of superstition 
 in regard to an academic course, an idea that it imparted 
 subtile and mysterious faculties as well as attainments. But 
 the son was too much like the parents from whose origi 
 nal nature he had sprung to consent, and he decided to 
 enter into the business of his father ; decided with so much 
 inherited decision that there was nothing for his father to 
 do but to yield, and with a secret satisfaction, too, to his 
 choice. Speaking Russian, German, and French ; having 
 had all the advantage of travel and association with the best 
 society ; kept by his intimacy with his mother and sister 
 from wild courses, young Harris was, with his open brow and 
 fine eyes and frank ways, the most popular of men. 
 
 Mary Harris was some three years younger than her 
 brother. Strange to say, she was, as has been said, most like 
 her father, except that his features, eyes, very character, had 
 been so refined and transformed in her that people wondered 
 at her loveliness even while they were struck with her like 
 ness to her rugged parent. Dearly as she loved her mother, 
 she seemed to cling even more closely to him ; while her 
 brother retained for his mother an almost childlike affection. 
 He had been one of the rare instances of a boy in love with 
 his mother, and he was only the more so now than when he 
 had worn frills upon his bosom and trimming upon his little 
 jacket. None the less was he the manliest of men ; such a 
 mother could have been so loved only by a youth of that 
 sort. Although she hid it, her love for her son was the one 
 direction in which Mrs. Harris's common sense was threat 
 ened with being overmastered. Toward him she was like a 
 girl again, because he was to her so much of what his father 
 had been when she first knew him. 
 
 " One can not help liking them," Lady Blanche said one 
 morning of the Harris household to her father, the Earl.
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 61 
 
 " There is an air of nature and freedom about them which 
 one so rarely finds. I hate to live in the ball-room and the 
 opera-house for ever. One becomes as weary of one's retinue 
 of admirers as one does of her trains of silk and velvet." 
 
 " I have no objection to your associating with the people 
 of whom you speak, up to a definite point," the old noble 
 man replied. " We are not in London. This is Paris, and 
 we are in Paris during an exceptional period." 
 
 It was as if the Earl had said, " We are not in our castle 
 just now. In our condescension we have come down to see 
 the villagers dancing about a May -pole. It is merely the folly 
 of an hour ; " and he smiled as he sat at his breakfast-table, 
 with conscious superiority. 
 
 " A definite point, my dear ; you will not go beyond 
 that," he added, adjusting his napkin. 
 
 " I think," his son said, maliciously, " that you would have 
 opened your eyes a little if you had seen Blanche on horse 
 back yesterday ; she rode as if for a wager." 
 
 "I rode with him because he rides better and faster than 
 my escort generally dares to do," Lady Blanche replied with 
 spirit. 
 
 " With him ? May I ask who he is ? " The Earl de 
 manded it with dignity. 
 
 " With Mr. Henry Harris," his daughter replied prompt 
 ly, with unusual distinctness and perfect equipoise. " But I 
 consented to go only when I learned that Alfred had agreed 
 to accompany Miss Mary Harris. Who cares? It was a 
 beautiful day. We had good horses. I never enjoyed my 
 self more. We were speaking of Mr. Harris's family. When 
 ever I am with them I feel," she continued, with heightened 
 color, " as if I had got out of doors. It is like being out 
 with the hounds. I can not endure to be eternally in the 
 drawing-room ! I greatly prefer my freedom." 
 
 The words were spoken with such force, such fire, in fact, 
 that both the Earl and his son looked at her with sudden 
 surprise ; she had at the moment a peculiarity of beauty 
 they had not observed before.
 
 62 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " May I beg, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, to learn the spe 
 cies of game in this instance ?" her brother asked, in ironical 
 accents. " Deer, is it ; or is it but a fox ? I am interested, 
 since I know so well that you will be in at the death. And," 
 Lord Conyngham added, " when you are the Diana, the game 
 dies hard, terribly hard, you know that ; we all do ! " 
 
 There was evidently an allusion to something in the past 
 which Lady Blanche, at least, well understood ; but her eyes 
 were full and clear, although her cheek paled as she replied 
 to her brother, her gaze unflinchingly upon him, a little sad 
 ness in it too. 
 
 "You know, Alfred, it was not my fault." 
 
 " What are you speaking of ? " the old Earl demanded 
 the moment after. In such lofty and serene heights did he 
 habitually dwell, that the conversation even of his own chil 
 dren sounded as if below him. " It was of hunting, was it 
 not ? " he added. 
 
 "Yes, sir ; and I was telling Blanche to be careful next 
 time," Lord Conyngham said, with a cruel fun in his eyes. 
 
 " Very proper, Alfred. It is wrong, if it can be avoided, 
 to ride down a dog or even a farmer's wheat. I am afraid 
 we have trampled down many a turnip-field in our time." 
 The Earl was stately even in his regrets. The field was 
 highly favored to be so trodden. 
 
 "Poor Harris," the brother whispered to his sister, for it 
 is not only to their fags that Eton boys and Oxford men are 
 brutal. " Poor Harris ! I would beg of you to have pity 
 upon him ; but then, you know, it is merely a question of a 
 turnip ! " 
 
 It is worse than a matter of fags and fagging. That may 
 have diminished of late, like bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and 
 the ferocities of the prize-ring, but the English love for hard 
 blows is in the bone and blood. To this hour old Rome sur 
 vives in Britain. It was when the combat in the arena was 
 crudest that to plebeian and patrician it was sweetest. 
 Strong natures can give and take severe blows, often with 
 only less enjoyment of the taking than of the giving. In all
 
 ISHBA DHASS GUNGA. 63 
 
 England there was not a more polished as well as aristo 
 cratic household than that of Earl Dorrington, yet even the 
 play therein was that not of kittens, but of young lions. No 
 nobleman more of a gentleman, no lady more of a lady than 
 Lord Conyngham and his sister, and never brother and sister 
 loved each other more they were lion-like in that also but 
 they did not spare each other. 
 
 " His heart is less to me than a turnip," this Boadicea, 
 this genuine Englishwoman, now replied to her brother ; 
 "but you," she said, "you, my poor brother, you " And 
 she laughed as he colored almost painfully under her clear, 
 steady eyes. 
 
 " My dear children," the Earl remarked, from his serene 
 summits, " what are you speaking of ? " And, rising from the 
 table and standing at the window, he looked down upon the 
 crowded and busy streets of Paris. No, it was not as if 
 the lord of the castle had descended to the villagers ; it was 
 rather as if a benevolent naturalist were gazing upon the 
 ways of the ants at his feet. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ISHKA DHASS GUNGA. 
 
 HASSAN PASHA, the Oriental of whom mention has been 
 already made, was a frequent visitor at the parlors of George 
 Harris. Neither the father nor his son Henry were, how 
 ever, the chief attraction. For these he had the admiration 
 which even the most languid and luxurious nature has for 
 men of energy, but he had no desire to be such a man him 
 self. In his secret soul the most intelligent and vigorous of 
 the infidels alive was to this Mohammedan but as a strong 
 and spirited Arabian horse, to be used when need be, and 
 which he would manage if he could with an iron bit, since
 
 64 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 there was such a thing as being dashed by one's horse to the 
 ground. Both speed and spirit were enjoyed by Hassan 
 Pasha, provided he could be master, and not called upon to 
 exert himself particularly, but he had no more wish to be 
 himself a Frank than he had to be a horse. 
 
 The attractions lay in Mrs. Harris and in her daughter. 
 As a rule, women were no more to him than the playthings 
 of an indolent hour, as sweet and as devoid of intellect as 
 flowers ; they were merely a higher and more delightful 
 kind of roses, in fact. But Mrs. Harris reminded him of 
 certain sultanas whom he had known, women of ability who 
 had ruled Turkey from behind the throne. As to Mary 
 Harris, he had a species of curiosity which is characteristic 
 of the Oriental. He had never known a slave, Circassian or 
 Georgian, who was more lovely. She seemed to be as soft, 
 as modest, as gentle, as obedient, as if she had never left 
 her mother's side for an instant, and yet, " Her father deals 
 in iron," he thought, " but in her the iron has been refined 
 into steel. When I hinted the other day that women were 
 made for the service of men, there was the glint of a Da 
 mascus blade in her eyes. ' Do you really think so ? ' she 
 asked, but tone and glance reminded me of the way in 
 which Saladin could cut in twain by a turn of his keen 
 scimitar a veil of gauze which hung over him afloat in the 
 air. How divinely she plays, too, and what a power of soul 
 she can pour into her songs ! Ah me ! if " 
 
 But what Hassan Pasha would have been capable of, had 
 he possessed the power of which he every day regarded 
 himself as unjustly deprived, who can say ! Certainly no 
 gentleman could have conducted himself with greater pro 
 priety when visiting in their hotel. 
 
 He was conversing with Mary Harris there one evening 
 when the name of Lady Blanche was mentioned. His face 
 slowly darkened as he said : " She is an Englishwoman of 
 the purest type, very noble, very beautiful. But do you re 
 member, Miss Harris, hearing of Cadi j ah, the first wife of 
 our prophet ? " he suddenly added.
 
 ISHRA DHASS OUNGA. 65 
 
 "Yes, and of his younger wife, Ayesha," the lady re 
 plied. 
 
 " "Well, they were the wives of the Prophet of God," the 
 Oriental said, gravely, " and yet even then they were not 
 proud, were merely simple women. Picture to yourself 
 Sarah, the wife of Ibrahim Abraham, you call him was she 
 a haughty dame ? Your Bible does not say so. It tells of 
 her kneading three measures of meal ; think of Lady Blanche 
 doing that ! And then there was Rebekah at the well ; when 
 Eleazar came with his camels, he made it the only test of 
 the one who was to be the bride of Isaac, not that she should 
 be even beautiful, but that she should offer to water his 
 thirsty camels. And if you draw a picture of Rachel, she 
 must have a jar upon her head. Of the wife of Moses it 
 was the same, was it not ? " 
 
 " May I be allowed ? " The question was asked by a 
 gentleman who had drawn near as they conversed, for the 
 rooms were filled with visitors coming and going. 
 
 Hassan Pasha bowed somewhat coldly, but Mary Harris 
 said, with her brightest smile, " With pleasure, Mr. Sig- 
 nior " 
 
 " My full name is Ishra Dhass Gunga," the gentleman 
 corrected her, with a happy face. 
 
 "I know that well enough," the lady hastened to say, 
 " only I do not know always what is the variation which I 
 should use of Mr. We are here from all parts of the world. 
 Sometimes I must say Herr, sometimes Monsieur, now it is 
 Signior, then it is Don, or my lord, or your excellency. If 
 it is an American, I am always safe in calling him Mr." 
 
 " Pardon me, do you think so ? " the new-comer de 
 manded. " I never feel that I am as polite as I should be 
 with an American unless I call him Captain, Major, Colonel. 
 One must discriminate, though, and I try to estimate the 
 man, and according as I like him I brevet him with anything 
 military up to General, and there, alas ! I am compelled to 
 stop. Please call me plain Ishra Dhass." 
 
 There was something irresistibly pleasing, to the lady at
 
 66 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 least, in the speaker. He was a Hindoo who spoke English 
 perfectly, because he had been educated for the service in a 
 government college in Calcutta. Hassan Pasha, who had 
 drawn himself up into his stateliest height, was a taller man, 
 but the Hindoo was admirably formed, his dark face glowing 
 like that of a frolicsome boy. His features were delicate, 
 his eyes of a lively black, his hands small and in continual 
 motion, but it was his genuine good-nature which struck you 
 most. His teeth were not much larger than grains of rice, 
 and whiter, in contrast with the dark bronze of his complex 
 ion, and he seemed to be always laughing. Not that he was 
 at all silly, nor that his manners were part of his toilet. 
 That he was entirely natural was too evident to be denied. 
 He was dressed simply, in the Hindoo style, a white turban 
 upon his head, and seemed to be entirely at home. From 
 the opening of the Exposition he had been in Paris, and 
 seemed to know and to be greatly liked by everybody. 
 Wherever there was a group of ladies or gentlemen in corri 
 dor or parlor of the great hotels, you were tolerably sure, 
 especially when you heard them laugh, to find Ishra Dhass 
 as the center about which they were drawn. His humor 
 was inexhaustible. It seemed to be part of his perfect 
 health. Withal he was a gentleman. The modulated tones, 
 the deferential manner, the entire independence of the man, 
 made that very evident. 
 
 " Oh ! I am a Brahmin," he would say, when flattered 
 upon his knowledge of the world. "You know that we are 
 gods in our own land. Very poor gods we are," he would 
 add, with his merry eyes, " almost as poor as the Vishnus 
 and Sivas my people pray to. They and we, all of us, are 
 nothing but clay at last." 
 
 Being of as high caste as the highest, he was as free 
 with even Earl Dorrington as George Harris could have been 
 much more so, for the American had a certain ruggedness 
 of his own, while the Hindoo was supple, smiling, full of his 
 genuine good-humor with whomsoever he was thrown. 
 
 " Will you pardon my intrusion ? " he now said, with all
 
 ISHRA DHASS GUNGA. 67 
 
 politeness ; " but I could not help hearing what his High 
 ness," and he bowed to Hassan Pasha, " was so eloquently 
 observing in regard to your sex," and he bowed with un 
 affected deference to the lady. " You are right, sir. It is 
 impossible to think of Ruth as holding herself haughtily the 
 day she went home to her mother-in-law, Naomi, with her 
 gleanings gathered into her veil. With six measures of 
 barley upon her shoulders, how," he demanded, with his 
 frank smile, " could she hold her head erect with pride ? 
 Ah, but she was erect ; she was as straight as an arrow, be 
 cause," he added, " from her childhood, she had been taught 
 to bear burdens balanced upon her beautiful head. One day 
 I was at the house of a nobleman in England, his guest, I 
 am happy to say. He had a lovely daughter, about fourteen 
 years old. I happened to be in her father's library when she 
 came in for an atlas, and she had a trayful of sand on her 
 head. You observe, she was too frail ; had a tendency to 
 stoop, and her governess made her do it to give her a stronger 
 chest and a more graceful carriage. When she saw me she 
 started, upset the sand, and down it came over her shoulders 
 in an avalanche. She began to cry, but I told her it was 
 what I used to see my dear mother do every day at home, 
 only it was water she bore, not sand, and we had a good 
 laugh over it. We became excellent good friends after that, 
 I assure you. But, as I said, forgive me ; I interrupt you." 
 " Not at all," Hassan Pasha said, in his politest manner. 
 For the best of all reasons at least, for the strongest rea 
 sons of which a Mohammedan is capable he had the sin- 
 cerest hatred for the Hindoo. Deeply as he despised and 
 hated, even abhorred, the Russian, English, French, of Ishra 
 Dhass he had an opinion stronger still. But he was out 
 wardly polite to French, English, even to Russians, and he 
 was so now. With as little compunction as though he had 
 been a sheep instead, he could have killed this pleasant, 
 smiling Brahmin, or, rather, could have had him killed by a 
 slave, with an indolent wave of his hand ; but this was not 
 Asia ; he was in Paris.
 
 68 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " I merely desired to add," Ishra Dhass continued, " that 
 I have the honor heartily to . agree with your Highness in 
 one thing." 
 
 Hassan Pasha allowed himself almost to manifest his 
 surprise as he looked at the speaker. Ishra Dhass, however, 
 was perfectly aware of the sentiments of the Turk toward 
 himself, and, instead of addressing himself to him further, 
 was saying to the young lady : " It is a matter in which I 
 fear I do not have your sympathy, Miss Harris. Not, at 
 least, as yet. Europeans, Americans, you are you are so 
 sure you are right, right in everything ! We Orientals," 
 comprehending the Pasha with a wave of his supple hand, 
 " are, you think, left hopelessly behind ! Wait ; please 
 wait a few years. In some very important matters, matters 
 you do not dream of, the sun is to rise upon you, as it al 
 ways has done, and in everything of highest importance is 
 to rise upon you from the East. Never, since the world be 
 gan, has it risen in the West ; never ! In the East it is to 
 rise again, and ah, what a glorious day it will bring ! " 
 
 It was said with such unfeigned enthusiasm, such certain 
 assurance, as of an inspired prophet, who was also a joyous 
 child, that both the Turk and the American lady looked at 
 the Hindoo with astonishment. He seemed, for the moment, 
 to be almost transfigured as with the certainty of what he said. 
 
 "What do you mean?" his companions asked, rather 
 with their eyes than their lips. 
 
 "Asia has been mistaken, mistaken for centuries, sadly 
 mistaken. But Europe and America have been mistaken 
 too," he added, with a certain glad confidence, " frightfully 
 mistaken. I will explain some other time ; not now. It 
 was your speaking of Eastern women which caused me to 
 intrude. Your Highness is right. It is Sarah, Rachel, Ruth, 
 who are the nearest to Eve. They are the models. There 
 is another woman the noblest, because the simplest and 
 most purely woman of all. But," and he looked the Pasha 
 steadily in the eyes, " I will tell you her name another time ; 
 not now. See ; the company are taking their leave."
 
 WOMAN AS A SLAVE. 69 
 
 " What woman were you speaking of ? " Mary Harris 
 asked of him, soon after, in the doorway, as he left. "I am 
 curious to know." 
 
 "My friend the Pasha dislikes the topic," the smiling 
 Hindoo replied, " but you know already whom I mean. You 
 yourself are named after her, and she lived in Syria eighteen 
 centuries ago." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WOMAN AS A SLAVE. 
 
 THE day following the conversation just recorded, Henry 
 Harris was speaking of Hassan Pasha among a party of 
 gentlemen, of whom Lord Conyngham was one. The Turk 
 had made a peculiar impression upon almost every person 
 present. 
 
 " It so chanced," the young nobleman remarked, " that 
 I was once thrown with him a good deal. My father, my 
 sister, and myself had been some years ago spending the 
 winter in Rome. In the spring of the following year we 
 unexpectedly joined a party of friends who embarked at 
 Naples on an Eastern tour. The boat touched only at Mes 
 sina, and thence steered directly for Constantinople. After 
 leaving that port we were hurried, in quick succession, 
 through scenes of wonderful interest and beauty. As in the 
 case of all travelers in the East, our thoughts were more oc 
 cupied with its past history than its present condition. The 
 halo of the classic ages still envelops this region with a fas 
 cinating spell. The names of its heroes, statesmen, and 
 philosophers are associated with its plains, seas, and his 
 toric sites, while Olympus, Parnassus, and Ida recall the 
 mythologic fables to which the imagination of the ancient 
 poets gave birth, and which, to this day, are themes of in 
 spiration to poets and painters. The imperishable character 
 of Greek civilization and letters is one of the most striking
 
 70 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 facts in human history. There is not a classic student who 
 does not long to visit the scenes where lived and acted the 
 great men of the Homeric, Periclean, and Alexandrian eras, 
 and to muse over the remains of fallen splendor, and, on the 
 spot, to study the causes of the decline of states and the 
 ruin of empires. The most learned of our party, who at 
 the same time was one of the most pleasing of narrators, 
 supplied the place of a guide-book, for he knew all the 
 famed localities as if he had been born among them. We 
 sat around him spellbound as he pointed out Cythera, the 
 birthplace of Venus ; as we glided by Lesbos, he spoke of 
 Sappho and her woes ; and when the tumulus of Patroclus 
 loomed in sight on the Asiatic shore, he recapitulated the 
 legendary story of Troy. But the crowning glory of this 
 realm of poetry and romance was the sight of Constan 
 tinople as it emerged from the morning mist, with its forest 
 of gilded domes and minarets flashing in the beams of the 
 rising sun, Europe and Asia divided only by the narrow 
 channel of the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora spread out 
 before it like a mirror to reflect its beauty, the refulgent 
 atmosphere bringing out in clear outline the snow-clad sum 
 mit of the Bithynian Olympus, and the picturesque land and 
 water scenery that spread around on every side. 
 
 " The day after our arrival my father sent his card to 
 our Turkish friend Hassan Pasha, whom we had met in Lon 
 don, at his yali or villa on the Bosphorus, to know when we 
 could call on him. 
 
 "'To-morrow,' he replied, 'if you will bring your son 
 and daughter with you.' 
 
 " We were not a little surprised at this general invitation, 
 and my father intimated to the servant that there must be 
 some mistake. 
 
 " ' Not at all ; the Pasha is quite European in his ways, 
 and the khanem, his wife, follows his example as far as he 
 will allow her to do so.' 
 
 " We had finished a late breakfast when the carriage of the 
 Pasha was announced to be in waiting to conduct us to To-
 
 WOMAN AS A SLAVE. 71 
 
 phane. There a besch chifte, or five-pair-oar caique, in a 
 short time carried us to the villa. It was an elegant build 
 ing of Oriental architecture immediately on the edge of the 
 Bosphorus, with large gardens on either side glowing with 
 flowers of every hue. We landed on the garden side, and 
 had hardly set foot on shore before the Pasha advanced to 
 meet us. Our reception was more cordial than I thought he 
 was capable of. He seemed to make an effort to throw off 
 his usual reserve of manner in order to put us at ease and 
 please us. 
 
 " ' Permit me,' he said, with a pleasant smile, ' to divide 
 you, and to introduce Lady Blanche to the khanem in the 
 harem. After they have chatted together they will join us 
 in the selamliJc.'' 
 
 " A eunuch, as black as Erebus and as ugly as such crea 
 tures always are, bowing obsequiously to the ground, led 
 the way to the harem in the second story, on the other side 
 of the house. My sister was conducted to a spacious saloon, 
 spread with Persian carpets, in the center of which a foun 
 tain bubbled over a tier of marble basins into a reservoir in 
 which goldfish were playing. When she was seated on the 
 divan, which overlooked the Bosphorus, with all its ani 
 mated sight of sailing and steam craft passing by, and 
 caiques darting across the channel between the two conti 
 nents, she was served with pipes and coffee, sherbet and 
 sweetmeats. 
 
 " ' I am glad to see you in Turkey,' said the Pasha, mean 
 while, to my father and myself. ' It is not the country it 
 once was, nor are Constantinople and its environs such as they 
 were in the time of Solyman the Magnificent and some of 
 his successors. Man, however, can not mar the beauty of 
 nature. Probably it flourishes more when most neglected 
 by him. There, on the opposite European shore, you see the 
 fortress which Mohammed II built on the eve of the con 
 quest of Constantinople, and whence he set forth to besiege 
 and take that city from the Greeks, who had held it for fif 
 teen hundred years. It is a monument of our former power 
 4
 
 72 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 and superiority ; but, like the empire to which it gave birth, 
 it is falling to decay.' 
 
 " For some time we talked of themes of mutual interest, 
 when the Pasha whispered a few words to a servant. The 
 officers and servants in the vestibule retired into the interior 
 of the yali. Their disappearance was followed by the en 
 trance of the wife of the Pasha with my sister. She wore a 
 transparent yashmak, which she lifted from her expressive 
 features as she took a seat beside her husband. She was 
 the daughter of one of the most distinguished and rich 
 est princes of the empire. Her father had enjoyed all the 
 pleasures and aspirations of private and public life. There 
 was no luxury he could not indulge in and no ambition that 
 he did not gratify except that of supreme rule, and in the 
 general break-up and uncertainty of Oriental affairs he even 
 cherished the idea of one day becoming the successor of the 
 sultans of the house of Othman. He died, however, before 
 he might have played a conspicuous part in the fifth act of 
 the Oriental drama. He loved his eldest daughter as the 
 apple of his eye, and gave her entirely into the charge of an 
 English governess, who educated her to a familiar knowledge 
 of English, French, and the elements of modern learning, 
 and gave her such an insight into modern life that she lost 
 all sympathy with Oriental manners and customs. She was 
 denationalized in every sense of the word. To my sister she 
 had previously said : 
 
 " ' I have been trained as a European, and I am to live as 
 an Oriental. I know my future. I am married to one whom 
 I never saw before marriage, who shuts me up in his harem 
 to consort with other wives of as low instincts as himself 
 dull, vapid creatures, with minds as blank as a sheet of white 
 paper. It is a pity that I was not permitted to remain in 
 blissful ignorance of a better state. To my surprise, I am 
 taken to the balls of the foreign embassies. I look on, how 
 ever, from a gallery. I do not participate. My position is 
 altogether false. I am neither Christian nor Mohammedan. 
 Pity that I ever knew a foreign tongue or met a foreigner.'
 
 WOMAN AS A SLAVE. 73 
 
 " It was at this moment that a female servant informed 
 the khanem that her company was desired in the selamlik. 
 
 " ' Let us go,' she had said, ' and for a while, at least, act 
 and speak like free creatures, and not like slaves. How I 
 envy the condition of Christian women ! ' 
 
 " With this, throwing a Cashmere shawl over her shoul 
 ders, preceded by her confidential slave, she had entered the 
 saloon of the selamlik. Casting off her Oriental manners, 
 she conversed with the Earl and myself on a great variety of 
 subjects. She had read of the homage paid to women in 
 Europe and America. 
 
 " ' It may not be a proof,' she said, ' of your superior 
 civilization, but it certainly is of your superior humanity. 
 Where man recognizes woman as his helpmate and not as 
 his slave, he doubles his happiness and he gives his children 
 new reasons for respecting their mother. God never designed 
 woman to be a degraded creature. I receive and reciprocate 
 the visits of Christian ladies, but I feel all the time that I am 
 violating the customs of my own people, and that I am only 
 rendering myself unhappy.' 
 
 " We tried to parry this sad train of thought with com 
 plimentary remarks, but we saw that a barbed arrow had 
 entered her soul and could not be extracted. The finale to 
 this story of domestic contrariety is that the Pasha, not long 
 after our visit, went to Europe, and his wife was remanded 
 into a state of Oriental seclusion, where she lived without 
 any intercourse with the gay Frank world, with which she 
 once had a partial acquaintance, and for which she had such 
 strong sympathies. During our stay in Constantinople the 
 Pasha was untiring in his hospitality ; but with him, as with 
 all other Orientals, we could perceive an invisible barrier of 
 separation that, while they manifest a decent respect, ex 
 ternally, for each other, will for ever keep Mussulmans and 
 Christians apart." 
 
 " Have you ever asked after her ? " Henry Harris in 
 quired as the other resumed his cigar. 
 
 " Yes," Lord Conyngham replied ; " and that is why I
 
 74: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 have said as much as I have about our visit. I knew at the 
 time that it was contrary to Oriental etiquette to do so, but 
 he had himself gone so far that I thought I could venture. 
 And very sorry I was that I did so. He evaded the ques 
 tion, but Lady Blanche learned in some way that the poor 
 thing was said to have disappeared, eloped, committed sui 
 cide it was not known which." 
 
 The young nobleman had spoken so much more than his 
 wont that the company were not surprised when he added : 
 
 " I beg that you will notice him, gentlemen. To me it 
 is as if he had stepped out of the * Arabian Nights' Enter 
 tainments.' Unless I mistake, Hassan Pasha will give the 
 world some startling sensation yet." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION. 
 
 IT is not in chemical compounds alone we find that strong 
 drawing of things toward each other which we call elective 
 affinity. If certain gases are attracted into one to form 
 water ; if certain other gases cling together to compose air ; 
 so it is the instinctive union of certain people which is the 
 making of genuine friendship. It was thus with the family 
 of Earl Dorrington and that of George Harris. Not that 
 the Earl could enter either closely or cordially into alliance 
 with any one outside of his household. He could combine 
 with the Tories to make a party, could be one of a cabinet 
 to form a ministry, but with these, even with son and daugh 
 ter, he still was, as has been sung of Milton, " a star, and 
 dwelt apart." In the case of Lady Blanche and Lord Con- 
 yngham it was different. The blue blood was in their 
 veins, it is true, but the world was changing, and they were 
 changing with it unconsciously so. 
 
 " Lady Blanche is the queen of her sex ; the most beau-
 
 IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION. 75 
 
 tiful, by far the most desirable woman in the world," Henry 
 Harris said to himself every day, yet he always added, "but 
 I will take good care that she shall never know I think so." 
 
 "Of all men I know, he is one of the few who de 
 serves to be in the Peerage," Lady Blanche felt, rather than 
 allowed herself distinctly to think, in regard to him. " And 
 if he was, then " But there she always arrested even her 
 most secret feeling, not before the blood, proud as it was, had 
 flushed her face. For it was a little singular that if Lord 
 Conyngham had addressed his sister of late as " Lady Clara 
 Vere de Vere," Mary Harris had taken occasion, by way of 
 sisterly precaution, to read Tennyson's poem of that name to 
 her brother Henry, from beginning to end, and over and over 
 
 again. 
 
 "Lady Clara Vere de Vere " 
 
 The lines began to ring in the ears of Henry Harris with 
 absurd persistency ; he caught himself even muttering them 
 aloud when by himself : 
 
 " 'Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 Of me you shall not win renown : 
 You thought to break a country heart 
 
 For pastime, ere you went to town ; 
 At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 
 
 I saw the snare, and I retired : 
 The daughter of a hundred earls, 
 
 You are not one to be desired.' " 
 
 Only the young man would always add, also strictly to 
 himself : " That last line is false. This Lady Clara is one to 
 be most earnestly desired. Of course she cares nothing for 
 a fellow like me, but, in case she should try to amuse herself 
 with me, I will show her that all the iron is not in my father's 
 veins, nor the pride in hers." 
 
 The truth is, the young American had been very care 
 fully trained. In an incidental conversation with Earl Dor- 
 rington, George Harris had, without the remotest allusion 
 to Ms own case, explained the matter to the Earl, who had
 
 76 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 been speaking with a stately scorn of the parvenus, the newly 
 made rich men of England and France. 
 
 " Your view is in some sense the true one," George Har 
 ris had gravely replied. "A century or so ago, when men 
 began to grow rich in New York and elsewhere in America, 
 they were so taken up with making money, it was so unusual 
 a thing to have a hundred thousand or so, that they were 
 intoxicated thereby. Being addled by their money, men 
 allowed, even encouraged, their wives and daughters to rush 
 into extravagance, their sons to dash into reckless dissipa 
 tion. But a generation or two of ever-increasing wealth has 
 begun to cure all that, at least with us. Our men of a hun 
 dred thousand dollars, ' a plum,' as it used to be called, have 
 given place to our millionaires. These have grown up ac 
 customed to vast wealth. As one result the very rich man 
 now educates his son to be a millionaire, as a farmer edu 
 cates his boy to be a farmer, or as a machinist trains him to 
 be a machinist, or as," the master mechanic added with a 
 slight inclination of his head, " a nobleman brings up his son 
 and heir to be an earl or a duke. As America grows older 
 it grows wiser, steadier, stronger, I trust." 
 
 " Assuredly so," Earl Dorrington replied, and thought no 
 more about it ; but that was undoubtedly the way in which 
 George Harris had, with the hearty cooperation of his wife, 
 brought up his children. Henry Harris had long known that 
 he would possess considerably over a million. He had be 
 come accustomed to it ; the fact had become as much a part 
 of the order of nature to him as his nobility had to Lord 
 Conyngham. Although of an ardent, even impulsive, soul, 
 the young American, combining in himself the characters of 
 his father and his mother, was cool, determined, thoroughly 
 sensible. 
 
 " I could die for her," he was coming to say to himself, 
 as he saw more and more every day of Lady Blanche, "but 
 I do not intend that she shall make a fool of me. Al 
 though," he always added in the same breath, " she has, of 
 course, no such intention. I do not suppose she gives me
 
 IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION. 77 
 
 a thought. Among her swarm of admirers I am hardly re 
 membered." 
 
 Odd as it may seem in so truthful a person, he thought, 
 really, nothing of the kind. He was pretty confident that 
 Lady Blanche did care a good deal for him ; was even sure 
 of and greatly elated thereby. " But that is my self-con 
 ceit ! " he always added. 
 
 Now if Henry Harris had said to his sister when she had 
 been administering her preventive poetry to him, "My dear 
 Mary, you say all that merely to hide your own feeling in 
 regard to Lord Conyngham," if he had said that, it would 
 have been very rude ; but it would have been true, perfectly 
 true, however she might have denied it, denied it indignant 
 ly and with glowing cheeks. 
 
 It was the same with the young nobleman. His sister 
 had never been without some unfortunate suitor. Many of 
 them had been unexceptionable, all of them had been very 
 much in earnest, two or three had been desperate, in the case 
 of at least one there had been a tragedy. And yet Lord 
 Conyngham had rarely troubled himself concerning her mat 
 ters. If she was as warm-hearted as she was beautiful, Earl 
 Dorrington himself was not quite so proud if such a super 
 lative may be allowed as was she. Why, then, should her 
 brother indulge in such frequent warnings in regard to this 
 young American millionaire ? He had always been arrogant, 
 always bitterly hostile, to Americans. At times he would 
 flash out in contemptuous allusions to their exhibits at the 
 Exposition, to this individual and that, man or woman, who 
 were marked in their Americanisms. But why not let his 
 sister alone in regard to Henry Harris ? 
 
 " It is because you never cease to think of them yourself, 
 of one of them at least," she said to him suddenly one day. 
 " I am told," she added, " although it is a low thing to say, 
 that it is the thief who is loudest in his cry of ' Stop thief ! ' 
 Take care of yourself, my poor Alfred, and I will care for 
 myself." 
 
 " Why do I hear so much said concerning the Ameri-
 
 73 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 cans?" Earl Dorrington asked on this occasion from the 
 head of the table, for they were at dinner. " For my part, 
 of Americans I am grown weary. When I was younger it 
 was not so. Sydney Smith very well observed then, ' Who 
 ever reads an American book ? ' Now I am disgusted with 
 the unceasing allusions to American newspaper enterprise, 
 American literature, American machinery. When I was at 
 Harrow and since, ' the roast beef of old England ' was next 
 to King and Constitution ; now it is of American beef I con 
 tinually hear. At least at our own board let us escape al 
 lusions so frequent to the people in question. I weary of it." 
 
 " I fear you will become exceedingly fatigued then, sir," 
 Lord Conyngham said. "It appears to me that we are com 
 ing to hear of nothing but American locomotives, American 
 flour, honey, eggs, mutton, apples. The republic of France 
 is merely a French translation of the one over the Atlantic. 
 What with their revolvers, phonographs, telegraphs, yachts, 
 school systems, monitors, spiritualisms, and a thousand things 
 beside " 
 
 But at this moment the Earl touched a bell near his 
 plate, and the portly butler made his appearance. He was 
 a larger man than his master, purple of face from much 
 port, white-headed, double-chinned, as grave of aspect as an 
 ambassador. 
 
 " Excuse me, Alfred," said the Earl, " but I must speak 
 of it while the subject is up. Wilkins ! " 
 
 " Yes, my lord," said the butler. 
 
 ." Allow nothing American to come upon my table. Nei 
 ther here nor when we return to England. Do you hear ? " 
 
 " If your lordship will allow me " 
 
 " I will not allow vou. Nothing American ! That will 
 do." 
 
 " I wish to add," the Earl continued, as the butler with 
 drew, for dessert was on the table, at which no servant was 
 present unless company was being entertained, "that the 
 American republic, like the French, is but the accident of 
 an hour. It narrowly escaped destruction during their civil
 
 THE MARBLE LIE. 79 
 
 war. The horrible corruption of General Tweed and his 
 kind will speedily cause it to collapse. There are respect 
 able persons among them. Mr. George Harris seems to be 
 of the kind, but I am weary of America. We will dismiss 
 the subject. You were speaking a little while ago, Alfred, 
 of Mr. Gladstone" 
 
 And yet, singular as it may seem, the friendship between 
 the two families appeared to increase every week. As if by 
 a controlling destiny, the young people especially were thrown 
 together, now in one place and then in another, almost every 
 day. They seemed to find increasing pleasure in it too. 
 For them the world was changing faster than they knew, 
 and it did not revolve any slower for the fact that omnipo 
 tent love was lending its shoulder to the change. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE MARBLE LIE. 
 
 AT an early period after the opening of the Exposition, 
 Mrs. Margaret Harris had said to her son and daughter : 
 " As you know, I am not very fond of what is called art. 
 My tastes are too simple. You laugh at me for preferring 
 the congregational singing at the Protestant Church to the 
 grandest music either of the opera or the cathedral. It is 
 the same of painting and sculpture. There are really but 
 two works of art in the Exposition which have fastened my 
 attention." 
 
 "Which are they, mamma?" Mary asked, eagerly. 
 " There is one which I love to look at more than any other. 
 But your two ; which are they ? Are they English, Spanish, 
 Belgian, Italian ? " 
 
 " No," Mrs. Harris said, with a smile, " I will not tell 
 you. You and Henry must pick them out for yourselves. 
 I will give you only this clew : both are admirably done,
 
 go THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 but one represents a falsehood, the blackest falsehood of 
 which I can conceive ; the other is truth itself, truth to na 
 ture, I mean." 
 
 "Please tell us ?" her son entreated. "It is the first 
 time we have heard you express a special interest in such 
 things. Which are they ? " 
 
 " No," Mrs. Harris said, shaking her head good-humor- 
 edly, " I will leave you to find out. I am almost anxious to 
 see if your education has so changed the mother in you yes, 
 and I think I may say the father in you too that you will 
 not hit upon them for yourselves." 
 
 It was said in such a way as to awaken quite an interest 
 in the mind of Mary in particular. Being a woman, she had 
 more curiosity than her brother, but she said so much about 
 it to him as they wandered, afterward, through the innumer 
 able statues and paintings, that he also grew eager to make 
 the discovery. 
 
 " It reminds me of when I was hunting antelope in Colo 
 rado," he said to her. " We men are made to pursue things, 
 as much so as a deerhound is to chase a buck. Besides," he 
 added, " when I do find them I intend to buy them, if it 
 takes my last cent. I have not made my mother a present 
 for a long time. It is the first occasion upon which she has 
 expressed a desire for anything of the kind." 
 
 Every week or two Mrs. Harris would ask, of an even 
 ing, " Well, Henry, Mary, have you found them ? " 
 
 " Mamma takes a singular interest in her ideals of art," 
 Mary remarked to her brother one day when they were in 
 the Exposition. " Last night she told me that she would 
 make, to the one who finds them, a gift. The one of us who 
 hits upon what she calls the greatest falsehood she has ever 
 known to be represented by an artist shall have something 
 valuable. But you need not think she would accept it if you 
 found and bought it, for she says she would not have it in 
 her house." 
 
 " And what will she give us if we find the other, the rep 
 resentation of truth she spoke of ? " her brother demanded.
 
 THE MARBLE LIE. 81 
 
 " I wonder what it is ? " Mary Harris exclaimed, with en 
 thusiasm. " She told me that she would make you or me, 
 whichever of us finds that, the best present she ever gave. 
 Of course, it is not for her gifts that we care, but it will 
 gratify her so. Suppose we devote to-day to a deliberate 
 search for her masterpieces ? " 
 
 It was a dull and disagreeable day. Moreover, a long- 
 anticipated fete was taking place in a distant part of the 
 city. They had never seen so few persons in attendance, 
 and Henry Harris, his sister leaning upon his arm, slowly 
 and carefully examined with her a vast number of the 
 works of art which adorned the Exposition. They had set 
 tled upon nothing when they withdrew to dine, but they re 
 newed the search afterward. It was nearly time to leave 
 the building before they could agree to abandon the attempt. 
 The day had grown darker and darker ; a silence had fallen 
 upon the vast spaces usually thronged by a laughing multi 
 tude chattering in all languages. Both had grown weary of 
 the interminable diversity of artistic effort in bronze and 
 marble, upon ivory and canvas. Battle-pictures, heathen 
 divinities, martyrs, Madonnas, landscapes, representations of 
 luxury and of poverty, of comedy and of tragedy, of inno 
 cence and of vice, had been passed in review in vain. 
 
 "Let us give it up for to-day," the brother remarked to 
 his sister, at last, after they had almost settled upon and 
 then had abandoned this picture or work in marble and then 
 that. " Come, Mary, they will be expecting us ; let us go." 
 
 " In one moment. For," she added, slowly, " I have 
 found it," in almost solemn tones. 
 
 Henry Harris glanced up at the work of Dore before 
 w T hich his sister was standing. It represented a female fig 
 ure, draped with a hood and somber garments. Between its 
 knees, as it sat, stood a winged and beautiful youth in the 
 full flush of innocent enjoyment, eager-eyed, abounding in 
 life. The hands of the austere female form lay calm and 
 strong upon either side of the youth, and from the one sin 
 ewy hand to the other extended the thread, as of its life. In
 
 82 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the right hand of the awful form were the shears, in the act 
 of closing upon the tiny thread ; and Mary Harris pointed 
 silently upward to the contrasted faces of the two. That of 
 the youth was open, joyous, utterly unconscious of danger, 
 while, immediately over it, inside its half -concealing hood, 
 the face of the woman appeared, old as eternity, with cav 
 ernous eyes, cold and rigid features, passionless, inflexible. 
 Neither love nor hate was in that terrible aspect ; only un 
 reasoning, unfeeling, unalterable doom. 
 
 There was no need for either to tell the other that it was 
 a symbol of Fate. The artist had done his work with too 
 terrible a fidelity for any mistake concerning that. 
 
 " Yes," Mary Harris said, after they had gazed upon it in 
 silence for some time, " I know that this is what my mother 
 spoke of, and I do not wonder that she was so deeply struck by 
 it. For it is a lie," she continued, with deep feeling. " Heathen 
 genius ascended, in that, to the highest summit of its igno 
 rance of God. That horrible fate is the sublimity of its de 
 spair of knowing anything beyond an inexorable law which, 
 as philosopher and poet agreed, governs alike men and gods. 
 And my mother is right," the girl added, with energy ; " it 
 is to-day a lie ; the blackest of lies ! There is no such thing 
 as fate ! Now we know better. "We know that God is our 
 Father, and we know that God is love ; " and the voice of 
 the speaker faltered, her eyes were full of happy tears, and 
 the two turned and walked away in silence. 
 
 " Yes ; you have found my falsehood," Mrs. Harris said 
 to them that night, " and you need not fear that I will forget 
 my reward. I knew that you would find it, my dear," and 
 she drew Mary to her, and kissed her with unusual affection. 
 " And now, Mary, Henry," she added, " which of you will 
 find out my ideal of truth purely human truth ? Take 
 your time for it."
 
 THE BIRTH OF ADVENTURE. 83 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE BIRTH OF ADVENTURE. 
 
 IT so happened one day that Lord Conyngham and Lady 
 Blanche came upon Henry Harris and his sister as they were 
 standing before a large painting representing a battle. These 
 last had been in vain search of the remaining work of art in 
 which their mother was so deeply interested. 
 
 " I am almost sure that I know which it is, but," Mary 
 Harris had said to her brother, " I found one of the two, and 
 I am determined that you shall have the reward for finding 
 the other." 
 
 " Shall I ? " her brother was just saying when he ob 
 served their friends near them, and, after due salutation, 
 the young people fell into conversation concerning the mass 
 of conflict and rolling smoke, charging horses and desperate 
 men, before which they stood. The cheek of Lady Blanche 
 took an additional color as she gazed, her form became more 
 erect. 
 
 " I wonder you gentlemen are not somewhat ashamed of 
 yourselves," she remarked. " How can you see in this and 
 in so many other pictures the glorious struggles of heroes, 
 and be contented to do nothing? That you should be a 
 man, Alfred," she added, " and be satisfied to find your only 
 laurels at billiard-tables and in parlors, at balls and concerts, 
 astonishes me. At best your only field of victory is a tennis 
 court or a garden party. If I were a man " and she turned 
 upon her brother with kindling eyes. Lord Conyngham took 
 her indignant looks coolly enough, until, at last, he detected 
 the milder eyes of the fair American fastened upon him, and 
 then he colored somewhat and moved uneasily. 
 
 But if the wrath of Lady Blanche had little effect upon 
 her brother, long accustomed to it, in glancing from his armor 
 it smote and slew the other gentleman. It was not that she 
 seemed so beautiful, that her pride was as that of an angry 
 angel it was not this merely, but that she gave words to a
 
 84 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 deep and long-concealed purpose of his own. He now felt 
 sincerely ashamed that he had put off the execution so long. 
 He said nothing, however. 
 
 " What can a man do ? " Lord Conyngham hastened to 
 say, addressing himself to his spirited sister, but really speak 
 ing to the other lady. " Shall I proceed to slap the cheeks 
 of that gesticulating Frenchman in continuation of Water 
 loo ? Yonder is a solemn Spaniard. His people once fought 
 us at Trafalgar. We beat them then from behind our float 
 ing walls. Shall I burst over the stronger bulwarks of pro 
 priety and knock him down ? We are the protectors of the 
 Turks. There stands my mysterious friend Hassan Pasha to 
 approve, and, if necessary, come to my assistance ; shall I 
 rush upon the Russian prince I see by the fountain, and 
 pitch him in ? Very good, I am willing," and he began with 
 a solemn air to tuck up his sleeves. 
 
 " Nonsense, Alfred," his sister said without a smile, al 
 though the rest were laughing, " you know that ' peace hath 
 its victories as well as war.' " 
 
 "Assuredly so, as my father observes ; but what exact 
 conquest shall I set about ? " Lord Conyngham demanded. 
 " I already do my best to add to the oratory in Parliament. 
 You were eager to build model cottages upon our estate, and 
 you know I almost became a bricklayer in carrying out your 
 wishes in regard to that. Shall I rush over to Ireland and 
 stir up the Home Rulers ? Shall I build a hospital ? estab 
 lish a new Tory journal ? organize an expedition to the North 
 Pole, or an emigration to Australia ? Here is Mr. Harris to 
 help me ; shall I turn American and invent a new mowing 
 machine ? devise a big balloon to bring over a prairief ul of 
 cattle at a time ? Shall I " 
 
 Lady Blanche glanced at her brother with some surprise; 
 generally he was not so quick to answer her attacks. Like 
 most of his rank, he had seemed to be merely a man of 
 fashion, content to enjoy himself however and wherever he 
 could. Now he appeared to be aroused. Mary Harris seemed 
 to be uncommonly interested in the carnage going on upon
 
 THE BIRTH OF ADVENTURE. 85 
 
 the canvas before which they stood, but her color was 
 heightened ; evidently she was listening with deep interest. 
 
 " I will tell you what I will do," the young nobleman 
 continued. "Until Dizzy contrives to plunge us into an 
 imperial onset upon Russia, I will get my father to allow 
 me to try the latest invention in rifles upon a few American 
 Indians. What do you say, Mr. Harris ? Could I get a shot 
 at Sitting Bull if I went over ? There is the Comanche 
 brave, what do you call him the Man-afraid-of-his-Squaws, 
 isn't it ? But, no, poor beggar ! he suffers enough already at 
 their hands. I wouldn't have the heart to shoot at him, un 
 less, indeed, he wants to be put out of his miseiy. But, jok 
 ing aside," and the young nobleman confronted his sister se 
 riously as he proceeded, " will your ladyship be good enough 
 to tell me precisely what you would have me to do ? What 
 ever it is, I pledge you my word that I will at least try." 
 
 Mary Harris lifted her eyes with hardly concealed admira 
 tion at the one who spoke. Trained in all physical exercises, 
 too, he was an athlete out of employ. 
 
 " I remember how it was in the Crimea," she ventured, 
 for Lady Blanche did not know how to reply. " I have read 
 all I could lay my hands on about the Redan and the Mala- 
 koff, and how the young Englishmen from the London club 
 houses fought like tigers. So it was in our civil war, North 
 and South ; the men who could endure most, too, were those 
 of the best blood among us I mean of the best breeding and 
 education. I am sure that my brother and and you, my 
 lord," she added, modestly, " would do your duty when the 
 time came. Yes, I am sure of it." She laid her hand, as she 
 spoke, upon her brother's arm, but there was that in her 
 voice which made the nobleman thrill with satisfaction. It 
 was as if her hand had been placed upon his arm instead. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Mary," he said with more feeling than 
 he usually showed. " Do you know," he added, " I am try 
 ing to induce your brother to go with me on a hunting ex 
 cursion in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, somewhere in your im 
 mense America. I am eager to go there. If I get tired of
 
 86 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 buffalo and elk, of wild-cat and panther, I will turn farmer. 
 Your very husbandmen are heroes ; you have, I am told, ten 
 thousand acres in wheat under one fence ! " 
 
 Henry Harris had remained silent as if in thought. He 
 now remarked : 
 
 " I saw something in one of those harvest-fields when I 
 was over there which was the oddest of sights. It was a ripe 
 field of twenty thousand acres, my lord, a yellow sea of 
 wheat. There were four fine horses attached to a machine, 
 which not only reaped but bound what it reaped into sheaves 
 as it went. I was watching it reap and toss the bound 
 sheaves out as it rolled on. Suddenly the horses took fright, 
 for they were not half broken, and dashed off through the 
 center of the wheat, where it was thickest and ripest, the 
 machine at their heels. As they tore along the machine 
 reaped and whirled the sheaves, tightly bound, to the right 
 and the left as usual, only ten times faster. It was one of 
 the most amusing sights I ever saw." 
 
 The young American went on to speak of other experi 
 ences of his in his own country, and it was the Englishwoman 
 now who listened with most interest ; there was so much of the 
 breadth and vigor of the New World in the one who spoke, 
 a noble something which every day charmed her more and 
 more, by reason also of its freshness in distinction from her 
 somewhat wearied experiences. 
 
 The next day the two men met at the Bodega, and en 
 gaged in a long and animated conversation. 
 
 " Think well of it, my lord," Henry Harris said, as they 
 parted. " As you see, it is a hazardous enterprise, but it is 
 also, as I believe, a thoroughly sensible one. It will carry us 
 deep into England, Germany, Russia ; upon a serious errand, 
 I assure you. If you determine to go into it with me, let me 
 know as soon as you can. It is best to say nothing about it 
 meanwhile. I have long intended to try it, and will, whether 
 you go with me or not ; but I will be glad of your company." 
 
 And the American and Englishman shook hands with 
 cordial good-will when they separated.
 
 ISIDORE ATCHISON, ARTIST. 87 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ISIDORE ATCHISOX, ARTIST. 
 
 ONE afternoon, about a week after the discovery of the 
 " Fate " which was Mrs. Harris's supreme symbol of false 
 hood, Henry Harris and his sister had wandered into the 
 section of the Exposition in which were displayed the con 
 tributions of American sculptors. The Old World greatly 
 surpassed the New in this respect. As the Exposition har 
 vested more than two thousand years of artistic effort, and 
 from all the fields of the Eastern and ripest half of the planet, 
 America could not have been expected to vie with the rest of 
 the race in this respect, especially as its young energies have 
 been necessarily given to things more essential to existence ; 
 and yet, even in this respect, there were among its exhibits 
 at least the buds and beginnings of the grandest results. 
 
 " It is a significant fact," Henry Harris said to his sister, 
 " that art in America seems to be given over, and every day 
 in an increasing degree, to woman. It is one of the many 
 things I do not understand ; do not understand, because as 
 yet nobody understands that which is only beginning to be 
 born. One only knows that woman is the reserve force of 
 the race." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " Mary Harris asked. 
 
 " This : men have had their opportunity for nearly six 
 thousand years. By hard work in the field, the shop, the 
 council-chamber, upon the decks of ships, and on the battle 
 ground yes, and in the pulpit, the editor's office, and the 
 halls of schools and universities in these and other places 
 men have accomplished the civilization of the world up to 
 date." 
 
 "Men are, at last, only what their mothers, sisters, and 
 wives make them," Mary said, defiantly. 
 
 " Very true, and to a greater measure than any of us im 
 agine. But," her brother added, with energy, " woman is 
 going to be the last, the most powerful, the completing force
 
 88 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 of history ; not by becoming more like men, but by re 
 maining distinctively woman. Hassan Pasha, Ishra Dhass, 
 are right ; woman is to become more Rachel-like, Ruth-like, 
 Eve-like oh, I do not know how to express it ! more 
 purely and intensely feminine, unlike men you know what 
 I mean icomaw-like, than she has been for ages. But, to 
 a degree of which neither Turk, Hindoo, nor anybody else 
 dreams of, she is, as such, to save the world. I can't tell 
 how, but I am certain of it ! It may be, by becoming a new 
 and supreme power in literature, in art, as well as in morals 
 who can say? Look, for instance, at this." 
 
 They had halted before the head of an old man cut in 
 marble, and he added : " I do not know why it is, but I can 
 not get rid of this bust. It struck me when I first saw it ; 
 almost every day I find myself drawn back to it from the 
 farthest parts of the Exposition. Look at it. You see it is 
 the bowed head of an old scholar, apparently. See how thin 
 the hair is, how hollow the temples, how refined the nostrils, 
 how broad the brows. The eyes are sunken, and gazing 
 downward ; the shoulders are weighed down as if under " 
 
 " A cross," his sister added. 
 
 " Precisely. Now," the young man continued, as he led 
 her slowly from point to point, so as to obtain a complete 
 view of the marble, " what do you think is the one idea ex 
 pressed by the artist ? Unless I am an idiot there is but one 
 idea, only one ; what is it ? " 
 
 " A person would be blind as well as dull not to see that," 
 his sister answered, with a suppressed triumph. "The artist 
 has made patience, endurance, serene trust, absolutely visible. 
 He has turned the abstract virtue into living stone." 
 
 "Jle!" her brother exclaimed. "He! Do you not 
 know, Mary, that it is not a man it is a woman who cre 
 ated it ? I am astonished at you 1 No, I am not ; a woman 
 can do justice to everything else in the universe except to 
 a woman. Dean Swift made that discovery, bitter and bad 
 as he was, years ago. It is a woman who carved it." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " Mary asked, incredulously.
 
 ISIDORE ATCHISON, ARTIST. 89 
 
 " I know it ! Look here, Mary, I will make a bet with 
 you, a one-sided bet ; that is, if the artist is not a woman I 
 will give you the finest watch I can find in Paris. More 
 than that, I will have Worth make you the most beautiful 
 dress he has ever turned out if this marble is not the one 
 my mother picked out as her idea of truth. What do you 
 say ? " 
 
 Mary Harris glanced around, saw that no one was very 
 near, and clapped her hands in triumph. 
 
 " O Henry," she said, " if you only knew it, you are an ar 
 tist yourself ! I would not be surprised if you are a genius. 
 For some time I was almost certain that this is the work 
 mamma meant. Last night I asked her, and she said yes. 
 But I was determined not to give you a hint, to let you find 
 it out for yourself. I am so glad ! Because," she added, 
 " it shows you have something nobler in you than mere 
 genius. If I was sure that everybody knew you were my 
 brother, or that nobody saw me, I would kiss you ! Mamma 
 will be so delighted ! But," and she shook her head, " it 
 never occurred to me that it was a woman's work. I don't 
 believe it is." 
 
 " Let us ask some one." As Henry Harris said it, he ob 
 served that a lady was standing half concealed behind an 
 equestrian bronze not far off. She was dressed in black, and 
 had a veil over her face. 
 
 " Will you be so kind, as we have no catalogue " Mary 
 Harris ventured to ask of her in French. " Do you know 
 who is the artist in this case ? " and she pointed to the bust. 
 The lady paused a moment, and then lifted her veil, reveal 
 ing the face of a lovely girl. 
 
 "It is the work of a Miss Isidore Atchison," she said in 
 English ; but her eyes fell, her cheeks were suffused with 
 color, and Mary Harris saw that her large hazel eyes were 
 swimming with tears. 
 
 "I thank you," the inquirer added, and turned away 
 eagerly, while her brother lifted his hat and bowed. 
 
 " Didn't you understand ? " the sister asked her brother,
 
 90 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 when they were out of hearing. " It is the artist herself. 
 As sure as you live she heard what we said ; how could she 
 help it ? I am so glad she did. And did you see how pale 
 she was ? Poor thing, she must feel lost in this great ocean 
 of people. I'm afraid you did not see how proud and pleased 
 she was by what she had heard us say." 
 
 " I saw her," Henry Harris said, " saw her distinctly. I 
 intend to buy the marble, and make it a present to my 
 mother." 
 
 "Suppose we go right back and talk to her now," the 
 sister said impulsively. " She had such a lovely face. Come, 
 let us go." 
 
 " No," her brother replied, deliberately. " I would rather 
 not attend to it to-day. I have reasons. Besides, I want 
 to go and tell my mother about it first." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FATHER AND CHILD. 
 
 ON the same day as that upon which Henry Harris had 
 found what his sister described as " Patience on a pedestal, 
 smiling at Grief," there sat an old man in an attic room of a 
 building on one of the obscurest streets of Paris. The apart 
 ment was small and poorly lighted by two dormer-windows 
 in the roof. In one corner stood the iron bedstead occupied 
 by the man at night ; in the other, and so placed that the 
 light could fall upon it from above, was a strong wooden 
 stand, upon which was a heap of something covered with a 
 coarse, wet cloth. Small and poor as the room was, it was 
 scrupulously neat, as was the clothing of the aged tenant, 
 who was seated at a table, his back to the window which 
 opened over his bed. He was carving flowers in wood, a 
 bouquet of roses and lilies standing in a vase at his right 
 hand. It seemed to be a work of difficulty, for he was toil-
 
 FATHER AND CHILD. 91 
 
 ing with his left hand only, while the other lay paralyzed in 
 a pillow placed in his lap. The white hair was scattered in 
 thin locks over the noble head, the shoulders were bowed, 
 the temples were hollow ; you would have recognized at a 
 glance the sublime serenity which had made so deep an im 
 pression upon Mrs. Harris and her children as reproduced in 
 the marble at the Exposition. Evidently the old man was 
 an artist. You saw it in the refinement of his face ; in the 
 slow but sure movements of the skilled hand ; especially in 
 the air, almost of distinction, which clothed his whole person 
 as if in an aureole. It seemed a matter of course that the 
 carving should be admirably done, yet even then you could 
 not but be surprised at the manner in which the hard oak 
 actually bloomed, beneath the sharp tool, into almost the 
 blush of the rose and the fragrance as well as delicacy of the 
 lily. 
 
 Suddenly the artist paused, sat with tool suspended, a 
 new light in his eye. He had heard, although no other 
 could have done so, the sound of a footstep upon a distant 
 stair, and knew whose it was. He was right. A few mo 
 ments after, the young girl whom Mary Harris accosted at 
 the Exposition entered the room and stooped down and 
 kissed him as he sat. 
 
 "Oh, no, father," she said, "not so late as this." And 
 she took the tool from his hand, drew the table away out of 
 his reach, kissed him again to hush his remonstrances, and, 
 taking off her wrappings and hat, carried them into a smaller 
 room, a mere closet, in fact, curtained off from the other. 
 She then busied herself to prepare the evening meal. The 
 fare was simple, and it did not take long. 
 
 " How well you are doing them, father ! " she exclaimed, 
 as she removed the carving and the flowers from the table, 
 covered it with a clean cloth, set upon it the modest furnish 
 ing for their supper, crowning the whole with a teapot, 
 which sent up its fragrant steam from over a spirit-lamp. 
 
 While they are at table their history may be told in few 
 words. Zerah Atchison had been an artist from his child-
 
 92 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 hood, in an obscure town in Virginia. He had studied hard 
 in such books as he could secure, and had worked steadily. 
 While qualifying himself to be a great painter, as he hoped, 
 he had taken portraits, had condescended to lay aside brush 
 and easel and become a photographer even anything in 
 order to perfect himself, meanwhile, by severe study. His 
 delight in beauty was not confined, however, to that of the 
 ideal world. While painting the portrait of the daughter of 
 a wealthy planter near Richmond, he had fallen in love with 
 and married her. Then came the civil war. As it began, a 
 daughter was born to them. But trouble came to them as 
 to all of their region. The artist was not a young man when 
 he married, and by no means a rich one. Always of a deli 
 cate and sensitive nature, his health had been impaired by 
 the wholly unaccustomed life he had led as a soldier in 
 the trenches and upon the battle-field. After that came 
 the ruin of his father-in-law, who lost everything in the re 
 sult of the war, and who died soon after. But the severest 
 blow was the death of his wife, which followed speedily upon 
 that. Shattered as he was, Mr. Atchison would have given 
 up the struggle, and himself been swept away in the vast 
 wreck which burdened the ebbing tide of the Rebellion, if it 
 had not been for his daughter. What, in case of his death, 
 would become of her? The will of the man the heart, 
 rather, of the father reenforced his expiring energies. Toil 
 ing at whatever offered as well as he could, he contrived not 
 only to sustain, but to give his only child an excellent educa 
 tion. His strength revived as she grew. It was not only 
 that she became more lovely with each passing year, nor 
 even that, under his careful training, she developed an artis 
 tic power superior to his own his affection had awakened in 
 her an unbounded devotion in return. To her he was as 
 a mother too ; she gave him in return the love she would 
 otherwise have shared with brothers, sisters, friends, for 
 the circumstances of their case had isolated father and child 
 from almost any other association. 
 
 " And now I am so glad we came to Paris," she said, as
 
 FATHER AND CHILD. 93 
 
 she sat at table with him. " When your little accident hap 
 pened " it was thus she characterized the paralysis which 
 had smitten his right arm " I saw that something must be 
 done. After a while you consented, and here we are." 
 
 " You poor child," her father said, not sadly, only loving 
 ly ; " and now that we are here, what then ? Even if I could 
 go to the Exposition with you, what could I do ? In this 
 great Babylon we are lost among the crowd." 
 
 " More than Daniel was ? More than Esther was ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 " At best it is like an immense garden, this vast Paris," 
 her father continued, "and you, Isidore, you are like 
 like" 
 
 " The smallest of humming-birds ; and yet," she added, 
 with a laugh, " there is not a flower of the myriad but has its 
 honey even for me." 
 
 It is no wonder that the eyes of her father lingered upon 
 her. Slight as she seemed, she was elastic and strong. Like 
 a Mother Carey's chicken, she had been born in the storm, of 
 war at least ; had been cradled amid the blowing of its sul 
 phurous winds, the rolling of its red billows, and her char 
 acter gave a certain daring to her very beauty. 
 
 " You are of the pure Greek type, my dear," her father 
 now said to her, somewhat irrelevantly, "except that, as I 
 have always maintained, the head of every Venus they pro 
 duced is invariably too small. Yours is not." 
 
 " Dear father," she laughed, " you have told me that so 
 often. Please don't." 
 
 " Yes," her father persisted, and as if it were a question 
 of mere art, " but you are growing more beautiful every day. 
 You ought to excel Aspasia, you are so many centuries older ; 
 riper, I mean. Besides, you have had such a severe strain 
 upon you as even Antigone never knew, devoted daughter 
 as she was." 
 
 "And I have had my father and my father's faith," she 
 added, " but I broke down to-day ; " and she told him at 
 length of the visit of Henry Harris and his sister to her bust,
 
 94: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 and what was said by them. "I could not help hearing 
 them," she explained. " It is such a poor little bit of mar 
 ble, you know. If it were a huge equestrian statue like the 
 one near it, if it were a dancing nymph, a convulsed gladi 
 ator, a Hercules in the agony of his poisoned robe, something 
 of that kind, it would be different. But people pour by it 
 in torrents like a river. Turks, Persians, Chinese, Spaniards, 
 Americans, very few of them do more than throw an in 
 stant's glance at it. There is so very much to see, people 
 have so little time. I told you weeks ago how that wise- 
 looking, motherly lady stopped so long to look at it. Do 
 you know, father, I am sure that the lady and gentleman 
 who praised it so to-day are her daughter and son ? It was 
 not alone that they resembled her so much in their faces ; 
 their way of speaking and their calm manner are the same. 
 Are they Americans?" she demanded of herself in the 
 same breath. " N-n-no, they do not have the sharp, eager, 
 hurried look of newly arrived Americans. They must be 
 English, and I would not be surprised if they are English 
 people of rank." 
 
 " You have not been annoyed again, Isidore ? Hassan 
 Pasha has not dared " her father began a few minutes 
 after, with a shade of anxiety. 
 
 "Do not fear for me, father ; I can take care of myself," 
 she said, with a change of face. 
 
 "And now she looks like Electra ! " her father murmured, 
 almost forgetting his question. 
 
 "I think at last," he continued, as if to himself and ab 
 stractedly, " that the soul of her beauty lies, yes, in her ge 
 nius. It illumines her like a lamp within alabaster." 
 
 "O father," Isidore exclaimed, "a looking-glass should 
 merely reflect ; it ought not to talk also. You criticise me 
 as if I were a plaster model." And then her face grew still 
 brighter. "But you mistake," she said, and her voice fal 
 tered as she looked upon his patient face. " It is not my 
 genius, as you call it ; the only genius I possess, is to love."
 
 COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY. 95 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY. 
 
 ONE evening Earl Dorrington had a large party to din 
 ner. Lady Blanche had seen to it that, so far as was possible 
 in Paris, their apartments should resemble those at home. 
 With the Earl, her brother, and herself, the word English 
 meant comfort as well as the highest civilization, and she 
 had done her best to obliterate France from the memory, 
 at least for the time, of every guest also. The table groaned 
 with the old plate, and Wilkins, the portly butler, seemed to 
 be, in his black suit and white cravat, more purple and portly 
 than ever, as if he would bar out the least glimpse of any 
 thing other than " Hengland." Earl Dorrington, to do him 
 justice, made an admirable host, and there was something 
 pleasing in the manner in which his son and daughter lent 
 themselves to the work of making their guests enjoy them 
 selves. It was as if Pride clothed itself, for the hour, in the 
 garb of Service, and Wilkins himself was cold and reserved, 
 a haughty aristocrat in comparison to them. 
 
 After dinner the ladies grouped themselves for a mo 
 ment around Mrs. Margaret Harris. It was not merely that 
 she was a comely dame, that her dress and diamonds would 
 compare with those of any of the ladies of rank present, but 
 it was that she had, as has been before observed, a certain 
 air of quiet command which arrested the attention of every 
 one. It was but the impression which good sense always 
 makes, but it is not often that common sense is a woman, 
 and is immensely wealthy, and wears such jewels. More 
 over, the lady spoke in a low tone, and seemed to be by no 
 means desirous of monopolizing the conversation. She had 
 enjoyed, however, and for years, an opportunity of seeing 
 the world from more points of view than any other woman 
 present, and her long and ample acquaintance with people of 
 all prejudices and nationalities enabled her to come at the 
 general average and essence and result of things beyond 
 5
 
 96 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 even the two or three women of genius authors and artists, 
 French, English, American who were present. 
 
 The conversation at the table just before had ranged 
 over the leading topics of the time the German Empire, 
 the prospects of the Count of Chambord, Henry V, the 
 hope of the Legitimists, Russian Nihilism, the struggle be 
 tween Conservative and Radical in the French Republic, the 
 opening of Africa, the prospects in America. With instinc 
 tive good-breeding every one dealt only in such assertions 
 as could not by any possibility hurt the feelings of any 
 other of the variety of persons present. As a rule, the ladies 
 were more interested in the opera and the fashions, but the 
 Exposition was like a colossal kaleidoscope in perpetual revo 
 lution, and it stimulated the minds even of these to higher 
 thought than usual. Moreover, all felt that society was in a 
 state of transition. 
 
 "It is true," Earl Dorrington had remarked from the 
 head of the table, " that change is the order of the day. 
 Nor do I deny that great discoveries are being made of a sci 
 entific nature. Assuredly so. But every wheel revolves 
 upon an axis. Birth, blood, rank, divinely appointed author 
 ity, are the axis at last of all movement. Wealth, talent, 
 ambition, success, inventive science even, and art, are useful 
 in their way, and yet " with a wave of the hand " how 
 transitory ! Amid the orbits of the universe the Deity re 
 mains in absolute rest. So does that which bests represents 
 the divine government upon the earth. Else-," and the Earl 
 paused as he was wont to do in Parliament until he had se 
 cured the deepest attention, "else would all things rush into 
 hopeless chaos and confusion. Wine with you, M. de For- 
 tou." 
 
 There had been so much conversation of the sort that the 
 ladies had taken the topic with them into the drawing-rooms. 
 Not that the Earl had spoken unchallenged. Men of many 
 varieties were present, and much had been said for and 
 against. The Earl did not object ; if a less sublime illustra 
 tion than his own may be used, all conversation upon politics
 
 COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY. 97 
 
 was to him as the coruscations of the kind of fireworks 
 known as Catharine-wheels ; however the many-colored 
 lights flashed from it to the right hand and to the left, how 
 ever the myriad sparks might fly, all rotated at last and 
 ended in the central spike which upheld it. As near as the 
 Earl could make out, he and what he represented was that 
 central support. Everything beside was but the flurry and 
 the many-colored flash of the instant. 
 
 " I do not pretend," Mrs. Margaret Harris remarked to 
 the ladies about her, " to understand our times. As a woman 
 and an American, I have, of course, my own views, and yet 
 to me the progress of events is like the process in a cask of 
 wine. None of us know the many ingredients, the secret 
 chemistries, going on over the world- What we all are sure 
 of is that the fermentation of men and of nations, as of grapes, 
 is according to a divine law. The process I do not compre 
 hend ; concerning the result, I have not the least anxiety." 
 
 "Kismet!" 
 
 The lady looked up. Hassan Pasha had entered the 
 drawing-room and was standing beside her daughter near by. 
 He had uttered the exclamation in a low tone, but Mrs. Har 
 ris smiled at him and shook her head. "Not at all," she 
 said ; " my daughter will tell you," she added, " what we all 
 think of Dore's representation of Fate." 
 
 " I will be delighted to hear ; to her even Fate must sur 
 render," the Pasha replied with a bow, and he turned away 
 the more willingly to listen to Mary Harris as at that mo 
 ment the Hindoo, Ishra Dhass Gunga, came into the room 
 with a number of gentlemen. 
 
 The wise Brahmin had, when he first arrived in Eng 
 land, brought letters from the Episcopal Bishop of Calcutta, 
 as also from the Viceroy and lesser officials of British rule in 
 India. The Queen had herself received him with favor ; he 
 had addressed many convocations of various kinds in Eng 
 land and France ; and everywhere he had been received into 
 the best society. If the truth must be told, the Brahmin 
 was at the time the rage in many circles.
 
 98 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 Even the Frenchmen present had to confess that the Hin 
 doo seemed to enjoy life yet more than themselves. With 
 his snowy turban, flowing robes, laughing black eyes, he 
 seemed to be the incarnation of enjoyment as he was of health. 
 With it all was a certain smooth and flowing manner, as of 
 perfect breeding. And yet, supple and smiling as he was, 
 people had come to know that he was as thoroughly informed 
 in regard to Europe as in reference to India. He was vigor 
 ous too, and as alert as an acrobat. 
 
 " He is enfant terrible" was the remark often made of 
 him, so frank was he in many of his sayings. Even when 
 people were most startled, he laughed and did not care. He 
 was petted, was in splendid spirits, enjoyed to his finger-tips 
 the excitements of the time, and yet, as all came to know, 
 the current which lifted and bore him on was that of a pur 
 pose which had taken possession of the whole man, a purpose 
 deep and strong. 
 
 "Our friend Hassan Pasha hates me," he had said to 
 Henry Harris, as they came up from dinner, " as if I were a 
 cobra, a deadly viper. Do you know why ? " 
 
 " The Pasha is a devout Mohammedan, and he is aware," 
 the other replied, " that you have become a Christian. And 
 yet one would suppose he would be glad of anything which 
 strikes at the worship of idols." 
 
 " It is deeper than that. I will explain to you some day. 
 But I do not hate him," the Brahmin said. "Ah, no ! if he 
 were the deadliest of reptiles I would seek so much the 
 more eagerly you have heard of snake-charmers ? to 
 charm him. I will be glad to tell you about it. Nothing is 
 more interesting. Not now." 
 
 But that was said just before. Now the ladies and many 
 of the gentlemen had grouped themselves in the Earl's 
 drawing-room about the Hindoo. The fact that the Queen 
 of England was in the act of becoming Empress of India 
 added to the interest in him. Earl Dorrington had joined 
 the group. Lord Conyngham had contrived by this time 
 to draw Mary Harris from the Pasha, and, by a singu-
 
 COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY. 99 
 
 lar coincidence, her brother was engaged in conversation 
 with Lady Blanche at the portfolio of engravings upon the 
 other side of the room. George Harris was not present, 
 having been suddenly called back to Russia upon business. 
 
 " Pardon me, my lord, but I can not enter now into the 
 question of Christianity in my land," Ishra Dhass was heard 
 to say to Earl Dorrington. " We accept it as the power 
 which is to revolutionize India. But our hope is more daring, 
 your lordship ; we intend to revolutionize England also, and 
 the world," and, notwithstanding the dignified aspect of the 
 Tory Earl, the Hindoo went on : 
 
 " I am not speaking now of the throne, nor of the nobil 
 ity, my lord ; although monarch, noble, army, universities, 
 press, all England, all Europe, and America too, must utterly 
 change as the result. It is upon your idea of Christianity 
 that the whole modern civilization rests. Roman, Greek, 
 Protestant, and all the sects of Protestantism, it is that 
 which sustains and shapes everything. Communism, Nihil 
 ism, Irish grievance, American corruption, Indian misrule, 
 Austrian weakness, German arrogance, French uncertainty, 
 Russian despotism all is the result of your European mis 
 conception of Christianity. That is the reason you fail in 
 regard to Turkey, to India. Ah, ladies and gentlemen, you 
 are so terribly mistaken ! The whole planet is a bulb which 
 breaks into bloom here in Paris. ' How grand ! ' we say, 
 'how beautiful!' 'how glorious!' "We are advancing to 
 sublime perfection ! And you are so highly cultivated, so 
 learned, educated ; you are, ladies, the wisest and most beau 
 tiful ; you, gentlemen, are the most cultured and masterful 
 the world has ever known, and yet " 
 
 The voice of the Hindoo had become low and persuasive ; 
 he bowed deferentially to the brilliant circle about him. 
 Then his eye kindled, his dark cheek took the crimson of the 
 pomegranate. " Strong and beautiful as you are," he pro 
 ceeded, " ah, heavens ! how ignorant you are ! Asia has 
 taught you everything you know of God, everything. You 
 have perverted it all. Asia," and the voice of the orator
 
 100 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 thrilled those present as with a force of prophecy, "Asia 
 must destroy your crystallized Christianity, and teach it to 
 you over again. Your fossilized Christianity ah-h-h-h ! it 
 is become false, false, false! Eighteen centuries have pol 
 luted it ! " The horror of his face, the gesture of his hand, 
 were very striking. 
 
 "It is not," he added, as if in alarm, "of the Christ 
 that I speak. To thee, O Son of God, salaam, salaam ! " 
 and the Hindoo bowed his head in reverence as before a 
 visible presence. " I will not speak of it now. Is not this 
 a dinner party ? I forgot myself," he added. " At some 
 other time gladly, not now. But your established Chris 
 tianity, my lord, believe me, it must go." And the merry 
 audacity returned to the Hindoo's face as he bowed to Earl 
 Dorrington. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MATRONLY SUGGESTION. 
 
 MARGARET HARRIS was a good woman in the best sense 
 of the word. She had grown with the growth of her own 
 country, and strengthened with the strength of her ex 
 perience in other countries. She had walked the thorny 
 paths of poverty and the shining avenues of fortune with 
 her husband, and she could sympathize with the poor and 
 make allowance for the rich. It was her husband's greatest 
 pleasure to call about him, when he was at his own home, 
 and gave his brilliant receptions, the companions of his early 
 life ; and Margaret was never more graceful and sincere 
 than when she was receiving their wives and daughters. 
 Both seemed to understand the real uses of wealth, and 
 also to fear and shun its abuses. She was as sensitive as 
 her husband on this subject. In their eyes there was little 
 difference between the insufferable arrogance of the aristo 
 crat and the vulgar display of the parvenu ; and if there
 
 MATRONLY SUGGESTION. 101 
 
 was any mercy for either of these extremes, they withheld it 
 from the first, because he ought to have known better. Mar 
 garet never concealed her contempt for the pretentious in 
 solence of some of the so-called better classes who flaunted 
 their inherited social superiority, and like her husband, 
 George Harris, she frequently showed it. But nothing could 
 describe her grief when she met beautiful American girls 
 who seemed to recollect nothing but their accidental good 
 fortune. Enriched by the sudden luck of their fathers, they 
 made the tour of Europe only for enjoyment, and rarely for 
 instruction. What a gentle providence she was to such girls, 
 as she kindly assumed the right to admonish and advise 
 them ! The handsome matron, surrounded by these bright 
 Americans, talked to them like a modern and a better Zeno- 
 bia, and they regarded her with mingled love and reverence. 
 Mary Harris, her daughter, sat with her mother, and seemed 
 the living model of her frequent familiar colloquies. Mar 
 garet would say : 
 
 " We have such lovely girls in America that I want them 
 to be as perfect in mind and manners as they are in person, 
 and, oh ! if they only knew how they make me suffer some 
 times in society, I am sure they would be more guarded. I 
 can read these foreigners when our girls forget themselves. 
 It is so easy to acquire good style. I am told that behavior 
 is born in most people. I deny it. I believe that we are all 
 not only improved by contact and imitation, but that we are 
 made better and purer. The best of us are the merest copy 
 ists. We are all influenced by our examples. We all study 
 those who are set over us. How important, then, that we 
 should have the best to follow and the purest to obey ! I 
 pity from my soul a rich girl, American or European, with 
 no mother to guide and teach her. Mere wealth without 
 brains is a curse, especially to a woman. I have seen it turn 
 men into brutes and tyrants, into infidels and blasphemers. 
 I could name many in England, France, and America that 
 have used their money as savages have used their captives, 
 only to gratify their own passions, to humiliate their in-
 
 102 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 feriors, to laugh at benevolence, to scorn all public benefac 
 tions, and to die at last despised by their own contempora 
 ries, and punished by a profligate, ignorant, and spendthrift 
 posterity." 
 
 " But, dear Mrs. Harris," said one of the American girls, 
 " you told us the other day that wealth was a great advan 
 tage, honorably acquired and properly used, and I remember 
 how you pitied the lot of young women at home or abroad 
 without money." It was Ellen Ellsworth who spoke. She 
 was a reigning New England beauty, and one of the wealthi 
 est of the American colony. 
 
 " I am glad, Ellen," said Mrs. Harris, " that you remem 
 ber that interview, because you can yourself be a splendid 
 example, if you will, of what I meant to teach ; and I 
 should be an impostor if I attempted to decry honorable 
 wealth. My object was to induce our rich girls to add to 
 their material gifts the graces of a Christian life and the 
 culture of a high intelligence. No young woman, with or 
 without money, who studies these counsels will ever lack for 
 happiness, whether married or single. That, the result of a 
 long experience, is my deliberate judgment." 
 
 "We have had quite a number of marriages between 
 Americans and English, Mrs. Harris," said Ellen, as if to 
 change the subject and ask a question. 
 
 " Yes," said Margaret Harris, and her cheeks glowed as 
 she looked at her daughter Mary ; " but how few have ended 
 well ! That remark of yours, Ellen, starts a problem. Is 
 it not true that few English or French come over to us for 
 wives ? Is it not true that our girls come to Europe, and 
 get foreign partners here ? Do you ever reflect how rarely 
 American men marry foreign women ? " 
 
 As the stately Margaret spoke, it was interesting to study 
 the group that listened to her. There were four, besides her 
 daughter, and most of them the children of rich Americans, 
 and it was manifest that her conversation impressed them. 
 A dark Southern girl, Virginia Josselyn, who seemed to be a 
 great favorite in the Harris family, said :
 
 A DESCENT. 103 
 
 " I think that most of the American girls who visit Europe 
 return to their homes the better for their experience, and 
 more than ever proud of their country ; and, dear Aunt Mar 
 garet, I can answer for myself that I see many things in 
 America with different eyes after my foreign travels. I am 
 taught both ways." 
 
 "My darling, I know it of you, as I know it of my 
 self. When I accompanied my husband to St. Petersburg, 
 more than a quarter of a century ago, I was very ' green ' 
 and ignorant. You see, we were both poor young people, 
 George and I, and knew nothing of society and style. He 
 had a busy, wearing life, and I had, for some time, little to 
 do but to look, listen, and learn ; I sometimes shudder as I 
 recollect my loud voice and painful ignorance ; and now that 
 I see myself in others, it makes me nervous when I find my 
 own imperfections repeated in them. I know how you have 
 profited by your advantages, all of you, my children ; and if 
 I am sometimes a little too frank, you must charge it to my 
 love for you and your parents." 
 
 And now the servant entered, and they followed their 
 Zenobia to lunch. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A DESCENT. 
 
 ONE afternoon Henry Harris entered an old and tumble 
 down house in a part of Paris the most in need of, and yet 
 the farthest removed from, the improvements of M. Hauss- 
 mann. The streets were narrow and dirty ; the courts and 
 doorways swarmed with ragged children who, thin and pal 
 lid as they were, quarreled and fought, or laughed and chat 
 tered among themselves, as much at home as if in palace 
 yards or country fields instead. Young Harris was accom 
 panied by Lord Conyngham, and two men, of the laboring 
 classes apparently, followed them at a little distance. The
 
 104: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 four ascended flight after flight of rickety steps, "having to 
 feel their way at times along the greasy and dilapidated 
 walls. Doors were open on the right hand and the left, and 
 they could not help catching sight as they went of draggled 
 women and frowzy-headed men, sleeping, gambling, eating, 
 talking, cooking, or washing their clothes. Once or twice 
 they had to step over a man lying drunk or asleep in the 
 passage-way, and as they reached the highest landing they 
 heard loud weeping in a miserable apartment. Glancing in 
 as they passed, they saw the cold and pinched face of a little 
 girl lying, with a woman sobbing over her, upon the excuse 
 for a bed. For such a poor little body there seemed to be, 
 to their rapid glance, a singular abundance of golden hair, 
 and Henry Harris, who had taken off his hat, said as he re 
 placed it and went on : '" 
 
 " I am glad of it." 
 
 " Glad of what ? " his companion asked. 
 
 " Glad it is dead." 
 
 As it was said, the friends entered a door which Henry 
 Harris unlocked, and were followed by the laboring men. 
 It was a wretched place, dimly lighted from the roof, the 
 dirty walls scrawled over with obscene designs, and in op 
 posite corners were beds ; a table, an old chest, and a chair 
 or two completed the misery of the scene. On one side of 
 the room a blackened door opened into an apartment yet 
 smaller and darker. 
 
 " Go in there," Henry Harris said to the men who had 
 followed them, " and we will make the change as soon as 
 possible. Make haste." 
 
 " My lord," said one of the two, " you must hallow me 
 to protest. Hif your father, the Hearl " 
 
 " That will do, Judkins," Lord Conyngham interrupted 
 him. " Hold your tongue. Go ! " And the valet followed 
 his companion, who was the servant of Henry Han-is, into 
 the dismal closet. 
 
 " My man Toffski is a moujik whom I picked up in Rus 
 sia years ago," the American said. " "We have had some
 
 A DESCENT. 105 
 
 queer adventures together, and he has a power of holding 
 his face silent as well as his tongue beyond anything I ever 
 knew of except in the figure-head of a ship. Now, as soon 
 as we can." 
 
 In half an hour the gentlemen had exchanged clothing 
 with their servants, who, transformed apparently into gen 
 tlemen, but with their hats down over their eyes, had re 
 ceived many final charges, and departed. 
 
 " As is the case of almost everybody," Henry Harris said, 
 " we have been under the eyes of the police since we entered 
 Paris. Since we are neither pickpockets nor burglars, we 
 have not been so closely watched, however, but that our 
 men will serve as our substitutes, as they go home, at least. 
 We are, you know, nothing but common laborers, not worth 
 the watching." 
 
 The transformation was wonderful, From head to foot, 
 cap, blouse, heavy shoes, coarse stockings, and all, the friends 
 seemed to be but units of the masses of ouvriers they were 
 soon to mingle with, mere drops of a turbid current. 
 
 " Now, my lord," the American said, " we .have already 
 considered our plans long and, I hope, thoroughly. You go 
 with me of your own request. It will be a severe trial. To 
 begin with, your name is Tom Perkins. Well, Tom, how 
 goes it?" 
 
 The young nobleman shrank almost as from an insult, 
 and then laughed. " It is only a new way of sowing wild 
 oats," he said. " We are off on a lark, that is all. Oh, I'm 
 all right, Jack ! It is Jack, isn't it ? Jack Peters ? The 
 fact is, I have lived exclusively upon the mere surface of 
 things all my life. Of course," he added, seriously, " I have 
 always known that there were depths beneath me. God 
 knows I have seen too much of the poverty and crime of 
 London, seen it from my club windows, or from my cab, 
 not to know that. As you have said, however, I really know 
 almost as little of the lives of the millions under me as if 
 they were living in Africa instead. I can read about them, 
 have read about them, but that is not like seeing for myself.
 
 106 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 Lady Blanche is always urging me to fit myself to take as 
 active a part as possible in Parliament. Well, I am going 
 into training. Oxford and good society have done what 
 they can. I will try the depths a little. Call me Tom or 
 anything. When a man makes a dive into deep waters he 
 must strip, you know." 
 
 The American looked at his friend with pleasure. The 
 young nobleman had laid aside, with his ordinary clothing, 
 his dandyism of manner, also his drawl and unconscious af 
 fectation. If his haughty bearing had disappeared for the 
 moment, his manliness was the more evident. 
 
 " If you had joined me on a hunting excursion in Africa 
 or America, you would have had to dress roughly and fare 
 hardly," young Harris suggested. 
 
 " Certainly. And I can stand more than you imagine ; 
 can box as well as fence, can run as well as dance. We will 
 get along," the false Tom Perkins said, with a jaunty air. 
 " As to my slang, I have tried it in chaffing matches- among 
 the barges up and down the Thames, and it is all that can 
 be desired." 
 
 " Well, I think we understand each other," Jack Peters 
 remarked. "I wish we could stoop a little more as we 
 walked, but we would be sure to forget to do so, and we 
 had better be natural as to that. Remember that we are 
 engineers out of work. I am one, you know. When we 
 visit Russia I intend to run a locomotive, and you are my 
 stoker, you observe. Oh, we are in for it ! " 
 
 The eyes of both sparkled. They were young, in high 
 spirits, a little tired of society, not without ambition, and 
 with that superfluity of energy which is wasted, in other 
 cases, in gambling hells and worse places. Moreover, they 
 were thoroughly satisfied that the game was worth the pur 
 suit. Most of all, each aimed in his secret soul at winning in 
 the end the hearty admiration and astonished approval of the 
 woman he loved best. 
 
 " Even yet I do not fully understand Communism, day 
 laborer as I am," Jack Peters observed. " It is increasing,
 
 A DESCENT. 107 
 
 under one name and another, in France, England, Russia. 
 What I hate worst is that it is beginning to threaten even 
 America. Whatever it is, Commune, Nihilism, Socialism, 
 International, Descamisados, Society of the Russian Red 
 Cock, or what not, I am determined to study it as thoroughly 
 as I have ever done a bit of machinery. I have often crawled 
 through boilers, hunting for the weak places, and I am very 
 curious to understand these societies, these rotten places of 
 our social system, which threaten to destroy civilization by 
 their explosion. But you will have to swear off from soap, 
 will have to drink execrable beer, to smoke some detestable 
 tobacco," he suddenly added, with a smile. 
 
 " I can stand it if you can," the other laughed ; " my 
 stomach is as strong as my arms. Late dinners have qualified 
 me for everything. Go ahead." 
 
 " This room is our abode whenever we are actually going 
 behind the Falls, we would say of Niagara ; through the 
 sewers, they would style it here in Paris," Jack Peters add 
 ed. " You have a key, so have I. There are arms hidden 
 under the loose plank in the other room. More useful still, 
 we have gold in our belts, which is the best ammunition on 
 earth. We will make our first essay to-night. Whenever 
 you think fit you can give it up. And now " and the 
 American lifted his hat to the other respectfully, and added, 
 " Good-by, my lord." 
 
 " I bid you good-by, Mr. Harris," the nobleman said as 
 gravely, and lifting -the coarse hat upon his own head by way 
 of farewell. 
 
 " Why, how are you, Jack Peters ? " the nobleman added 
 in the next breath, and with a total change of manner. 
 
 " Bless me, but it is Tom Perkins ! " exclaimed the other, 
 grasping the offered hand with rude cordiality, and they 
 laughed and left the room together. 
 
 Some hours after, Lady Blanche was riding in her car 
 riage accompanied by Mary Harris. A fete was going on, the 
 streets were crowded ; their horses were halted for quite a 
 time by the press as they passed the ruins of the Tuileries.
 
 108 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Do you see him ? the wretch ! " Lady Blanche said to 
 her friend in the heat of the crush. 
 
 Mary Harris glanced in the direction indicated. Two 
 coarsely dressed workmen, their caps over their eyes, were 
 loitering near by, and one of them had the impudence to 
 lift his hand to his hat as he caught the eye of the haughty 
 Englishwoman. 
 
 " I dare say they are some of the miserable creatures 
 that destroyed this very building," she said, indignantly, as 
 they drove on at last. " My brother would have been tempt 
 ed, had he been with me, to knock him down." 
 
 " Ah, Tom, you forgot yourself that time," the other 
 workman said to his friend. 
 
 "That is a fact. Did you see how angry she looked? 
 Anyway," the insolent Communist added, "they did not 
 know us." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 "THE HAMMER AN' DOWN wi' 'EM." 
 
 THERE are many institutions in London which illustrate 
 the adage that "birds of a feather flock together." The 
 magnificent club-houses have each its own peculiarity of 
 members, army, navy, Tory, Whigs, reform, radical, literary, 
 and the like. So, on a greatly reduced scale, of the innu 
 merable hostelries. Some are used almost exclusively by 
 men connected with the press, others by traveling salesmen, 
 " bagmen," as they are called, some by coachmen, others by 
 valets. At some only cabmen are to be found, in others 
 only costermongers would feel at home. Just as there are 
 hospitals for those diseased only of the eye or the ear, the 
 nerves or the lungs, a refuge for those affected in some one 
 way, and for such alone, so are there certain pothouses fre 
 quented exclusively by definite classes of the otherwise un 
 fortunate.
 
 "THE HAMMER AN 1 DOWN WF 'EM." 109 
 
 In one of the worst streets of London there is, for in 
 stance, an ale-house having as its sign a naked and muscu 
 lar arm grasping a hammer, with the legend beneath, " Down 
 wi' 'em." This place, familiarly known as " The hammer 
 an' down wi' 'em," is the resort especially of workmen out of 
 work, generally tailors and cobblers. The room opening 
 upon the street is but a narrow entrance, with the inevitable 
 bar upon one side, plentifully supplied with liquors, and a 
 barmaid rosy enough and portly enough to be cut up into 
 half a dozen ordinary damsels. Passing through this, you 
 enter into a large room, having a low ceiling of blackened 
 beams, the floor sanded and set out with small deal tables 
 and chairs, the walls garnished with pictures of martyrs, 
 such as Robert Blum, Robespierre, Blanqui, Cobbett, Tom 
 Paine, and with an astonished look at finding himself in 
 such company George Washington. At one end is a raised 
 platform, upon which any one can sing, play on any instru 
 ment, dance, or make a speech, subject, however, to the ap 
 proval of the nightly audience, an approval which had a 
 singular facility in turning into clamorous displeasure if 
 need be. 
 
 One foggy evening this room was crowded with guests, 
 every man having his beer or gin before him. Among the 
 mugs and pipes were dingy and beer-stained copies of Rey- 
 nolds's " Weekly Newspaper " and other radical sheets, which 
 bitter as their bitterest beer, strong as their strongest to 
 bacco, intoxicating as their worst gin circulate by the half- 
 million copies among the lower classes of England. At a 
 table, and playing checkers, sat two workmen, who had 
 dropped in on several nights before, and who had become 
 known to the barmaid as Jack Peters and Tom Perkins. 
 They were near the platform, and one of them kept in his 
 mouth a short clay pipe, a mug of ale at his elbow. They 
 had listened to a good deal of noisy discussion on previous 
 occasions, but the interest centered to-night upon a little 
 bald-headed cobbler, who looked as if he had been effectually 
 weaned from soap and the breast at the same date. He had
 
 HO THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 no coat, his dirty sleeves were rolled up at the elbow ; his 
 eyes, red, small, and watery, twinkled through brass specta 
 cles. The two new-comers had heard frequent and hearty 
 encomiums upon a certain " OF St'istics," who had been un 
 avoidably absent before, owing to a prolonged " drunk." 
 This was the man. His money, and with it his liquor, had 
 given out at last, and he was now welcomed back with en 
 thusiasm. Hardly a man present but urged upon him a share 
 of his ale or tobacco. Occasionally there had been cries of 
 " OF St'istics ! OF St'istics ! " but the clamor became so 
 unanimous at last, knuckles, mugs banged upon the tables, 
 and heavy feet swelling the noise with stamping, that the 
 cobbler arose at his table, and remarked with modest self- 
 depreciation : 
 
 " Much obleeged ; same to you. Arter my leetle attack 
 of of gout " But his piping voice was drowned in laugh 
 ter, which gave place to cries of " Take the platform, St'is 
 tics ! take the platform, oF feller ! " and he was escorted 
 thither with an affectation of airy politeness by a dilapidated 
 tailor. 
 
 "I have just arose," the cobbler began, "from a pro 
 longed illness," and he indulged in the delicate cough of an 
 invalid ; " but I will do my best. You see I sticks sich 
 items as I can lay my hands on against the wall before me 
 as I works by a bit o' wax, and I hammers at my last an' 
 larns, sews an' larns, pegs an' larns. It's a gift, an' I'll share 
 it. What'll you have to-night ? " 
 
 There were various demands of " Church ! " " Army ! " 
 "Ships!" "Bishops!" "R'yal family!" but the calls for 
 " Aristocracy ! " finally prevailed. 
 
 " Very good ; listen," and, closing his eyes, the public 
 favorite repeated in a rapid, sing-song manner what he had 
 learned by rote. " There is, in this here England o' theirs, 
 not ours, five hundred an' twenty-five nobles. That is, 
 twenty-eight dukes, thirty-three marquises, one hundred and 
 ninety-four earls, fifty-two viscounts, two hundred and eigh 
 teen barons. These robbers own an average of twenty-nine
 
 "THE HAMMER AN' DOWN WP >EM HI 
 
 thousing one hundred an' forty-eight acres each, an' every 
 highwayman of 'em plunders us on an average of twenty- 
 nine thousing two hundred pounds a year each." There was 
 a relish, almost as of savory food, in the mere mention of so 
 much money on the part of speaker and hearer. The cob 
 bler smacked his lips as he added, "Anything more you 
 want to know ? " And the oracle opened his eyes and looked 
 around in triumph. 
 
 ". Yes, give us a bishop or two," was the cry. 
 
 " Very well." The speaker closed his eyes and chanted 
 from memory : " The pay of the Archbishops of York an' 
 Canterbury, with the Bishops of London an' Durham, is 
 forty-four thousing four hundred an' forty-four pound. Bish 
 op of Ely has seving thousing pound a year ; so has the 
 Bishop of Winchester. Eight more bishops get five thousing 
 a year each ; an' eight smaller ones get over four thousing 
 pounds. One hundred and twenty-eight canons in the ca 
 thedrals get one thousing a year. Any more questions ? " 
 And the speaker waited, with his eyes closed behind his owl 
 ish glasses. 
 
 " Tell us about the bigwigs," was the cry. 
 
 " Very good," the oracle replied. " The Judges of Ap 
 peals gets from five to six thousing pounds each every 
 year," chewing the sums as if they were so much bacon or 
 tobacco. " The Master of the Rolls has six tKousing ; the 
 Lord Chancellor, eleving thousing pound every year ; the 
 Lord Chief Justice gets eight thousing ; the Members of the 
 Privy Council, five thousing each ; the Vice-Chancellors the 
 same ; also the puisne judges, whatever that is, an' every 
 circuit judge the same. Any more ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; the R'yal Family," was the cry. 
 
 " Very good. An' there is a lot of 'em hangin' on to 'em. 
 Stewards treasurers comptrollers," the speaker rattled on, 
 without pause of punctuation or taking breath, " chamber 
 lains vice-chamberlains lords in waiting gentlemen-at-arms 
 yeomen masters of the horse masters of the hounds equerries 
 mistresses of the robes ladies of the bed-chamber maids of
 
 112 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 honor clerks of the robes deans physicians ordinary and ex 
 traordinary sergeant surgeons dentists chemists an' every 
 man an' woman of 'em is paid from one up to two thousing 
 pound a year ! " And there the breath of the speaker gave 
 out. He rolled out the amounts with gusto, his hearers hav 
 ing evidently a delight in the naming even of so much 
 money, as if in the glitter and rattle of that many shillings, 
 crowns, and sovereigns poured out before them. 
 
 " But the princes ? the princes ? " vociferated the de 
 lighted crowd ; and the cobbler, whose memory was really 
 as accurate as it was wonderful, went on with rapid, monot 
 onous chant : " Duchess of York has five thousing pound ; 
 Duke of Cambridge, twelve thousing ; Duchess of Mecklen- 
 burg-Strelitz, three thousing ; Duchess of Cambridge, six 
 thousing ; Prince Leopold, fifteen thousing ; Duke of Con- 
 naught, twenty thousing ; Princess Louise, six thousing ; 
 Duke of Edinburgh, twenty-five thousing ; Princess Alice, 
 six thousing ; Crown Princess of Germany, eight thousing ; 
 Princess of Wales, ten thousing ; Prince of Wales, one hun 
 dred an' nine thousing ! The Queen," and here the speaker 
 drew in a deep breath, and the audience held mug and pipe 
 suspended to hear, "the Queen, she gets four hundred 
 an' sixty thousing pound a year ! " 
 
 The words were slowly drawn out, and delivered with 
 the utmost force. It was his oratorical climax, and he left 
 the platform. There was a deep and ominous silence. Tom 
 Perkins and Jack Peters began a new game of checkers, 
 conscious of that something about them which makes the air 
 heavy as with thunder slowly gathering toward a tempest. 
 
 " Sots, knaves, fools ! bah ! " Tom Perkins said, under 
 his breath, to his companion. But the American did not re 
 ply, except with a warning look. "Who has made them 
 such ? " he was asking of himself. The audience was com 
 posed of men, not one of whom but would have fought for 
 England in battle with undying pluck. The visitor glanced 
 over the crowd. Through the tobacco-smoke the heads of 
 the men loomed sullen and threatening ; they were chained
 
 "THE HAMMER AN' DOWN WP 'EM." 113 
 
 in, but they were mastiffs, manacled by their own ignorance 
 and sensual indulgence, wreaking their vengeance often upon 
 wife and child in horrible brutalities. 
 
 "-But whose business has it been to educate them ? " the 
 American demanded of himself. " There is no better materi 
 al on earth. It is of such stuff that America has been large 
 ly made. Whose duty is it to mold it into manhood ? Can 
 a man lift himself into the air by a grip upon his own waist 
 band ? Can a man regenerate himself by his own 'hand? 
 My father made himself what he is," he added ; " my mother 
 made herself what she is ; but they had the help toward it of 
 the American church, school, press, ballot. Thank God that 
 the poorest in England, the most depraved in America too, 
 are being alike swept toward 
 
 ' The one far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves.' " 
 
 " By George ! this thing ain't goin' to last always," a 
 shock-headed man took his pipe, at length, from his lips to 
 remark, in a voice heard by all, through the silence. 
 
 " Take the platform, Harry ! " There was new enthu 
 siasm ; and, in answer to the demand, the man laid down 
 mug and pipe and mounted the low stage. 
 
 " I hain't got no speech to make to-night," he said, " but 
 I'm cur'us to find what you men are thinkin' about. Now I 
 want to know what every man in this room believes is to 
 mend our troubles. Speak up. This is what is called a free 
 country. As you all know, I'm a Cheap Jack, an' I'll mark 
 you off as you speak. This country is goin', goin', goin' ! 
 Who names a cure for it ? " He repeated it, as if in his cart 
 and auctioneering off his wares. The bids came slowly, now 
 from this corner of the room, and then from that. 
 
 " Abolition of House of Lords ? Very good. Disestab 
 lishment of the Church ? Certainly. Educating the masses ? 
 Perhaps so. Australia ? Thank you. Yes. Peabody lodg- 
 ing-hoiises ? Hah ! Trades-unions ? Humph ! Coopera 
 tive stores ? Nonsense ! Down with the police ? Of course.
 
 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 Abolish army and navy ? Yes. Any other gentleman a bid 
 to make for this rotten, old, tumble-down, tyrannical Gov 
 ernment of ours ? Division of the land ? Yes ; but how ? 
 Down with the Queen ? Much obliged to you, sir, and yes ; 
 if you'll be the man to bell the cat. Revolution ? I'm agree 
 able." 
 
 At this juncture the American thought best to lay a 
 strong grasp upon the arm of the one with whom he was 
 playing checkers. It was but too evident that Tom Perkins 
 was becoming very angry, and his friend was glad when, 
 in a pause which followed, the Cheap Jack said, striking an 
 attitude : 
 
 " Listen, it is the Poet Laureate speaks, which his name 
 is Tennyson, Al-fe-red Tennyson : 
 
 ' Slowly comes a hungry people, 
 
 As a lion, creepin' nigher, 
 Glares at one that nods and winks 
 Behind a slowly dyin' fire.' " 
 
 To the astonishment of Tom Perkins, his companion, in a 
 loud, clear voice, completed the lines : 
 
 " ' Yet I doubt not through the ages 
 
 One increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened 
 With the process of the suns.' " 
 
 There was something in the fresh, cheery, decided tones 
 which caused every man to look up with sharp suspicion. 
 
 " And who the diwel are you ? " the Cheap Jack demand 
 ed at last. 
 
 " Who am I ? " And Jack Peters arose and put on his 
 hat. " I am an engineer, and I am an American."
 
 YANKEE ADVICE. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 YANKEE ADVICE. 
 
 WHEN Jack Peters announced himself as an American, 
 it was as if a gust of wind, fresh and bracing, had suddenly 
 blown upon the befuddled customers of the " Hammer and 
 down wi' 'em." There were some moments of silence, during 
 which the fumes of beer and of tobacco seemed to rift, for 
 the instant at least, from the audience. The Cheap Jack 
 was the first to speak. 
 
 " From America, are you ? Well, what do you bid as 
 your dose for our troubles ? " 
 
 The one spoken to had not intended to say anything when 
 he came in. Like his companion, his sole object had been to 
 study the disaffected and dangerous classes of England and 
 other countries as thoroughly as possible, and he shook his 
 head and kept his seat. But there were cries of "Yankee ! " 
 " Yankee ! " until he arose. 
 
 "My friends," he began, but now the cry was "Plat 
 form ! " " Platform ! " and he stepped upon it, and stood 
 there for a moment in his coarse clothing. His face was 
 bright, open, clear ; his eye cool and intelligent ; from his 
 first word there was, as in his father's shops in Russia, an 
 instant distinction between him and them of master and men. 
 
 " I have no wish to intrude upon you," he said. " It is 
 your country, not mine. But I can give you one cure for 
 your disease. You say times are hard, your Government op 
 pressive ; very well, go to Canada, Australia, or I will give 
 you one big pill for your ills go to America." 
 
 The Cheap Jack had resumed his table, his mug, and his 
 pipe by this time, and the American had the platform to 
 himself. 
 
 " Look at it, men," he continued, " you can get land over 
 the water for next to nothing an acre. We Yankees are 
 beginning to feed all Europe. Help us to do it. You will 
 be well paid for it. Listen ; I happen to have with me the
 
 116 
 
 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 prices paid for work in Europe, say in Belgium, as compared 
 with those paid in New York," and he read rapidly as fol 
 lows : 
 
 OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 Belgium. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Bricklayers 
 
 $6 00 
 
 $12 to $15 
 
 Masons 
 
 6 00 
 
 12 to 18 
 
 Carpenters 
 
 5 40 
 
 9 to 12 
 
 Gasfitters 
 
 5 40 
 
 10 to 14 
 
 Painters 
 
 4 20 
 
 10 to 16 
 
 Plasterers . 
 
 5 40 
 
 10 to 15 
 
 Plumbers 
 
 6 00 
 
 12 to 18 
 
 Blacksmiths 
 
 4 40 
 
 10 to 14 
 
 Bakers 
 
 4 40 
 
 5 to 8 
 
 Cabinetmakers 
 
 4 80 
 
 9 to 13 
 
 Saddlemakers 
 
 4 80 
 
 12 to 15 
 
 Tinsmiths 
 
 4 80 
 
 10 to 14 
 
 Laborers 
 
 3 00 
 
 6 to 7 
 
 
 
 
 " That is plain enough," he went on ; " now look at what 
 food costs comparatively : 
 
 PROVISIONS. 
 
 Belgium. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Bread, per 
 Beef, ' 
 Veal, ' 
 Mutton, 
 Pork, 
 Lard, 
 Butter, 
 Cheese, 
 Coffee, 
 Sugar, 
 
 pound 
 
 4 to 5 ce 
 
 16 to 20 
 16 to 20 
 16 to 20 
 16 to 20 
 20 
 20 to 50 
 20 to 25 
 30 to 40 
 15 to 20 
 
 nts. 
 
 4^ cei 
 8 to 16 
 8 to 24 
 9 to 16 
 8 to 16 
 10 to 12 
 25 to 32 
 12 to 15 
 20 to 30 
 8 to 10 
 
 its. 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 " But it don't say anything about beer," the Cheap Jack 
 said when he was through, and there was a laugh. 
 
 " Out west of New York," the speaker continued, " every 
 thing is even cheaper ; now " 
 
 " You are talking too rapidly," his friend said to him in 
 a low voice ; " go slower."
 
 YANKEE ADVICE. 117 
 
 " That's a fact," Jack Peters added, as he saw the slow, 
 dull faces of the crowd before him. Evidently they wanted 
 to know what to do. America had long been to most of 
 them a vast Canaan of milk and honey, but a wilderness of 
 water lay between, and where was their Moses ? 
 
 "All very good, Mr. Yankee," Cheap Jack called out, 
 being the sharpest of them, from his seat, " but how are we 
 goin' to get us there ? Where's your balloon ? Is it a-waitin' 
 at the door ? " 
 
 There was a laugh at this, in which the American joined. 
 
 " Before I answer that," he said, good-humoredly, " let 
 me tell you another thing. In my country the Government, 
 from constable up to President, is made by the people, from 
 the people, for the people. Now, it is in working-people we 
 are most interested, because our nation is made up of that 
 sort chiefly. On that account our Government made our 
 consuls everywhere find out and report upon the condition 
 of workmen all over the world as compared with those in 
 America. Then the reports were digested into four facts. I 
 have them here on a bit of paper, which I want our friend, 
 Old Statistics, to stick up over his bench and to get by heart. 
 Shall I read them?" 
 
 There were cries of " Out wi' it ! " " Let's hear ! " " Read 
 away," and Jack Peters read aloud, slowly and distinctly, as 
 follows : 
 
 " All reports from over the world prove these startling 
 things : 
 
 " 1. That wages in the United States are double those of 
 Belgium, Denmark, France, and England ; three times those 
 of Germany, Italy, and Spain, and four times those of the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 " 2. That the prices of the necessaries of life are lower in 
 the United States than in Europe, and that the laborer in the 
 United States, were he satisfied with the scanty and miser 
 able fare upon which the European laborer must live, can 
 purchase like food for less money than it can be purchased 
 in Europe.
 
 118 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " 3. That the French working-people, with far less wages, 
 are happier than the working-people of Great Britain, who 
 receive the highest wages in Europe, on account of the 
 steadiness and economical habits of the former, and the 
 strikes, drinking habits, and consequent recklessness of the 
 latter. 
 
 "4. That more misery results from strikes, drinking, 
 socialism, and communism in England and in Germany than 
 from all other causes combined, hard times included." 
 
 The company put the information into their pipes and 
 smoked it in a slow and pondering fashion. 
 
 " But you haven't told us how to get there," the Cheap 
 Jack cried out at last. " Telegraph me over to begin with. 
 I'm willin'." 
 
 "I will tell you how to get there," Jack Peters said, 
 good-naturedly, " but it is not by a balloon any more than 
 by a telegraph. There are plenty of ships to put you over 
 for a matter of five pounds. But don't stop in New York 
 when you get there ; another five pounds will whirl you a 
 thousand or two miles west. It won't hurt you to have an 
 other five pounds in your pouch then to begin on." 
 
 " Fifteen pound ! " The Cheap Jack but expressed the 
 feeling of the others. " Where's the fifteen pound to come 
 from ? Got it in your pocket ? Give us a hold of it." 
 
 " What can you do here ? " Jack Peters demanded in re 
 turn. " The French may go into revolutions ; Englishmen 
 don't straighten things in a rush ; they move slowly. As for 
 the French" 
 
 But here there was an interruption. 
 
 " Sare," cried a voice from a back seat, " you sail not in 
 sult my countree. Behold me ! I am of the glorious Com 
 mune " 
 
 " Sit down ! " the American thundered ; " I will be done 
 in a moment, and you can say all you want to." 
 
 " Down, Frenchy, down ! " arose from all sides. " Go 
 on, Yankee, -go on ! " And the Gaul was silenced for the 
 moment, but all present were becoming excited. Perhaps
 
 YANKEE ADVICE. 119 
 
 the American, being a young man, was more so than he 
 knew. 
 
 "I honor France and the French," he said, "but there 
 are two sets of scoundrels there who have done their best to 
 destroy it. They are to the French people what to the Seine 
 is its mud at the bottom and its froth at the top. Louis Na 
 poleon and his chauvins were the bloody foam of a time. 
 But the mud, the mire " Here the Frenchman bounced to 
 his feet ; the American looked at him coolly, and added : 
 " The mud, which, alas ! is always there, is the Communist 
 and Red Republican." 
 
 Before the words were out of his lips the impulsive 
 Frenchman had stationed himself half way down toward 
 the speaker, and was talking vehemently. 
 
 " It is not so ! " he exclaimed. " Voild ! behold me ! I 
 am of de Commune ! France moves de universe, and we ? 
 It is we who mettre en mouvement, move France. Who 
 took de Bastile ? Who cut off de head of Capet, him you 
 call Louis XVI? Who drove, enf oncer, de nobles from 
 France? Who mettre d Venvers, upset you call him, de 
 Pope ? Who scared away de priests, whish ! like a flock of 
 polisson, no, crow ? merle, what you call him ? blackbirds ? 
 Who fought wid all de world under Kleber, Hoche ? Who 
 made Charles Dix, Charles X you call him, s'enfuir, s'elan- 
 cer, se precipiter, cut, what you call it ? his leetle stick ? 
 Who ran Louis Philippe out of Paris wid his blue para- 
 pluie, what you call it ? umbrella under his knee, no, his 
 elbow, his arm ? Who voted decheance against Louis Na 
 poleon ? It is de Red Republicans do de work. So here in 
 your Angleterre. You talk of your beef ; bah ! of your 
 leetle pound ; your gages, salaire, wages ; your meeserable 
 leetle poche, pocket ; bah ! Behold me ! Lever les yeux d 
 moi! voilaf" 
 
 The communist was to the burly Englishmen around him 
 
 as a terrier is among bull-dogs. His face and head were a 
 
 whirlwind of hair, which apparently had never known the 
 
 despotism of a comb ; his hairy bosom appeared through the 
 
 6
 
 120 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 red flannel of the shirt he wore ; his ferret-like eyes flashed 
 with the fires of absinthe ; his long, lean arms gesticulated in 
 such a manner that the beer-drinkers about him had to dodge 
 and duck their heads continually to avoid being struck. 
 
 " No, sare ! " he vociferated, turning upon the American, 
 who stood looking at him as a sane man does upon a lunatic, 
 " no, sare, it is not a question of beef and meeserable what 
 you call ? pork. It is blood, sang, we need in dis, dis bete 
 comme une oie, dis stupid England ; blood, bloo-d-d-d ! It 
 is sword, fire, barricade ! aux armes ! What we shall have 
 is r-r-r-evolution ! " and the word rolled from his lips like 
 the rattle of a kettledrum. To his astonishment, there fol 
 lowed upon it a roar of laughter. He was no more to those 
 present than a monkey. For a moment he looked around in 
 astonishment. Then, " Cochon ! English hogs ! " he shout 
 ed, and walked out with gestures of profound disgust, which 
 awakened another peal of laughter. 
 
 " No," the American said, with a smile, as the noise ceased, 
 " we English and Americans don't right our wrongs in that 
 way. But now," he added, as the audience settled itself 
 again to its tobacco and drink, " I will say one last thing, and 
 sit down." 
 
 By this time the low-ceiled, dingy room was densely 
 crowded, many others having heard what was going on and 
 pressed their way in. The air was so dense with smoke 
 from the pipes, so foul with the odors of the unwashed cus 
 tomers and their, in many cases, steaming tumblers of rum 
 and gin, that even Jack Peters could not endure it. 
 
 " Let me say one word more," he went on. " You can't 
 raise the twenty pounds or so to take you over the water ? 
 Our friend with the wonderful memory has told us what the 
 Church and the aristocracy cost. Friends, you are under 
 the cruel dominion of a master who costs you every year far 
 more than Queen, bishops, and nobles. Listen ; do you know 
 what your liquors cost you ? One hundred and forty not 
 thousands millions of pounds a year ! That is seven hun 
 dred millions of our dollars ! How much your tobacco costs
 
 YANKEE ADVICE. 121 
 
 in addition I don't happen to know. Now, if every man 
 would but save up his outlay " 
 
 But the hearers, as he proceeded, were in no mood for 
 that. " We don't want no teetotal talk here," cried at last 
 a shrill voice from the rear. It was the portly barmaid, who 
 was at the door looking in, and there was a murmur of as 
 sent. The American glanced around upon the sodden faces, 
 and stepped sadly off from the platform. His friend arose, 
 and the two men went toward the door, from which the bar 
 maid had disappeared. 
 
 Unluckily, the burly Cheap Jack had taken too much 
 liquor. Moreover, the last speaker had broken in upon his 
 eloquence. 
 
 " I say, stop there ! " he called after the departing men. 
 They paid no heed and pressed on, for the atmosphere was 
 suffocating. But the Cheap Jack was a bully and a pugilist, 
 and had resolved upon reestablishing his importance in the 
 " Hammer an' down wi' 'em." 
 
 "Hold on !" He had followed them, and now laid his 
 hand roughly upon the shoulder of Tom Perkins. For an 
 ordinary workman that person seemed to be singularly sensi 
 tive. On the instant he had turned around, had struck the 
 Cheap Jack between the eyes with his utmost force, and the 
 brawny orator of the ale-house was lying flat upon his back 
 among his astonished friends. In the same moment the 
 American had put his arm around his companion, and, lay 
 ing down a half sovereign upon the bar in payment of their 
 bill as he passed out, had drawn him into the street. 
 
 " We can not fight all the hammers in the ' Down wi' 'em ' 
 at once," he remonstrated. " If you are to go with me into 
 the depths of communism in Germany, France, Russia, you 
 must be more prudent, my lord Tom, I mean. Besides, 
 yours is a poor way to put down communism. 
 
 " And yet," he said to himself the next moment, " a swift 
 knock-down is the only way England has discovered to rem 
 edy the discontent of its dangerous classes thus far." And 
 he murmured under his breath :
 
 122 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " ' Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, 
 
 And I linger on the shore ; 
 And the individual withers, 
 
 And the world is more and more.' " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIH. 
 
 DIVINE PATIENCE. 
 
 HENRY HARRIS, like his father, -was often called away 
 by business, as Lord Conyngham was by pleasure, and the 
 absence of these from Paris had passed unnoticed. One 
 morning after his return the American was loitering with his 
 sister through the Exposition. As if by a common but un 
 conscious attraction, they found themselves standing at last 
 beside the bust which had so arrested their attention. No 
 one else seemed to be specially interested in it, but the bro 
 ther said : 
 
 " It grows upon me. You know I am not enthusiastic 
 about people in general ; it is only for a person now and 
 then that I form an attachment, not often. I like a person 
 either very much or not at all. It is so of music ; there are 
 certain airs of which I never grow weary : all other music is 
 to me as the rattle of wheels along the street or the roar of 
 the winds. Now, I like this sad and patient face. There is 
 a certain something of home and heart in it of which one no 
 more wearies than he does of the air or of the light." 
 
 " So it is with me," his sister said ; " but I think we like 
 it the more because of its contrast to the noisy, shifting, 
 brilliant scene around. It rests one. This peaceful head is 
 patience in marble. Listen, and I will give you the same 
 patience in music," and in a low, clear voice Mary Harris 
 repeated Wordsworth's lines : 
 
 " ' The little hedgerow birds, 
 That peck along the road, regard him not.
 
 DIVINE PATIENCE. 123 
 
 He travels on, and in his face, his step, 
 
 His gait, is one expression ; every limb, 
 
 His look and bending figure, all bespeak 
 
 A man who does not move with pain, but moves 
 
 "With thought. He is insensibly subdued 
 
 To settled quiet ; he is one by whom 
 
 All effort seems forgotten ; one to whom 
 
 Long patience hath such mild composure given, 
 
 That patience now doth seem a thing of which 
 
 He hath no need. He is by nature led 
 
 To peace so perfect, that the young behold 
 
 With envy, what the old man hardly feels.' " 
 
 " Yes," her brother assented, " it expresses it exactly. Do 
 you know, Mary, it is the accuracy of anything which pleases 
 us ; accuracy, whether it be in a poem, a painting, a statue, 
 or a machine." 
 
 " You mean it must be the expression," his sister con 
 sented, "of truth; it is that which strikes and pleases us 
 most in the face, in the tones even, of a friend. But I won 
 der," she added, glancing around, " where the artist is. I 
 have been here twice when you were away, but could not 
 find her." 
 
 Henry Harris made no reply, and they soon after left the 
 grounds. Unreserved as the family generally were in their 
 intercourse with one another, each member had none the less 
 some subjects upon which silence was an instinct. In fact, 
 there are matters upon which one may think and feel, act 
 also, with deepest purpose, and yet refuse to discuss even 
 with one's self. It was so with Henry Harris in regard to 
 the artist of whom his sister had spoken. He had seen her 
 but once. There was no probability of his falling in love 
 with her, since, and to a greater degree than his own family 
 suspected, he was enamored with Lady Blanche. The 
 Englishwoman was to him the flower of her sex. Not even 
 Lord Conyngham could appreciate better than her brother 
 did the loveliness of Mary Harris, but Lady Blanche was 
 different. Her pride of race was to her, in his eyes, like in-
 
 124 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 visible wings ; it both lifted her and gave to her a flight and 
 a force above any woman he had hitherto known. " It is 
 absurd," he felt in his silent soul, " to compare her with such 
 a thing, and yet she is like, yes, a perfect engine. And gen 
 tle and beautiful as she seems, she will crush whatever ven 
 tures presumes too much upon her gentleness, as an engine 
 crushes an insect upon the rail." 
 
 But it was not an agreeable way of looking at things, 
 and the young machinist turned to other thoughts. With 
 all his impetuosity, he was wary. From boyhood he had 
 rambled about among the whirling wheels and trip-hammers 
 of his father's shops, among the white-hot masses of iron be 
 ing lifted and swung this way and that by derricks, among 
 the showers of flying sparks and spray of molten metal, until 
 he had grown into unceasing caution as into the habit of his 
 life. " So long," he reasoned, " as I keep steady watch over 
 myself I need fear nothing else. But I love her the more 
 that it is so dangerous a thing to do, and we will see ! " 
 
 "With all this he had the interest in Isidore Atchison 
 which one skilled mechanic has in another. That she was a 
 woman, that she had made a perfect work of art instead of a 
 machine, interested him that much the more. He had gone 
 repeatedly to the spot where he had first seen her, but in 
 vain. At last, applying in the proper quarters, and obtain 
 ing her address, one afternoon he slowly climbed the many 
 flights of stairs which led to her apartments. The instant 
 he learned the part of Paris in which she lived, he had 
 guessed as to her poverty ; the sight of the house, the inte 
 rior, worse than the exterior, confirmed his fears. 
 
 "She is very poor; I must therefore be specially respect 
 ful," he said, as he knocked at last at the door. A voice 
 from within called him to enter, and he took in the whole 
 situation at a glance as he did so. Pillowed into a sitting 
 position upon the bed was the old man whose bust he had 
 admired. The dim light fell upon the silvered head from 
 above, bringing out the delicate lines, the downward bend 
 of the neck, the indescribable aspect of peace it was the
 
 DIVINE PATIENCE. 125 
 
 old man who idealized the marble, and not the marble the 
 man. Upon a cushion on his knees before him in his bed 
 lay a block of wood, but the flowers upon it seemed to be so 
 arrested by some winter that they could not unfold as yet. 
 The hand which held the tool was thin and feeble, but it 
 persisted, as did the steady patience of the eyes. 
 
 Upon the other side of the small apartment the daughter 
 stood at work upon something at a stand. With the en 
 trance of their visitor the girl had thrown a wet cloth over 
 it, and now turned to meet him. For the instant she looked 
 like a beautiful boy instead, for a paper cap was perched upon 
 her head, and an apron of brown linen covered her from neck 
 to feet. But her eyes were there, her features so like, and 
 yet unlike, those of her father. As to that, had she been 
 wholly invisible, there was that modulation in her voice 
 which is to speech what carving is to a statue. 
 
 " Pardon my intrusion," Henry Harris said, his hat in his 
 hand, and as if speaking to Lady Blanche in her diamonds, 
 " but I feared lest I should be anticipated by some purchaser. 
 I greatly admire and wish to buy, if you will be so kind, the 
 marble which you exhibit," and he mentioned its location 
 and number. His manner was as cold as it was respectful, 
 even when he added other words in praise of the object. 
 " With your permission, sir," he added, with an inclination 
 of his head to the father, " will you allow me ? " and he be 
 came intent upon the unfinished carving while the daughter 
 slipped silently into her little room. Nor did he seem to 
 have observed that she had changed her dress, and relieved 
 herself of the covering which had protected her abundant 
 hair, when she returned. 
 
 It is one function of perfect breeding to place people at 
 ease with whomsoever they are thrown. Moreover, persons 
 of the same grade recognize a friend as well as an equal in 
 each other, although their meeting is but for the moment. 
 In a little while Henry Harris had taken a seat, but through 
 out it was he to whom favor was extended ; obligation was 
 upon his side, not theirs. He made one mistake. " Will
 
 126 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 you permit me ? " he asked at last, rising and taking a step 
 toward the covered stand. 
 
 " Pardon me, no." The young lady had interposed her 
 self in the same instant with a smile, but, somehow, her No 
 was as decided as any he had ever heard, and he also smiled 
 and resumed his seat. Nor did it take many words to com 
 plete his business. 
 
 " I regret," he said, " but I will be unable to purchase the 
 marble unless I can have it for " And he mentioned a 
 sum which brought a flush of rapture into the face of the 
 girl. 
 
 "And now she is like Carlo Dolci's Bacchante," the 
 father said, forgetful of all else. 
 
 The daughter colored and then laughed. " It is so much 
 more than I had expected," she began. 
 
 " It is less than its actual value," the purchaser said, 
 gravely. " Of course, it will remain at present where it is. 
 You will allow me to make sure of my bargain by paying 
 for it," and he handed the crisp bills to the girl, " and to 
 thank you," he added, with feeling, " since it is a present I 
 am making my mother." 
 
 A few moments after, he had given his card, had bowed, 
 and departed. As his footsteps died upon the stairway, the 
 girl had fallen upon her knees beside the bed, her face in her 
 father's lap as he sat, the bank-notes lying upon the floor 
 beside her. If she was an artist, she was also a woman, and 
 was weeping as if her heart would break. Her father laid 
 his left hand upon her head, his eyes were closed, his lips 
 trembled. But he remained an artist; for when, after a while, 
 his daughter lifted her face, her eyes sparkling through her 
 tears, her disordered hair about her face, he held his head a 
 little upon one side, examined her critically, and murmured : 
 
 " Fra Angelico's Magdalen, only better." 
 
 But his Magdalen was on her feet and laughing. " And 
 now," she said, " now ? What is it ? " rapidly arranging her 
 hair. "Wine? Jelly? Yes, and white bread for you, father, 
 and roast beef, grapes, medicine, vegetables. Oh, yes, and
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS. 127 
 
 that photograph of the Murillo picture you have wanted so ! 
 O father," she said, " I am so glad ! " 
 
 " Niobe ? " the old man demanded of himself, as she gave 
 way again to tears. " Yes, and Aurora ? " as she laughed 
 once more, with rosy face. "Yes, the Aurora of Guido." 
 
 " That is because morning has dawned. But I must go," 
 she added, basket in hand, and she kissed him and went out, 
 only to open the door again. " You are sure you are not 
 afraid to be left alone with her? " nodding her head toward 
 the covered stand. " Ah, old lady," she laughed, shaking 
 her finger at the same object, "I'm done withyow/" 
 
 Her father was thinking only of his daughter, she seemed 
 so happy ; his eyes were fastened upon her radiant face. 
 
 " Euphrosyne," he said ; but she shut the door and ran 
 down-stairs. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS. 
 
 ONE afternoon a number of the young lady friends of 
 Mary Harris were assembled in the rooms of that family at 
 their hotel. Virginia Jossellyn and Ellen Ellsworth were 
 among them, and, having been riding out and shopping to 
 gether, they were all laughing now and chatting with each 
 other at a great rate. In a word, they were in that flutter 
 of high health and overflowing spirits which brings back 
 their own youth again to the old, even to see and to hear. 
 They were "training," as Miss Ellsworth calls it, "in a gale," 
 as Miss Jossellyn said ; and their merry malice seemed to be 
 turned upon Mary Harris. 
 
 " She tries to make us think that she does not care," cried 
 the New England belle. " See how placid and peaceful she 
 pretends to be. Ahem ! How does your ladyship feel this 
 afternoon ? " And the lively girl courtesied before her with 
 mock reverence. She herself was as slight as a willow- wand,
 
 128 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 as frail almost and as fair as a wreath of mist. But it was 
 a wreath of mist over Niagara, for, with sparkling eyes and 
 cheeks of the hue of the inner lips of a conch-shell, the lovely 
 girl was in unceasing motion from morning until night, 
 laughing, talking, singing, riding, walking ; it was almost as 
 if she did not know what it was to be weary or to sleep. 
 The Americans in Paris had seen many like her at home, but 
 the sober Spaniards, the stolid Germans, even the mercurial 
 French, watched her with wonder. They could not under 
 stand how one so slight could possess such vitality, such 
 will. 
 
 " Ellen dear," Mary Harris said, " you were wild enough 
 in old Massachusetts, and the air of Paris has made you more 
 so. Do you know what Hop Fun, the mandarin, said of you 
 last week ? " 
 
 " No ; what was it ? " the other demanded. " Was it a 
 compliment ? Does he want to make me a mandariness ? 
 But, no," and she put out one of hef feet ; " no ; not even to 
 oblige him could I consent to have my feet squeezed into a 
 nutshell. What was it, Mary ? " 
 
 " When he saw you, dear, you chanced to be as you 
 always are laughing and talking with some friends. In 
 this case it was under an American flag, which was flutter 
 ing its silken folds of blue and gold, of white and red, in a 
 strong breeze. Henry was near the mandarin, and the old 
 Chinaman caught his eye, pointed first to the flag, and then 
 to you, and said, 'Kong-fu-tse say, Too muchee shine is 
 worse than dark.' " 
 
 " He is right, Ellen," Miss Jossellyn said ; " I wonder you 
 do not get tired. See how quiet I am." 
 
 " Oh, I am a blonde ; you are a brunette," laughed the 
 New England beauty, looking admiringly at the rounded and 
 olive loveliness of her friend. For Virginia Jossellyn was 
 plump as a partridge, but beautifully formed, with eyes large 
 and dark, lips full and scarlet, and a certain languid grace 
 in her manner, in strong contrast to the swallow-like rapidity 
 with which her friend moved and spoke. Her very tones
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS. 129 
 
 were slow and sweet, and, unless greatly excited, she seemed 
 to yield herself without exertion to the mere current of 
 things. " And yet," Henry Harris had said to his sister one 
 day, "the dark, sluggish, almost indolent beauty of your 
 friend is like that of a sleeping tempest. Only let there be 
 cause enough, and you would find that even Miss Ellen would 
 be but as a frightened bird before the tropical passion of our 
 Southern belle." 
 
 But Mary Harris had kept this, as she did many things, 
 to herself. Perhaps her long residence in Europe had given 
 breadth and balance to her character, in addition even to 
 that which she had inherited from her father, whom she so 
 much resembled. Like her mother also, and her brother, an 
 unaffected common sense was the basis of her disposition. 
 In father and brother it was granite ; in her it was as crys 
 tal. She merely smiled, therefore, as Ellen turned from Vir 
 ginia and renewed hostilities. 
 
 " Your ladyship ! O Mary, think of having a footman 
 to call out before you, ' Lady Conyngham ! ' Ah, but does it 
 not sound lovely ? Wealth is nothing to it. A title clothes 
 you more richly than velvet or Valenciennes. I would rather 
 wear it than the finest diamonds. Would you not, Virginia ? " 
 
 " I prefer being not even a Duchess of Plymouth what 
 an insignificant creature he is ! but a grand duchess, my 
 child," the brunette said. " Lord Conyngham is a handsome 
 gentleman ; not that he is," she added, " more of a nobleman 
 in his appearance than your brother, Mary. But how will 
 you manage with Lady Blanche, my dear ? She should not 
 rule me, I can assure you." 
 
 " Oh, please be quiet, girls ! How can you talk so much 
 nonsense ? " the victim said, with a laugh and a blush, " and 
 when you know that there is not a word of truth in " But 
 at this moment the servant handed her a card, and she said to 
 him, " Tell Lord Conyngham that I will be down in a few mo 
 ments," while from her friends around her arose a mocking 
 chorus of " Oh, my ! " "I thought so ! " " There is no truth 
 in it ; certainly not ! "
 
 130 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " You will have to excuse me, girls," Mary Harris said, 
 as they seized her tauntingly upon the one side and the 
 other. " He told me at the opera, last night, that he would 
 call to-day. It is because he is about being absent from 
 Paris, I believe. I dare say it is merely to say good-by." 
 But her remarks were received with utter incredulity, and 
 she had to break from her friends with a laugh, shaking her 
 head at them threateningly, as she escaped to her own room. 
 
 Apart from the mere circumstance and drapery of his 
 rank and social usages, Lord Conyngham was as simple and 
 thoroughly good and true as any young man who toiled at 
 the moment in his shirt-sleeves in the fields of Vermont or 
 "Wisconsin, or in any factory or counting-room in London or 
 Edinburgh. It had been a great advantage to him that his 
 mother had been an excellent woman. And yet, as has been 
 said, Earl Dorrington almost regretted that his daughter 
 Blanche had not been his son and heir instead. It was not 
 because Blanche was so much his superior intellectually as 
 that she had more of the pride of race. Not that Lord Con 
 yngham had not exhibited a greater degree of hauteur than 
 his sister. In him it had been excessive, had amounted to inso 
 lence even ; but this was because it had been largely an affec 
 tation, a mere mannerism. As it had been a sort of raiment 
 which he had put on, so was it a something which he could 
 put off also, while pride was with his sister a something in 
 the blood and bone. His association with the Harris house 
 hold had done him a world of good. It was something like 
 the enjoyment he had found when he laid aside his jewelry 
 and his broadcloth to row on the river, or to play cricket, or 
 as when he had laid aside his tight-fitting and fashionable 
 attire to put on a soft hat and flannel for a cruise in his 
 yacht. There were times for Hyde Park, the Queen's draw 
 ing-rooms, the ball, Parliament, the club, the opera, and the 
 like, but he had a natural preference for September and 
 game, for dogs and gun, for nature and for Americans. 
 
 " I enjoy being with them," he informed his father in re 
 gard to his new friends.
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS. 131 
 
 " Assuredly so," remarked the old Earl, " and they are 
 most respectable persons ; exceedingly wealthy, I learn. Miss 
 Harris is a charming young lady, I have observed. I do not 
 object to your associating with them, Alfred, up to a certain 
 point, as I have before remarked a certain point, my son." 
 
 As to Mary Harris, she had felt, and from their first ac 
 quaintance, almost as much at ease with him as with her 
 brother. Mere girl as she was, strange to say, a certain al 
 most maternal feeling arose in her in regard to him. He 
 was to her, as she came into the parlor on the occasion now 
 spoken of, simply a noble-looking, high-spirited, honest- 
 hearted young fellow, who loved her very sincerely. In all 
 his acquaintance there was not a lady who was more thor 
 oughly a lady, and yet there was no gentleman of his ac 
 quaintance, not even Henry Harris, with whom he felt as 
 perfectly free as he did with her. 
 
 " Thank Heaven, I do not have to talk with you about the 
 weather," he told her now. " Nor about either opera or Ex 
 position, unless I want to. One does become tired, too, of 
 the trashy compliments. Must I compliment you? How 
 can I ? " he said, as she laughed at the idea, " when you are 
 so immeasurably above all compliment. Miss Mary," he 
 added, seriously, " I can not tell you how very much, very 
 much " 
 
 " No compliments, my lord," she laughingly interrupted, 
 and, in answer to her questions, he was led off into speaking 
 at last of himself and of his plans more freely than he had 
 ever done with his sister. No wonder. Mary Harris took 
 really a deeper interest in him than any other had ever done. 
 She had drawn from him long before this the story of his 
 life at Harrow and afterward at Oxford. Now he began, 
 encouraged by her, to speak of his efforts in Parliament. 
 
 " My sister is eager for me to take an active part," he 
 said at last, " in the questions of the day, but her time is 
 naturally occupied with other matters. Besides, she looks 
 at affairs only from her point of view as a woman and as a 
 member of the Peerage. It is even worse with my father.
 
 132 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 He is blind to impending dangers. I tell him that he is like 
 Louis XVI when he refused to see the awful times which 
 were coming upon him ; like Charles X, of France ; like 
 Louis Philippe ; like poor Louis Napoleon ; he would not 
 see." 
 
 " I suppose the Earl explains that revolutions happen only 
 in France," the lady said. 
 
 " Assuredly so ! " her companion laughed. " In and out 
 of France it is, he thinks, only idealists who fret and threat 
 en. People may edit papers, publish books, make speeches, 
 roar and rave and rant as much as they please, but England, 
 he thinks, is rooted off to itself in the ocean like everlasting 
 rock. Whatever billows may sweep over all the globe be 
 side, they will merely perish in foam when they dash upon 
 our shores. It is not the thing to talk to a young lady 
 about, but," and in his eagerness he arose to say it, " it does 
 seem to me that we may have trouble some of these days. 
 I am a Tory, like my father, but that rascal Beaconsfield is a 
 charlatan. His imperial policy is brilliant, but I don't like 
 it any more than I do his trashy romances. To me it is all 
 mere gewgaw, flimsy as the spangles upon the gauze of a 
 rope-dancer. Think of the questions pressing upon us Irish 
 Home Rule, education of the masses who are beginning to 
 govern us, Communism, war in Afghanistan, probably, and 
 in Africa ; eternal strife with Russia " 
 
 " And disestablishment," the lady suggested. 
 
 " Precisely. I am not much of a religious man it is not 
 in my line but," said the Englishman, " things are getting 
 into a horrible mess. They have upset the Irish Church. 
 Next the Scotch establishment must go. As sure as you live, 
 although it is a dreadful thing to say, the English Church 
 will be disestablished. I am not a saint, yet it is a frightful 
 thing to have our Christianity, our religion, you know, come 
 down with a crash ; it is like the end of the world ! " 
 
 There was such alarm in the face of her visitor that Mary 
 Harris could have smiled. She hastened, instead, to describe 
 to him how, in America, religion only flourished so much
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS. 133 
 
 the more by reason of its separation from the state. He lis 
 tened with deep interest. 
 
 "I thank you," he said, evidently relieved ; "but I hope 
 I may be hanged if I ever looked at it in that light before." 
 
 " Your father told me," Mary Harris added, " that you 
 had an ancestor in the Crusades, that another led England in 
 its wars against Spain long ago, that your house has always 
 had some one man of mark in its campaigns with France, 
 Russia, in Africa, Asia wherever it has fought. One of the 
 barons at Runnymede, too, bore your name. Your father is 
 proud of his line, but he believes in sitting still, in contrpl- 
 ling matters as by his mere weight, while you " 
 
 " Intend to take an active part, yes," her companion added 
 for her, catching fire from her eyes, " and I thank you for 
 what you say." 
 
 " My brother has been studying up China of late," Mary 
 Harris said when at last her visitor arose, after a long visit, 
 to take leave, " and he says that the Chinese have what is 
 called a classic dialect, a kind of dead language, never used 
 except on occasions of ceremony. You can not tell how 
 glad I am that we," it was said archly, " can sometimes do 
 without it. You can keep your classic Chinese, my lord," 
 she laughed as she gave him her hand in parting, " until you 
 are conversing with your queen." 
 
 " I am conversing with her now," Lord Conyngham said, 
 as he bowed and withdrew. 
 
 It may have been because their flame was fed upon more 
 substantial fuel than is common, but when they separated it 
 was with a glow of satisfaction as deep as it was pure.
 
 134: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 HOP FUN. 
 
 AMONG the machinery on exhibition in the Exposition 
 was an engine with certain improvements, which Henry 
 Harris had, with his father's help, himself manufactured for 
 the occasion. The young inventor often visited it, and was 
 as much delighted with its movement, swift yet smooth, as 
 a poet would have been with the cadence of his first sonnet. 
 One morning, as he paused beside it for a moment, a voice 
 from the bystanders fell upon his ear : 
 
 " Too muchee fast ! " 
 
 Looking around, he saw that it was a Chinaman whom 
 he had often observed before about the buildings. He wore 
 a crystal button upon the top of his conical cap, denoting his 
 high rank as a mandarin. His tunic and trousers were of 
 the costliest silks, and so small was he that he stood in seri 
 ous need of the soles, thick and white, of his boat-like shoes. 
 But that which brought a smile to the lips of the American 
 was his face, which was peculiar even for a Chinese. It was 
 not that the color thereof was yellow, the nose flat, the 
 cheekbones prominent and wide apart, the eyes small and 
 oblique, the mouth a mere slit in the flesh and without any 
 fullness of lips, the queue reaching almost to the ground down 
 his back, nor that the finger-nails were like quills at the end 
 of each finger, long and white, and curiously curved. The 
 thing which struck Henry Harris most was that the face of 
 the Chinaman was as much without expression as if it had 
 been a pasteboard mask. The young man had met multi 
 tudes of the inhabitants of the Flowery Kingdom, especially 
 when sent by his father upon errands to the region of the 
 Amoor River, which separates Russia from China, but he had 
 seen none whose face was altogether as wooden as in this in 
 stance. 
 
 " The others were more or less compelled to exert them 
 selves," he reasoned with himself upon the spot. "This
 
 HOP FUN. 135 
 
 man is, they say, very rich. Like a turtle, he can repose 
 within his shell in peace. But why, then, should he have 
 come to Paris ? " 
 
 " Too muchee fast ! " the mandarin repeated, coming 
 nearer to the machine and its inventor. 
 
 " Why do you think so ? " asked the American. 
 
 " Kong-fu-tse say, Straws fly ahout ; iron lies still." 
 
 It was said with a certain metallic distinctness of articu 
 lation as of an automaton, and with mechanical movement 
 the critic walked slowly away. 
 
 A few nights afterward Henry Harris observed the man 
 darin ascending the steps of the Grand Opera House, and 
 was careful to secure a seat as near him as he could. Dur 
 ing the music and splendor, the merriment and passion of 
 the opera, the American watched with interest the face of 
 his neighbor. Had the Chinaman been a caryatid of stone, 
 he could not have sat more still ; the notes of the singers, 
 the crash of the orchestra, the outbursts of applause, break 
 ing against him as "the sea against rock. He must have been 
 aware none the less of the interest in him of the other, for as 
 young Harris went slowly out after the performance was 
 ended, he heard the automatic words at his elbow : 
 
 " Too muchee squall ! Kong-fu-tse say, The wind howl, 
 the ass bray, the wise man is hushup." 
 
 On inquiry the day after at the Bodega, the American 
 learned, in addition to what he already knew, that the Chi 
 naman was a statesman from Pekin whose name was Hop 
 Fun. Notwithstanding his dwarfish size and stolid appear 
 ance, he was known to be one of the shrewdest of men. 
 Certain pirates had rifled some French merchant ships near 
 Peiho, and Hop Fun was employed by Prince Kung to settle 
 with the French Government a question as to the measure 
 of indemnity. It was this, and not the Exposition, which 
 was supposed to have brought him to Paris at that time. 
 
 But, like everybody else, Henry Harris met too many re 
 markable people every day to think again of the Chinaman, 
 until one afternoon, when with his sister he chanced to be
 
 136 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 standing before a picture in the Art Department of the Ex 
 position. 
 
 " Yonder," Mary explained to him, pointing to figures in 
 the background of the painting, " is Egistheus, who has sup 
 planted Agamemnon in the affections of Clytemnestra, his 
 wife. That is the false woman beside him. This girl who 
 is advancing toward us is Electra. She has been treated as 
 a slave during the absence of Agamemnon, her father, and 
 she knows that her wicked mother intends to kill Agamem 
 non upon his return from the siege of Troy. You can read 
 her horror in her face. See her dilated eyes : she sees in the 
 future the murder of her father, then the coming of her bro 
 ther Orestes, who is to slay Clytemnestra, then the pur 
 suit of him by the Furies. What a face she has ! She 
 sees " 
 
 " Woman see too muchee ! " a voice remarked by their 
 side. " Kong-fu-tse say, Man see enough for both ; let 
 woman remain blind," and Henry Harris did not need to look 
 around to know that it was Hop Fun who had spoken. 
 
 To his surprise, his sister turned toward the mandarin 
 and said : " When Shuh-leang-ho, the father of Kong-fu-tse, 
 died, it was his mother Yan-she who ti'ained him from the 
 time he was three years old." 
 
 The face of Hop Fun was as that of a mummy still, but 
 his rat-like eyes glittered. 
 
 " Kong-fu-tse mourned for her three full years. But," 
 he replied, " when he taught in the Kingdom of Lu, it was 
 ithe coming of a junkful of women that drove him away. 
 Too muchee women ! " And he shook his grave head and 
 walked off. 
 
 " He reminds me," Mary Harris laughed, " of the little 
 wooden Noah in a toy ark. And his name is Hop Fun. I 
 would as soon expect the statue yonder to hop ; as to any 
 thing resembling fun " 
 
 " I do not know," her brother replied, " but would not be 
 surprised if he has many a laugh, perhaps sheds many a tear, 
 underneath the green silk of his robes and the yellow parch-
 
 HOP FUN. 137 
 
 ment of his face. I am told that he is quite hospitable. He 
 is said to be kind to the poor, is he not, Ishra Dhass ? " 
 
 The American addressed this question to the Hindoo, 
 who chanced to be near them, and who had witnessed the 
 brief scene. 
 
 " I do not know," Ishra Dhass replied instantly ; " but 
 Hop Fun is the mandarin who assisted Yung Wing." 
 
 " Young Wing ? " echoed the American ; " some orphan 
 child, I suppose ? " 
 
 There was a flash of surprise across the swarthy face of 
 the Brahmin, but it gave place the next instant to his habit 
 ual good-humor. "I thought you knew," he said. "I 
 thought every American knew about Yung, not young, Wing. 
 Yet," he interrupted himself, " Wing was young when he 
 began. Do you know, Mr. Harris, Hop Fun desires to find 
 your father ? I think he already knows that you are George 
 Harris's son. If you are invited to dine with him, would 
 you come ? " 
 
 " Certainly I would," the other replied. 
 
 " And not be afraid of having to partake of stewed kit 
 tens, salted earthworms, and the like ?" demanded the jolly 
 Hindoo, for that word only can express the cordial, laughing 
 good-fellowship of the Brahmin. 
 
 " I will gladly risk it. I overheard an indiscreet Eng 
 lishman asking Hop Fun at the Bodega in regard to bird- 
 nest soup," Henry Harris replied, " but the mandarin, with 
 out moving a muscle, responded, ' At least, Chinaman no eat 
 oyster, insides and all.' " 
 
 " There are several of us," the Brahmin continued, " who 
 dine with Hop Fun quite soon. If I can manage it, I will 
 secure you an invitation. You shall hear about Yung Wing 
 there. Oh, as to China," Ishra Dhass added, in his rapid and 
 lively manner, "they invented printing, as you are aware. 
 Well, they practice it on the grandest scale in the world. In 
 this way : Kong-fu-tse Confucius you call him died four 
 hundred and seventy-nine years before Christ was born. He 
 left nine books of doctrine, as you know, which constitute
 
 138 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the entire literature of the empire. Every child is compelled 
 to read part, at least, of these classics, as they are styled. 
 The whole of China was, within a hundred years after Kong- 
 fu-tse's death, cast into the mold of his teaching. That gen 
 eration was like a set of type ; each of the seventy-odd gen 
 erations since is merely an exact copy struck off from that. 
 China is to-day the same China it was twenty-three hundred 
 years ago. The only thing that ever changes in all the 
 empire is the river Hoang-ho, which alters its course so 
 often that it is named the ' Sorrow of China.' Hop Fun is 
 the living duplicate of many score ancestral Hop Funs going 
 before. Except," and the Hindoo paused, " for that, China 
 has known no change, no, not a particle, except for " 
 
 "For English intervention in the last century," Mary 
 Harris supplied ; " and Kong-f u-tse taught, did he not, exclu 
 sively as to the duty of man to man ? " she added. 
 
 "Exclusively. He warned the Chinese not to interest 
 themselves in anything beyond that. You are fond of 
 machinery, Mr. Harris," the Hindoo continued ; " you ought 
 to like Hop Fun and his people. Click, clack ; it is nothing 
 but machinery in China. From Thibet to the Yellow Sea, 
 from the South Sea to the Great Wall, the four hundred and 
 twenty millions concern themselves about this world exclu 
 sively. Taouism, like Buddhism, is stone dead there, and 
 nothing has taken its place so far. An empire the largest 
 on earth of atheists ! Think of that. But," and the face 
 of the Brahmin, always so full of vivacity, became luminous 
 as he added, " it will not be so for ever ; the sun has always 
 arisen in the East ; it is about to arise again. Ah ! " he 
 added, with almost the abrupt frankness of a spoiled boy, 
 " as soon as I said that, your faces turned cold and solemn. 
 That is always the way with you Christians of Europe and 
 America. Your churches are vast vaults, damp, dark, and 
 ah, how chilly ! And that," with a shiver, " is like your 
 Christianity. Now, when I think of Christ, it makes me glad 
 all over, like going into the sun." 
 
 Henry Harris and his sister had come to know, with all
 
 THE ARTISTS. 139 
 
 who knew the Hindoo, in what direction his joyous talk was 
 certain to run. But, like everybody else, they did not ob 
 ject to it at all, he was so bright and mirthful. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE ARTISTS. 
 
 IT was not long after his visit to the old artist that Henry 
 Harris found himself again in his company. It was, how 
 ever, under different and more favorable circumstances. 
 Zerah Atchison and his daughter had secured rooms nearer 
 to the Exposition and in more accessible quarters. When 
 the American and his sister arrived by appointment, they 
 were shown upstairs to the outer door of an apartment which 
 was given wholly to artistic purposes. Mr. Atchison had 
 covered the walls with some of his best attempts in oil- and 
 water-painting, as well as wood-carving, and was so seated 
 upon a chair made for the purpose that his paralyzed right 
 arm was comfortably supported, while he wrought with his 
 left at a picture upon which he was engaged. He had al 
 ways seemed so patient that, although his surroundings were 
 changed, he was the same. 
 
 This could not be said of his daughter, who was at work, 
 in paper cap and coarse apron, at a mass of clay upon a stand 
 near by. It was evident that she was perplexed as she toiled. 
 Standing first to the right of it and then to the left, she 
 would examine her work, her head upon one side, now draw 
 ing back, then going nearer. But it always ended as it had 
 done during months of labor before ; she would make a dart 
 at the offending clay and scoop out here, fill in there, round 
 ing out one curve, obliterating another. 
 
 " Stand aside, Isidore," her father said at last, and she 
 did so, her hands dropped, and her air that of a prisoner who 
 already knows the verdict. Holding his brush arrested in
 
 140 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 his hand, her father examined her work with a critical air. 
 After a while his daughter looked up to see that, without a 
 word, he was painting again, his face as nobly patient as 
 before. It had often occurred, but the poor girl dropped 
 more than one tear upon the clay as, under pretense of 
 work, she bowed beside it again, her face so that her father 
 could not see. 
 
 " Do not be discouraged, Isidore," he observed, quietly ; 
 " although you do not get it from me, you have genius, 
 and" 
 
 But there was at this moment a knock at the door. The 
 girl, throwing a wet cloth over her work, darted through an 
 opening into her own room, and Henry Harris came in with 
 his sister. Hardly had he introduced her to the old artist, 
 when Lord Conyngham also arrived, accompanied by Lady 
 Blanche and an insignificant-looking gentleman. When he 
 was introduced to the old painter as the Duke of Plymouth, 
 the artist gave him a rapid glance. He was about forty 
 years of age, had thin hair, a feeble whisker, and somehow 
 his whole manner partook of the hue of his eyes and com 
 plexion, which were of an undecided, almost watery, hue. 
 During the whole visit he hardly opened his lips, and then 
 only to echo what was said by those who came with him, in 
 a genteel but almost inarticulate murmur. The principal im 
 pression produced by him was astonishment that such a man 
 should be a duke, and he was uneasy of eye and of manner, 
 as if he knew what people were thinking of him. 
 
 Isidore Atchison soon returned, and for some time all 
 present were engaged in examining the carvings and paint 
 ings. Many flattering things were said, but it was in regard 
 to the carving that most interest was awakened. 
 
 "I have never seen better in my life," Lady Blanche said; 
 " and I, Mr. Atchison," she added, turning to him with a 
 smile, " am considered something of a judge. Those camellias 
 are perfect, so are those japonicas. Your work is wonder 
 fully good." 
 
 The old artist smiled ; " I am more, alas ! of a critic than
 
 THE ARTISTS, 141 
 
 a skilled workman," he said. " When I was young I had 
 passionate desires after excellence. I even hoped, almost 
 believed, that I could attain to it. But I have learned bet 
 ter long ago. With me the critical faculty is too strong for 
 the creative. I have the keenest instinct as to what is and 
 as to what, alas ! is not good painting, an instinct so just and 
 keen that I rate my work more harshly, because more accu 
 rately, than any other person. My poor pictures will never 
 compete with Titian or Rubens." It was said with a con 
 tented smile. 
 
 " They are very good," Lord Conyngham said, with a 
 glance around the room ; " but as to your carving now, sin 
 cerely, it is extraordinary ! " 
 
 " It certainly is," Lady Blanche confirmed her brother. 
 " It is so good that we are under great obligations to Mr. 
 Harris for telling us of it ; and I hope, Mr. Atchison, that 
 you will let me have this panel of grapes, this cluster of 
 roses," pointing each article out as she said it, "and this 
 charming confusion of violets and pansies upon a salver." 
 
 The Duke of Plymouth murmured his approval of her 
 choice. 
 
 " It is really remarkable " the old man leaned his white 
 head back in his chair as he said it " but my life ever since 
 I can remember has been given to painting instead. You 
 would never believe how ardent I once was, how enthusias 
 tic, how almost desperately I hoped and toiled from dawn to 
 dusk at drawing and painting. I would surpass every other 
 American artist, at least, or die in the attempt ! All that," 
 he added, with an unclouded face, " is over and gone. It is 
 only since the paralysis of my arm that I have tried to carve. ' 
 I am a rigid critic, as I said, and my work of that kind is 
 good, but it astonished me more than any one else. Yes, 
 the best things, the grandest things descend to us like air 
 and sunshine, apart from ourselves, from:-" He only 
 smiled and was silent. What he added to himself was, 
 " from the Father of light, from whom is every good and 
 perfect gift."
 
 142 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " My mother likes you in marble," Mary Harris said to 
 the artist, as she was leaving; "I will tell her how much 
 more she will like you in person." But at that moment 
 Lord Conyngham was entreating Isidore Atchison to allow 
 him to see her work upon the stand. In her flight from the 
 room she had covered it, as has been said, and now stood 
 defending it with laughing face but determined hands. 
 
 " No, my lord," she repeated, " no one shall see it, shall 
 ever see it ! " 
 
 " You had better desist, sir," the father said ; " she is 
 shielding you from sorrow." 
 
 " O father, how can you ! " His daughter was so sin 
 cere in her exclamation that the others looked at her with 
 surprise, and then laughed, and with many kind words they 
 withdrew. 
 
 "And now, father?" Isidore asked, as their steps died 
 upon the stairway. 
 
 " Well, my dear," the artist answered, as if in accord 
 ance with an agreement going before, " I would have done 
 as you wished without your asking. If you had implored 
 me not to do so, I could no more have helped playing the 
 critic in regard to them than I could refrain from breathing; 
 it is the habit of my life as well as an unconquerable instinct. 
 You can catechise me while I work," and he resumed his 
 brush and palette, the latter being a fixture upon the arm of 
 his chair. "Shall I begin with the Duke of Dundreary, was 
 it not ? But I ought not to say that," he corrected himself. 
 
 His daughter dismissed his Grace with a laughing ges 
 ture. 
 
 " Lord Conyngham ? " She put the question, leaning upon 
 the stand, which remained hidden beneath its cloth. 
 
 " Well, he is above the average of his class," came the 
 reply. "He is of the best material of English manhood, 
 healthful, truthful, brave, despising all meanness. His de 
 fects are perfectly natural also, but as external to himself as 
 his coat. But he is in process toward as exclusive a belief 
 in his rank and himself as can be. When he is Earl Dor-
 
 THE ARTISTS. 143 
 
 rington he will so far as the times allow be the old Earl 
 over again, unless, indeed, the times clothe themselves in the 
 person of well, my dear, of Miss Mary Harris." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " his daughter said, with astonish 
 ment of eyes and uplifted hand. 
 
 " No, Isidore, I do not think so ; that is not the word I 
 know so ; know so as I know the stamens, petals, subtilest 
 curve and veining of the flower I happen to be carving. 
 The young nobleman loves her because he has an instinctive 
 sense of the fact that she is the one woman of all the sex 
 who can take him as you would take clay, and make him 
 what he should be. Miss Harris is, in a womanly way, the 
 stronger of the two ; neither of them look at it in that way, 
 of course, but she loves him because she is blindly conscious 
 that she is necessary to him. They will both be miserable 
 unless they marry each other ; miserable whoever else they 
 may wed, because each will know that he or she has done 
 wrong in not obeying their deepest instincts." 
 
 " And what do you think of Lady Blanche ? " his daugh 
 ter asked. There was so much of serious meaning in her 
 father's tones, also, that she hesitated long before asking. 
 
 " Isidore," the artist replied, as he worked, " let me tell 
 you a little story. Once upon a time, three goddesses strove 
 together for the prize of beauty. They were Minerva, Juno, 
 and" 
 
 " Why, father, I have known the story all my life," his 
 daughter interrupted. 
 
 " And Venus," the old artist continued. " Minerva was 
 the beauty of wisdom ; Juno, the beauty of power ; Venus, 
 the loveliness of love. Do you understand what I would say 
 now ? " 
 
 " You think" 
 
 "Not think know" the other interrupted her, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " That Mary Harris has the charm of wisdom ? Yes, you 
 are always right, father. That is the way in which, without 
 defining it to myself, she impressed me at first. Her brow 
 7
 
 144: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 is low and wide, her eyes deep and pure and steady ; her 
 manner, her tones, her silence. Yes, she is Minerva ; only a 
 more purely womanly Pallas than her of the owl and helmet. 
 Then, Lady Blanche is " but the speaker hesitated, with a 
 look of trouble upon her face as well as perplexity, " is Ve 
 nus, father ? " 
 
 " Of course not is Juno ! and her chariot is drawn by 
 peacocks ; it always is, yes." The old artist paused from 
 his painting, and looked up as if he saw the proud English 
 girl as he spoke. " Yes, Lady Blanche," he said, " you are 
 the goddess of power, of pride. You come of high lineage, 
 of the oldest and best of the English, which is by far the 
 noblest nobility in the world. Power ! Pride ! You have 
 more than your brother, for you are superior to him as you 
 are to the old Earl, your father. You are Juno in your 
 very soul. Even in the Christian heaven I do not see 
 how you can cease to be a beautiful but heathen Juno for 
 ever ! Isidore," the artist said, abruptly, " Diana may love 
 Endymion, Venus may love Adonis, but Juno ? Juno can 
 never love any other than one of the immortal gods ; with 
 her it must be Jupiter or no one ! Lady Blanche," the artist 
 ended, with a laugh, " your Majesty being a queen, can marry 
 only a king." 
 
 But Isidore had turned from her father, and was taking 
 the cloth off from her work. Her hands trembled, her color 
 came and went. 
 
 " Do you wish my critical opinion as to young Mr. Har 
 ris ? " her father demanded, in graver accents. 
 
 " No," his daughter said, with great indifference of man 
 ner. " I can not say that I do, father," she added, looking 
 with marked despair at her work. "I have been think 
 ing" 
 
 " Perhaps you would like me to say something as to who 
 is Venus, my dear," he added, with malicious accent. 
 
 But Isidore was saying, with scornful eyes, to her work, 
 " You horrid old lady ! Do you suppose that I am to be 
 your slave for ever ? Look at yourself in the glass, now, do ! "
 
 THE ARTISTS. 145 
 
 The old painter could not refrain from laughing. The 
 head was a well-executed conception of Sorrow ; massive, 
 stern, sepulchral, exceedingly well done, but it had never 
 satisfied the father, much less his daughter. Isidore was 
 holding a hand-mirror before the sad eyes of the clay image. 
 " Only look at yourself ! " the girl said, derisively ; " you 
 flattered yourself that you were going to be a good wife, did 
 you, for Pluto ? Aspired, did you, to be Proserpine ? Inso 
 lent thing ! " And before her father could prevent, the ex 
 cited girl had boxed the ears of the astonished Sorrow. 
 
 "Isidore!" 
 
 It was in vain he cried out ; the girl seized upon and 
 twisted off first the nose and then the ears and chin of the 
 image, dropping them at her feet. Then, with hands rapid 
 and energetic, she kneaded the face and head into a shape 
 less lump, and turned defiantly toward her father. 
 
 " Isidore ! my child," he exclaimed, and a sudden and 
 pathetic sadness clouded his usual serenity, as he saw how 
 her cheeks glowed, her eye sparkled. 
 
 " Never mind, father," she said. " I know what I am 
 about. You remember how hard I have worked at this odious 
 creature. For all I could do, for all you could suggest, she 
 only became, not sorrowful, only miserable, basely, degraded- 
 ly miserable. I could not do it ! But I had no other con 
 ception before. Now I have another, a better. But it is 
 not of Sorrow. I see it as clearly before me as if I had fin 
 ished it. O father, it will be a success, I know my greatest 
 success ! Wait, and you will see." 
 
 Her father looked at her with surprise. He had not sup 
 posed she could seem so beautiful. She turned from him 
 and went to work with eager hands upon the clay ; but the 
 painter said nothing as he plied his brush. Another and a 
 higher patience sat upon his face, but a tear none the less 
 trickled down his cheek. 
 
 " What was Mr. Harris saying to you ? " he asked, after 
 they had both worked for quite a long time in silence. Al 
 though he could not see his daughter's face, the sharp-sighted
 
 146 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 old artist saw that her neck had a rosier hue as she replied : 
 " Nothing in particular, sir." 
 
 Her father said no more, and the patient endurance 
 burned in a soft, steady flame in his eyes as he continued 
 to work. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE NEW CHINESE. 
 
 ISHEA DHASS GUNGA, the popular Brahmin, found no 
 difficulty in securing for Henry Harris an invitation to dine 
 with Hop Fun, the mandarin, not many days after he had 
 given his promise to that effect. In fact, the Chinese was 
 the first to mention it to the Hindoo. Russia was too near 
 to China, and the services of George Harris in the shops of 
 the Czar had been too great, for the intelligent though 
 dwarfish Chinese statesmen not to have heard of him. There 
 was no telling what need China itself might not have for at 
 least the son, in the engineering of the future. 
 
 " Harris he velly muchee man," the mandarin explained 
 to the Brahmin, and then proceeded to acknowledge that 
 heretofore his countrymen would not endure a railway in 
 any part of the Flowery Kingdom. Not only did they 
 abhor the outer barbarians with all their inventions ; the 
 rails must be laid across the dust of generations of their 
 worshiped ancestors, and that every precept in their Book of 
 Rites forbade. Thus far, the regent, Prince Kung himself, 
 was as powerless to grant concessions of the kind as the 
 young emperor would be when he reached the plenitude of 
 his power. But Hop Fun closed both of his little eyes when 
 he told the Hindoo of this, and with a face like a stone wall 
 added, " Kong-fu-tse say, ' Fools reach end before they set 
 out on journey, wise men wait for by-and-by.' " 
 
 " The truth is," Ishra Dhass remarked to young Harris, 
 as upon the appointed day they rode together in a carriage
 
 THE NEW CHINESE. 
 
 sent for them by Hop Fun, " that a vast change impends 
 over China, as over all nations. You have read De Tocque- 
 ville, Mr. Harris ? " 
 
 " Certainly," was the reply, and the American looked at 
 the happy countenance of his swarthy companion, thinking, 
 " Who would have supposed that a Hindoo cared for such 
 things ? " 
 
 " Then you will remember with what awe," the other 
 continued, " the Frenchman speaks of -the day when your 
 republic will stand, in the fullness of its prosperity and 
 power, upon the shores of the Pacific, threatening Japan and 
 China. De Tocqueville prophesied inevitable war and con 
 quest. True, but what a conquest ! " added the Hindoo, 
 with animation. "Learned as the author was in the his 
 tory of all nations, he had no conception that the conquests 
 of America were to be intellectual, moral, spiritual ! My 
 friend," the Brahmin said, with pitying eyes, " even you 
 have slight idea of the grandeur of your own America. A 
 nation made up of some fifty nations, present and prospec 
 tive, yet one, one republic, unparalleled in history ! Hail 
 Columbia ! " 
 
 Although the Oriental laughed, he was in serious earnest. 
 Then his face clouded. " Your nation exists because of your 
 Christianity. At last," he added, " and for that reason, your 
 republic stands with its face toward Asia. The race, start 
 ing from its birthplace therein, has made its long, slow, and 
 sorrowful journey around the planet, and is getting back 
 again to the point from which it set out. Has not the race 
 its orbit also as well as the globe ? Originating in Asia, the 
 path of history struck through Europe, and so across the At 
 lantic to the eastern shores of your continent. From James 
 town and Plymouth across the hemisphere to San Diego and 
 San Francisco, the sublime circle is completed. Young, rich, 
 powerful, having ended the long travel of man and of the 
 earth, you have got back at last to Asia once more ? Well, 
 Asia, Europe has nothing to tell you which you do not 
 know already in regard to politics, art, science, but " and
 
 148 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the Hindoo looked at his companion with, only less pity 
 than he would have bestowed upon a worshiper of the cow 
 or the crocodile in his own land. 
 
 "You are always underrating our Christianity," Henry 
 Harris complained. " Frankly, once and for all, what do 
 mean?" 
 
 "Mean?" the other said, indignantly. "Fifteen hun 
 dred years after Moses, Christ came to the Hebrews, and 
 what did he find ? A petrified formalism. Because you are 
 not Catholic you say it is not so of you. My friend," and 
 the other lifted up a warning finger, " suppose the Christ 
 who walked the fields and streets of Syria were to come to 
 even Protestantdom to-day, the living Christ, the truthful 
 Christ, what would he find ? Oh ! the complicated " and 
 even the voluble Brahmin hesitated for a word, " yes," he 
 added, " the complicated catacombs of mere profession. Do 
 you believe you live, do you love, as he says you must ? " 
 Once started, the Hindoo launched into such detail of short 
 coming among Christians as caused the American to wince. 
 Yet for his life he could not deny a word of it. " I, too, am 
 the weakest of the weak," Ishra Dhass added, "but mission 
 aries will tell you that when the heathen do accept their 
 message, the one person they believe in is the living, loving 
 Christ, as he was to Peter and to John. That is all, and that 
 is enough ! I despair of making you understand ! " 
 
 There was something in the manner, too, of the Brah 
 min which struck the young man. He had lingered in the 
 Invalides the day before to talk with one or two of the old 
 Imperial Guard, but Ishra Dhass had an enthusiasm for his 
 Emperor beyond anything Henry Harris had been thrilled by 
 among the old moustaches of the first Napoleon. This Em 
 peror was alive, was landing upon the globe from his Elba, 
 his St. Helena, for eternal conquest, and the Brahmin had 
 the radiant certainty in regard to him of a joyous child. 
 
 " But what is it," his companion demanded, " that you 
 intended telling me about Yung "Wing ? " 
 
 " It is soon told," was the reply. " Over forty years ago
 
 THE NEW CHINESE. 149 
 
 a Chinese boy was educated in an American household ; but 
 he did not become a missionary. He had an idea. Return 
 ing to China, he studied hard, qualified himself for diplomatic 
 service, obtained access to officials of the empire. When the 
 Tiensin massacre was to be paid for, he was the only China 
 man capable of conferring with the agents of European gov 
 ernments. He was made a mandarin, and talked to Hop 
 Fun, our host of to-day, until he very slowly came to com 
 prehend and accept the life-long idea of Yung Wing. Seven 
 years it took to accomplish that. Just as Hop Fun was 
 getting at the Chinese Government to begin the task of 
 making them understand it, the mother of Hop Fun died, 
 and for three years he had to retire from Pekin and weep. 
 His tears and his appointed years of grief being exhausted, 
 Hop Fun secured at last the consent of the throne, and a 
 certain number of the choicest youths in China were selected 
 by competitive examination, and sent under the care of Yung 
 Wing to America to be educated, nearly two hundred thou 
 sand dollars being appropriated for that purpose. Yung 
 Wing is assistant minister from China at Washington. In 
 ten years more there will be, therefore, many score of Chi 
 nese like himself in the empire, educated Christians. Even 
 Hop Fun knows," the Hindoo added, "that the end has 
 nearly arrived with his ancient civilization. Very soon it 
 must pass under the scepter of Russia, or England, or 
 Christ ! " 
 
 But there was not an atom of cant in the Hindoo. Henry 
 Harris could as soon have charged hypocrisy upon Damon 
 trusting in Pythias ; upon Clitus, rather, exulting in Alex 
 ander the Great. 
 
 By this time the carriage had arrived at the hotel in 
 which Hop Fun had established his home. With a great 
 deal of ceremony, the two were conducted to a suite of rooms 
 fitted up in Chinese fashion, with lanterns, screens, lacquered 
 seats, and costly cabinets, embroidered curtains of heavy 
 silk, and cases of curiosities in rock crystal and ivory. There 
 were carvings dispersed about the gorgeous apartments which
 
 150 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 would have awakened the interest, if not the admiration, of 
 Zerah Atchison ; paintings, also, from which he would have 
 recoiled with artistic horror. Between two tall vases of blue 
 porcelain from Pekin stood the handsomest gift Hop Fun 
 had ever received, a coffin of rosewood, with silver mount 
 ings, and lined with crimson silk, by which Prince Kung, 
 Regent of China, had expressed his sincere esteem for the 
 statesman in the most grateful way known among the Chinese. 
 Everywhere were displayed the wings and claws, the red 
 ravening mouth and interminable tail, of the Chinese dragon. 
 "The old serpent," Ishra Dhass whispered to his friend, 
 " who has had his coils about China for four thousand years. 
 But his day is nearly over." 
 
 In Paris, especially during the Exposition, people took 
 any and every thing as a matter of course, and, after paying 
 his respects to Hop Fun, who was arrayed in silks of bril 
 liant colors, Henry Harris looked about him. Hassan Pasha 
 was conferring, upon one side of the room, with a man of 
 extraordinary appearance. 
 
 " It is a nephew," Ishra Dhass explained to him, " of the 
 Afghan bandit of whom you have heard, Dilawur Khan. 
 Did you ever see such a head ? It is like the rugged peak 
 of one of the mountains of the Khyber Pass. His enormous 
 nose is another Afghan peculiarity. Napoleon always chose 
 his marshals by the length, you remember, of that feature ; 
 it insured clearness and force of intellect, he said, and he 
 was right." 
 
 " Who was Dilawur Khan ? " Henry Harris demanded. 
 
 The Brahmin glanced at him with surprise. " You ap 
 pear," he said, dryly, " to be ignorant of several of the most 
 important of modern heroes. Excuse me, you are joking ; 
 you must know of him. Dilawur Khan had a price fixed 
 upon his head you will recall it by the British in India, for 
 his savage robberies. He said he might as well have the 
 cash himself, and so brought it into camp upon his shoulders. 
 As the bravest of men, having enlisted in the service, he rose 
 to the highest grade a native can attain in the British army,
 
 TEE NEW CHINESE. 151 
 
 and helped to put down the Sepoy rebellion. He would not 
 pocket anything at the storming and looting, i. e., plundering, 
 of Delhi. ' Christ would not like it,' he said ; for," the Brah 
 min added, " we heathens can not but take him in earnest, if 
 we take him at all. You know the rest ; how the sincere sav 
 age, after he believed, turned at least two hundred Moslems 
 from Mohammed. He seized them by their conscience with 
 his powerful clutch, as he used to take travelers by the 
 throat, and, as it were, made them believe. The Khan was 
 like a more violent Paul. He was sent at last into Central 
 Asia upon secret service, and is supposed to have been cap 
 tured and blown from a cannon or martyred in some way. 
 His nephew across the room is Ali Khan, and I see he has 
 already laid his lion's paw upon Hassan Pasha, for, rough and 
 tremendous as Ali Khan seems, like his uncle, he also believes." 
 
 " I recognize a Persian gentleman yonder ; I think his 
 name is Meerut," the American said ; " yes, and I see that 
 the rich merchant Aeout, I think it is, of Madagascar, is 
 present. That dark individual beside Hop Fun is an Abys 
 sinian, is he not ? " 
 
 " Yes, his name is Cherubin ; a son of the king, I am 
 told ; " and the Brahmin, who knew almost everybody, gave 
 him the names and nationalities of three or four guests be 
 sides. But at this moment, and with many ceremonies, the 
 assembly was ushered into the adjoining apartment, in which 
 dinner awaited them. 
 
 " Hop Fun loves to gather about him people of all na 
 tions," Ishra Dhass explained, as he accompanied his friend. 
 " Although he speaks only to quote Kong-fu-tse, he loves to 
 have his guests express themselves with perfect freedom. 
 All present understand enough English to make themselves 
 agreeable, and at times disagreeable," the Hindoo laughed. 
 " You will not be surprised at whatever you may hear ; you 
 are among heathens, you know. Europeans and Americans 
 constitute but a small part of the population of the globe. 
 The rest of the race are cannibals. You may find yourself 
 part of our repast. Look out ! "
 
 152 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A CHINESE REPAST. 
 
 WHEN Henry Harris was seated at the richly furnished 
 board of the Chinese statesman, he glanced sharply about 
 him. He was glad to find that Ishra Dhass had the seat next 
 to him upon his right, while Hassan Pasha was placed upon 
 his left. Immediately across the table from him, Hop Fun 
 presided but at the lower, because least honorable, part of 
 the table while the other guests were ranged up and down 
 upon either side. The table-cloth, was of crimson silk, richly 
 flowered, and each napkin was a marvel of embroidery. 
 From end to end the board was, perhaps, overcrowded with 
 an innumerable quantity of vessels of glass, porcelain, silver, 
 and gold, each containing a very small quantity of food or 
 drink, and not one was left upon the table by the crowd of 
 attendants for more than a few minutes. In fact, it was as 
 if the guests were seated at a diversified and sparkling tor 
 rent of food and tableware, so unceasing was the going and 
 coming of the dishes. To the surprise of the American, a 
 carte, in French, of the fare was laid beside every plate, so 
 that no one need remain in ignorance of the nature of his 
 food. 
 
 But it was upon his host that the attention of Henry 
 Harris was fastened ; as much, at least, as politeness would 
 allow. Although the mandarin could hardly have had a 
 more immovable face had he been carved out of walnut, 
 there seemed to rest upon him now the weight, in addition, 
 of the world. In fact, he was conducting a religious rite. 
 In rapid succession a number of minute dishes were placed 
 and removed from before Hop Fun, who plied his chop-sticks 
 rapidly, but, as the dishes were strictly Chinese, the Ameri 
 can preferred not to inspect them too closely, observing only 
 that whales' nerves, fresh tadpoles, and the like, were part 
 thereof, and gave his attention rather to the mandarin him 
 self and his guests. To every one present it was much more
 
 A CHINESE REPAST. 153 
 
 than a mere dinner. The Brahmin broke caste in eating 
 with the rest, but he had ruined himself with his people by 
 so doing long before, and seemed to be all the jollier for it. 
 So with the Mohammedan, Hassan Pasha. Were it not for 
 the peculiar circumstances of the case, he would much sooner 
 have seated himself upon his doorstep in Constantinople, 
 and shared his dinner with the mangiest cur which came 
 along, than to have eaten with Ishra Dhass, to say nothing of 
 the others. Hindoo, Persian, Chinese, Afghan, Abyssinian, 
 American, all felt, however, as if Paris was an eventful pa 
 renthesis in their lives. Each was but a grain of corn caught 
 between the whirling millstones of the time ; they were be 
 ing ground together, for the moment, as by a force which 
 revolved the earth and stars. Since they were compelled 
 to yield to such undreamed-of companionship, they did it 
 with the reckless desperation of boys who, having got into 
 some frightful mischief, were determined to rush it through 
 with defiant energy. 
 
 As they ate and drank, the spirits of all arose. There 
 was a swift circulation of very small cups of brandy distilled 
 from rice. The cups were small, but the contents were quin 
 tessences, and, from a whisper, conversation became loud 
 and animated. Young Harris had no idea, at the outset, 
 how closely he was watched, and was glad afterward that 
 he had confined himself to tea and to a very small glass of 
 wine. 
 
 At last the table was cleared of everything except a 
 green leaf, laid beside each plate, having in the center a heap 
 of salt. Every one awaited with curiosity for what was to 
 come next. Suddenly a servant placed in the center of the 
 board a magnificent tureen, closely covered. Hop Fun lifted 
 a forefinger ; the cover was snatched off. The vessel was 
 almost filled with strong vinegar, in which struggled dozens 
 of half -grown crabs. Eager to escape the vinegar, the in 
 stant the cover was removed they swarmed over the table, 
 running in every direction for dear life. The American 
 watched Hop Fun. Without moving a muscle, winking
 
 154 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 even, that diplomate seized, one after another, upon such 
 crabs as came in reach, dipped them in the salt at his plate, 
 and consigned them in rapid succession, kicking and scram 
 bling, into his mouth, which opened and shut with the re 
 morseless precision of a nutcracker. Several of his friends 
 followed his example, more liquors were served, and the ice 
 seemed to be thoroughly broken. Even the mandarin ap 
 peared to have relaxed. He looked at Henry Harris, and 
 opened his mouth : 
 
 "America muchee smart," he announced. If, from the 
 orifice in question, one of the martyred crabs had suddenly 
 jumped out, the guest would not have been much more taken 
 aback. But he was equal to the emergency. 
 
 " China is much the oldest," he replied instantly, and 
 with a bow. 
 
 The little eyes of the mandarin glittered. " India muchee 
 sun," he remarked to the Brahmin. 
 
 " Yes," the other replied, with his ready smile, " but too 
 much of our sun goes into the poppy." 
 
 " Yes ; too muchee opium," the host acknowledged, and 
 " too muchee English," he added. " Turkish Empire fight," 
 he suggested to Hassan Pasha. 
 
 " We are poor ; China is rich," was the reply ; and, as if 
 distributing a higher variety of sugar-plums in addition to 
 the sweetmeats with which the servants were now heaping 
 the table, the mandarin managed to address to every guest 
 a brief compliment in regard to his own country, receiving a 
 more or less pertinent one in return. 
 
 This ritual of hospitality ended, the conversation took a 
 freer range. It happened that there was no Frenchman at 
 the dinner, and Hop Fun suggested, by way of variety, a 
 criticism : " Frenchman too muchee cut-a-caper," but it was 
 said with a countenance which had, apparently, never smiled. 
 Perhaps Hassan Pasha had, the Koran to the contrary not 
 withstanding, taken too much stimulant ; or, he may have 
 been irritated by his animosity to Europeans in general, but 
 he said, with haughty disdain :
 
 A CHINESE REPAST. 155 
 
 " The French are a nation of fools. They are not men. 
 Go to the Chamber of Deputies if you wish to believe in 
 Darwin. No monkeys ever screamed and gesticulated as 
 they do. I confess," he continued, in excellent English, 
 " that it enrages a man of my nation to be at the beck of 
 such people." 
 
 As has been said, the Turk was a man of high rank, of 
 considerable wealth, of disappointed ambition. For a brief 
 time he had been Vizier, but, exiled from Constantinople, he 
 had abandoned himself to profligacy and gambling. Al 
 though of a fine presence still, his dark eyes had flashes oc 
 casionally of a fire which was consuming him within. There 
 was a certain insolence which broke, at times, through the 
 smooth veneer of his politeness ; and he was exasperated, 
 also, by his nearness to the Hindoo. Had he uttered his in 
 most heart, he would have said : " I am the ruined outcast 
 of a nation once the bravest, the proudest on earth. Under 
 the banner of the Prophet we drove out the dogs, the unbe 
 lievers, and made a home for ourselves in Europe. But we 
 are going down before the Cross. This accursed Hindoo, 
 for instance, is a specimen. Yesterday he was a heathen ; 
 to-day he believes in the Christ of Europe ; to-morrow all In 
 dia will follow at his heels. Renegade ! Accursed giaour ! 
 In Stamboul we kill such vermin ! " 
 
 But all that he said aloud was, " I perceive that there are 
 no Europeans present. For once, I think, we may express 
 ourselves frankly. May I ask your Excellency," and he 
 bowed with great respect to their host, " what you think of 
 them ? " 
 
 But Hop Fun had not been and for so long under the 
 influence of Yung Wing for nothing. Moreover, he was a 
 statesman in Paris upon international affairs. For some 
 minutes his bead-like optics were fastened upon the black and 
 imperious eyes of the Turk. Not a movement was there in 
 hand or face, nor could any one have perceived that he had 
 parted his lips. Yet, in some way, there came, at last, from 
 his direction the word " Opium ! " and, but separate from it,
 
 156 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 like another tick of a clock, "Muchee hell!" That and no 
 more. 
 
 " I thank you," Hassan Pasha replied, " and I agree with 
 your Excellency. Yes ; your great nation has had a taste 
 of Europe. "When, in 1839, your Government made a des 
 perate effort to prevent the English from poisoning its peo 
 ple with opium, it was brutally attacked. Being Christians, 
 the English devote themselves to the best modes of killing 
 their fellow-creatures, and, in 1842, they succeeded in com 
 pelling China to pay twenty-one millions of dollars toward 
 the expenses of the war, and in ceding Hong Kong to them, 
 as also in opening five great ports through which they might 
 pour their poison down the throats of the people at the rate 
 of fifty-two millions of dollars' worth annually, upon which 
 they clear three hundred per cent. In 1857 the French and 
 the English stormed Canton, and forced the Emperor to pay 
 them three millions two hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
 in English money. In 1860 Pekin, your ancient capital, was 
 taken, and given over to plunder. Very grateful your Ex 
 cellency should be to these Christians ! " It was said by 
 the Turk with bitter sarcasm. " You, also, are greatly in 
 debted to England," he added, in the same tone, to the Per 
 sian, Meerut by name, who was seated opposite him. 
 
 " Very much so," replied the one addressed a large man, 
 fat, fine-featured, with olive complexion, and hair, beard, 
 and mustache like silk, jet-black, and, like his eyes and tones, 
 of a soft and luxurious fluidity. He was dressed in em 
 broidered garments, with a red fez upon his head, like that 
 of Hassan Pasha. " Since 1797 we have had a hard time of 
 it," he remarked, with a smile. 
 
 " Yes ; in that year," said the Turk, " you had to sur 
 render to Russia Derbend and several districts on the Kur. 
 In 1802 you gave up Georgia to the Czar. In 1813 you 
 surrendered all of Persia north of Armenia. In 1826 you 
 had to pay to Russia eighteen million rubles, Erivan, and 
 the rest of Armenia. As in the case of my country, that 
 you exist at all is only because England, France, and Russia
 
 A CHINESE REPAST, 157 
 
 can not, for the present, agree how to divide you among 
 them." 
 
 The Persian did not seem to share the bitterness of the 
 speaker. He merely smiled, and toyed with the diamonds 
 with which his bosom was enriched, saying : " As Hafiz sings, 
 how much sweeter, O Turk, are kisses than blows, and the 
 flowing of honey than the gushing forth of blood. To you and 
 to the Ottomans will we leave all war, O Prince ! More 
 over, I belong," the Persian continued, " to the sect of the 
 Shiahites. You wash before prayer from the wrist to the 
 elbow ; we wash, instead, from the elbow down to the wrist. 
 Furthermore, I am one of the Ali Illahees the People of the 
 Truth. Most of all do I believe in Hafiz of the sugar lip. 
 For me, pleasure," and the Persian smiled and stroked his 
 mustache. 
 
 " Hog ! " the Turk exclaimed, under his breath, of this 
 Mohammedan liberal. The truth was, Hassan Pasha had not, 
 since he came to Paris, allowed himself to indulge his mood, 
 but he now drained another glass of sherbet, into which 
 alcohol had found its insidious way, and turned to Cherubin, 
 the Abyssinian. This was a thin and wiry man, of darker 
 hue than Meerut, beside whom he sat. His hair was cropped 
 close to his head, and he wore a mantle of crimson banded with 
 gold. Like the others, he spoke good English and French ; 
 for only such cared, as a. rule, to visit the Exposition. 
 
 " If England," said Hassan Pasha to him, " had allowed 
 a dispatch from the French Government to lie unopened in 
 its Foreign Office, would France have submitted ? " 
 
 " No," shouted the Abyssinian, excited by the liquor and 
 by this mention of the disgraceful neglect of the letter of 
 his king ; " but it was better," he added, " than the insult 
 ing reply from France which Theodore, descended from Sol 
 omon himself, tore to atoms and trampled underfoot." 
 
 " Alas ! " added Hassan Pasha, " in 1868 the English 
 stormed Magdala, your capital. Not a man of them was 
 killed, but your king was found among his slaughtered sub 
 jects with a bullet through his brain."
 
 158 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " These are hardly topics for a dinner-table," Ishra Dhass 
 ventured, in his joyous tones. " If your Highness would be 
 so kind as to " But Hassan Pasha was now intoxicated. 
 To the Hindoo he paid no attention. He had been looking 
 furtively at Ali Khan, seated further down the table. As 
 has been said, this Afghan was a man of remarkable appear 
 ance. It was not that he was large and exceedingly rugged 
 only. He had a certain bold, yet not unpleasing, aspect, 
 which made him as much unlike as possible to the polished 
 Turk or to the voluptuous Persian. As to Hop Fun, he was 
 a pygmy in comparison. One hand of the mountaineer lay 
 upon the table, as huge and almost as hairy as that of a bear. 
 He had been listening attentively after having eaten enor 
 mously, and even Hassan Pasha hesitated to address him. 
 Like all Afghans, he had been a Mohammedan of the sect of 
 the Sunnites, which was abhorred by an orthodox Mussul 
 man like the Pasha. In addition to this, the Turk knew 
 that he was nephew to the famous ex-robber Dilawur Khan ; 
 but he ventured to say to him, at last : " It is little thanks 
 you, O Khan, owe English or Russian. But it was a good 
 thing, your war of 1842. Out of an army, under the Eng 
 lish, of twenty-six thousand, you allowed only one man to 
 make his escape." 
 
 "O Turk," the Afghan replied, "hearken to me!" 
 Even Hop Fun opened his eyes. The voice of the Khan 
 was in keeping with his mountainous frame ; it was harsh 
 and loud. " I hate ; I, also ! " shouted the Afghan, as if 
 calling to the Turk across a pass among his native rocks ; 
 " but what I hate is worse than all you have said. Hearken 
 unto me, O son of your father ! " And every eye was turned 
 upon him. 
 
 At this moment, however, the mandarin arose from the 
 table, and the guests followed him into the parlors, there to 
 hear what Ali Khan had to say.
 
 ALI KHAN. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 ALI KHAN. 
 
 WHEN, after leaving the table of Hop Fun, the numer 
 ous company reached the gorgeous parlors, Henry Harris, 
 seated beside a window on one side, confessed to himself 
 that he had never seen a more picturesque sight. The man 
 darin had installed himself in a high chair, and sat in it with 
 his little feet resting upon the rounds and concealed from 
 sight by the superb robes which fell about him in silken 
 folds ; his hands, with the nails six inches long and twisted 
 about his wrists, rested, crossed upon each other, in his lap. 
 Eked out by silk interwoven with it, his hair descended down 
 his back in a queue which reached the brilliantly colored mat 
 ting. A hat, with the crystal knob on top which indicated 
 his high rank, was perched upon his head. Thus seated, a 
 fan in his hand but absolutely motionless, he was almost the 
 duplicate of an image carved in ivory which stood in a cor 
 ner, and which the Brahmin had informed the American 
 was, or rather had been, a god. 
 
 " Really, the Chinese believe," the Hindoo had added, 
 " in nothing invisible or spiritual. Taouism and Brahmin- 
 ism, as much as Buddhism, are, as I told you, dead faiths. 
 Confucianism is a mere set of maxims relating wholly to 
 the dealing of men with each other. It is what you would 
 call a Benjamin Franklinism, for there is the strongest like 
 ness between the two sages. There are in China some three 
 hundred millions, also, of fools, who say in their heart, there 
 is no God. An empire of atheists ! Think of that ! " 
 
 " But they worship their ancestors," Henry Harris said. 
 The other replied : 
 
 " Merely as a memory, not as persons still existing ; and 
 only as the best way of inculcating filial obedience. No, 
 what Hop Fun worships is China. It is a very big and a 
 very old idol, and, like the Vishnu and Siva of my own peo-
 
 160 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 pie, it is so old and hollow and rotten that it is falling to 
 pieces." 
 
 Although the eyes of the motionless mandarin were small, 
 they glittered like diamonds, for he greatly enjoyed his com 
 pany, as he had done his dinner. The Abyssinian had seated 
 himself upon a lacquered chair, with a seat so narrow and 
 a back so stiff that he was prevented from dozing after his 
 meal by the necessity of keeping bolt -upright, if he was 
 to keep his seat at all. The Persian had thrown himself 
 upon a divan and was enjoying a pipe of tobacco mingled 
 with musk, while Hassan Pasha, discarding Europe for the 
 time, sat cross-legged beside him, puffing at a chibouque. 
 Upon an ottoman near by was seated a Japanese prince, 
 fan in hand, who had remained silent but observant ; and 
 the American, glancing from one to the other, was struck 
 with the greater breadth of his forehead as contrasted with 
 the Chinaman, and he read in that breadth the exact dif 
 ference between the two peoples. A swarthy native of Mad 
 agascar had made himself comfortable by sitting, draped 
 about in his mantle, flat upon the matting, his back against 
 the wall. Ishra Dhass, smiling and jovial as ever, was here, 
 there, and everywhere. His snowy turban, his white teeth, 
 sparkling as he laughed, his perfect ease of manner, made 
 him seem to be the one most at home there, and his con 
 ciliating courtesy to each and all caused him to be really 
 the bond of union and the controlling spirit of the strange 
 ( and diversified assembly. It was, in fact, under his influ 
 ence that the mandarin had fallen into the habit of assem 
 bling such guests about him. 
 
 But the Afghan khan was the center of the group. Like 
 his renowned uncle, he had been in the British army in 
 India, had aided in crushing the Sepoy rebellion, and had 
 acquired a sufficient knowledge of English to use it with a 
 certain rough readiness. " I am glad to have you meet him," 
 Ishra Dhass had said to Henry Harris as they came in from 
 the dinner. " He is absent from his regiment on furlough. 
 It is a matter of pride to him that his voice is such that he
 
 ALT KHAN. 161 
 
 can drill his regiment from a distance of a quarter of a mile 
 away. Once he was seized upon, when unarmed, by two 
 Thugs, who rushed suddenly upon him as he slept under a 
 banyan-tree. They say that he took one in each hand and 
 dashed their heads together, breaking their skulls and killing 
 them upon the spot." 
 
 " What an uncouth Hercules he is ! " the American now 
 said to himself as he looked at the robust, almost rocky sav 
 age. But he was yet to learn that the singular strength of 
 the Afghan lay, in its highest form, in something more than 
 mere bone and muscle. It was plain that Ishra Dhass had 
 given him an urgent hint ; for, after leaving the dinner- 
 table, he had softened his tones as much as possible, although 
 they still rolled, when he spoke, like thunder through the 
 large and sumptuously furnished apartments. 
 
 " There are things I hate worse than anything Hassan 
 Pasha talks about," he now said, refusing to be seated, tower 
 ing head and shoulders above the rest. " I know the Euro 
 peans English, French, German, Russian," he proceeded, 
 his left hand upon his great tawny beard, only less abundant 
 than that of a lion, " and I know the Asiatics Sikhs, Hin 
 doos, Chinese, Turks, Persians, Armenians ; know them all 
 know them well. And I don't want to talk ; but he," with 
 a gesture toward Hassan Pasha, " has begun it. Very good. 
 Of all people I love the Europeans most, and I hate them 
 most ; because they have done the most good and the most 
 harm in the world. Ishra Dhass knows why. Tell them, 
 O Hindoo." 
 
 " I will not, Khan," the Brahmin said, in accents which 
 sounded like those of a woman in comparison with the harsh 
 tones of the other. " Are you afraid to speak, O nephew 
 of Dilawur Khan ? Tell them yourself." But the face of 
 Ishra Dhass was very bright as he said it. Plainly, there 
 was a sympathy between the two. 
 
 " There are many matters ; of which shall I speak first ? " 
 and the Khan scratched behind his ear like an enormous 
 school-boy as he reflected. " Hassan Pasha spoke of Euro-
 
 162 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 pean weapons," he continued, lifting his head. " True, O 
 Turk. The Europeans can make books, yet they give lakhs 
 of money to making rifles instead. They can build railroads, 
 and lo! they cast great cannon. Millions of rupees are theirs, 
 wisdom and skill beyond all the world, yet do they erect, not 
 schools and churches, but vast ships of iron. They are Chris 
 tians, yet they crush men in battle ; Christians, yet they war 
 upon Christians, British against Russian, and Russian against 
 British. God gives them wisdom, money, power, beyond all 
 other people. The whole world trembles before them. God 
 says to them, Go, save ! And they do go, go everywhere, but 
 go " and the ears of the guests were almost deafened, 
 "go," the Khan said, in thunder, "to kill!" There was 
 satisfaction in the face of Hassan Pasha as he smoked steadily 
 on, his eyes upon the speaker, his lip curled. 
 
 " As to the heathen, it is money they seek. You love 
 money," the Afghan said, turning with rude frankness upon 
 the mandarin. " And you, O Persian," he added. " You 
 also, O Turk ; because it is all you have. You hunger for 
 it, thirst for it, die for it. Shall not the ox desire his grass ? 
 But the Franks, they have Christ. Yet it is as if they, too, 
 had no god but gold. I I wonder at them," the Afghan 
 said, with large eyes; "it confuses me. O my fathers, I can 
 not understand it." 
 
 "Yes, O Khan," Hassan Pasha suggested, ironically; 
 " but did you never see a Christian drunk ? " 
 
 The Afghan looked down upon the speaker. " Yea," he 
 said, " and I have also seen a drunken Mohammedan." It 
 was indecorous to laugh, but the eyes of all brightened at 
 this palpable hit at the Moslem, who affected to smoke with 
 a gravity all the sterner. 
 
 " Alas ! yes," groaned Ali Khan, " to the Europeans are 
 revealed the wonders of heaven as of earth, yet they also 
 drink. They see into the bowels of the earth with all its 
 treasures, and to them God has revealed heaven and himself. 
 Angels might they be, yet are they also swine. You are 
 American," the huge rustic added, turning swiftly upon
 
 ALT KHAN. 163 
 
 young Harris ; "out of all men your people love money 
 most ; do you also get drunk ? " The question was like a 
 blow. 
 
 " It is not American," Henry Harris hastened to say, 
 " nor Turk ; it is not Russian, Syrian, nor English ; it is 
 men you speak of. Are we not all made of the same clay?" 
 
 " True, O Ali," said Ishra Dhass, hastening to the help 
 of his young friend, and, laying one hand on his own bosom, 
 he placed the other upon that of the Khan ; " feel it, hear it, 
 know it, is it not the heart, the same heart in all men every 
 where ? " 
 
 But the Afghan was looking gravely, inquiringly, at the 
 American. He hardly heard the Hindoo. " I know little of 
 your country," he said to the American. " They tell me it is 
 big, very big. It also is Christian, and it is different from 
 Europe. In your country do they do they " Henry 
 Harris felt his own face growing warm as he saw that the 
 countenance of the Afghan, rugged as a mountain, was actu 
 ally coloring. " Do they " the Khan continued, with pain 
 ful eagerness and with the wistful eyes of a child, " do your 
 people do your men and women together do they waltz?" 
 The one addressed would have laughed aloud at the reluc 
 tance with which the word came out at last, but he dared not 
 do it ; the aspect of the inquirer was too serious. 
 
 " Our women are pure, pure as snow," Henry Harris said, 
 w r ith energy. 
 
 " And your men, are they pure also ? " the Afghan asked ; 
 but the Brahmin came again to the rescue. 
 
 " One thing we all know," the Hindoo said, standing in 
 the center of the group, "whatever may be the sins of Euro 
 peans, one thing we know China, India, the Turkish Empire, 
 Afghanistan, Japan, Siam, Burmah, Thibet, everywhere ex 
 cept in Christendom, the government, the religion, is perish 
 ing. We are intelligent men. Who of us denies it ? " 
 
 " And is not Russia to perish before its Nihilists ? " Has 
 san Pasha took his amber pipe from his mouth to ask. " Is 
 not Socialism festering in Germany ? How long since France
 
 164 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 fell before the Commune ? To-morrow this poor republic 
 tumbles, and then Europe is again overturned. Perish? 
 The forests perish every year, the world shall perish at last. 
 Kismet ! It is fate. Mashallah Bismillah" and the Oriental 
 replaced his pipe between his lips with a gesture of contempt. 
 
 " True, O Pasha," said the Brahmin, softly, " and yet in 
 Christendom, not in us, is the enduring life. It falls to rise; 
 we fall to rot. For they are Christians. Therefore, they of 
 all men should tremble before him who is coming. It is not 
 Christ, but opium which they give to China. Listen to me, 
 O men ! " The Hindoo stood before his audience with lifted 
 hand. " Where do the English get the accursed poison ? 
 The northern states of Rajpootana, whence I come, are 
 too barren to raise much grain, and heretofore the poor 
 people have depended upon the southern states, especially 
 upon Malwa, where the soil is deep, black, rich for food. 
 Of late Malwa raises the poppy instead, seeing that it pays 
 better, leaving Ajmere and Mairwarra, north of it, to perish 
 of famine ! They told me, when I stood in Malwa, that the 
 poppies which crimsoned their fields were red with the blood 
 also, not of the poisoned Chinese only, nor of the millions 
 starved to the north of them only every man, woman, and 
 child, they told me, among these flowers flaming with the 
 fires of hell has taken to the use of opium ! In your boasted 
 America," and the speaker pointed to Henry Harris, " opium- 
 smokers already pay three hundred thousand dollars a year 
 in customs dues, and the sum is swelling every year. Your 
 Indians ask for the water of life, and you give them whisky 
 instead. India and China hold out their hands to England, 
 cr.ying, ' Since God has given to you the bread of life, give it 
 also to us,' and England gives them opium ! Christ is com 
 ing, sword in hand ; it is Christendom should tremble at 
 his coming ! " and the very lips of the Brahmin whitened 
 with his fervor. It was as if with lifted eyes he actually 
 saw the one of whom he spoke. 
 
 There was a moment of silence. Then Hop Fun opened 
 his lips. It was but to utter one word " Tae-ping."
 
 ALI KHAN. 165 
 
 " Yes," the Hindoo said, eagerly, catching his meaning, 
 " but Tae-ping-wang was a liar. Nearly thirty years ago he 
 called himself Christian, and fought but failed to overturn 
 your emperor. Why did he fail? Because he said that 
 Tien-ma was the wife of God ; that he, Hung, was himself, 
 brutal wretch that he was, the son of God. That is the curse 
 of Europe, too, and of America," exclaimed the Hindoo, 
 with intense earnestness. " They pretend that their Chris 
 tianity is Christ. It is not ! " and his voice rang through 
 the room. " Catholic, Greek Church, Protestant, are half 
 heathen in this, that, like idolaters, each makes a Christ of 
 its own, and falls down before that. Pope, preacher, priest, 
 each poor creature, whoever, whatever it is, dreams that he 
 or it is the Tae-ping-wang, the Saviour of men ; as if a louse," 
 added the plain-spoken Hindoo, "should crawl across the 
 face of the noonday sun, saying, Behold me ! You are 
 right," he said to the Turk ; " so far as it is only of man, all 
 systems perish. English gold and Russian force, cannon 
 and iron-clad, American invention and French revolution 
 these but blast a highway for Him who comes. These are 
 the sappers, the engineers, not the King. Who knows but 
 terrible calamities shall smite Europe, America, as well as 
 China and Turkey ? It is not," he added, in gentler accents, 
 " a German Christ we want, nor do we need an American 
 Christ, or British Jesus. The missionaries bring us Christ, 
 but are not themselves the saviours, except in that, so far as 
 the work is only of men, they also fail as the heathen fail. 
 What we need is the Syrian Son of God, the Man of Naza 
 reth himself again, as of old." 
 
 But the Brahmin arrested himself as by an effort, and 
 soon after the company dispersed, the last words of Hop Fun 
 lingering in the ears of the American as he rode away : 
 " Kong-f u-tse say, * Friends no dine at all unless their souls 
 dine too.' "
 
 166 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE NOBLE DUKE. 
 
 ONE evening, Earl Dorrington, confined to his easy-chair 
 by a slight attack of gout, was conversing with his daughter, 
 Lady Blanche. She. had been reading the " Times " to him, 
 but the attention of both was given rather to the Duke of 
 Plymouth, who was playing billiards with Henry Harris in 
 an adjoining room, the door of which had been left open. 
 Now, the correct place for such a game would have been 
 elsewhere, but Lady Blanche was fond, strictly in private, 
 of playing with her brother, and the present arrangement was 
 part of what Lord Conyngham described as " the camping 
 out " of the family while in Paris. The article which Lady 
 Blanche was reading to the Earl was leveled at John Bright, 
 and, as she laid the paper down at the end, " Yes," the Earl 
 remarked, " his family extends back through eight centu 
 ries." 
 
 " Indeed," Lady Blanche exclaimed, " I had supposed he 
 was a nobody of yesterday." 
 
 " I am not speaking of the person about whom you have 
 read, nor was I thinking of him," the Earl said, and, by an 
 inclination of his head, he indicated that it was of the Duke 
 he spoke. " It was an ancestor of his," the Earl continued, 
 " who assisted William the Conqueror to his feet when he 
 stumbled and fell, upon his first landing in England. For 
 this, and for helping William off with his boots after the 
 Battle of Hastings, he received an earldom and large grants 
 of land. 
 
 "So I have heard," Lady Blanche remarked, absently, 
 and added immediately, " Do you not think that he is a larger 
 man than my brother ? " 
 
 "Assuredly so," the Earl replied, from sheer force of 
 habit, but corrected himself in the same breath. " Do you 
 really consider him so ? The Duke is of a refined, but not 
 of"
 
 THE NOBLE DUKE. 167 
 
 " It was not of the Duke I was speaking," his daughter 
 interrupted, in a tone like that used by the Earl in regard to 
 John Bright. "I was speaking of Mr. Henry Harris." 
 
 The billiard-room was near enough for her to see the 
 gentlemen as they played, but too far off for them to hear or 
 to be overheard. From long habit, Lady Blanche could read 
 to her father without giving a thought to what she read, and 
 she had been contrasting their visitors with each other while 
 she repeated the thunder of the " Times " for the Earl. Lay 
 ing down the paper, and gazing upon the billiard-players, 
 she had said to herself of the Duke : " Yes, he is nervous, 
 thin-skinned, sensitive. He is small enough already ; why 
 will he make himself seem so much smaller by shrinking into 
 himself as he does ? He turns into a mimosa plant the mo 
 ment he comes near me, wilts and shrivels visibly if I only 
 look him in the eyes. The American seems to expand, in 
 stead, when with me, as if I brought summer to him." 
 
 " His is a line of royal favorites," Earl Dorrington was 
 saying, in the same subdued tone, while she thus thought. 
 " No less than thirteen of the confiscated Church properties, 
 abbeys, monasteries, priories, and the like, were bestowed 
 by Henry VIII upon an ancestor of his. Another ancestor 
 was greatly enriched by Charles II." 
 
 But Lady Blanche looked suddenly and sharply at the 
 Earl, and her color was reflected in that which tinged his 
 fine forehead. No wonder ! It was an ancestress, rather, 
 who, at the price of her honor, had secured the favor for her 
 husband of that dissolute pensioner of Louis of France, and 
 the eyes of Lady Blanche glanced toward the ducal descend 
 ant, and then fell to the ground. 
 
 " I am not mercenary, as you well know, my dear," the 
 Earl remarked, after quite a pause ; " but I can not endure 
 that your rank should be less than that of your brother ; 
 you should have been my son, Blanche ! " The white-haired 
 old man laid his hand upon her head as he said it. She un 
 derstood perfectly ; of the two, she was her father's favorite 
 because she was most like him, as Lord Conyngham was
 
 168 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 most like his deceased mother. So far as a woman can be 
 so, yet remain a woman, Lady Blanche was an aristocrat in 
 the intensest sense of the word ; if she had been a man in 
 stead, she would have been insufferably so. Her father did 
 not say it, but she knew what he meant : " You better de 
 serve to be a duchess than he does to be an earl ! " Had the 
 words been spoken, she could not have understood him more 
 perfectly. 
 
 " No, I am not of a sordid nature," the Earl added, and 
 it was very true, " but wealth is power. His Grace owns no 
 less than one hundred and sixteen thousand and, to be accu 
 rate, six hundred and sixty-eight acres, in the best parts of 
 England and Scotland." 
 
 " In other words," Lady Blanche added, in a yet lower 
 tone, and as if calculating, " he is willing to pay for my hand 
 no less than a rental of two hundred and thirty-three thou 
 sand and let us be accurate nine hundred and thirty-three 
 pounds a year, to say nothing of manors, castles, diamonds, 
 cash in bank, and the like. Oh, yes." 
 
 " Neither you nor I care for money as such," the Earl 
 assented; "but when rank is almost regal, its income must 
 be in accordance. Assuredly so. Without a thought upon 
 our part the Duke of Plymouth throws himself at your feet. 
 It is the ordinance of Heaven, my dear," the Earl continued, 
 with venerable, almost sacerdotal air, " that this nobleman 
 should seek your hand. He belongs to one of the most an 
 cient, as it is one of the wealthiest houses of our nobility. 
 In England, my child, you are the lady whom he regards as 
 worthiest of his alliance. It speaks well for his judgment. 
 Moreover, there is a divine, a quite sacred, fitness in such an 
 arrangement. Ahem ! assuredly so. I am free to confess " 
 the Earl seemed in adding it to know what she was think 
 ing of " that the Duke has lived what some might call a 
 wild life. If you please, we will acknowledge that he has 
 been, shall we say ? dissipated, beyond most of our young 
 nobles. Consider the temptation to which his rank, his al 
 most fabulous wealth, have exposed him. Of all that he has
 
 THE NOBLE DUKE. 169 
 
 grown weary. Blanche," the Earl sank his voice almost to a 
 whisper, " since your mother is not here to say it, the Duke 
 will be as wax in your hands." 
 
 " I have not the least doubt of it," the lady spoke in her 
 ordinary tone, with a careless frankness ; " and who is the 
 winner ? " she asked, as the billiard-players joined them. 
 
 " The Duke," the American hastened to say. " Not only 
 am I but an ordinary hand, but his Grace is one of the best 
 players I have ever known." 
 
 It was politely said ; but the game sank in the estimation 
 of the lady as it was said. 
 
 " The Duke has had much practice," she remarked, " and 
 you have been occupied with other things." 
 
 " Mr. Harris plays very well. To-day he seemed to be 
 thinking of something else." The Duke said it for polite 
 ness' sake. The American was as much to him and no more 
 than if he had been a rich young Russian, a successful miner 
 from Australia, anything of the kind, anybody, nobody. In 
 some absurd way, these Americans were received into a so 
 ciety which would not tolerate even the wealthiest brewer or 
 ironmaster, if he were English ; but " Confound them ! " the 
 Duke often observed to his friends in private, " I did hope 
 their war would have made an end of them. They are an 
 awful bore. Wherever you go you meet them, and, by Jove, 
 they act, you know, as if they had a right ! " 
 
 On this occasion, however, the Duke was unusually con 
 siderate. He had learned that young Harris was rather a 
 favorite than not in the family of the Earl. It had not en 
 tered his head that any man, this American least of all, could 
 be his rival. He forgot his existence as he approached Lady 
 Blanche. The trouble was that, under her eyes, he forgot 
 everything else also. She was known to be extremely intelli 
 gent ; he must talk, talk in an energetic way, about something. 
 " Confound it ! " he said to himself now, " don't be an 
 ass ! Talk ! Yes, but what shall I talk about ? " and the 
 perspiration began to moisten his forehead ; his hands sought 
 each other. The Earl, Lady Blanche, Mr. Harris, were con-
 
 170 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 versing freely upon many matters ; it was incumbent upon 
 the Duke to strike boldly in. " We were speaking of Amer 
 ica," he suddenly said ; " do you know, I had a queer adven 
 ture with a Yankee in Italy last year ? I had stopped, you 
 know, in one of those little towns, you see ; it was at an inn 
 where one of those round and oily landlords wanted me to sit 
 down, you know, at his table-d'hote. But I couldn't stand that, 
 you know, so I ordered a separate table and made my man sit 
 down with the people to their dinner. Wanted to save time, 
 you know. Would you believe it ? A man, a tremendous 
 fellow, looked like a gentleman, got up and made an awful 
 row about it, you know. f If you can't eat with us,' he said, 
 ' your man shall not ! ' There was a deuce of a mess. The 
 fat landlord, you know, he bowed and begged and protested, 
 but the other wouldn't give in. What was the man's name ? 
 Harris ? Yes, and it was a George Harris ; large man, rough, 
 stern. Ever met with him ? He was an American, I learned. 
 He was a queer customer ; perhaps you know him ? " And, 
 with the kindest intention, the Duke had turned to his fel 
 low-visitor. 
 
 " It was my father," Henry Harris said, dryly. 
 
 " Your father ! Oh ! excuse me, I beg your pardon," the 
 Duke hastened to say ; but his confusion was so great, since 
 Lady Blanche's eyes were upon him, that it would never do 
 to smile, and Henry Harris changed the conversation adroitly 
 in other directions. 
 
 But it was a severe strain upon even the Earl. Not for 
 an instant had the idea entered his mind that such a mere 
 " person " as this young Mr. Harris, wealthy as his father 
 was, could aspire to the hand of his daughter. Yet, uncon 
 sciously to himself, he was wishing that the Duke had some 
 thing more of the bone and muscle, the manly bearing and 
 ease, of the American. " He looks as if he lived a pure life," 
 the old Earl thought, as he glariced at him, and then looked 
 at the other. " It is so important that my descendants " 
 But he checked himself, and asked the Duke as to the next 
 Derby.
 
 TEE NOBLE DUKE. 171 
 
 Henry Harris was conversing with Lady Blanche, who 
 was showing him a carving she had received but the day be 
 fore from Zerah Atchison. It was a sleeping St. Bernard 
 dog. "He died last year," she was saying, "but Mr. Atchi 
 son has reproduced old Chimborazo to the life, merely from 
 my description. Can you wonder that the old dog was such 
 a favorite of mine ? Is it not admirable ? " 
 
 " It seems to be," the gentleman said ; and they continued 
 to converse for some time. But it was not while reading 
 dry parliamentary debates alone that the lady could think 
 also of very different matters. She was saying to herself, as 
 she talked : " How strange men are ! Here is this duke ; as 
 they tell me, he really does love me more than any woman 
 he has known before. It is his devotion to me which makes 
 him so malaprop and shy. But this American loves me. 
 He loves me in a way which this this poodle is not capable 
 of even conceiving. And yet the more he loves, so much the 
 more is he calmly determined never to tell his love. He is 
 strong because he is proud stronger than I am because he 
 is prouder than I am." 
 
 The young American was mistaken in this, that it was 
 impossible for him to hide from such a woman, at least 
 what he felt, any more than what he was. " She is the love 
 liest," he was stammering to himself, under his cool demeanor, 
 " the most beautiful of women ; strong as Elizabeth of Eng 
 land ; charming as Mary of Scotland ; fascinating as Cleo 
 patra ; always a queen ; there never was such a woman be 
 fore. O Empress ! " 
 
 At that instant the hands of the two touched in handling 
 the carving. Theirs were strong natures. It was like an 
 electric shock. He lifted his eyes, his whole heart in them, 
 to hers. She met them with the fierce love, as of a lioness. 
 Then her face became pale, her eyes drooped, her hand trem 
 bled, and the man remained the master of the woman, be 
 cause he remained master of himself. 
 
 " Your ladyship is right," he said, aloud, and with perfect 
 outward coolness ; " the dog is admirably done. He was
 
 172 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 your dog, too, Poor fellow ! big as he was, he was but a 
 dog ; and, being but a dog, he died." 
 
 "Assuredly so," Earl Dorrington was saying of some 
 thing to the Duke, on the other side of the room, and with 
 a wisdom which was stately enough to be omniscience in 
 stead ; " what you remark is correct. Assuredly so ; as 
 suredly so ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE LOST WIPE. 
 
 WHILE the relations between Mary Harris and Lord 
 Conyngham seemed, so far, to be smooth enough, it was very 
 different in the case of her brother and Lady Blanche. Al 
 though the affections of the English nobleman were deep and 
 strong, beyond anything he had felt before, neither his love 
 nor his hate could compare in depth or volume with that of 
 either his sister or her lover. Moreover, there were barriers 
 between Lady Blanche and Henry Harris more impregnable 
 than between Lord Conyngham and the fair American. 
 Nothing is becoming more common than for English gentle 
 men, of rank even, to marry girls from the United States, 
 while, as has been said, nothing is more uncommon than for 
 gentlemen from America to mate themselves with European 
 women. In the case of Henry Harris and Lady Blanche, the 
 ordinary obstacles to such a union were apparently the 
 strongest possible. Both were of a proud and determined 
 nature, and although their natural affection was as strong as 
 was to be expected in persons like them, it was in the case 
 of each as a stream which strove to tear its way through 
 intervening mountains, the peaks of which were rooted in 
 the foundations of the earth, and which towered, covered 
 with the snow of ages, to heaven itself. For the present the 
 yearning of their hearts toward each other was, therefore, as 
 torrents which foam all the more fiercely by reason of the
 
 THE LOST WIFE. 173 
 
 seemingly insurmountable barriers which interposed ; and 
 the affection between Lord Conyngham and Mary Harris 
 was, in comparison, as streams which flow unhindered, except 
 by ferns and pebbles, through level and flowery meadows. 
 
 When Henry Harris left the hotel of the Earl, after his 
 game of billiards with the Duke of Plymouth, and his yet 
 more interesting encounter with Lady Blanche, he thought, 
 as he walked rapidly away, of Zerah Atchison. It was 
 strange, but it was the marble patience of the artist rather 
 than even the imperious loveliness of Lady Blanche which 
 struck itself, like a medallion, into his mind at the moment, 
 and almost instinctively he turned his footsteps toward the 
 dwelling of the old man. When he arrived no one was in 
 the studio but Zerah Atchison himself. He was seated at 
 his carving, apparently, but his visitor was struck with 
 alarm when he saw him. The old painter had dropped his 
 tools from his hand ; an old sketch-book lay open in his lap ; 
 a yellow and faded letter was lying upon the flower he had 
 been creating out of the wood. His patient aspect was the 
 same, only he was staring into the air before him as at a 
 vision ; it was as if he had been smitten with paralysis 
 again. The young man laid a loving hand upon his shoul 
 der, spoke to him, but received no reply. In his anxiety he 
 was about hurrying out to send for the daughter, for a 
 physician, when the other seemed to come to himself. 
 
 " Stop, sir," he said ; " give me a little time to recover. 
 Pardon me a moment." But he sat silent so long, still look 
 ing into space, that his visitor again began to cross the room 
 to call for help. 
 
 " No, no ! " The artist said it in so importunate a tone 
 that the other desisted and came and stood by his side. "It 
 is wonderful ! It is terrible ! " Zerah Atchison murmured 
 at last, and then his eyes turned upon his visitor. The old, 
 critical glance came into them as he looked at his young 
 friend long and steadily. " No, not Antinous, something of 
 the young Hercules," he said aloud, but explained himself 
 immediately with a gentle smile. " I see, sir," he said, " that
 
 174 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 you are something more than a dandy, than a man of the 
 world, than a young millionaire even. You out of all men 
 happen to be here, and I am glad that Isidore is at the Ex 
 position. Shall I tell you ? You are the only person alive 
 that I would tell, could tell, strangers as we are." Then he 
 glanced over the letter again, which he had dropped from 
 his hand ; after that he gazed into the air as if into the re 
 mote past. " Mr. Harris, I do not wish to trouble you, but," 
 he asked next, " can you give me a little time this afternoon ? 
 Something has happened to me. It is so strange, so sud 
 den ! " 
 
 The person to whom he spoke was slow in making ac 
 quaintances, not because he did not observe people, but 
 because he had always observed them too closely. But he 
 had been drawn to the artist from the instant he had first 
 seen his face in marble at the Exposition, and he now sat 
 down in a chair which he placed near him, and listened as a 
 son might have done to an aged father. 
 
 " I will have to go back, far back in my life," the old 
 man said. " I will have, for a reason you will see in the 
 end, to cover myself with shame ; will have to tell what I 
 had hoped would remain known only to God. Listen." It 
 was a long story. Before he had met the mother of Isidore, 
 years before that, and while quite young, he had gone sketch 
 ing into the wildest parts of Virginia. Making his home at 
 the log-cabin of an old farmer, he had given himself up to 
 his lonely and severe work among the roughest passes of the 
 Blue Ridge Mountains. But there was, it so chanced, an 
 -orphan girl living with the farmer, as uneducated as a child, 
 almost untamed as a colt. This daughter of the woods had 
 formed a sudden and violent passion for him, and the old 
 artist covered his face with his trembling hands, and was 
 silent. 
 
 " Heaven knows," he said at last, " that I firmly intended 
 to marry her when a license and person could be obtained to 
 perform the ceremony. But she was almost as much of a 
 savage as if it had been in Central Africa instead, and one
 
 THE LOST WIFE. 175 
 
 day I came back to the cabin to learn that she had run away 
 with a young French surveyor, who was employed in laying 
 out lands for a colony which proposed coming to Virginia, 
 but which never came, owing to a revolution in France. 
 Some months after that, when I had gone back to the State 
 capital, I received this old book," and he took it up, "through 
 the French consul at Richmond. It was a sketch-book I had 
 used when I was at work in the Blue Ridge ; but I could 
 not open it when it came, for I had come to love the girl so 
 far as one could love so wild a thing, and, for remorse too, 
 I could not bear to think of her. Mr. Harris," the old artist 
 added, seriously, " upon my honor, I have allowed this book 
 to be unopened until this hour. I had utterly forgotten it, 
 so long ago was it since it came to me ; but Isidore found it 
 early this morning, I suppose, among my clothes, and laid it 
 upon my stand before she went away. A moment before 
 you came in I chanced, not knowing what it was, to open 
 it for the first time and found this." He took up the faded 
 letter and read it aloud. It was a miserably written note 
 from the girl, informing the painter that she had given birth 
 to a son while she was in Florida in the company of the man 
 with whom she had eloped. "It is your child," she wrote, 
 " but we will take it with us to France, to Paris. He looks 
 like me, they say." 
 
 That was all ; except that the old artist was sure the 
 boy, now grown to be a man, was alive, would be found ! 
 " My finding this letter so strangely, and not until I my 
 self came to Paris, proves that to me," he said. "Never 
 before did I understand why I came here. I know now my 
 boy is alive. He will be found ! " 
 
 Henry Harris looked at the artist with wonder ; there 
 was a new light in his eyes, an aspect of .confidence ; his 
 patience had taken the colors of certainty. " Through the 
 years on years since then it all comes back to me," he said 
 " the old cabin upon the mountain slope, the brawling brook 
 down one side, the rocks and trees and waterfalls I roamed 
 among, the distant summits, the dense forests. I can almost
 
 176 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 hear the tinkle of the cow-bells, can almost smell the breath 
 of the pines upon the morning air. And that girl Delira ; 
 what a singular name, I have not thought ef it for so long ! 
 I can see her now more like an Indian squaw than a white 
 woman, with tangled black hair, coming up from the spring 
 with a bucket of water poised on her shoulder " 
 
 But at the moment he spoke a messenger handed a note 
 to the artist from his daughter. He read it, his face flushed, 
 he put it, after hesitating a moment, in the hands of his 
 visitor, saying, " I thought so from the first." The note was 
 very short. 
 
 " Dear father, you will have opened the book ; you will, 
 before this reaches your hand, have read the letter within it," 
 his daughter had written him from the Exposition. " It is 
 many months ago since I first came upon and read the paper, 
 and I did not speak of it because I was trying to understand. 
 I remember you used to tell me of your stay in Virginia. 
 There are scores of your oldest sketches which bear the same 
 date as that of the book in which I found the letter. Dear 
 father, I think I understand. I want you to find my broth 
 er." That was all. 
 
 The artist and his visitor had a long conversation before 
 they parted, and the next evening Henry Harris visited him 
 again when he knew that Isidore would be at home. The 
 young girl blushed and turned away when she first saw him ; 
 but their visitor soon found that father and daughter had 
 arrived at a perfect understanding, and it was not long before 
 Henry Harris was able to say to both, " I think I can help 
 you. At least, your singular faith as to finding your son and 
 brother has infected me also. We do not have even a name 
 to go by. The man doubtless is, as his mother wrote, more 
 like her, whom I have never seen, than like yourself, Mr. 
 Atchison. He may be dead. If he is living and in France, 
 it is more than probable he has been, is, or will be in Paris 
 during the Exposition. It is my custom to see, so far as I 
 can, every person I pass. I know that it is only the merest 
 chance in the world, and yet I will look closely at people.
 
 THE FEMALE PHILOSOPHER. 177 
 
 Who knows what may happen ? " As he said it he glanced 
 at Isidore. Her eyes were fastened eagerly upon him. Evi 
 dently a new purpose had come into her own life also, and 
 her gaze had fixed itself upon their visitor as upon her only 
 hope of realizing what was to grow with her into a consum 
 ing purpose indeed. She hung upon him with an expectation 
 modestly veiled, yet destined to become more and more in 
 tense. It was long before Henry Harris could get his own 
 consent to leave his new friends. 
 
 " She is very beautiful," he said to himself as he went 
 down the stairs at last ; " but she is not at all like my sister, 
 nor like Lady Blanche not in the least. But isn't it the 
 strangest thing in the world that I, the most practical of 
 engineers, should have become engaged in such a hopeless 
 search ? It would seem improbable in a dream or in a fiction ; 
 but I have learned that by far the most wonderful things are 
 those which take place in daily real life." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE FEMALE PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 THERE are in the Rue St. Antoine in Paris many obscure 
 nooks and hiding-places which are known only to the police. 
 In some of these it is possible that even the police have never 
 penetrated, so securely are they concealed in the labyrinth of 
 courts and alleys, cellars beneath cellars, and passages which 
 seem to return upon themselves. In the worst of these lairs 
 many of the vermin of society, the pickpockets and burglars, 
 the counterfeiters and assassins, have, with the reptile-like 
 adroitness of such pests, succeeded in living long lives of 
 crime by night and concealment and drunkenness by day. 
 
 In the midst of this district there was a suite of rooms 
 known to those who frequented it as Madame Mosseline's. 
 The apartments are upon the fifth flat of the dilapidated
 
 178 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 house ; the front room looking down upon the street being, 
 apparently, devoted to millinery, the one back of that being 
 the bedroom of Madame Mosseline, the milliner. Apparent 
 ly, there was no room beyond ; but a heavy wardrobe in the 
 bed-chamber of Madame revolved upon a pivot, and, by 
 means of an entrance thus made, some twenty men, straying 
 in one at a time, contrived to assemble, at the date of which 
 we are now speaking, in an apartment beyond. 
 
 "Now, messieurs," Madame Mosseline said on the occa 
 sion spoken of, " on the usual conditions you can say what 
 you will." The persons addressed were evidently artisans. 
 You could have known by the prevailing pallor of their faces 
 that their occupation was sedentary, and that they had but 
 small opportunity to enjoy the sunshine and the open air. 
 From the fact that many wore spectacles and had hands 
 white and delicate, you could have guessed that their labor 
 was that of ivory-turners, grinders of optical glasses, the 
 manufacturers of philosophical instruments, and the like. 
 One or two were engravers. There was one young man, the 
 only fat and florid one among them, M. Portou by name, who 
 was a composer, as he styled it, of anatomy, his occupation 
 being to put together into complete skeletons such bones as 
 he could obtain. Whatever their employment, all seemed 
 to be alike under a certain restraint. It may have been that 
 the room was cleaner than those they generally occupied, 
 for, with its papered walls, polished floor, and deal table of 
 almost snowy whiteness, it was severely neat. Possibly the 
 aspect of Madame was a controlling power. She was a 
 comely woman of forty, dressed in black, with a certain ar 
 rangement of lawn about her head and throat which gave 
 her the aspect of a nun, although a more thoroughly wicked 
 woman it would be hard to find. 
 
 " Upon the usual conditions, messieurs," she said, for she 
 was seated upon a high chair at the end of the table, a pile 
 of sewing upon the table before her, "you can have as 
 much . absinthe or any other drink as you wish ; it is there 
 for pay, on the table ; but I will have no smoking. If any
 
 THE FEMALE PHILOSOPHER. 179 
 
 one spits upon the floor he leaves, never to return. Be per 
 fectly free in saying what you will ; but you shall not kill 
 each other, not here." 
 
 " But, madame," demanded the anatomist, " how do we 
 know but these friends of yours are mouchards, spies of the 
 Government." 
 
 " They ! " and the woman suspended her sewing to cast 
 a pitying eye at the two men seated at the table. " As I 
 told you, monsieur the articulator of bones, they are cousins 
 of mine from Canada. Their association has been with pro 
 vincials of their own country and with barbarians in the 
 United States. They know nothing, and, being in Paris, 
 they wish to learn. In that all is said. The Government? 
 What cares it for you ? You are not petroleurs. It is phi 
 losophers you are. Am I not Madame Mosseline ? For 
 IIOAV many years have you known me ? Your fat makes you 
 foolish, M. Portou." 
 
 There was a laugh among the leaner kind at the table, 
 and a gaunt-visaged maker of chessmen said, " No, we are 
 not communards. They are but the sparks, we are the 
 powder. Yes, they are red ; they fill the eyes of the world 
 when the explosion comes, but they speedily die out and are 
 no more seen. It is we who think, who reason, who write, 
 who talk, who teach the masses ; we it is who do the work." 
 
 " It is always so," remarked a beardless man whom they 
 addressed as Achilles Deschards, and whose very black hair 
 and eyes and noble forehead contrasted strongly with a face 
 which showed traces of either disease or debauchery ; " you 
 are right, Pilon. Consider Rome in the hours of its imperial 
 glory. The emperors led their armies, conquered the world, 
 returned in triumph. The city was filled with palaces and 
 wealth. There were caravans along its streets, the amphi 
 theatre was crowded with spectators, the baths with sensual 
 ists, the schools with philosophers. All was grand, magnifi 
 cent, lasting as the universe that is, as the surface. But 
 look underneath Rome ! Consider the catacombs. Hidden 
 in those dark vaults, burrowing beneath the gorgeous show,
 
 180 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 was the despised Christianity. Tr&s Men, it swept the Ro 
 man world out of existence ! " 
 
 "As we will destroy Christianity and the civilization of 
 to-day. You are correct, monsieur our poet. It is we," 
 Madame Mosseline continued, " who toil in the dark because 
 we undermine the foundations of all things. Property, gov 
 ernment, religion, marriage, morality, whatever constitutes 
 society, we doom them to the death. Behold them, the pro 
 vincials ! " She pointed her hand, encircled by lace frills, at 
 her cousins and laughed. 
 
 The Canadian relatives were plain but intelligent-looking 
 men, coarse as their clothing was, and it was evident that 
 they were surprised as well as interested. 
 
 " Take pity upon us, madame," one of them remarked ; 
 " we are so new to your ideas. It is that we are here for, to 
 learn." 
 
 " Monsieur our poet, instruct them," the woman remarked, 
 contemptuously, as she held up different ribbons, contrasting 
 their shades of color before disposing of them upon the 
 work she had in hand. 
 
 The person thus addressed drained a glass of brandy 
 from a decanter before him, and glanced around the board. 
 Evidently all there were persons of the same class ; that is, 
 all were poor, some deeply in debt, most of them in feeble 
 health from dissipation or hard work. One or two had fallen 
 asleep as they sat, their heads upon the table. A few were 
 playing dominos ; some were listening, with eager eyes. To 
 all the place was a diversion from miserable homes which 
 were also the shops in which they worked. They were there 
 because they had nowhere else to go ; because the talk was 
 exciting ; because hope of some change in the eternal mo 
 notony of poorly paid toil was encouraged there. 
 
 " To all of us it is an old story," the poet began, after a 
 contemptuous glance at the strangers. "That you may 
 teach Canada and the United States when you return, listen." 
 
 The Canadians gave him a respectful attention, and he 
 began to light a cigarette, was prohibited by the uplifted
 
 THE FEMALE PHILOSOPHER, 181 
 
 finger of Madame Mosseline, replaced it in his bosom with a 
 grimace, and continued : 
 
 " Know, Messieurs Provinciates, that by an eternal pro 
 cess of nature all things grow from within by a decay of 
 that which is outward. The stalks, the leaves, the blossoms, 
 have their day, but perish as the inner principle develops. 
 So of society ; the Roman Empire was at one time but a 
 handful of slaves dwelling in a mud-walled village, but it 
 slowly overmastered the world. As it reached its culmina 
 tion, the religion of Jesus, working out of sight within it, in 
 due time outgrew it, and lo ! the imperial glories fell from 
 around it like withering blossoms from the ripening fruit. 
 Shall the process end with modern civilization ? Not at all ; 
 why should it ? Men like Voltaire, Rousseau, Marat, were, 
 more than a century ago, the germs of a yet higher civili 
 zation. The revolutions of 1789, of 1814, 1830, 1848, the wars 
 of Napoleon, of France with Germany, all events are but the 
 struggles within our existing order, which shall destroy it as 
 all civilizations have been destroyed before. Myself and my 
 comrades, we represent the future. The English, the Ger 
 mans, the Russians, they too " 
 
 " No ! " thundered the maker of chessmen ; " Russia, 
 Germany, England, are savage, stupid ; it is France which 
 leavens the world ; France ! England is flooded with radi 
 cal papers ; but the English bah ! they are stupefied with 
 beer like the Germans ; they are slow, oxen, asses. Russia 
 is stirring, but is centuries behind. France is the volcano 
 whose eruptions convulse the planet." 
 
 Even before he had ceased to speak there arose a babel 
 of interruptions. Almost every man had something to say 
 concerning the particular oppression under which he groaned. 
 They were loud, eager, almost eloquent, but unanimous only 
 in this, that society as it existed should be utterly de 
 stroyed. It was some time before the poet could obtain a 
 hearing. 
 
 " We have stormed civilization until it is driven into its 
 last intrenchments," he said at last, refreshing himself with
 
 182 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 a glass of brandy. " Definitely, it lies trembling within its 
 inmost citadel. A century hence our children will need to 
 be taught as to what is meant by the obsolete phrases, gov 
 ernment, religion, property, marriage " 
 
 " Morality, God," the presiding woman completed the list 
 for him. "Why should we rave and roar?" she added, 
 with a smile ; " the event marches upon us. As surely as 
 the sea the social republic makes itself to arrive. Let us 
 remain quiet ; let us keep ourselves washed, and well dressed, 
 and at peace ; with us and without us approaches the end. 
 The canaille erect barricades, and bleed, and get sent to 
 Cayenne. It is people like ourselves who inspire the com 
 munards, but do not soil or fatigue ourselves. We ? Are 
 not we the aristocrats of the movement ? We destroy the 
 world, but we remain Monsieur and Madame. Recite to us 
 a poem, monsieur our poet." 
 
 The request awoke an applauding urgency, to which the 
 poet yielded at last. Drawing from his breast-pocket, he pro 
 ceeded to rehearse, with abundant gesticulation, such lines 
 ' in ridicule and denunciation of everything decent people 
 hold dear as caused the eyes of the Canadians to be fastened 
 upon the table. Once or twice they ventured to glance at 
 the woman at the head of the table. It seemed impossible 
 that she could be a woman and endure the atrocity ; but she 
 sewed steadily on, with a smile. Almost every man present 
 had his jest, when the lines were ended, at something sacred. 
 It was all that the Canadians could do to keep their seats, 
 the profligacy of sentiment, the blasphemy, was such. Ma 
 dame Mosseline, maintaining her nun-like aspect, seemed to 
 take malicious pleasure in the evident discomfiture of her 
 cousins, but the seance was ended at last. 
 
 " I have read of the eruption of mud volcanoes," one of 
 the Canadians remarked to his friend, as they walked rapidly 
 away afterward, " but I never witnessed it before." 
 
 " And I am eager for a bath and clean linen," replied the 
 other. " It is worse, I must confess, than I had supposed. 
 When we recover from the nausea of it, I think we will
 
 THE ANATOMIST. 183 
 
 agree, my lord, that it was worth even the heavy sum also 
 which we had to pay the female ogre." 
 
 " Having attempted to fathom the depths, I intend to go 
 through with it. I will call at your hotel," his companion 
 added, " as soon as I am recovered a bit, and we will consult 
 as to our next plunge into the mire." 
 
 " Next time," his friend replied, " our adventure will be 
 at least more instructive. We can enjoy that consolation 
 anyhow. But out of all in the room there were three per 
 sons whom I was more interested in, by far, than in anything 
 which was said," added Henry Harris, for such he was. 
 
 "Who were they?" asked Lord Conyngham, for such 
 was the other. 
 
 " In Madame Beelzebub, in the fat-featured M. Portou, 
 and, most of all, in the man they styled the poet, Achilles 
 Deschards. I watch people very closely, as I do machinery, 
 and, depend on it, I will tell you remarkable things some 
 day in regard to these three." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE ANATOMIST. 
 
 " You seem to notice everybody you pass," Lord Conyng 
 ham said to Henry Harris one day, soon after their visit to 
 the house of Madame Mosseline, as they happened to be 
 strolling along a boulevard together. 
 
 " Certainly I do, so far as I can," was the answer. 
 
 " I never do," his companion replied. " People are cur 
 rent with me as pennies are I never recognize one from 
 another, unless I know them very well ; and I do not know 
 anybody, when I can help it, unless I like him." But the 
 nobleman was vaguely conscious as he said it that it was a 
 narrow folly and weakness upon his part which he must out 
 grow.
 
 184 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 "I know of nothing quite so interesting to me," the 
 American replied, " as men and women, and in each person 
 I find a new and peculiar interest. Did you observe, for 
 instance, the obscene Frenchman who read that abominable 
 poem at Madame Mosseline's ? " 
 
 " Only to see that he was a dissipated rascal, with long, 
 black hair, and dark rings under his rather fine eyes," said 
 the other. 
 
 "Would you know M. Portou, the sleepy-looking and 
 fat anatomist whom we saw there, if you should meet him 
 again ? " 
 
 "Assuredly not," the nobleman replied, in accents like 
 those of his father, the Earl. 
 
 Henry Harris said no more, and the conversation changed. 
 Since he had learned that the lost son of Zerah Atchison 
 might be in Paris, young Harris had glanced with additional 
 sharpness at the people he met. It was as if a problem had 
 been propounded to him in machinery ; here was a some 
 thing to be solved if possible. " I may not hit upon it," he 
 thought, " but then again I may. Mr. Atchison is an inva 
 lid, the daughter is closely confined, they have not a friend, 
 apparently, in the world ; if I can find the man, I will." 
 And he had his reason for asking Lord Conyngham in re 
 gard to the men whom they had seen at Madame Mosse 
 line's. For now, almost as soon as he had parted from his 
 companion, he turned suddenly upon his heel, and, looking 
 full in the face of a man who had been following him, he 
 said, in French, " Well, M. Portou, what is it ? " 
 
 The gentleman spoken to had on blue spectacles, carried 
 a baggy umbrella under his arm, was like a thousand other 
 of the bourgeoisie, a linen draper, possibly a confectioner or 
 tobacconist, a good father of a family in all probability. 
 He looked at the American with surprise. "Did you ad 
 dress yourself to me, monsieur ? " he asked. " Is there not 
 some mistake ? Whom have I the honor to speak to ? " 
 
 " M. Portou, I believe," the American said, firmly. He 
 did not inform the other that he knew how, every day since
 
 THE ANATOMIST. 185 
 
 they had met at Madame Mosseline's, this fatherly-looking 
 man had followed him about ; he merely looked at him 
 steadily and without speaking. There must have been 
 something in the unflinching gaze of the American which 
 acted upon the other as the sun does upon a fog. Certain it 
 is that the innocently mystified air of the florid Frenchman 
 changed. 
 
 " Is it possible ? " he exclaimed. " And this is monsieur 
 the Canadian. I am delighted to see you. Allow me the 
 honor of your hand." He shook hands with him cordially, 
 and they talked in an amicable manner as they walked on. 
 
 " I observed at the time that, although present and tak 
 ing some part in the seance, you are not yourself a social 
 ist," Henry Harris said at length. M. Portou colored, 
 seemed to be for a moment embarrassed. " No, monsieur," 
 he said at last, as with sudden frankness, " like yourself, I 
 am no Red Republican, either philosophic or practical." 
 
 " And you are an anatomist ? " asked the other. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," the man answered, eagerly ; " we 
 are but a square from my little shop. If monsieur will have 
 the goodness to accompany me, beyond a slight odor, the 
 place is not an unpleasant one. Will you go ? " 
 
 Henry Harris had his reasons, and conversing indifferently 
 upon many matters, the two arrived at last at a basement 
 room upon a side street. In the windows were displayed 
 a small collection of stuffed birds, a crocodile, a monkey, 
 and a wild-cat, also stuffed. When, unlocking the door, 
 the owner had entered with his companion, a medley of 
 objects appeared arranged upon shelves a pair of elephant 
 tusks, the head of a hippopotamus, a human skeleton, a 
 Tasmanian devil in the act of fighting with a kangaroo, 
 both admirably preserved, a number of living parrots and 
 canary birds, while boxes of bones filled the corners and 
 gave forth a smell as of the sepulchre. 
 
 The visitor examined the collection with unusual inter 
 est, asking many and minute questions, all of which were 
 answered readily and with some pride. Now that the pro-
 
 186 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 prietor had laid aside hat, umbrella, overcoat, and spectacles, 
 he was the same florid-complexioned, closely shaven, dull- 
 visaged, slumberous-mannered man he had seemed to be 
 at the house of Madame Mosseline. While the two were 
 conversing together upon natural history, young Harris 
 was saying to himself, " I have a shrewd suspicion that you 
 are no more an anatomist than you are a socialist, but this 
 will do for the present." 
 
 " Frankly, M. Portou," he said aloud at last, and after 
 further conversation, " I have no concealments. Like your 
 self, I am curious in reference to the Commune. I am an 
 American engineer ; my name is at your service," and he 
 handed the other his card. " Whatever you may be kind 
 enough to tell me is, of course, confidential. You are thor 
 oughly informed ; what are the chances of the Republic ? " 
 The speaker might have saved himself the trouble to say all 
 this ; the anatomist was perfectly informed in regard to him 
 already, but he entered now with great cordiality into fur 
 ther conversation. One thing led to another, but this was 
 the opinion of the anatomist upon the whole : The Ameri 
 can Republic was a glorious success because of the peculiar 
 ity of its size and isolated situation. Doubtless it had before 
 it a yet more glorious future, " although, candidly, I have 
 my fears," M. Portou said. But it was folly to reason from 
 America when France was concerned. The traditions, cus 
 toms, opinions, surroundings, of the French were wholly dif 
 ferent. A permanent republic in France was out of the 
 question. It was purely a matter of a few years at longest. 
 The exiled communists would be brought back. Every day 
 the press would become bolder. Socialism was infecting the 
 republicans with its leprosy. Any day France would have 
 to choose between the red anarchy on one side or the benef 
 icent return of authority. It might be Henry V. Possibly 
 the Empire might be reestablished. 
 
 " But the Republic ? No, never. In America ? Yes. 
 In France ? Never," cried M. Portou. 
 
 " With us," Henry Harris said, after much more conver-
 
 THE ANATOMIST. 187 
 
 sation, " the public school is the hope of freedom," and he 
 spoke fully upon that theme. The anatomist listened with 
 great politeness. 
 
 " I acknowledge it all," he said in the end, and with en 
 thusiasm. " It is wonderful ; for America it is admirable ! 
 But it will not do, pardon me, monsieur, for France," and he 
 described with great particularity the Government schools of 
 France, from the primary upward, gymnasiums, colleges, uni 
 versities. According to him the instructors were ignorant, 
 and taught without ardor and purely for pay. In many of 
 the schools shocking immorality prevailed. There was not 
 one in which the most disorganizing doctrines were not al 
 lowed. 
 
 " I am but an anatomist," M. Portou said, finally, with 
 modest self-depreciation, " and I consider it in a purely pe 
 cuniary point of view. Say that, on the contrary, the Breth 
 ren of Christian Doctrine are superstitious, behind the age; at 
 least, they teach cheaply. Having no family to support, these 
 good men can do the work for less than a third of what 
 others would demand," and he entered into quite a detail of 
 the number and excellence of the clerical schools throughout 
 France. It was a question which was soon to strike France 
 to its center, and the listener was deeply interested. 
 
 The American arose at last to go. He had been greatly 
 interested, and promised to call again. Before leaving he 
 turned the conversation for a moment upon Madame Mosse- 
 line, studying carelessly but attentively the face of the other 
 as he did so. " Yes," M. Portou assented, " she is a remark 
 able woman. Did ever so unprincipled a female preserve 
 such a neatness, such an almost Puritan order, in the exter 
 nals of her place ? Only in the externals, alas ! It was too 
 horrible ! " The American looked closely at the dull visage 
 before him ; the eyes had fallen ; there was a curious twitch 
 ing about the corners of M. Portou's mouth ; there was some 
 thing in him, in a word, which the visitor failed to under 
 stand. He deferred it to the future, and spoke of the de 
 praved poet who had seemed to be the idol of the club.
 
 188 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 As he mentioned him, the man himself came into the shop. 
 The American looked at him sharply, but cautiously. He 
 was of an exceedingly fragile build, with a noble head and 
 wonderful eyes, but evidently given over to dissolute courses. 
 He was well dressed, had inky stains upon his fingers, and 
 seemed to be perfectly master of himself. But Henry Har 
 ris made his adieus and left. After going a square, he called 
 a carriage, gave the driver a direction, and got in. 
 
 " I will drop in upon the artists," he thought ; " but I will 
 say nothing whatever as yet. It must be impossible. In any 
 case, I will get a good look at the old artist, at his daughter 
 especially. Who can tell what may come of it ? And you 
 say that people are not worth looking at," he said, with ref 
 erence to Lord Conyngham ; " your lordship will come to 
 know that, really, people in this world are the only things in 
 it worth studying." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE OLD ARTIST. 
 
 WHEN Henry Harris left the ill-smelling shop of M. Por- 
 tou, the anatomist, he thought of many things as he rolled 
 rapidly along in the vehicle which bore him to the house of 
 Zerah Atchison. He was one of those natural leaders to 
 whom a hunting party among the Rocky Mountains, or a 
 company out on a blackberrying expedition among the stone 
 fences of Vermont, would have yielded itself as sponta 
 neously as did the workmen of his father's shop when any 
 thing old among the machinery had broken or anything new 
 had to be devised to meet an emergency. Notwithstanding 
 his knowledge of society and pride of blood, Lord Conyng 
 ham had submitted himself to the guidance of his American 
 friend as he had not done to that of his stately father or his 
 proud sister. Now, Zerah Atchison and his charming daugh 
 ter also were passing into the care of Henry Harris. He had
 
 THE OLD ARTIST. 189 
 
 no more an intention to lay his grasp upon them than they 
 had to intrude upon his kindness ; but so it was : the wood 
 did not surrender itself more willingly to the adroit carving 
 of the father, or the clay to the molding of the daughter, 
 than did father and daughter to the hands of their new 
 friend. 
 
 At the first sound of his footstep upon their threshold 
 Isidore Atchison threw the cloth she kept ready for the 
 purpose over the clay she was at work upon, and turned to 
 a smaller and lower stand on which was what seemed to be 
 a sleeping Cupid. It was a mere sketch as yet, altogether 
 in the rough so far ; but she busied herself upon it with hur 
 ried hands as Henry Harris came into the room. The visi 
 tor cast one glance at her, and then, after the usual saluta 
 tions, he turned to the old artist. 
 
 " I see that you are surprised at me," the latter remarked, 
 painting steadily on upon what seemed to be a portrait ; "but 
 I can not give up as yet the dreams of my life. Of course, 
 I know that I can not reach anything approaching perfec 
 tion as a painter. I know, too, that my highest success is in 
 wood-carving. No one will buy my pictures, while, thanks 
 to your mother, your sister, and yourself, I dispose of all I 
 can carve. But I can not help it." 
 
 " Your pictures are far from bad," his visitor hastened to 
 assure him. "Besides, you remember that Thackeray de 
 spised his pen in comparison to his brush. No one knows 
 anything about his pictures, while we all recognize his genius 
 in his books. Does our life ever flow as we would have it ? " 
 
 "Never ; but it is because it is ordered by a wisdom 
 greater than our own. There is this excuse for me," the ar 
 tist added, "that, of late, our hearts have turned toward our 
 lost boy, our Valentine, for that is the name I have given 
 him. I am trying to put on canvas what I remember of his 
 mother, of Delira." 
 
 "And you," Mr. Harris said to Isidore, as he inspected 
 her work, "are endeavoring to reproduce your brother as 
 you imagine he might have been when a child."
 
 190 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Yes ; but I am only trying," she said ; " and my work 
 is too vague, as it is purely a fancy sketch, of course. Yet, 
 is it not strange ? both my father and myself, and without 
 saying a word to each other, have been, since you were here, 
 possessed by the same thought. We do not know that he is 
 in France. It is very uncertain whether he is living. Even 
 if he is alive, who can tell what kind of a man he may be ? " 
 
 Her head drooped lower over her work, and her visitor 
 asked of himself : " I wonder if she does not moisten her 
 clay with her tears?" But he said nothing, continuing 
 quiet, almost cold, in his manner. 
 
 " How singularly like his wise mother ! " the girl, on the 
 other hand, was saying to herself. Meanwhile the gentleman 
 considered the clay growing into life under her small, quick 
 hand with great care, glancing from it to the canvas upon 
 which her father had not ceased to toil. 
 
 " I paint purely from my memory of the mother, of De- 
 lira. I never knew her other name. You see," the old man 
 said, " that I am making her almost a red Indian. Since I 
 have thought, of her at all, her face has come to me with as 
 tonishing distinctness, as they say a language learned when 
 young does to the old and to the dying, although unused for 
 scores of years. I could hardly see her more distinctly were 
 she actually before me." 
 
 " But may not she herself be living ? " his visitor asked, 
 after glancing at the daughter. 
 
 " Yes, she is living," the artist said, gravely ; " I am as 
 sure of that as I am that her son also is alive." 
 
 But the visitor had ceased to study the work of the ar 
 tist ; he was studying the father and daughter instead. " She 
 has reproduced her father in marble," he thought ; " repro 
 duced him perfectly, because he is one whom the memory 
 holds as perfectly and as unchangingly as does the marble. 
 You can no more forget his aspect of sublime patience than 
 you can forget the womanly devotion which transfigures 
 her." The girl must have felt how fixedly his eyes were 
 fastened upon her, for the color slowly came to her cheek
 
 THE OLD ARTIST. 191 
 
 and brow. The gazer could not but have observed it, but 
 he gave no sign. In fact, under pretext of examining her 
 work more thoroughly, he placed himself opposite her upon 
 the other side of it, and seemed to the old artist to be study 
 ing her instead. 
 
 " You see that she is of the purely Greek type," her fa 
 ther said, quietly, at last. " Now, your sister," he continued, 
 as his visitor looked hastily up, " is wide between the brows 
 instead ; her forehead is low and broad, calm and sweet and 
 strong. That is the German type. Canova recreated the 
 Venus into that, but it is not the Aphrodite of Phidias ; it is 
 Minerva laying off her helmet to put on the cestus. I was 
 telling Isidore of it, how Lady Blanche " the eyes of the 
 gentleman addressed grew bright at the name ; the girl saw 
 it as she worked. " Yes," added the artist, in a slow, critical 
 tone, " she, Lady Blanche, is Juno ; an English Juno, you 
 know. Let me see : Apelles painted his Venus from the 
 seven loveliest virgins of Greece. Now, into the composi 
 tion of Lady Blanche has gone, Boadicea as a basis ; a little, 
 not much, of the mother of Alfred the Great, a good deal of 
 Queen Bess, something of Mary of Scots. Did you ever 
 think, Mr. Harris," he demanded suddenly, " how much of 
 the blood of the cruel Norman, William the Conqueror, is in 
 her? Yes, and of the dark, fierce Danes, too, of the old 
 pirate days ? " 
 
 " O father ! " Isidore exclaimed, and added, " You must 
 excuse him, sir, it is the force of habit. If Queen Victoria 
 were to come in, it would be only with the criticising eyes of 
 an artist that he would regard her Majesty. Dear father, I 
 am used to it ; but people do not like," she begged, with a 
 beseeching look, "to be considered in that way. Lady 
 Blanche is not a marble." 
 
 " Do you think not ? " the old man meditated, with sus 
 pended brush. " Joan of Arc Charlotte Corday the Maid 
 of Saragossa Madame Roland they are all of the Juno 
 type. Look at this engraving of Maria Theresa," drawing 
 it from a portfolio at his side and laying it on his knee. " Do 
 9
 
 192 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 you see the bend of the neck, the curve of the lip answering 
 to that of the brow, the nose, the ears even ? That is the 
 Empress Blanche also. Look here a moment." The enthu 
 siast reversed the engraving and made with a crayon a few 
 swift curves upon the back of it, which was blank. " Who 
 is that like ? " and he held it up. 
 
 " It is very much like the English lady of whom you have 
 spoken, very much indeed," said Henry Harris, and his tones 
 were more indifferent than his eyes ; and he added, " When 
 ever you intend a queen, you always fall into those regal 
 curves, do you ? " 
 
 "Always, unless it be the Queen of Love one attempts, 
 or Pallas. There are seven distinct rays, Mr. Harris, in the 
 spectrum of the sun. There are as many in the types of 
 woman. So of man. Lady Blanche I speak purely as an 
 artist," the old man went on, disregarding the appealing 
 glances of his daughter, " is as brave as her brother. Braver 
 that is, she would dare and do where even her own broth 
 er would hesitate. When need was, Juno defied even Jupi 
 ter. Lady Blanche, if victory required, would storm a bas 
 tion. What is the name of that poor duke who was with 
 her here the other day ? Plymouth ? Yes, that is it, the 
 Duke of Plymouth. Sir," said the artist, "if the emergency 
 demanded it of Lady Blanche, she, although of all women 
 she must despise him most, yes, sir, she would marry even 
 that man ! " He was looking, as he said it, full in the eyes 
 of his visitor, so unabashed was he in his artless art. Once 
 the gentleman to whom he spoke had seen a locomotive dash, 
 silently and suddenly, upon him from around a curve. Then 
 he sprang aside in time ; now he had to stand still and take 
 the unbroken onset of the placid but terrible speaker. The 
 young girl dared not look up from her work. She winced 
 instinctively, so well did she know the force of the blow. 
 Her hands were halted for the moment from the clay before 
 her, were reached out to the wounded man not in reality, 
 only in sympathy inexpressible. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " It was all that Henry Harris said,
 
 DANGEROUS WAYS. 193 
 
 bleeding inwardly, but allowing no emotion to show itself. 
 His manner became colder than he was aware. After a few 
 words in regard to the picture upon which the artist was en 
 gaged, and others in reference to the Exposition and art in 
 general, he took his leave. 
 
 " O father, how could you ! " It was all Isidore Atchison 
 could say, and then she began to cry silently. But her fa 
 ther was looking at her work with astonishment. It had 
 altered its whole appearance. " Why, my child," he said at 
 last, " that could not be your brother ; it is not even a boy. 
 You have made it a likeness of Mr. Harris instead ! " 
 
 The poor girl did not know it ; she flushed, swept rapid 
 hands over the face of the image, but, instead of continuing 
 to cry, she broke into a laugh. It was merry, but not glad. 
 Not being Minerva, the poor girl did not observe until that 
 moment what she had been about. She flushed as Venus 
 might have done ; but Juno herself could not have swept her 
 hands more ruthlessly over the features of the clay. Then 
 she ceased to laugh and began to cry. 
 
 " I was unconsciously making studies for my ' Purpose,' " 
 she said, in a beseeching way, as she lifted a corner of the 
 cloth covering the other stand and glanced at a head beneath 
 which strongly resembled their visitor ; " but I will not work 
 any more to-day," she added, and went into her own room. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 DANGEROUS WAYS. 
 
 " MY son," George Harris said one day to Henry when 
 they were alone together, " it is time you were married. 
 Choose your own wife, and I will take you as an equal part 
 ner with me in my business, which must before very long 
 pass entirely into your hands with half of my property. But, 
 remember what I say to you now, as I say it in my will : so
 
 194 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 long as your mother lives, everything is as thoroughly hers 
 as it has been since we were married. You know my con 
 viction is that it takes a man and a woman to make a com 
 plete person ; ' male and female made He them,' Scripture 
 says. Your mother and myself have always consulted each 
 other at every step, have had no secrets from each other 
 since we were engaged to be married. Poor enough we were 
 then, and our absolute unity has been the chief cause of my 
 success, of our unbroken happiness, of the development of 
 her character and mine, of all that your sister and yourself 
 are and ever will be. Marry whoever you please, marry 
 whenever you please ; but you had better never marry unless 
 it be upon a basis like that." 
 
 It was on this account, and because he had rarely con 
 cealed anything from his mother, that Henry Harris, when 
 riding one day in a carnage with only his mother, spoke 
 frankly and fully to her concerning not himself, but Lord 
 Conyngham and Mary ! " He and I have been associated 
 closely together for some time now," he said, " and he has 
 told me, as he has told her, his whole heart. He is thor 
 oughly in love with Mary, is determined to marry her if she 
 will consent. Apart from his rank, I could not desire a bet 
 ter husband for her. Apart from the mannerisms of his 
 position and training, he is a simple-hearted, manly fellow." 
 
 All this was nothing new to the mother, of course. It was 
 Mary's habit to make a confidant rather of her father than 
 her mother, but father and mother had already conferred 
 with each other in regard to the matter. 
 
 " We would decidedly rather she should marry an Ameri 
 can," Mrs. Harris remarked in the end. " If it must be an 
 Englishman, we would prefer that he should be anything 
 almost that was honorable rather than a nobleman. With 
 your father and myself, as it must be with you, that is a 
 serious objection. Mary is as worthy as any Englishwoman 
 can be of the highest rank, but she " 
 
 " Is not born to the peerage," her son interrupted his mo 
 ther. " You know how she has teased me by quoting Tenny-
 
 DANGEROUS WAYS. 195 
 
 son's ' Lady Clara Vere de Vere ' to me. Well, I read to her 
 yesterday the Laureate's ' Lord of Burleigh.' You remember 
 that in it a village maiden marries one whom she supposes 
 to be a poor landscape painter, and who, to her horror, turns 
 out to be a lord. Yes, I put a solemn warning into it as I 
 read the frightful result. It was after the marriage, remem 
 ber : 
 
 " 'So she strove against her weakness, 
 Though at times her spirit sank, 
 Shaped her heart with woman's meekness 
 
 To all duties of her rank ; 
 And a gentle consort made he, 
 
 And her noble mind was such, 
 That she grew a noble lady, 
 
 And the people loved her much. 
 But a trouble weighed upon her, 
 
 And perplexed her night and morn, 
 With the burden of an honor 
 Unto which she was not born.' 
 
 Then follows the sad story of how she pined away and died. 
 I read it," Henry continued, " in a way to draw tears almost 
 from the eyes of Hassan Pasha even, but she knew it all by 
 heart before, and I fear it did not have the least effect." 
 
 " I understand," Mrs. Harris said. She smiled, but it was 
 very gravely. " Mary is dazzled by his rank, especially by 
 what it will be when the old Earl is dead." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " Her son appeared to be astonished 
 and almost shocked. 
 
 " There is no better girl than Mary, nor a more sensible 
 one," the mother said, calmly; " but she is only a woman, and, 
 like every other woman alive, she can not help coveting a 
 coronet. To be a peeress, and of such an ancient and illus 
 trious house, is the most splendid position, that of a queen 
 excepted, in the world. In addition to, and as part of this, 
 Mary knows that she would live in the highest and most 
 brilliant society on earth, would have castles and palaces in 
 possession, would be a leader of fashion in all the capitals of
 
 196 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 Europe, would be flattered, envied. It is not in mortal 
 strength that she should resist." 
 
 " I suppose you are right," her son said, with an air of 
 disappointment ; " but what Lord Conyngham says is that it 
 is his career in politics which will, he hopes, interest her in 
 him. Since he knew her he has become as ambitious, he 
 tells me, as Lucifer. He intends to take an energetic part in 
 Parliament, and it is astonishing what a change has been 
 wrought in him of late. He used to be little more than a 
 fop and an epicure ; not so now. He is investigating com 
 munism with me, but that is merely a part of his efforts. 
 Lady Blanche tells me that she can hardly get him away 
 from his books. He is studying up India, Ireland, the Turk 
 ish Empire ; every land in the world in which England is 
 specially interested. I believe, too, he knows more than I 
 do of agriculture, land tenure, free trade, finance, and all 
 such subjects. He tells me that he has had the most valu 
 able suggestions from Mary, that she has inspired him with 
 the purpose of his life. I do not doubt it. They talk for 
 hours together upon the impending changes in England and 
 Europe. That is all very well, but, bless me, they are in 
 love with each other ! Of course, it is all very praiseworthy, 
 but love is at the bottom of it all." 
 
 " For one who knows of love merely by observing your 
 sister and her lover, you are very wise," his mother remarked, 
 demurely, while her son colored a little. " Yes," Mrs. Hams 
 continued, " Mary is naturally dazzled, unconscious as she is 
 of it, by Lord Conyngham's rank. She is sincerely interested 
 in his ambitions, and she is capable of becoming to him all " 
 the mother added, with all a mother's partiality " that 
 Lady Palmerston, Lady Russell, Madame Roland, were to 
 their husbands ; that is, she will be a very efficient help to 
 ward his political success. Most of all, Mary is, as you say, 
 in love with the man who is so heartily in love with her. 
 Nothing more natural. Nor do I doubt that they would 
 make a happy couple if they were left to themselves. It is 
 the influence that will be brought to bear upon him that I
 
 DANGEROUS WAYS. 197 
 
 justly dread. The Earl will never consent, nor, I think," 
 and the face of Mrs. Harris grew very grave, " will Lady 
 Blanche really and heartily approve. There will be hosts of 
 persons in England who will oppose the match with their 
 utmost influence ; persons, too, who are not without a certain 
 right to speak. If the question were brought, like the mar 
 riage of a son of Victoria, into Parliament " Mrs. Harris 
 said, with a smile. 
 
 " Whatever the House of Commons would do, the House 
 of Lords," her son added, with a laugh, for her, " would vote 
 it down unanimously, no doubt of that ! The Earl occupies 
 so high a place in the peerage. Do you think," he asked, 
 " that the Queen would approve of the marriage ? " 
 
 " Frankly, I do not. Victoria," Mrs. Harris said, " is an 
 excellent and sensible woman, but, with almost the entire 
 nobility of England, she, and it is natural, is becoming, may 
 I say it ? jealous of America and of intrusive Americans. 
 Our kindly feeling toward Russia, our prosperity, the un 
 settled nature of many things in England, the excessive and 
 increasing influence of America there as elsewhere, alarms 
 them. No," Mrs. Harris added, with a laugh, " I do not 
 think her Majesty would recommend the match to Parlia 
 ment in a speech from the throne. It would be a severe test 
 for Mary," the mother continued, more seriously. " She 
 would have, as Lady Conyngham, to face and conquer an 
 almost unanimous hostility ! " But her son smiled to him 
 self, observing how his mother lifted her head more proudly, 
 how her eyes sparkled as she said it. 
 
 " My daughter could do it," the mother added, quietly, 
 but with a tinge of new color in her cheeks ; " she could do 
 it, but it might wreck her happiness. Henry," she con 
 tinued, still more calmly, a few moments after, " let us wait. 
 When we are called upon to act we will know what to do. 
 However Mary may set her heart upon anything, so far, at 
 least, she has always yielded to the judgment of her father 
 and myself." 
 
 But neither the son nor the mother felt satisfied ; no such
 
 198 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 test as this had been applied to the young girl hitherto, nor 
 anything comparable to it. Both felt that it was the gravest 
 question which had ever as yet come up in their experience. 
 
 " My son," Mrs. Harris said, after a while, " the globe is 
 turning under us all the time very swiftly. Ever since we 
 were born it has been flying also with still more terrific speed 
 into the immeasurable and unknown depths of space. Did 
 it ever occur to you to try and stop the planet, or to change 
 either its speed or its direction ? " 
 
 " As Earl Dorrington says so often, assuredly not," the 
 other replied, knowing what was to come. 
 
 " When we have done all that we can do in anything, our 
 wisdom," his mother added, " is to cease trying. I dare say 
 that Heaven is as wise as it is irresistible in all its doings, in 
 the least as the greatest. But," and she turned her loving 
 eyes upon her son, seated fronting her in the carriage, " your 
 father and myself are as anxious about you as we are about 
 your sister." 
 
 "About me!" he exclaimed ;, but he knew what she 
 meant as he said it, and a long and serious conversation 
 ensued. Having entered upon the subject, he found himself 
 almost swept away by it. " I have always been frank with 
 you," he said in the end, and with fervor. " Lady Blanche 
 is superior to any woman I know. I admire and love her 
 as much as it is possible for a man to love and admire any 
 woman. Do you know, I think she well she is not wholly 
 without interest in me. The Duke of Plymouth is desper 
 ately in love with her too. Poor fellow, I can sympathize 
 with him. Every influence will be in his favor and against 
 me. We love each other more ardently than I mean," 
 Henry Harris corrected himself in confusion, " that I love 
 her more than Lord Conyngham can love Mary ; his nature 
 and mine are different. But I am not going to urge her to 
 what she may regret. And," he added, with a sudden 
 gravity, " I am not a child, nor do I intend to go into either 
 raptures or into desperations, like one of these convulsive 
 Frenchmen. I intend to remain, whatever befalls, master of
 
 ACHILLES DESCHARDS. 199 
 
 myself, I hope. As to Mary and her lover, the way seems to 
 be plainer. Mine is a more difficult case than theirs far 
 more ! I would have spoken to you about it, but there is 
 nothing you can tell me that I do not already know. You 
 spoke about the swift, irresistible course of the globe. I feel 
 as if she or I were speeding on to some terrible crash in the 
 end. But what can I do ? Lady Blanche is out of the usual 
 race of women. She is like like a lioness, and that is why 
 I love her. She is the one woman in all the world to live, if 
 need be to die, for. But please do not let us talk about it ; 
 I would rather not ! " It was said in the most loving and 
 respectful tones, but Margaret Harris had never known her 
 son to be as decided in his manner. She looked at him with 
 grave concern, but the conversation was turned upon other 
 subjects. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ACHILLES DESCHARDS. 
 
 HENRY HARRIS had his own reasons for dropping in now 
 and then upon M. Portou, the anatomist, and it was through 
 him that he became well acquainted at last with Achilles 
 Deschards, the profligate poet whom he had first met at the 
 rooms of Madame Mosseline. " That man," the American 
 explained to Lord Conyngham one afternoon at the Bodega, 
 and pointing out the young Frenchman to him on the other 
 side of the gorgeous room, " that man is worth studying. 
 You saw him once before, but observe more closely his fine 
 forehead, his splendid eyes under his profusion of black hair, 
 his hard and dissolute air. He, sir, is a specimen of the lit 
 erary bandit of the day. He wields a swift and exceedingly 
 sharp pen precisely as the bravo of Italy used to wield sword 
 and dagger, to kill whomsoever he is paid to slay. Enlist him 
 by cash enough, and he will defend you and your party and 
 attack your foes with equal and astonishing power. You
 
 200 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 may be a Legitimist, an Orleanist, a Napoleonist, an adherent 
 of M. Gambetta ; it is all one to him. Take him into your 
 pay, and until some other party pays him still more to betray 
 you, he will do you faithful service through the press. He 
 has a vivid imagination, writes perfect French, is thoroughly 
 read up on every topic, is absolutely without principles of 
 any sort whatever ; is a Bohemian in the worst sense of the 
 word Gypsy, sbirri, literary thug." 
 
 " Such men are the curse of France, I would think," Lord 
 Conyngham replied ; " I have heard of them, but, until we 
 met him at Madame Mosseline's, I had not seen a specimen 
 of the species. Let us have a talk with him ; " and in a lit 
 tle while the nobleman would have seriously compromised 
 himself by entering into conversation with Deschards, but 
 his friend promptly prevented him and told him why. 
 
 " That is an advantage I have over you, my lord," he 
 said, with a laugh ; " as an engineer, especially as an Amer 
 ican, I can be seen with any man, of every sort of character 
 or no character, anywhere and everywhere in the wide world, 
 and no one would regard it as anything but natural ; but 
 unless disguised as Tom Perkins you can not." 
 
 With a gesture of impatient assent the nobleman turned 
 away, and in ten minutes afterward Henry Harris was con 
 versing with Achilles Deschards on the other side of the 
 Bodega, and as naturally as if they had been the sworn 
 friends of a lifetime. 
 
 " When I saw you at that accursed Madame Mosseline's," 
 the Frenchman was saying to him, " I knew you were Amer 
 icans, but not Canadians. You can tell a Canadian by his 
 halfness, so to speak ; he is neither English nor American, 
 and having no independent nationality he has no strong per 
 sonality of his own. As a citizen of the Great Republic you, 
 au contraire, have in yourself the assurance, pardonnez-moi, 
 of your aggressive flag." 
 
 " I thank you," the other began, but the Frenchman placed 
 himself in front of the American, laid his fragile hand upon 
 his arm, looked keenly at him with his hawk-like eyes, and
 
 ACHILLES DESCHARDS. 201 
 
 dashed on so rapidly that one less familiar with French than 
 Henry Harris would have found it impossible to keep up with 
 him. 
 
 " You Yankees," the Bohemian said, " carry your prairies 
 in your aspect ; your Mississippi flows in your veins also. It 
 is not only that you are hurled as upon your Niagara against 
 Europe ; the boundless future of your land breaks over and 
 sweeps away all limits to your personal plans also. The Ro 
 mans marched everywhere to chain the world down beneath 
 their sway ; the Rome of to-day is America, but, monsieur, 
 the Americans go abroad to unchain the peoples instead. 
 You, sir, are the universal and energetic solvent of the age." 
 
 Henry Harris was not at all flattered. He was too well 
 aware that with Deschards such phrases were but the wares 
 of his trade ; that in the twinkling of an eye this literary 
 corsair could and would slay everything American as with 
 the scimetar of his tongue or pen, provided money was to be 
 made thereby. 
 
 " Why do you speak so savagely of Madame Mosseline ? " 
 was all that Henry Harris replied. " I supposed the night I 
 saw you there that you were " 
 
 " A petroleur, a Red ? I was as much so as my name 
 sake Achilles was a woman when disguised as such in the 
 court of Lycomedes. No, monsieur, I was there," the other 
 continued with a bow, " only as you were there. You do 
 not love the Social Republic ? Very good ; but I detest it 
 more than you possibly can. J'avais mes raisons ; M. 
 Harrees, in me you behold," and the speaker suddenly 
 assumed a solemn air, " a Catholic. Recall, I beg of you, 
 the massacre of the Archbishop of Paris, and ask of yourself 
 what I think of the Commune." 
 
 The American glanced at the other with astonishment. 
 It was as when an acrobat turns a somersault so swiftly as to 
 take away one's breath. Could it be that the hollow cheeks, 
 the dark rings under the eyes, the premature age of one who 
 seemed otherwise young ; could it be that what had seemed 
 to be the ravages of dissipation were the results, instead, of
 
 202 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ascetic fastings and macerations in some lonely cell ? The 
 aspect of the Frenchman had become as in an instant that of 
 a doctor of the Sorbonne, that of an inquisitor even. But, 
 then, this very man had read the atrocious lines at the social 
 ist club of Madame Mosseline, had read them with too much 
 zest not to have originated them in his own brilliant but foul 
 imagination. 
 
 "I see that you are perplexed. It is," the versatile 
 Frenchman said, with almost pity, "because you have not 
 wholly laid aside the Canadian. I also, monsieur, I also was 
 constrained to disguise myself when among those sheep of 
 darkness. Que voulez vous ? Could I retain my fleece, white 
 as the snow ? No ; you saw our friend M. Portou, the 
 anatomist, there. He, you have learned, was not a Red, nor 
 was the friend who came with you, nor were you. Distrust 
 appearances, monsieur. I a Communist ! It will suffice to 
 the Almighty hereafter to turn them into a hell wherein is no 
 fire. Incendiaries ! Each bears enough of fire within him 
 self to kindle the flames of Gehenna. Yet why do I say so ? 
 Alas ! poor fools, I pity them instead." 
 
 For once the American was fairly puzzled. He knew the 
 tribe to which his companion belonged. Louis Veuillot, the 
 savage ultramontane editor of " L'TJnivers," was, he knew, 
 but a variation upon Paul Cassagnac, the yet more brutal 
 Napoleonist writer ; and this sharp-featured Frenchman was 
 as able and audacious as these without being hampered by 
 any conviction whatever. He knew that this Achilles Des- 
 chards was a type of a class of editors writers for the press, 
 at least no longer confined to Europe. A similar species, 
 he had been told, had sprung up, of late, in America also. 
 On his visits to Nevada and California he had seen despera 
 does who were dreaded for their deadly skill with rifle, re 
 volver, and bowie-knife, and he knew that desperadoes of the 
 press were beginning to outstrip these in America, too by 
 their more pitiless and terrible skill with the pen. For this 
 reason he was the more anxious to study Deschards, as be 
 longing to the original type. But he was sorely perplexed
 
 HERE ZOODLEPLAUNTCH. 203 
 
 also. The changes in this Proteus were somewhat too swift. 
 The other seemed to read his thoughts. 
 
 " You will find," he said, " that we Parisians are not shal 
 low because we are sparkling. M. Portou, for instance you 
 mistook him ; you mistook me." 
 
 "M. Deschards," the American replied, gravely, even 
 coldly, " I may have a prof ounder knowledge of our friend 
 the anatomist than you are aware. As to yourself, sir, un 
 less I greatly mistake, you are " Henry Harris paused a 
 moment ; he had a very important task in hand toward the 
 other, and he had long ago learned to proceed with caution. 
 When it was a question of steam and iron there were certain 
 invariable laws, but not so when a man was concerned ; at 
 least, although the laws of the human heart are unchange 
 able, his knowledge of them was too slight to allow him to 
 act rashly ; therefore he arrested himself for the present, and 
 said instead, "You are, M. Deschards, unless I err, one of 
 the ablest and most effective of writers ; " and, with a slight 
 bow, he rejoined Lord Conyngham. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 HERE ZOODLErLAUNTCH. 
 
 THEEE must have been something in connection with the 
 game of billiards at Earl Dorrington's, already recorded, 
 which smote Henry Harris also even harder than the ivory 
 balls had been smitten, for, in a few days thereafter, he had 
 disappeared from Paris, accompanied by Lord Conyngham, 
 between whom and himself there was every day a firmer 
 friendship. So much were they together that a companion 
 ship had sprung up between their servants likewise. 
 
 " Yes, I likes mine master," Toffski, the moujik, said to 
 Judkins, the valet of the young nobleman, as they talked
 
 204 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 together in the cars which were conveying all four on this 
 occasion into Germany. " For one thing I not like him." 
 
 " Hif his lordship would henjoy himself has hother gen 
 tlemen do," Judkins replied, "hi would not complain ; 'e 
 might drink, gamble, go hon larks hof every sort hand hi 
 would not care. But I hasks myself, why should a noble 
 man go has 'e does h among the ragtag and bobtail, the de 
 graded lower borders ? Hit his 'orrible ! But what his the 
 matter with your governor ? " 
 
 " In my country, in Russia, master beats a moujik with 
 big stick ; every master every man. No stick for me. My 
 little father not beat me once," the other complained, shaking 
 his head sorrowfully, " not even throw boot at me. Where 
 we going now ? " 
 
 Lord Conyngham chanced to be asking the same question 
 at the same moment of his friend. " I have read up the 
 German socialists a little," he said, " in the ' Social Demokrat,' 
 and my German is better than my French ; but I'll be hanged 
 if I can understand what they are up to." 
 
 " Nor I. We will try Planitz, in Saxony, and see," his 
 companion replied. " I know Herr Puttrich, who is a leader 
 among them. He will gain us admittance into one of their 
 societies. For years I have tried to make out what they are 
 after. It is like trying to fix upon some definite and inva 
 riable shape for the froth of a mug of lager or the smoke of 
 a meerschaum. This time I will learn the thing to the bot 
 tom, if possible. We go to Saxony because political offend 
 ers are allowed pen, ink, and paper in the jails of Saxony and 
 in few other German prisons. Communists speak, therefore, 
 more boldly in Planitz, because, if imprisoned, they can pro 
 claim from behind their bars what martyrs and heroes they 
 are." 
 
 It was in pursuance of this purpose that, a few nights 
 after, the friends, dressed as is common to German students, 
 found themselves in the hall used by the socialists of Planitz. 
 A long table ran from end to end of the apartment, plenti 
 fully supplied with glasses of lager and other kinds of drink,
 
 HERE ZOODLEPLAUNTCH. 205 
 
 the waiters hurrying in and out with pretzels, tobacco, and 
 yet more lager in response to the thirsty clamor of the heavy 
 glasses knocked upon the table. Lord Conyngham had fur 
 nished himself with, perhaps, the largest meerschaum in the 
 room, but neither he nor his friend could keep up with the 
 others in their glasses. For a time their attention was di 
 verted from the talk going on among the heavily bearded, 
 purple-visaged, square-shouldered Germans among whom 
 they were. 
 
 "One thing is plain," Henry Harris said, in English and 
 in a whisper, to his companion at his side, " these men know 
 with perfect certainty that a change is impending in Ger 
 many. They are in dead earnest, are sincere patriots most 
 of them, tremendous students. There are more steady think 
 ing, solid learning, deliberate purpose in this room than in 
 all French communism put together. That young fellow is 
 Geib, of whom you have heard. The dogged-looking Ger 
 man opposite is Mosh, the reddest republican of them all. 
 Yonder is Liebknecht. The man with the blue necktie is 
 Bebel. They are comparatively moderate. Karl Marx, at 
 the end of the board, is the leading socialist, as you have 
 read. It will try our patience to the utmost. Now for it." 
 
 At this moment Herr Puttrich begged to be heard. He 
 kept his seat, nor did his pipe interfere with his remarks. 
 
 " What I must urge upon you," he said in German, " is 
 that the strategic point of our campaign lies undoubtedly 
 in the matter of the Knappschaftskassen," and he entered at 
 length into a history of the Insurance Association of Miners 
 thus referred to, and of the wrongs toward it of the Govern 
 ment. To the visitors the matter seemed tangled and tedious 
 beyond measure, but every German there smoked and lis 
 tened, drank and listened, with profound attention to the end. 
 
 When he was through, they barkened with equal fixedness 
 to Bebel, who proceeded to demonstrate the fact that the en 
 ergies of ambition were taking a wholly new direction. Once 
 men had gone by millions into the Crusades. Again, when 
 aroused by the discoveries of Columbus, they had rushed into
 
 206 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the finding of new worlds across the seas. Under Cortez and 
 Pizarro the search for gold had been the mania, repeating 
 itself in the case of the tulip insanity of Holland, the South 
 Sea Bubble of France. In the days of Napoleon, as of Char 
 lemagne and Tamerlane, conquest had been the rage of the 
 hour. Under and after Luther religion had been the absorb 
 ing topic of thought and of action. " To-day it is industry," 
 argued the speaker. " Aided by machinery, the quickened 
 energies of Europe are given to the accumulation thus of vast 
 wealth. Now, whatever the passion of the hour heretofore, 
 it has resulted in the subjection of the many to the despotism 
 of the few. Henceforth our capitalists will be our kings, our 
 Neros. It is against them we must fight. And how ? The 
 state must be supreme. It must own and work every rail 
 way, telegraph, factory, workshop, as well as all schools and 
 colleges. Abolishing indirect taxes and standing armies, it 
 must grasp and wield as its only soldiers the children of the 
 public schools, the laborers, the money, the " 
 
 But Bebel was broken in upon by Mosh, the Red Social 
 ist. His meerschaum did not prevent his earnest protest 
 against this as, at least, the finality. He could smoke between 
 sentences, and the puffs came from his lips like those from a 
 cannon in battle as he proceeded to show that even the state 
 is but a transition to the individual. " The many principali 
 ties of Germany had united at last in the Empire. What 
 was that but a preparation for a confederated republic, such 
 as those of Switzerland and America ? The American Repub 
 lic, it, too, must perish. Upon its ruins would stand the Indi 
 vidual. Every man shall yet be absolutely free, free to speak, 
 think, feel, act ; in himself and over himself sole czar and 
 sovereign. That was the grand result, every man his own 
 empire, monarchy, republic, state. Why not accept and aim 
 at the ultimate result of the ages at once ? " Much discussion 
 followed thereupon. 
 
 Since America had been mentioned, Herr Puttrich stated 
 at length that a friend of his, an American, was present, with 
 the name of whose father, the railway king, they were all
 
 HERE ZOODLEPLAUNTCH. 207 
 
 familiar. Perhaps he would speak. Henry Harris had not 
 bargained for this ; he doubted if his German was sufficient 
 to the task, but he accepted the work and arose. With great 
 modesty he spoke of his inexperience, then of the vast emi 
 gration of Germans to America, and of the benefit they were 
 to the country. He heartily agreed with Herr Mosh as to 
 the fact that, at last, the individual was the supreme result 
 of all government, as of all civilization. History existed for 
 and culminated in the individual man or woman. 
 
 " And I hope that every one agrees with me in this also," 
 he added, speaking slowly and using his best German. " The 
 absolute freedom of the individual is the distinctive doctrine 
 of American freedom, its essence, quintessence. By individ 
 ual freedom I mean individual self-government. It is that 
 which has made us all we are, which is enabling us to mold, 
 may I say it ? the race into our image. What is this per 
 sonal freedom, this self-government, so new to the world, so 
 powerful, so prosperous ? Here is no theory ; it is matter of 
 simple fact. It is that no man can be absolutely free in and 
 of and by himself, free apart from government of every kind, 
 empire or republic, to and of himself until until the indi 
 vidual enthrones in his bosom, as supreme master of his every 
 thought, that Power which alone is the sole, rightful, su 
 preme authority." 
 
 " And what is that ? " was asked by many about the table 
 as he paused. 
 
 "It is," said the American, deliberately, "the God who 
 made him, the Son of God who died to save him. That is 
 American freedom ! " 
 
 The words were listened to with deepest attention ; they 
 were spoken calmly, clearly, and with the force of certainty. 
 The last sentence struck the intellect of all present, because 
 the instinct of the conscience accepted it. More still, because 
 it was weighted, as well as illumined, with the almost super 
 natural grandeur, success, and acknowledged future of that 
 America represented by the speaker, which is every day, 
 and more and more, as every man present acknowledged,
 
 208 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the haven, and hope, and revolutionizing force of the 
 world. 
 
 A vast deal of argument followed, eveiy man eager to 
 establish his own view. The conflict of theories culminated 
 at last in one dissenter, Herr Zoodleplauntch. He was un 
 like the solid, thoughtful Germans about him in that he was 
 tall and cadaverous. Although he was not fat far from it 
 it was not because he did not irrigate his leanness as with a 
 Nile, deep and unceasing, of lager. His hair, long and thin, 
 hung down his shoulders, but his gaunt face was almost 
 beardless, his small, keen eyes glittering with restless excite 
 ment. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " he now exclaimed, in repudiation of what 
 the American had said, and with violence springing to his 
 feet and brandishing his long arms, " that was the baby talk 
 of the ages past. Martin Luther said that. But we ? We 
 are centuries beyond such childish nonsense. America? 
 America was born but yesterday, and we intend to change 
 America. We are grown to be men." The speaker drew 
 himself up. " Look," and he waved his hand, " at Berlin. It 
 has a million of inhabitants, with but one hundred and ten 
 clergymen, Catholic and Protestant. Enter their churches 
 on Sunday. Behold a desert ! There is not an average of 
 a hundred worshipers to each, and these at the morning ser 
 vice only. Kaiser Wilhelm still believes, because he is old, 
 very old. We have advanced since 1872. Since then " 
 
 "Has not crime," the American interrupted, "increased 
 more than fifty per cent, since then ? " 
 
 " It is," exclaimed the socialist, " because we are in a state 
 of transition. We hasten toward perfection. The ancients 
 sang mournfully of a golden age in the past. It was a myth. 
 Man began with a microscopic infusoria. During the lapse 
 of myriads of aeons he developed upward through the ascidian 
 into at last the ape. Through innumerable years he evolved 
 from the ape into the savage of the age of stone. Then came 
 periods of further tutelage under government of kings or 
 republics. His infancy has required to be nurtured in the
 
 HERR ZOODLEPLAUNTCH. 209 
 
 cradle of the family institution, of religion. But," and Herr 
 Zoodleplauntch lifted the eyes and eager hands as of a prophet 
 toward the future, " man approaches at last his glorious des 
 tiny. Already is he treading under his feet governments of 
 all kinds whatever. Throwing off the swaddling-clothes of 
 the family, of religion in whatsoever form," and he threw 
 out his hands on either side as if casting away filth, " he 
 stands erect at last. What need has he of God ? Strong, 
 wise, knowing all things, sufficient in himself, under no law 
 but of his own pleasure, man comes at last to be supreme. 
 The God of theology ? Feuerbach well says it is but the 
 shadow projected upon the infinite by man himself. With 
 Comte I worship only humanity ; unlike Comte, it is the in 
 dividual I adore, not the aggregate. Look upon me," and the 
 philosopher loomed through the dense fog of tobacco-smoke 
 like the specter of the Brocken, with disheveled locks, gaunt 
 and ghastly, his arms folded upon his breast. " I am the di 
 vinity : I worship and adore thee, O Zoodleplauntch, as," and 
 he closed his eyes and bowed his head, " the only God. As 
 God," he added, lifting up a wrathful face, " I henceforth 
 doom to swift destruction not Christianity alone, but all re 
 ligion. The citadel of superstition is the Christian Sabbath. 
 You insult me with speaking of your Sabbath, your babyish 
 Sabbath," and the speaker paused through intensity of un 
 speakable scorn. 
 
 Now there chanced to sit beside the deity in question a 
 grave and sedate burgomaster, whose pipe was a wonder of 
 art, as it was of size, an heirloom and a treasure. During 
 all the oratory he had smoked steadily on, as if that were 
 the only occupation, as it pretty much was, of his existence. 
 With slow, almost rhythmic, puff he listened still as Herr 
 Zoodleplauntch added, " The Sabbath ? Listen. When our 
 great Hermann destroyed the legions of Rome at Wenfeldt, 
 Octavius Caesar dashed his head against the wall, exclaiming, 
 ' Give me back my legions, Varus ! ' To-day we wage a 
 greater war with Rome, with Geneva, with America. Soon, 
 very soon, will these lament, and lament in vain, ' Give us
 
 210 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 back our Sunday, O Teutons.' For swiftly are we demol 
 ishing, in America also, the accursed Sunday. Delenda estf" 
 As he said it he brought down his long right arm with 
 such energy as to smite the pipe from the lips of his neigh 
 bor, dashing it in a wreck of fragments and ashes upon the 
 table. Even the sedate Germans laughed, but the discussion 
 was resumed, and it was weary hours before the two visitors 
 emerged from the fog of tobacco-smoke, a headache each 
 being apparently all they had gained. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE PIEATE OP THE PEN". 
 
 " IT is a queer world ! It is the queerest of all conceiv 
 able worlds ! " 
 
 The remark seemed to break of itself from the lips of 
 Henry Harris. Lord Conyngham and himself had got back 
 to Paris the day before from their trip into Germany. George 
 Harris was absent on business, but his wife and Mary were 
 seated in the parlor at their hotel, and the nobleman had 
 just finished his account of their experiences among the 
 clouds of Teutonic speculation and tobacco-smoke in the 
 Bier Halle of the socialistic club. " So far, all I have 
 learned," Lord Conyngham added, " whether from Old Sta 
 tistics in London, from Madame Mosseline here in Paris, 
 from Herr Zoodleplauntch in Germany, may be summed up 
 in three things : First, the foundations of society are not, as 
 yet, settled as upon a rock. Far from it. Underneath all 
 Europe, as well as Asia, is only quicksand. The second 
 thing I am equally sure of, and that is, that none of the rem 
 edies suggested would do more than substitute for what now 
 exists the most abysmal chaos, out of which, could it be tried, 
 society would be glad to struggle again for salvation, through 
 fire and blood, under the leadership, perhaps, of the worst
 
 THE PIRATE OF THE PEN. 211 
 
 despot that ever reigned. Last, the people everywhere are 
 desperately discontented, and will never rest until we attain 
 to something better than we now possess." 
 
 " There ought to be a fourth conclusion, my lord," Mary 
 Harris suggested, " and that is, that the sooner all Europe 
 follows France, and scrambles out of the quicksand upon the 
 adamant of American republicanism, the better for it." 
 
 " You always wave the stars and stripes, my dear," her 
 mother said ; " but, do you know, I have my fears for America, 
 too. We survived the agonies of our civil war, but I almost 
 dread the yes, the terrible prosperity upon which our re 
 public is entering. If we boast ourselves too much, some 
 sudden, unlooked-for disaster may hurl us again into the 
 dust. But what makes you think it is such a queer world, 
 Henry ? " 
 
 " I was not thinking of Herr Zoodleplauntch," her son 
 replied. He had been walking to and fro in the room ; now 
 he stopped and said : " Lord Conyngham has told you about 
 the people we met at Madame Mosseline's house. Let me 
 carry on the story by telling you of things which I have 
 found out since we were there. It has taken time, and 
 money, and expert detectives, but I think I have reached 
 the truth at last almost, at least. First, to be systematic, 
 like your lordship, there is M. Portou, the anatomist." 
 Thereupon the speaker described at length the appearance 
 of the portly, sleepy -faced man, the disguises he wore, the 
 furnishing of his menagerie-like shop. " Now," Henry con 
 tinued, " that man may or may not be really and truly an artic- 
 ulator of bones, a stuffer of birds, taxidermist, whatever he 
 calls himself ; in any case, his feathers and furs and skins 
 are but the costume of the hour. As I supposed, he is a Jes 
 uit. Fat, sluggish, stupidly socialistic as he seemed, he goes 
 everywhere in the interest of his order, merely to keep him 
 and them informed. To be frank, I can not but honor the 
 fervency of his faith, the utter devotedness of the man, even 
 while I abhor his duplicity. Dull as he looks, he knows 
 that he is liable to be stabbed as a spy by those who hate
 
 212 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 a Jesuit more than they do an agent of the police. But 
 there is one thing which I have not found out yet. It is 
 not to hear the insane and profligate notions of the Com 
 mune that he haunts the house of Madame Mosseline. My 
 lord," and the speaker addressed himself to his friend, " as 
 sure as you live, there is some reason beyond that ; some 
 sufficient reason in connection with that woman ; some reason 
 why he, a priest a pure man, I have no doubt goes to 
 her house. What it is I am resolved to know if I can. I 
 have reasons." 
 
 " We know, at least, who that rascal Deschards is," the 
 other replied. " Do you know, he is an entirely new charac 
 ter to me. I study him as I would a newly patented re 
 volver, a recently discovered reptile. We have two or three 
 inferior specimens of the species in London, but I never ac 
 tually saw one before." Whereupon the speaker gave the 
 ladies a description of the literary bandit, of his appearance, 
 his ways of life. Mrs. Harris and her daughter were greatly 
 interested. 
 
 "I think," the latter said, "that he, or men like him, 
 must write the begging letters my father receives. There 
 are so many of them, and some of them are written with 
 wonderful skill." 
 
 " Yes," her brother said, " it is only a scribe like Des 
 chards who can write in turns like an old soldier, a ship 
 wrecked sailor, a bankrupt wine-merchant, a starving schol 
 ar, a high-spirited youth on the edge of suicide, an aged 
 philanthropist who has beggared himself by giving, a de 
 cayed clergyman. I have had to read the letters. But I 
 think it is when the writer lays aside his sex and becomes a 
 perishing female, through all varieties of maid and matron, 
 daughter, widow, sister, struggling to support a consumptive 
 brother, or something of the kind, that the writer is most of 
 a genius. At times he becomes a mere boy of six, a little 
 girl of eight, in his attempts to get a remittance. Of course, 
 the man we speak of is superior to the need of writing such 
 letters. Yet, in manifold ways, I dare say Achilles Des-
 
 THE PIRATE OF THE PEN. 213 
 
 chards keeps his versatile pen going. He is never at a loss, 
 and yet, to do him justice, all lesser efforts are subordinate 
 to his chief occupation that of political writer." 
 
 " He wrote for a socialist sheet," Lord Conyngham said, 
 "and I obtained you know I want to learn everything 
 some copies and read his articles with great interest. It was 
 excellent practice in learning French in its purity ; yes, and 
 in its power, also. They were surprisingly good, those lead 
 ers. For analysis of the wrongs of the workmen and the 
 causes and remedies thereof, for argument, pathos, invec 
 tive, wit even, they would not have disgraced Pascal ; they 
 reminded me of the ' Lettres Provinciates* at every step. 
 He is a talented rascal." 
 
 " And I read a number of his articles in a clerical journal 
 given me by our other friend, the Jesuit, " Henry Harris 
 remarked. " Except that they were more aggressive, the 
 ' Pens'ees ' of Pascal were not so much superior to them. It 
 was pathetic as well as powerful, the way in which the 
 writer spoke of the evils of Protestantism and their inevit 
 able outcome in socialistic atheism ; of the stability, glory, 
 conservative power, future triumph, of ultramontanism. 
 You would have thought it was a devout ascetic who wrote, 
 a St. Francis de Sales, a Borromeo. And yet " The 
 speaker made a despairing gesture with both hands, and 
 began again to pace the floor. 
 
 "And yet your pirate of the pen wrote them," his sister 
 added for him. 
 
 "Yes, but," her brother stopped to say, "he wrote the 
 radicalism which Lord Conyngham justly wondered over, 
 at the very time he was engaged in his clerical labors. In 
 the morning, let us say, he gives his really wonderful power 
 to tearing socialism to shreds and glorifying the Church. 
 Until late at night of the same day he is engaged with Pro 
 tean power in depicting, with equal vigor and unutterable 
 loathing, the superstition and villainy of pope and priest. We 
 have all witnessed the rapid transformations of Harlequin ; 
 but the intellectual adroitness of Deschards surpasses that.
 
 214 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 You can run a locomotive due north, can reverse its wheels 
 and back it almost as fast due south ; but here is a man who 
 can run himself, both heart and mind, north and south at 
 the same moment. Really," the speaker added, " we Ameri 
 cans are ' smart ' ; but I had no idea of an American as sharp 
 and thrifty as that. As a Yankee, I am almost proud of 
 Achilles Deschards." 
 
 " Proud of him ! " The exclamation broke at the same 
 moment from his sister and their visitor. "As an American, 
 proud of him!" 
 
 " Yes ; proud of him, because," Henry Harris said, with 
 an enjoyment of their surprise, "this distinctively French 
 individual has not a drop of French blood in his veins. He 
 is as much of an American as I am." 
 
 " What do you mean, Henry ? We shall think that you 
 are masquerading next," his mother said. 
 
 " No, madam," her son replied with sudden energy ; 
 " the whole world seems to me, at times, to be such a uni 
 versal Mabille, such a vast masked ball ; men and women 
 seem to me, sometimes, to whirl around in such a yes, uni 
 versal waltz of dominos and fancy dresses, that I have to 
 hold fast to the truth myself if I am to remain sane. Every 
 day I try harder, on that account, to be rigidly, vigorously, 
 painfully honest, accurate, true in word and deed, in thought 
 and feeling. Would you like to hear a true story ? " 
 
 " Not until after lunch," Mrs. Harris interposed. " Come, 
 my lord ; come, Mary." And they went together into the 
 dining-room. 
 
 " Now, listen," Henry continued, as they lingered about 
 the table. " I rarely .touch wine ; so you will be confirmed 
 as to my veracity while I talk. Once upon a time, years 
 ago, a landscape painter," he smiled at the slight start given 
 by his sister at the words " I do not mean Tennyson's Lord 
 of Burleigh was sketching among the roughest regions 
 of Virginia." Beginning thus, he told the story which Ze- 
 rah Atchison had told him. It required delicate handling, 
 but he put into a few words the history of Delira, the wild
 
 THE PIRATE OF THE PEN. 215 
 
 daughter of the woods, of her love for the painter, of the 
 elopement with the French surveyor, of the birth of the 
 child of the artist, of the flight of mother and babe with 
 the surveyor to Paris, of the desire of the artist and his 
 daughter Isidore to find the relative of whom they had so 
 suddenly learned. 
 
 " It may be natural," Henry Harris continued, " for them 
 to desire to find this son and brother half brother, I should 
 say. They have no other of their blood living. But it has 
 perplexed me why I should have become so deeply inter 
 ested. It is because it was a something hard to do, I dare 
 say ; because they had not a soul to do it for them. Any 
 how, I promised to help them in their hopeless search for the 
 missing man." 
 
 "Perhaps," Lord Conyngham remarked, "Miss Isidore 
 was not without her influence upon you. She is a charming 
 lady ; I do not wonder that she is an artist. There is a 
 clinging, plastic power in her eyes as in her gifted hands ; 
 and the perfection of her art lies in her modesty, too." 
 
 " I thank you for saying so." Mrs. Harris and her daugh 
 ter made the same remark in a breath, and when Mai-y 
 laughed at it and apologized for interrupting her mother, 
 the matron continued, with feeling, " Yes ; we thank you. 
 Both Mary and myself have been greatly pleased with Isi 
 dore. Nor is it alone because of her genius and devotion to 
 her father. There is a purity of soul which suffuses her. 
 Did you ever see an instance, my lord, in which the very 
 soul seemed to there is no word but that appeared to suf 
 fuse a person ? It is like the blush in the cheeks of a girl ; 
 like the color, rather, in the face of a child. It is what, in 
 music, is styled expression, effusion. The great masters can 
 pour their very soul through the chords, because I de 
 spair," Mrs. Harris laughed, " to express it ; their inmost 
 nature is so deep, strong, ardent, that it trembles to overflow 
 upon lip, eye, hand." 
 
 " And the piano, the canvas, the clay, whatever it is they 
 are at work upon," her son said for her, "can not but be 
 10
 
 216 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 filled with and reveal the life which is received. That is 
 genius ! " His eyes brightened ; he had forgotten his story. 
 "Ah, yes," he proceeded, when reminded of ify "there is 
 little more to say. Mr. Atchison painted the mother of the 
 man from memory. When I saw the picture, and then Des- 
 chards, it came to my mind that it was barely possible he 
 might be the one they were in search of. I employed detec 
 tives to investigate his antecedents. It is too long a tale to 
 tell, but, as the result, I feel almost certain that he is the 
 man." 
 
 " And you have told Mr. Atchison ? " Mary Harris ex 
 claimed. " Why, Henry, it is like a romance." 
 
 " No ; I have not told him," her brother answered. 
 "There are points I intend to clear up before I do that. 
 And to find that the person they seek is such a scoundrel ! 
 No ; I am not ready to tell them of it yet, if I ever do. We 
 must wait." 
 
 But company was announced at this instant, and the cir 
 cle was, for the time, broken up. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 IMPERIAL LOVE. 
 
 AT every important step of his life hitherto, Henry Har 
 ris had consulted his mother if not his father, but in refer 
 ence to Lady Blanche he could now ask no advice of either. 
 Like his father, he was slow in coming to his conclusions, 
 but, once reached, they were as much a portion of his nature 
 as its grain and fiber is of the oak. And this was because, 
 like his mother, he could neither speak nor act until he 
 was thoroughly satisfied in his own mind. Thus satisfied, 
 his conclusions were to him, and to others also, like sunshine 
 or storm, among the irreversible operations of nature. In 
 other words, his decisions in any given case were but a sure
 
 IMPERIAL LOVE. 217 
 
 anticipation of the sound judgment in the matter of every 
 other person. As to Lady Blanche, his heart had more to 
 say than in any subject which had ever come before him for 
 final award, and he, like a just judge, had allowed this client 
 to say all it had to say and to the last syllable, but he had 
 also listened to all that his cooler sense had to suggest. This 
 was an unusual course in one so young and so ardent, but 
 this lover was of the stuff also of which kings are made. 
 
 He felt himself ready at last to call upon her for her de 
 cision, and he had been careful to select a time when he 
 would find her at home and alone. When the footman an 
 nounced to her who it was awaited her in the private parlor, 
 she was outwardly calm, but inwardly it was as when she had 
 first known that her mother was dead. For a long time she 
 had tried to prepare for the visit, yet it was as if two wo 
 men were striving in her. But the strife grew only the 
 more desperate as she lingered at her toilet, and she suddenly 
 turned and went to her visitor. Events must decide. Now, 
 if it is by an' instinct that lovers hide themselves from all 
 others on such occasions as this, it is by an instinct no less 
 sacred that even the nearest friends shrink from intruding 
 upon them. Yet a few words may be said as to their inter 
 view. The American was walking up and down the room 
 when she came in. After the usual salutations she sat down, 
 but he excused himself from doing so and remained stand 
 ing. 
 
 Surely it is at such a moment that a man and a woman 
 appear at their best. Henry was not an Adonis ; Lady 
 Blanche met every day hosts of gentlemen who were hand 
 somer, more elaborate in all the details of manner and toilet, 
 than he ; and it was the almost rugged independence of his 
 sturdy form, his open and manly face, his eyes, sincere and 
 steady, which drew her to him. There was in this gentle 
 man beyond any she had known the aspect of self-reliance, 
 of strength to endure as well as to do. She was strong, and 
 she loved him because he was yet stronger. And he was 
 saying to himself as he stood before her : " Surely it was in
 
 218 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 such a mold as this that the Roman patricians of old were 
 cast. That noble yet lovely head ; those eyes, as imperial 
 in the humility of their drooping lids as when lifted to mine ; 
 the gracious curve of that lip, of that fair neck ; that hand 
 which lies relaxed upon her lap, conscious and yet uncon 
 scious of the scepter it holds ; yes, this woman is by birth a 
 queen. As such she will be sufficient for this emergency." 
 
 " Lady Blanche," he began, " you know already what I 
 came to say, but please listen to me." No man could have 
 begun more coolly. Once begun, his ideas became clearer 
 as he went on. Somehow her presence steadied him, made 
 him even more perfectly certain of the one thing to do. He 
 told her of his exceeding estimation of her, of his ardent 
 affection. He had feared that he would lose the mastery of 
 himself, new as it would be to him to do so. He became 
 more assured as he proceeded, in low and rapid tones, to say 
 all that he had to say. She had glanced up at first with a 
 certain startled look, then her eyes, her head, fell again as he 
 went on. It was very sweet to her to hear what he was say 
 ing ; but all the time it was as if she had also another self 
 which stood by and listened coldly, angrily even, as a rival 
 might have done. For she was at the moment two women 
 indeed, each how unlike the other ! One of these was as sim 
 ple-hearted as any dairy-maid among the daisies in England. 
 Rosy of cheek and of lip, pure, and good, and true, she was 
 listening to her lover with gladness of heart, as any Peggy 
 would listen, milk-pail in hand, to her Robin beside a haw 
 thorn hedge, their feet wet with the dewy grass of morning. 
 Robin loved her with all his heart, and she loved Robin as 
 sincerely. That was all, and why should they not marry? 
 It was as natural to love and to marry as it was for the larks 
 to sing or for their lips to meet. Of course she would say 
 yes ! There was nothing in all the wide world which could 
 or should prevent that ! Robin is mine and I am his, and 
 
 The Englishwoman lifted her eyes to her lover as she 
 had done when they had met once before. He stooped, he 
 took her yielding hands in his, he was about to kiss her. She
 
 IMPERIAL LOVE. 219 
 
 drew back, she arose, she was no longer a dairy-maid ; she was 
 another woman entirely. 
 
 " You forget yourself, sir," she said, and the lover found 
 himself confronted instead by the proud daughter of Earl 
 Dorrington. In the same instant he also had grown colder, 
 calmer. He looked her steadily in the eyes. 
 
 " You are right," he said. " I had forgotten that you 
 were anything but an Englishwoman ; that you were very 
 beautiful, very charming, and only a woman, nothing more." 
 Even as he said it his heart softened ; she w r as nothing more 
 again ; was trembling, was weeping. 
 
 " You know " she began. 
 
 " Yes," he replied ; " I know everything, and I know it 
 perfectly. I know that not your father only, but that every 
 friend you have, would be shocked beyond expression if you 
 should marry me. It would not matter if I were to become 
 the wealthiest man alive. If I were to hold the highest of 
 fice in my own land, it would be the same. Even if I could, 
 as inventor, author, orator, reach the loftiest station, it would 
 be the same. It is strange, Lady Blanche," he said, sadly ; 
 " you are, like the beautiful maiden in the German story, 
 the wonder of the world for your loveliness ; you are, like 
 her, locked up in the heart of a transparent globe of crystal ; 
 you live, you breathe, you yes, you love, yet you are frozen 
 in within a sphere of ice, which is also adamant." 
 
 " Is it my fault ? " But the dairy-maid held herself aloof 
 from her lover as she asked it ; her lashes were wet with 
 tears ; a great perplexity fell upon him ; he dared not come 
 nearer to her. Dairy-maid as she was, she was not standing 
 beside him among the newly mown hay ; her foot was instead 
 upon the steps of a throne ; he had but to attempt to touch 
 her, and at a breath she would be a queen instead, seated high 
 up and out of his reach. He loved her, but there was some 
 thing which struck at his very manhood in all this. He was 
 a machinist as well as a lover, and it was as if he were en 
 gaged upon a task which he knew he could by no possibility 
 accomplish.
 
 220 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " No, the fault is not in you," he said, very sadly. " Why 
 did I come here ? Let us be frank with each other, Lady 
 Blanche. Even if you were willing, could I consent to sac 
 rifice you to my love ? I am not a fool, for I know what 
 would follow. You might honor me with your love, you might 
 consent to marry me, to elope with me if necessary ; but do 
 I not know what would follow ? It is not that you could not 
 stand up under the storm of reproach which would fall upon 
 you ; worse : how could you endure to lose all rank, and be 
 simply my wife and nothing more ? The utter change in 
 your entire life ; how could you survive it ? Would you not 
 come to hate me, instead ? Though I loved you a thousand 
 times more, because I love and admire you so, I could not 
 take advantage of your weakness, could not plunge you into 
 certain wretchedness." 
 
 The proud beauty had become and remained merely a 
 woman again ; she was regarding him with reproach ; her 
 eyes swam in tears. 
 
 " No, Lady Blanche " he grew firmer as he went on 
 " if I am to remain a gentleman, I must be steady to what I 
 know of myself, as well as of you. Prince Albert could 
 marry your Queen, but I could never marry a woman who 
 was to be in anything my superior. You would always be 
 my superior," he hastened to explain, " in everything in 
 which a woman is superior to a man, a wife to a husband ; 
 but beyond that No ! I admire you, I love you more than 
 any woman alive, but I can not, I will not " 
 
 He did not finish the sentence. At the instant the lady 
 saw in imagination, through her tears, another standing beside 
 him. As the lover lifted his head, as his cheek flushed, his 
 eyes grew bright, the Duke of Plymouth stood before her in 
 comparison with him. Pie was not a worse man, the Duke, 
 than the habitues of London clubs and the theatres of Vienna 
 and Paris generally are, but then he was no better. The lady 
 even at such a moment, and because it was such a moment, 
 could not help seeing the undersized, weak-eyed Duke, his 
 complexion as colorless as was his hair, his eyes, his words,
 
 IMPERIAL LOVE. 221 
 
 his ways. Just then he appeared to her to be the meanest 
 creature crawling. If his estates measured whole counties, 
 why could he not somehow draw a larger manhood into him 
 self from them ? His oaks, his deer, his tenants, throve upon 
 them ; he himself was only shriveled thereby in contrast. 
 Why could he not bring something of his vast income into 
 his veins, into his bones ? His blood had come down to him 
 through the well-defined channels of eight centuries ; why, 
 alas ! did it not have a more definite hue, did it not flow in 
 stronger currents ? 
 
 In a flash the Englishwoman saw and ceased to see the 
 Duke ; only the American stood before her. The Duke was 
 but a vaporous individual at best ; he had vanished before 
 her clear eyes ; only the American engineer stood there in 
 his simple manhood. The tremendous revolution which is 
 heaving beneath the deepest foundations of her country 
 stirred in the depths of her own heart, stirred blindly, 
 vaguely. She was better read, had more capacity, more 
 vigor of heart and intellect, than the majority of her 
 sex and rank. In virtue of that she was beginning to see 
 things as all, even of her own class, will see them in the 
 broader day of a century hence. But at that instant the in 
 evitable future stood before her in the person of the one man 
 she had ever loved. Her heart had lent its flame to the 
 light of her intellect. As she looked, the queen in her came 
 deliberately down the steps of her throne, and lost herself 
 in the simple woman. She was no more than a milkmaid. 
 
 " Mr. Harris," she said, " I have thought of all you have 
 said ; .have thought of nothing else ; have thought of it all 
 long and deeply." She interlaced her fingers before her ; as 
 she stood with relaxed arms, her head drooped, her bosom 
 heaved before a power too great for her, a soft color suffused 
 her cheek, a gentle light came into her eyes. " Mr. Harris," 
 she said, with a smile that was as sweet as that of the hum 
 blest girl, " are you sure ? Do you really love me ? " 
 
 The lover made a step toward her. In the same instant 
 her face changed ; she lifted a warning hand ; Earl Dorring-
 
 222 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ton entered the room. The lover knew that the Earl could 
 not but be aware of what was passing between him and Lady 
 Blanche. He was glad of it, was about to ask an interview 
 with him, when, withdrawn to one side, the Englishwoman 
 lifted her hand again and shook her head in such passionate 
 entreaty that he forbore to do so, and soon afterward took 
 his leave. On reaching his hotel the lover sat down and 
 wrote to the lady, entreating her to suffer him to speak to 
 her father forthwith. In his letter he endeavored to put his 
 entire heart, but it was several days before he received a re 
 ply. When it did arrive he tore it open with eagerness, but 
 was not surprised to find, without date, address, or signature, 
 only a few words : 
 
 " Had you spoken, it would have killed him ; he is so old. 
 I can not permit you to do so. Do not call upon or seek in 
 any way to speak to me. It can not be. No one can know 
 that better than yourself." 
 
 "Whenever Henry Harris saw Lady Blanche after this, at 
 the Exposition, upon the streets, in company, she so evident 
 ly avoided an interview that his pride was aroused. For the 
 present, at least, he would make no further attempt. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 IX PURSUIT. 
 
 IT had been arranged between Isidore Atchison, Mary 
 Harris, and her brother, that all three were to go upon a ride 
 into the suburbs of Paris quite early one Tuesday morning. 
 The last-named had special reasons for this, which he had 
 told his sister, and, in consequence of their plan, the gentle 
 man called at the studio of the artists immediately after 
 breakfast. The father was not yet up, nor would he arise 
 until after the return of his daughter, but her he found
 
 IN PURSUIT. 223 
 
 equipped for the drive and eager to go. She had never 
 seemed so fresh and charming. It may have been the per 
 fect taste displayed in her dress, as well as an exuberance of 
 health and high spirits following upon comparative relief 
 after long and severe poverty. The companionship of such 
 friends as Mary Harris and her mother, after long isolation 
 from almost every one, had much to do with it, as also the 
 knowledge that the talents of her father and herself were 
 appreciated all this went to account for the new gladness 
 and beauty of the girl ; but there was more still. 
 
 " Just now I had such a flattering letter," she said with 
 glee, while the gentleman stood, hat in hand, waiting for her 
 to draw on her gloves, and, in the fullness of her heart, she 
 waved the letter over her head. " Out of the generosity of 
 his heart, the writer," she laughed, " insists upon it that I 
 shall tell no one, not even my father ; but how can I 
 help it ? " 
 
 It may have been, also, because she had grown up almost 
 out of the world and in the realms of nature and pure art, 
 that Isidore Atchison seemed so unconventional. She was so 
 excited she could not be calm. The dimples came and went 
 in her childlike face ; her hazel eyes were full of joyous 
 expectations ; her body swayed to the music of her joy as 
 that of a little girl would have done over a Christmas gift, or 
 when full of eagerness to start upon a picnic. 
 
 " How glad I am," she said from her heart, " that people 
 think I am a genius ! I am not, you know ; but if they think 
 so, you see, and if they pay me so, then my dear old father 
 need not carve any more. Nobody will buy his pictures ; 
 but then he has long ago given up any hope of that. Ever 
 since he can remember, he has dreamed of being a great 
 painter has been toiling hard to be one. He has hoped he 
 would certainly succeed this time, oh ! a hundred times over 
 and over again. But, do all he can, the picture will not be 
 what he wants it to be is determined it shall be. He has a 
 perfect ideal in his mind, you know, Mr. Harris. I do not 
 believe that Titian or Rubens had as perfect a conception of
 
 224: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 what they intended to produce as he. He is a great painter," 
 she said, stoutly ; " only only " 
 
 " The obstinate brush refuses to yield as it should to his 
 hand," the other suggested. 
 
 " Yes ; but the genius lies in the conception," she insisted, 
 half in earnest. " That is why my dear old father the best 
 father alive has, through all these long years, grown so 
 patient. It is because of years of hope, defeat, but undying 
 hope still." 
 
 " I understand," Henry Harris said, entering heartily into 
 the reasoning as he did into the mood of the other. " His 
 ideal hovers in the air before him so vividly that he feels as if 
 next time he will certainly grasp and place it upon the canvas." 
 
 " Yes ; and now he can give himself up entirely to try 
 ing," the girl said. " The gentleman who writes to me says 
 that he has desired long and intensely to possess a Venus 
 such as he is sure I can supply him. I must not tell a soul, but 
 he has already placed, he says, oh ! such a large sum to my 
 account in the Bank of England, for the purpose. I ought 
 not to have told you," she added, " but you are the first per 
 son I have seen, for father is not awake yet, and I am so 
 glad." 
 
 "Miss Isidore," the other remarked, with a sudden grav 
 ity, " please let me read the letter." 
 
 The delighted girl, with a sudden trouble in her face, 
 handed the paper, which was still in her hand, to him. Ex 
 cusing himself, he walked to the window, read the letter with 
 his face from her. Then he turned to her, his countenance 
 grown so grave that the gladness died out of her own, too, 
 she knew not why, as he said : 
 
 " Miss Isidore, may I beg that you will say nothing of 
 this letter to your father even to any one at present ? I 
 entreat you to do as I say." It was said with an authority 
 which was not to be resisted, not even disputed. 
 
 And then he turned away again so as not to see the 
 quenching of the light in her eyes, the astonishment, then 
 the crimson shame, which flooded her face.
 
 /ZV PURSUIT. 225 
 
 " My sister waits for us at the door," he said, in a lighter 
 tone, the next moment. " Take ycur own time to come 
 down. We will have a delightful ride. I will not forget 
 that this is your secret." 
 
 He had slipped the letter into his breast-pocket, and went 
 out. 
 
 " Mary," he said to his sister, as he stood beside the car 
 riage in which she sat waiting, " Miss Atchison has had bad 
 news which she does not want alluded to. I know you will 
 do all you can to make her forget it." 
 
 But it was some time before the poor girl came down. 
 It was plain that she had been weeping ; her gladness was 
 gone. As he assisted her into the carriage, and then took a 
 seat beside the driver, Henry Harris pressed his hand upon 
 the letter in his bosom, and said things under his breath, and 
 to himself exclusively, which would have astonished the 
 ladies beyond measure. His sister received their companion 
 with such a loving kiss as caused the tears to flow silently 
 down the cheeks of Isidore as they rode rapidly away. But 
 Mary did not seem to observe them, and conversed with her 
 in a gentle and consoling way. 
 
 " My brother tells me that you are not quite well this 
 morning, dear," Mary said, at last. " You have worked too 
 hard. What a beautiful day it is ! The ride will do us all 
 good," and she began to point out this object and that as 
 they went. The sun shone brilliantly, the air was clear and 
 bracing. Gradually the spirits of the young girl rallied ; 
 her joyousness was sobered for the time, but she grew more 
 and more cheerful as the hours slipped away. It was due 
 to Mr. Harris, she thought, to at least seem to forget. 
 
 " I want you to notice the people as well as the places, 
 you ladies," he said, after they had gone some miles, turning 
 to look down upon them. " Ruskin tells us somewhere that 
 one day, in traveling, he took care to study closely the faces 
 of about a thousand people he met. Except in the case of 
 a school-girl, every face, he says, was either very bad or very 
 sad." The speaker had said a word to the coachman just
 
 226 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 before, and the carriage was going along quite slowly as he 
 spoke. " Now," he added, in a light tone, " I wish you both 
 to observe every face that you see upon the right-hand side. 
 These men and women have to go to that corner to take a 
 vehicle for their places of business in Paris. Please," and 
 he consulted his watch and laid his hand upon that of the 
 coachman until the horses had come down to a walk, " please 
 look at their faces very closely. I want to know what you 
 think of them." 
 
 " We will, Henry," his sister said ; " there are children on 
 their way to school, old men, young men, lean women, stout 
 women, people in uniform, newsboys, market-men " She 
 saw her brother lift his handkerchief to his lips as she spoke. 
 It was a concerted signal. " O Isidore ! " she added, " look 
 at that man coming along, the one with the sallow complex 
 ion and the fine eyes. What do you think of his face the 
 man with the old woman ? " 
 
 "It is a very intellectual face," the artist said, "but he 
 must have been very ill ; see how thin and haggard he is." 
 
 " Is it a good face ? Would you think him to be a good 
 man, an honorable man ? " her companion asked, hurriedly. 
 
 The other was surprised at the eagerness of the question. 
 She looked steadily at the man indicated, who recognized 
 Henry Harris at this moment, and a salutation passed be 
 tween them. 
 
 "N" n no, I would not regard him as a good man," 
 Isidore said, slowly ; " he would make an excellent model 
 for Mephistopheles. He is a French Lucifer," she added, 
 with energy. "But no," she corrected herself on the in 
 stant, and said, with childlike eagerness, " he can not be so 
 very bad. See how patiently he is supporting his old mother 
 along." 
 
 " How do you know it is his mother ? " Henry Harris 
 asked, almost as eagerly, but in a low tone. He was taken 
 by surprise. 
 
 " Of course it is. Do you not see how much they are 
 alike ? And," the warm-hearted girl exclaimed, " see how
 
 IN PURSUIT. 227 
 
 she leans upon his arm, how she looks up into his face, how 
 lovingly he adapts his steps to hers, how he bends down to 
 speak gently to her and yet loud enough for her to hear. Oh, 
 I am so glad ! His face is like Belial, but that may be his 
 character, must be his character to others, not to her. He 
 is the worst man in the world, but the best son." 
 
 At the word Henry Harris spoke to the coachman, the 
 horses sprang forward, and the conversation took another 
 turn. They had a long and very pleasant ride. The gen 
 tleman had left his seat beside the driver and seated himself 
 in the carriage when they turned, at last, to go back, and 
 Isidore suddenly asked him in a pause of their talk : " Mr. 
 Harris, you recognized that good son who is such a bad 
 man ; what is his name ? " 
 
 "He is a writer for the press," the gentleman replied, 
 " and his name is Achilles Deschards. Did you notice the 
 woman who you said was his mother ? " 
 
 " Yes ; she looks like an old Indian woman. What sharp, 
 black eyes she had ! And he is exceedingly like her. But," 
 the girl added, "he is evidently a remarkable man. Tell us 
 about him, Mr. Harris." 
 
 The one addressed paused a moment, exchanged glances 
 with his sister, and then told of the talent and singular du 
 plicity of the celebrated writer. 
 
 "And he writes as brilliantly for one party as for an 
 other," she mused when he had finished. "He can write 
 hymns for the religious papers, and the lowest vaudevilles 
 for the theatres ; can compose sermons for the priests in 
 Lent, and songs which are sung at the cafes chantants. Is 
 it not strange ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, and he prepares feuilletons for the comic papers, 
 obituaries for dead children, attacks on Germany, anything, 
 everything for pay. He is a universal genius," the gentle 
 man added, " an admirable yet particularly detestable Crich- 
 ton. He writes anything for money." 
 
 " Yes, that is very wicked, but," and the girl lifted her 
 soft and pleading eyes to his face, " he gives the money to
 
 228 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 his mother. And she is old and poor, and perhaps knows 
 nothing about it. And they love each other so ! Not that 
 I excuse him," she added, hastily. 
 
 This last was something wholly new to Henry Harris. 
 He was not aware before of the existence of the woman who, 
 he had every reason to believe, had loved and then run away 
 from Zerah Atchison. " And that rascal is, in all probabil 
 ity," he said to himself, " at least a half brother of this un 
 suspecting girl." He was more perplexed what to do than 
 ever. 
 
 But his mind was very clear in regard to another matter. 
 Nothing more was said, and soon after he deposited Isidore 
 Atchison at her own door. Very early next morning he 
 went to the hotel at which Hassan Pasha lodged. That gen 
 tleman was not up, but, when a person of the bearing of the 
 American pleaded that he had special business with him, he 
 was allowed to enter the magnificent parlors joining the room 
 in which the Pasha slept, to wait for him there. As soon as 
 he had gone into them he locked the doors behind him, then 
 opened and entered the bedroom. The Turk was still in 
 bed, his servants absent preparing his breakfast, and, awa 
 kening at the sound, he sat up with astonishment upon his 
 face. 
 
 "Did you write that?" It was all the sturdy visitor 
 said as he handed to the half-awakened man the paper he 
 had taken from Isidore. No name had been signed to it. 
 The girl evidently thought it had come from some wealthy 
 patron of art, American or English, but her visitor had long 
 known the character of the ex-vizier, had recognized his 
 writing. The Oriental was surrounded by the costliest ob 
 jects. The furniture, the pictures, the silken drapery of his 
 bed, were in keeping with the Sybarite reputation of the man 
 himself, who now gazed with the eyes of a leopard at his 
 strange visitor. 
 
 " What business is it of yours ? " he almost howled, en 
 deavoring to get out of bed, his black eyes glancing at a pair 
 of pearl-handled revolvers lying upon a table almost in reach.
 
 PERPLEXITY. 229 
 
 But the other laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder, and held 
 him down, with eyes more dangerous still. 
 
 "The lady is my countrywoman," he said, almost in a 
 whisper. " For that reason, also, I am so quiet about it. If 
 you ever trouble her again, ever breathe even of this visit, 
 you know the penalty, you scoundrel ! " Saying which, he 
 grasped the silken beard of the Turk with one hand, threw 
 the fragments of the letter into his face, and slapped his 
 cheek soundly with the other. Then he picked up and tossed 
 the pistols into a bath-tub near by, which was full of water 
 for a morning bath, and went as softly out as he had entered, 
 leaving the wretch paralyzed with wrath and astonishment 
 behind him. The early visitor knew perfectly well what "he 
 was about. Had the ruffian been French, American, English, 
 he would have pursued a different course. But a Turk was, 
 he knew, like a red Indian. Such an insult breaks the spirit 
 of the bravest of his species. Whether as an individual or 
 an empire, the only argument understood in that realm is 
 the application of force. By it they came into Europe, by 
 it the Turk must be driven out. At least, what he did was 
 the only course the American could think of, and it was one 
 of the things in which he did not consult any one before 
 acting. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 PEKPLEXITY. 
 
 ONE day Lord Conyngham called by appointment at the 
 Hotel Bristol. It was early in the morning of a beautiful day, 
 and he and his friend Henry Harris set out on horseback for 
 a ride into the country. The American was mounted upon 
 a favorite chestnut mare, the Englishman rode a black horse 
 of as good blood as the other, and the two gentlemen found 
 it difficult to hold in their spirited steeds as they made a 
 way for themselves through the crowded streets. At last
 
 230 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 they reached the suburbs. " Now ! " exclaimed the English 
 man, who had seemed to be in overflowing spirits, and, giv 
 ing rein to their horses, they rode almost as if for a race 
 over the rolling country and between the handsome houses. 
 More than one of the police called after them in vain ; the air 
 was so exhilarating, the animals so eager, that it was " like," 
 Henry Harris said, " shooting the rapids of the St. Law 
 rence impossible to stop ! " They were many miles from 
 Paris when Lord Conyngham at last drew rein 
 
 " Because," he said, " I want to talk to you, and I intend 
 to do it frankly and fully." 
 
 The American had known for some time all that his 
 companion desired to say, but he had left him to himself. 
 During their acquaintance a great change had taken place 
 in the Englishman. He was a sterling fellow at heart, but 
 his rank and associations had nearly spoiled him at one time. 
 Affected, foppish, conceited, insolent, arrogant, he had sup 
 posed that the world was made exclusively for him and for 
 his kind. A few years more would have changed all this, 
 which so far was but a mere outer manner, into the very 
 nature of the man. But his long sojourn at the Exposition 
 had benefited him ; he had been reading much of late ; the 
 spirit of the times was changing, and he felt it ; his associa 
 tion with young Harris had done him a world of good, 
 as his influence, too, had benefited, although in other ways, 
 his American friend. Above all, he had come more and 
 more into the gentle but plastic hands of Mary Harris. In 
 awakening his heart she had also aroused what might almost 
 be called his conscience. It was not merely his affection, it 
 was his judgment which was engaged. 
 
 " What I want to say is this," he began boldly, as the 
 result of long resolve, then hesitated, stammered. "It is 
 like putting my horse at a five-barred gate," he said ; but 
 then, as he would have lifted his horse, with spurs in its 
 flanks, to the leap, he compelled himself to add, " Mr. Harris, 
 your father is in Russia, and I must say what I have to say 
 to you instead. Sir, I love your sister ; I think she is not
 
 PERPLEXITY. 231 
 
 wholly without interest in me. May I beg that you will con 
 sult your father and mother at the earliest moment ? I want 
 to marry her, if the alliance is agreeable to you, and as soon 
 as you will allow." 
 
 " My lord," the other said, gravely, " I thank you in the 
 name of my family for the honor you do us. You have been 
 frank with me ; I will be equally so with you. I have learned 
 to like you thoroughly. You will allow me to say, I know 
 no man whom I would be so glad to have as my brother-in- 
 law. There is but one objection." 
 
 His companion looked at him for an instant with amaze 
 ment ; then, with a return of his old hauteur, " May I ask what 
 it is ? " he demanded. 
 
 " It is your rank," was the cool reply. Lord Conyngham 
 gazed at the other in wonder. " My rank ! " he said to him 
 self ; " why, ever since I was a boy I have had daughters and 
 their matchmaking mammas after me on that account. Yes, 
 and I have had fathers and brothers urging me to come to 
 dinner in hopes I would take a fancy to one of the girls of 
 the family. A lord ! Great heavens ! it is because I am a 
 lord that I have been pursued from London to Baden-Baden, 
 from Vienna to St. Petersburg, from Rome to Paris, up the 
 Alps, up and down the Rhine and the Nile. Wherever I go 
 there are swarms of girls who, I beg their pardon, would 
 give their souls to the devil if they could get me, and all 
 because I am a lord. What the mischief " 
 
 " My lord," his companion was saying, " if you were a 
 merchant, a farmer, a machinist, anything but a lord, we 
 would greatly prefer it. Not that I am a radical," he con 
 tinued, with a smile, "but that we seriously object to be 
 included among the number of those who may have sought " 
 
 It was as if the American had heard what he had said to 
 himself, and the Englishman bit his lips. 
 
 " Moreover," the other went on, " we are perfectly aware 
 that such a marriage would awaken the utmost opposition in 
 your own family. We are fully as proud as yourself " 
 
 But the blood of the nobleman was up. " Mr. Harris,"
 
 232 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 he said, with more energy than the other had observed 
 in him before, " suppose we deal frankly, indeed, with each 
 other. Between us there is no need of diplomacy. The 
 whole thing is this : I love your sister. She won't say that 
 she does not love me. With her consent I intend to marry 
 her. We have had, I will confess to you, the deuce of a time 
 over it at home. It is not that my father does not highly 
 respect " he began. 
 
 " I understand, understand perfectly," the American said, 
 with some impatience. 
 
 "Very good. But I am of age. Moreover, my father 
 has never had any of the trouble with me which other gov 
 ernors have had. I have not drank, gambled, ran into debt, 
 eloped with anybody's wife all that sort of thing. Fact is, 
 I have been steadier than he was when he was young. This 
 is the first thing he has objected to in me. But I told him, 
 she told him " 
 
 " She ? Excuse me, who do you refer to ? " 
 
 " My sister, Lady Blanche, of course. From the first she 
 liked your mother and sister. She teased me awfully. That 
 of course. But as soon as she saw that I was in earnest, do 
 you know ? " and Lord Conyngham turned in his saddle to 
 say it, " Lady Blanche has been on my side heart and soul ! 
 It is the most extraordinary thing ! She is as proud as 
 Lucifer if a man can speak in that way of his sister 
 and I never was more astonished. I can't understand it 
 yet ! " 
 
 The face of the American had grown cold and stern, but 
 the other was too much occupied with his own matters to 
 observe it. 
 
 "You see," the Englishman continued, "the Earl is old, 
 is terribly determined. He can not understand the times. 
 He is sadly shaken in health. We are afraid any great 
 shock will kill him. There is not a grander Englishman 
 alive, sir ! " the son said with enthusiasm, " but he is very 
 determined in his way. We are not rich, sir. You may 
 know that we own estates enough, but our tenants have failed
 
 PERPLEXITY. 233 
 
 in their crops year after year. The Earl has had trouble of 
 late, I may say, severe trouble." The tones of the son had 
 softened as he said it. 
 
 " Your father is to me," his companion said, " the noblest 
 of his class, as I happen to know, so far as tenant troubles 
 are concerned. They are, as we are all aware, universal in 
 England. If the next crop fails you will have had five years 
 of failure. Providence itself is fighting against you by the 
 side of American competition. Pardon my saying so, but 
 you are on the eve of a profound revolution in England. 
 Primogeniture, entail, feudalisms of all kinds, all are bound 
 sooner or later to go, my lord ! Again excuse me for saying 
 it, but it is so ! " 
 
 " I am afraid you are right, but," added the nobleman, 
 "you may depend upon us to fight to the last. JVbblesse 
 oblige ! Nothing but Providence, as you call it, can conquer 
 us, and it will be one of the longest and toughest jobs Prov 
 idence ever undertook ! But it was not of that I wished to 
 speak. The Earl is older than you think ; he is almost in 
 firm. Although Blanche is younger than myself, he has 
 always regarded her as if she were the older. By Jove ! I 
 wish she were his son instead, and his oldest son ! Anyway, 
 Blanche has more influence on him than I have. She has 
 done her best for me. Women understand when to speak, 
 and how. We have conquered ! The Earl knows that, pro 
 vided your sister consent, I shall marry her in any case. 
 He will not oppose it. But, for I must be frank, he yields 
 his consent because he has come to know that, if I do not 
 marry Miss Harris, I will in all likelihood go to the devil, 
 whereas if I do marry her I will devote myself to my social 
 and political duties. Mr. Harris," Lord Conyngham said, 
 gravely, " my father holds your family in the highest esteem. 
 For your sister he has the sincerest appreciation. She will 
 be welcomed into our family as she deserves to be. You 
 can rest sure of that." 
 
 The American bowed his head in silence. He was aware 
 that more was coming.
 
 234 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " There is another thing I am obliged to say," Lord Con- 
 yngham proceeded " obliged, because it is, to be perfectly 
 plain with you, an additional reason why my father has 
 yielded. It is this." But the speaker hesitated to go on. 
 He glanced uneasily at his friend, spurred his horse on, then 
 reined him in, looked about as if for relief from some quarter, 
 seemed to be sadly put out. 
 
 "My lord," the American remarked at last, "I think I 
 know what you are about to say. Please say it. I am not 
 an old man, but I have some knowledge of the world. If I 
 indulge at any time in day-dreams, I know how to endure 
 whatever is inevitable. You were about to speak of the 
 Duke of Plymouth." It was said calmly, for the speaker 
 had, for some time now, accustomed himself to the matter in 
 hand. For many months the gossips had been full of it ; in 
 timations of the kind had long been afloat in the papers. 
 
 " Yes," the Englishman now said, " Blanche is to marry 
 the Duke of Plymouth ! " He did not look at his friend as 
 he said it, and, although the other knew it before, it was as 
 though he had been stabbed to the heart. 
 
 " If I could have my way," the nobleman continued, "it 
 is not the Duke who would have married her. I will venture 
 to add that I do not think Blanche would have broken her 
 heart if the Duke had broken his neck the last time he rode 
 a steeple-chase. Oh ! he is a good-enough man. The fact 
 is," it was added with an effort, " we are, as I said, by no 
 means as rich as we should be. My father lived freely when 
 in his minority, as his father did before him. After his mi 
 nority, too, heavy debts were incurred. No, by Jove ! we 
 are not rich, far from it ! Your solicitors will know all about 
 that when we arrange, if I am so happy as to gain the consent 
 of your family, our marriage settlements. As to the Duke, 
 he is clever enough confound such a state of things ! " It 
 was irrelevant, but it was said with the sincerest energy. 
 
 "It will be confounded soon enough," the American 
 added to himself, and he remembered a Hindoo proverb 
 which Ishra Dhass had quoted to him one day : " Where there
 
 THE YOUNG ARTIST. 235 
 
 is the least injustice, sooner or later, it shrivels the very sky 
 itself as though it were the cast-off skin of a snake." But 
 the glory had gone out of the day to Henry Harris. He was 
 glad on account of his sister, of his friend, since they loved 
 each other ; but what remained for him ? 
 
 " My lord," he said at last, " your father, the Earl, must 
 take the initiative in regard to your matter. Until that 
 time I can say no more. As to myself, I must get away from 
 Paris. I leave for Russia very soon. Everything is ar 
 ranged, and I intend to get to the bottom, if I can, of the 
 Nihilism which threatens the empire." 
 
 " And I will go with you," his companion said. " I told 
 Mary I beg your pardon your sister, I mean. She opposed 
 it, but afterward consented. We will, if you can obtain the 
 consent of your family, be married soon after my return." 
 But even the joyous lover was sobered by the stern calmness 
 of his friend, and the remainder of their ride was given to a 
 discussion of matters connected with their proposed invasion 
 of the realms of the Czar. But never before had the Ameri 
 can endured such agony as that which had now fallen upon 
 him. It was an agony which found relief at last only in 
 silence and solitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE YOUNG ARTIST. 
 
 IT so chanced that at the very hour Henry Harris and 
 Lord Conyngham were taking together their memorable ride, 
 Mrs. Margaret Han-is and her daughter were on a visit to 
 the studio of Zerah Atchison. It was very rarely that 
 mother or daughter took so decided a liking to any one, but 
 their hearts had been drawn to the artist and his daughter 
 from the first. 
 
 "It is impossible not to venerate such a man," Mrs. 
 Harris said to Mary as they rode in their carriage thither
 
 236 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 that day. " I have met in Rome and elsewhere those who 
 are enthusiasts in art, but, alas ! their conceit of themselves 
 is almost always in the degree of their genius, often in ad 
 vance of it. Now, Mr. Atchison has the artistic faculty to 
 the highest degree, but accompanied by the sincerest hu 
 mility. Already refined by his art, his patient trust has 
 purified even his refinement. He and his daughter have 
 also been so separated from the world that they are like 
 children together, simple and good. Their devotion to each 
 other is one of the most interesting of things. Amid the 
 uproar and glitter of Paris, the fierce competition of fashion 
 and business, to be in their room is like getting back to a 
 quiet rural home in America. That is why I go there so 
 often. I love" to hear them talk. It is pleasant to watch 
 them at work, too, only I observe that, whenever I am there, 
 Isidore keeps what I would judge to be her chief occupation 
 under cover of a cloth, while she trifles apparently with a 
 Cupid in clay. It is better," Mrs. Harris added, with a 
 smile, "that she should be at work on Cupid than that the 
 mischievous imp should be at work on her." 
 
 " She never thought of such a thing ; she is too much 
 shut out from all society ! " Mary defended her friend 
 warmly. " I am more interested in her than in almost any 
 girl I know ! Our friends, Virginia Jossellyn and Ellen 
 Ellsworth, for instance, have nothing on earth to do but to 
 see and be seen, while her head, her hands, her heart, are full 
 of art and her father. Now, I think that a girl without some 
 enthusiasm for music, for sculpture, for painting, for some 
 thing, is a poor creature. And did you ever know, mamma, 
 so unconventional a girl ? She is like, Henry says, what one 
 reads concerning the virgins of Greece in the days of Apelles, 
 she is so supple, flexible. When he said that, I read to him 
 what Wordsworth says of -his Lucy." 
 
 " Since you have had such a pupil in Lord Conyngham," 
 the mother suggested, with a demure smile, " your enthusi 
 asm seems to be for teaching. But what does Wordsworth 
 say?"
 
 THE YOUNG ARTIST. 237 
 
 " O mamma ! " her daughter said, reproachfully, and not 
 without a blush ; " but listen. The words got themselves by 
 heart without any effort of mine : 
 
 " ' Through years she grew in sun and shower ; 
 And Nature said: A lovelier flower 
 
 On earth was never sown. 
 This child I to myself will take ; 
 She shall be mine, and I will make 
 
 A woman of my own. 
 
 " ' Myself will to my darling be 
 
 Both law and impulse ; and with me 
 
 The girl in rock and plain, 
 In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
 Shall feel an overseeing power 
 To kindle or restrain.' 
 
 Please let me quote a little more," Mary said, " it describes 
 Isidore so well : 
 
 " ' The floating clouds their state shall lend 
 To her ; for her the willow bend ; 
 
 Nor shall she fail to see, 
 E'en in the motions of the storm, 
 Grace that shall mold the maiden's form 
 
 By silent sympathy. 
 
 " ' The stars of midnight shall be dear 
 To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place, 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 And beauty born of murmuring sound 
 Shall pass into her face.' 
 
 Now," Mary continued, " Isidore has lived apart from the 
 world with nature until hers has become the beauty of 
 nature itself. In addition, she has conformed herself uncon 
 sciously to her father's ideal of art, has grown like living 
 clay under his critical eye and molding hands. Don't you 
 think so?"
 
 238 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 "I am not as poetical as you, my dear," the 'mother said, 
 " although I agree with you as to her lovely simplicity. You 
 know how almost furious Plenry becomes at the foolish girls 
 who paste little curls about their brows, and bedizen and be 
 little themselves, as he calls it. He admires Miss Atchison 
 exceedingly in comparison, and then we are naturally inter 
 ested in what your brother has told us of her half brother 
 and his singular mother. I never knew Henry to be more 
 interested in a man than he is in Achilles Deschards. He 
 never wearies of reading to us his brilliant papers, and won 
 dering how it is that the intellect can work so vigorously 
 apart from all sincere conviction. He studies him as he 
 would a bit of novel machinery." 
 
 " But he can not bring himself," Mrs. Harris added, " to 
 tell Mr. Atchison that he is his son. He fears it would re 
 sult in more pain to him than pleasure." 
 
 " Is he sure that he is his son ? " Mary asked. " How can 
 it be possible ? " 
 
 " Out of pure curiosity I have encouraged him to investi 
 gate it," Mrs. Harris said. " He has had experts at work. The 
 mother of Deschards has had no reason to conceal anything, 
 and, in some way, the detectives have traced mother and son 
 from their first coming to Paris, so many years ago. The 
 French surveyor who ran away with her married her, gave 
 the boy his own name, had him thoroughly educated, but 
 died at last, leaving his widow wholly dependent upon her 
 son, for there were no other children. From a very early 
 age the son has had to struggle desperately to make his way. 
 Henry says that it is this which perplexes him so ; the devo 
 tion of the lad and then the man to his mother is the very 
 thing which has driven him to prostitute his remarkable 
 talent as a writer ; it is to make money for her for him 
 self, too, and his pleasures that he is, Henry says, as indif 
 ferent to the nature of the literary work he does as if be were 
 a steel pen or a leaden type. His gratification is in the 
 money he makes, in the rapid exercise of his talent ; except 
 his mother, he cares for nothing, whether it be virtue or vice,
 
 THE YOUNG ARTIST. 239 
 
 God or Satan. From long habit, too, he is simply an intel 
 lect utterly devoid of conscience. His affection for his moth 
 er is the one thing which prevents him, Henry says, from 
 being intellectually an unmingled devil. Yes, this increases, 
 of course, our interest in Mr. Atchison, his father, and in Isi 
 dore, his sister, who are so eager to know about him and yet 
 so unconscious of the facts. But here we are." 
 
 Zerah Atchison was at work, when they had ascended 
 the stairway and stood at the door, upon his portrait of De- 
 lira, the girl who had fled from him in his youth. His 
 daughter also was at work, and not upon the Cupid, but upon 
 a bust near by, which so absorbed her that she no more heard 
 the knock at the door than did her father. But the ladies, 
 standing outside, thought they heard an invitation to enter, 
 and, opening the door, they paused for a moment unobserved. 
 The light so fell into the room that the faces of both artists 
 were away from them as the visitors came silently in, but 
 this enabled those visitors to see the work they were at more 
 distinctly, and mother and daughter made the same excla 
 mation : 
 
 " It is Henry ! " 
 
 At the word the girl seized upon a wet cloth lying near 
 by and was about to throw it over the clay, but " You are 
 too late, my dear," Mrs. Harris said, stepping forward and 
 grasping her hand, while Isidore seemed covered with con 
 fusion. 
 
 " I am sure you have no cause to hide it," Mary exclaimed, 
 with eagerness. 
 
 " O mamma, is it not good ? It is Henry to the life ! I 
 am so glad ! " 
 
 " Yes, it is a success," Mr. Atchison said, with a glad face, 
 " but it is not a portrait of your son. She had worked for 
 weeks upon her ideal of Sorrow. All that she accomplished 
 was a head representing Wretchedness instead Misery, I 
 ought to say." 
 
 " And it was the most miserable Misery you ever beheld," 
 the girl pleaded, holding the cloth still in her hand. 
 11
 
 24:0 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " She had to abandon it," her father went on, " and so 
 she began to work upon her ideal of Purpose instead. If it 
 is like your son, madam, it is his fault, not hers. But," and 
 the artist laid aside the father and assumed the critic, " I 
 could not but approve the work when I saw that she had the 
 genuine inspiration. It is excellent, madam ; it is most ad 
 mirable. But it is not your son, it is her ideal of Purpose, as 
 I said, manly Purpose, noble Purpose, but that is it, Purpose ! 
 See how the lips are slightly parted, observe the lift of the 
 brow, the elastic vigor of the neck, the repose, yet stern in 
 tention " But the mother did not listen to the old critic ; 
 her eyes were oveltflowing with happy tears as she gazed 
 upon the clay. It was not that it was an admirable likeness 
 of her son alone, it was that she recognized as never before 
 the character of her boy. It was a revelation to her, and to 
 the sister, of all that they had secretly hoped for in regard 
 to the son and beloved brother. Here was the authentic 
 declaration of it as from the hand of Truth. Yes, he was 
 full of purpose, noble purpose ! 
 
 " Why, mother ! " Mary remonstrated, but she was weep 
 ing herself it was so sudden, so unexpected. 
 
 " I thank you, my child." Mrs. Harris took Isidore by 
 either shoulder as she spoke, and kissed her again and again. 
 Out of sympathy Isidore also wept, as Mary too kissed her 
 with many thanks. 
 
 " It is so with me," Mr. Atchison hastened to say ; " when 
 ever I see a genuine work of art it moves me to tears. The 
 first time I saw the Immaculate Conception of Murillo I wept 
 like a baby. I congratulate you, Isidore ; you have suc 
 ceeded, my dear ! And I congratulate you also, ladies, that 
 you have the artistic faculty of recognizing genius when you 
 see it. Besides," added the delighted old man, " she has not 
 finished it. Moreover, it will look still better when it is cut 
 in the marble. The solidity of the marble will lend addi 
 tional strength to the idea of Purpose which Isidore intended. 
 For it is not your son, I assure you, it is not ! " he added, with 
 energy and some trace of mortification ; " it is purely ideal,
 
 THE YOUNG ARTIST. 241 
 
 as Isidore will tell you." "With his head on one side, the old 
 man was looking closely and with almost a rueful face at his 
 daughter's work. 
 
 Isidore, too, seemed to be sadly disturbed. With her 
 eyes cast down, she shrank as if her efforts were being severe 
 ly condemned instead. Evidently she was so much distressed 
 even that Mrs. Harris whispered to her daughter, in compas 
 sion, " Let us say no more now. We took her unawares. It 
 was a kind of shock. Artists never like any one to see their 
 work until it is finished." As it was said, the young girl had 
 hastily covered the clay over again, but the delighted mother 
 could not refrain from saying to her in a low tone : " You 
 must pardon us for breaking in upon you so, my dear, but 
 remember that the bust is mine. If you will allow me, I 
 have bought it." 
 
 There was no consent to this on the part of the girl. She 
 thanked the other modestly, but her eyes were still cast down, 
 or lifted with a troubled look. The visitors had known the 
 girl in many of her varying moods, but when she remained 
 so silent Mrs. Harris took pity on her. 
 
 " My dear child," she said, " we called on a little errand 
 to-day. My husband has written to Henry from Russia in 
 regard to a matter which he thinks may interest you. But 
 he must call and tell you about it himself." Then mother 
 and daughter both examined the Cupid slumbering upon its 
 wooden stand near by, with many kind commendations. Af 
 ter that they looked closely at the picture upon which the 
 father was at work. 
 
 " It is his latest work, but if that is like Delira," Mary 
 said, as they rode home at last, " there is not a trace of her in 
 the old woman we saw. Yet there is a strong likeness be 
 tween it and Deschards. And yet he had better have died 
 when a baby. Is it not a strange, strange world, mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. Harris did not answer her daughter, did not seem 
 even to hear her ; she was buried in thought. For some days 
 after it was the same. Mary had never known her mother to 
 be so silent, so reserved. She did not know what to make of it.
 
 242 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 THE LAY BROTHER. ^ 
 
 OtfE day Henry Harris chanced in passing near the shop 
 of M. Portou, the anatomist, to meet his friend Ishra Dhass, 
 the Brahmin, and a sudden fancy seized upon him. "I 
 wish," he remarked to the Hindoo, after conversation upon 
 other topics, " that you would go with me on a visit to him," 
 and he described the Jesuit shopkeeper to Ishra Dhass at 
 length. 
 
 "Nothing could give me more pleasure," the Hindoo 
 said, his dark eyes lighting up, his habitual good-humor in 
 creasing, as it very easily did to cordial gladness. To tell 
 the truth, the American shrank a little from the Jesuit, as he 
 did from going among the dry bones and stuffed animals of 
 his assortment. 
 
 " It is," he explained to his friend as they walked, " like 
 going into a cemetery ; especially when I get into close 
 quarters with this anatomist, who is also a Jesuit, I gasp for 
 breath as if I had left the sunshine, the free air, the ordinary 
 common sense of living men behind, and had gone down into 
 the deepest vaults of the dead. It may be because of my 
 practical training, but I feel worse than when I was crawling 
 through the catacombs of Rome, for in M. Portou it is as if 
 I met with one of the dead there, and with a dead man who 
 somehow is alive, and who is determined that I should aban 
 don everything I consider to constitute life, and to force me, 
 if he can, to be a living corpse also." 
 
 "I understand," the Brahmin said, with an eager ges 
 ture ; " only, if one of the dead in the catacombs could talk 
 with you, he would want you to be what I am instead, a 
 Christian of the age in which he lived, a simple follower of 
 the Nazarene, as Christians were in the first and second 
 centuries. You and your good mother and sister, all of you 
 English and American Christians, of whatever denomination, 
 are nearer to the Jesuit than you think."
 
 THE LAY BROTHER. 243 
 
 It was said with that joyous certainty of manner which 
 caused people to accept what the Brahmin said in spite of 
 themselves ; there was a subtle yet substantial and undenia 
 ble truthfulness in it, as of sunshine and morning dew. But 
 the two men were by this time at the shop of the articulator 
 of bones. M. Portou was delighted to see his visitors, and, 
 after due salutations, he showed them with alacrity the 
 various treasures of his somewhat ill-smelling establishment. 
 After a good deal of general conversation, the owner led 
 them into an inner room, and entreated them to partake of 
 certain bottles of rare old wine, which he happened to have. 
 As he produced them from a little cellar, brushed off the 
 dust and cobwebs, and arranged the glasses, the anatomist 
 was saying to himself : " Ah, what glory to God and to us if 
 they were brought by me into the light ! This ignorant 
 Hindoo has vast influence in his own land and in Europe 
 also ; what a trophy he would be ! And this clear-headed 
 American millionaire too ! Apart from his money even, he 
 would be, ah, heavens ! what an accession to our influence 
 in America ! His sister, his mother, his father, would follow 
 him into the Church. It would be the making of me with 
 the order. Forgive me, O God, my miserable selfishness, 
 and " But heaven alone knew the intensity of his suppli 
 cation, even in the act of bustling about with his wine, for 
 help to convert his guests. 
 
 "Now, M. Portou," the young American said at last, 
 " you remember how frank I was in telling you that I knew 
 to what order you belong. I have told Ishra Dbass of it, 
 have told him of your courage and energy in penetrating 
 even into the secrets of socialism at Madame Mosseline's. 
 The man must be sincere who hopes," Henry added, turning 
 to the Hindoo, " to benefit such a vile wretch as that unprin 
 cipled woman." To his astonishment their host exclaimed, 
 vehemently : 
 
 " I beg you will not speak so of her ! " It was said with 
 a sudden warmth of which the speaker seemed to be ashamed 
 the next instant, for he added, as if putting Madame Mosse-
 
 244 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 line out of the discussion : " Of myself I am willing to 
 speak. I am of the order, as you say, of the Jesuits ; for 
 sufficient reasons I disguised myself ; strategy is always 
 allowable in war, and we alas ! upon us all the world is at 
 war." 
 
 " Please let me explain," the American said. " I am the 
 son of very practical people ; my whole life has been given 
 to practical questions ; now, what I hate most in anything is 
 inaccuracy, uncertainty. I like to work, to work hard, but 
 I must see distinctly what I am at. No man likes more 
 than I do to go ahead as rapidly as I can, but I must be 
 sure I am right before I take a step. My time with you 
 to-day, my time in Paris, is limited, but I am consumed 
 with a craving to get at the bottom facts, to know as per 
 fectly as possible in regard to everything I can. Now, it is 
 not of mysteries of doctrine that I wish to speak ; of course 
 there are mysteries in that as in everything. What I want 
 to know is as to practical facts. You are the first Jesuit I 
 have been thrown with, at least, when there was such oppor 
 tunity of frank conversation. I shall esteem it a singular 
 favor if you will answer clearly, definitely, certain questions 
 I would like to ask." 
 
 Their host was, as has been said, a man generally of a 
 sluggish, not to say stupid, aspect. It was a natural dis 
 guise nature had given him, for under it was anything but a 
 stupid intellect. He sat now with his hands crossed upon 
 his breast. Although engaged in almost unceasing prayer 
 while he talked, he concentrated himself upon the matter at 
 hand. Too much was at stake not to do so. " I will gladly 
 do what I can," he said, with courteous humility, " to inform 
 you and your friend. Please proceed," for he had an intui 
 tion of what was coming. 
 
 "I deal with iron, with steel, in my business," Henry 
 Harris said. " In our shops we have to measure and weigh 
 things with painful precision. The variation of an ounce 
 in the making of a valve may result in the explosion of a 
 boiler ; the divergence of a hair's breadth in the construe-
 
 THE LAY BROTHER. 245 
 
 tion of a lever, of a shaft, of a wheel, may wreck a railway 
 train, and massacre scores of souls. Pardon me if I repeat 
 that I do not consider myself to know any matter at all un 
 less I know it accurately and finally." 
 
 The Jesuit smiled at the almost peremptory manner of 
 his visitor, but the eyes of the Hindoo glittered with a cer 
 tain satisfaction. 
 
 " Well, monsieur the engineer, will you have the kind 
 ness to ask your questions ? " It was said by the Jesuit with 
 great good-humor, but, behind his almost pulpy face, he 
 stood upon his guard, like a gladiator behind his shield. 
 
 "I have read," Henry Harris remarked, "the Syllabus 
 very closely, have studied what Gladstone, Cardinal Man 
 ning, Monsignore Capel, and others, have to say upon the 
 subject, but somehow the matter has been swathed in cloud, 
 wordy assertion, vaporous denial. What I want to get at," 
 the American continued, with almost indignation, "is the 
 simple fact. In the Syllabus and elsewhere, I find certain 
 distinct declarations by the highest authority in the Roman 
 Church, but when I try to learn from Catholics the positive, 
 final meaning, it eludes me, it evaporates, M. Portou," and 
 the young man became slow and cool as he went on. " I am 
 glad I have to do with a brave man. Please tell me this : 
 your Church claims to be the only true Church on earth, does 
 it not ? " 
 
 " Certainly," the other replied ; " when Christ gave the 
 keys to Peter " 
 
 " Pardon me, but all I wanted to get at was the mechani 
 cal fact, not the reasons," interrupted the other. "Your 
 Church claims then the sole and exclusive right to marry as 
 well as to bury ? " 
 
 The other assented. "I will explain " he began, but 
 the visitor did not give him time. 
 
 " As the only Church on earth it has," he asked, " a right 
 to suppress every other where it can by force ; is that so ? " 
 
 " It has ; of course we prefer moral suasion, but " 
 
 " Thank you, only this further question : not the State,
 
 246 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 only your Church, has a right to control the education of the 
 young ? " 
 
 " Of course, it alone has the right," their host said, ris 
 ing to his feet. " There are those, alas ! in my communion 
 who would hesitate, prevaricate, endeavor to explain away 
 even that which is most sacred. They charge with duplicity 
 the order I unworthily represent. Gentlemen," the anato 
 mist added, " I am but a lay brother, as we call it, of the or 
 der, and yet do I not know that we alone believe in and 
 assert the authority of the Church as it has been held in all 
 ages, as it is held to-day by every real believer ? I believe 
 in the Church as I do because I believe in God. The chil 
 dren of Voltaire may scoff, but the day comes when the false 
 and shallow civilization of the times will have perished, 
 when the Church will reign supreme throughout the entire 
 world ! " 
 
 " As it did in the days of Hildebrand over Europe ? As 
 it attempted to do in the days of Philip II of Spain ? M. 
 Portou, I thank you," the American continued, rising to 
 his feet, "and I honor you for your sincerity. Also, I 
 thank you for your information. Now I know. If I be 
 lieved as you do, I would belong to your order. I like a 
 man to be out and out in whatever he undertakes. Good 
 day." 
 
 But the anatomist was not willing to part with his visitors 
 so abruptly. He talked long and with impassioned eloquence, 
 entreating them to read certain books which he gave them, 
 beseeching them to pray for divine help, assuring them of 
 his own prayers on their behalf. The man evidently be 
 lieved, and with intense sincerity, in all he said, and the two 
 men listened respectfully. 
 
 " Ah, my friend," the Hindoo said, as they walked away 
 together at last, " mistaken as that man is, can you say that 
 you Protestants are as terribly in earnest ? " 
 
 " Why, you classed us together before we went into the 
 house," Henry Harris retorted. 
 
 "In a sense you are one with him. Let me," the Brah-
 
 THE LAY BROTHER. 247 
 
 min added, " be as concise and clear with you as possible. 
 I gave up my caste, my gods, my kindred, everything ; but 
 it was to believe in Jesus, the Christ ; not in you as English 
 or American, not in your church governments, not in your 
 books of theology, but in the Bible, and in the Christ alone." 
 
 " We believe in him," his friend remonstrated. 
 
 " Do you ? Ah, perhaps you do, but," the Oriental said, 
 " yours is a Christ who once lived long ago, a Christ who is 
 to come again centuries hence. Yes, and whenever you think 
 of him at all, you believe you will see him when you die. 
 But I ? I believe in a Son of God who walks here this mo 
 ment between you and me. I am Peter, I am James, I am 
 Thomas with Jesus, precisely (you like to be precise, you 
 say) as when he and they were together by the lake on the 
 slopes of Bethany. He is here now. He means all he says. 
 He made the world, and he is King of the world. It is as when 
 heralds run before to tell a city that its emperor is coming ; 
 very little the people care for the heralds when the monarch 
 comes riding up the street in person. John, the first herald, 
 said, ' I must decrease, but he must increase,' and it is aston 
 ishing how the heralds of all sects are waning every hour as 
 the Christ of Bethlehem comes himself to possess every land, 
 even although he does it only by means of his servants. Oh, 
 as to your forms, symbols, systems, I dare say that they, like 
 those of the Jews, have been of essential use, but the veil is 
 being rent again, I assure you. People are yearning to tear 
 away the mere drapery and to get at the Christ ! Religion is 
 too much an affair of men, men, men, instead of him. Not 
 that I don't love men, poor fellows like myself, but," said the 
 Hindoo, with tropical fervor, as vigorous as it was full of 
 joy, " bless your soul, I prefer the Son of God ! And ' I, if 
 I be lifted up,' he said, ' will draw all men unto me ! ' How 
 clear and plain God made everything to us by being born as 
 a babe there in Syria ! Who knows ? He may come to men 
 again by way of Syria. I don't know how, when, where, 
 but as sure as you live, when he does come, it will be in and 
 by poor people, who will love him as the Johns and the
 
 248 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 Philips did, with a simple, childlike fervor. Depend upon it, 
 there is nothing in Christianity except one thing Christ. 
 And be sure of this too," the Hindoo said, with radiant face, 
 " the glory of Christ lies in the splendor of his simplicity. 
 You want exactness, do you ? You wish to see and grasp 
 the substance of things, do you, as you do your iron and 
 your steel, your valves, levers, wheels ? Well, you know all 
 religion when you know the man Jesus." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 DILUTED BLOOD. 
 
 RIDING on horseback had always been with Henry Har 
 ris his favorite exercise. Whatever else he could or could 
 not afford, he always owned the best horses in reach, and 
 he now possessed, in his chestnut mare Bessie, an animal 
 which he loved and rode more than any he had ever had. 
 Whenever she could do so, Mary rode with him, on a smaller 
 horse which her brother had selected for her. Lord Conyng- 
 ham had ridden with him on several occasions, but "You 
 ride so fast and so far," he had been constrained to tell him, 
 at last, " that I can not stand it. For days after I am too 
 sore to sleep, to sit, or to walk. You must have learned to 
 ride among the Tartars of the Ukraine." 
 
 " I enjoy it more than anything else, and so does Bessie," 
 was the reply. 
 
 The time had been when, mounted on her brother's black 
 horse Malakoff, Lady Blanche, also, had ridden with the 
 impetuous American. She, too, had enjoyed it immensely. 
 " It is," she had said to him once, as they rode through the 
 country near Paris, " like the flight of an eagle. I love 
 strength, speed, force, whatever lifts me away from people 
 in general, whatever makes me feel as if I were not merely
 
 DILUTED BLOOD. 249 
 
 going somewhere, but doing something. I wish I were a 
 man ! " 
 
 " I do not. You are too perfect as a woman. But, sup 
 pose you were one of my baser sex, what would you do ? " 
 her companion asked. 
 
 " Do ? " and she lifted her head as she rode. " Do ? I 
 would break loose from the miserable falsehoods of society ; 
 would trample down its wretched affectations and mean 
 nesses ; would assert myself against mere money and rank 
 and fashion. I would no longer be only what other people 
 try to make me ; I would be myself." 
 
 She gave her horse a sharp cut as she said it, and, in the 
 leap which Malakoff made, it was as if he had carried her, 
 with a bound, clean over the barriers which had hitherto im 
 prisoned her. Henry had to spur Bessie to keep up with 
 her. " And then what would you do ? " he said, greatly in 
 terested in the spoiled child of society. 
 
 " Then ? When I had freed myself ? Then," she said, 
 " I would turn around and," here she gave Malakoff another 
 cut, which caused him to spring forward again, " and charge 
 upon and overthrow the tyranny from which I had escaped." 
 
 But all that seemed as if it had taken place ages before, 
 when, the day after his visit with Ishra Dhass to the shop of 
 the anatomist, the American, in riding along upon horse 
 back, saw the. open carriage of Earl Dorrington approaching 
 him near the Place Vendome, and in it Lady Blanche seated 
 beside the Duke of Plymouth. Henry Harris had been riding 
 alone, and for hours, that morning. He had been alone, 
 and yet, from vivid memory of their last ride together along 
 the same road, it was as if Lady Blanche had ridden beside 
 and kept him company. Really, it had been but a short 
 time before, and yet there was the same woman sitting in 
 the carriage, very beautifully dressed, her hands lying re 
 laxed in her lap ; indeed, it was hard to suppose that she 
 was the same person, she seemed so pale and languid. 
 
 Yes, and it was the Duke of Plymouth. He did not 
 recognize the American. It was not because he was very
 
 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 near-sighted only, nor because the Duke cared little for 
 anybody. To do him justice, he was not as selfish as many 
 a man, and would do a kindness when he could. Lord Con- 
 yngham, like his father, the Earl, had thought himself su 
 perior to the race in general ; had been insolent, haughty, 
 overbearing, in consequence, until, at last, he had come 
 under the influence of Mary and her brother, which had 
 made him a manlier man, by making him to know things to 
 a broader and clearer degree as they actually were. But the 
 Duke was not like Lord Conyngham. He was, in every sense, 
 a smaller, weaker man. Everything that wealth, rank, the 
 best opportunities at Oxford, the highest association, could 
 do, had been done for him. It had been, however, like ex 
 hausting the art of a sculptor upon the pith of an elder-stalk 
 instead of upon marble, or even upon wood. He was of a 
 weakly constitution, and he had done what he could to ex 
 haust even that by his dissolute habits. 
 
 " What else could we expect ? " the American thought, 
 in the first instant of seeing him. " He has had many cen 
 turies of ancestors, who had nothing to do but to spend 
 money made by. ancestors before them. It is not in hu 
 man nature that they should not have wasted themselves 
 as well as their money. Poor fellow ! his very tendencies 
 to vice are hereditary. No wonder that his scanty hair 
 and beard are like wisps of hay ; that his face is dry and 
 colorless ; that his eyes are like the ashes of a dead fire ; 
 the sap, the blood, the very life of the man, body and soul, 
 mind and heart, has run so far down the ages that it is run 
 out. I dare say his first progenitors were big and burly fel 
 lows, men strong of bone, vigorous of muscle, full of blood 
 and of will powerful ruffians, who laid about them with 
 their broadswords like the lusty Englishmen they were. 
 The torrent of blood in them has dwindled down in this 
 poor gentleman into the feeblest of rills. But Heaven have 
 mercy upon her I " 
 
 It was all over in a flash ; the carriage went rapidly ; so 
 did the mare upon which Henry rode. The lady had sunk
 
 DILUTED BLOOD. 251 
 
 into an indifference to everything, but for there is a mag 
 netism in such approaches to each other she lifted her 
 eyes and saw the American as he raised his hat in passing. 
 He seemed flushed with unusual strength from his ride ; his 
 eye, in hers, was as strong and steady as was his hand 
 upon the reins of the animal he bestrode. Only an in 
 stant ; but in that instant she fell, as it were, down a 
 precipice, and from heaven to hell, in falling back from 
 him to the man beside her. She might, perhaps, recover 
 herself after a while by recalling the vast wealth of the 
 Duke, his exalted position, and the like ; but and here was 
 the trouble with him it was exactly his rank and wealth 
 which were the burden of his life, which crushed him to 
 the earth. One day, George Harris was speaking of people 
 in general to his son Henry. It was at the Bodega, and, 
 the Duke happening to pass them, the father called the at 
 tention of his son to the shy, nervous little man, not dream 
 ing, however, of any reason why his son should be specially 
 interested in him* 
 
 " Do you see that small, washed-out man beside the foun 
 tain ? " he had asked. " Well, that is the Duke of Plym 
 outh. Do you observe how bloodless he is ? He has been 
 bled to death by mosquitoes." 
 
 "By mosquitoes? Has he been in Florida, in Cuba? 
 Where was it? "'the other demanded, with surprise. 
 
 " He has lived in mosquitodom ever since he was a tender 
 and tempting baby," was the grave reply. "Let me ex 
 plain, for I have met him all over Europe. I know him, and 
 almost every insect, too, of his swarm of mosquitoes by 
 heart. That poor Duke has been pursued ever since he 
 was born by enemies worse than the insects I have men 
 tioned. You have read of Orestes chased by the Furies, of 
 the heroes who had to fly for their lives from the hungry 
 harpies, have read about vampires, and all that. Now, this 
 victim has had parasites too small, too numerous, to be classed 
 as other than the mosquitoes of a Louisiana swamp. Ever 
 since he can remember has he been pursued by obsequious
 
 252 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 tradesmen, by thievish valets, by men of fashion, who seek 
 to fasten themselves upon him, in order to share, in some 
 degree, both his position and his purse. He has been game, 
 hunted down by gamblers, by speculators of all sorts, by 
 landlords, by disreputable women, by artists even, and ar 
 chitects ; but his most persistent pursuers have been match 
 making mothers of high rank and their fair daughters. 
 There is no thirst on earth, sir, so desperate as that for 
 money, unless it be a thirst, still more frantic, for social po 
 sition ; and this poor fellow unites in himself both wealth 
 and rank of the grandest degree, and to such a degree that 
 thirst mounts to frenzy of desire where he is concerned. 
 Now," George Harris added, "if the Duke were anything 
 of a lion he might turn on his foes and rend, or at least roar 
 at them. If he were only a fox he might double upon them, 
 dart into some hole, cheat them in some way. Alas ! he is 
 only a rabbit, and a rabbit who has not the wit even to hide 
 under a hedge. There are only two alternatives for that 
 man : , either he must die or he must marry some woman smart 
 and strong enough to defend him from his insatiable foes. 
 He is so run down that he has become shy of every shadow ; 
 he hears the hateful buzz of a new mosquito in every man, 
 every woman especially, who speaks to him. It is only the 
 female mosquito, you are aware, which sings and bites. 
 With all his envied rank and wealth, that man told me, one 
 day, after we had had a particularly good dinner managed 
 to assure me, on the honor of a Duke and in the strength of 
 the venison and champagne he had taken and I had not, it 
 was business in connection with an iron-mine of his which 
 drew us together that he didn't care a toss-up whether he 
 lived or died. ' The only reason, by Jove ! ' he whimpered 
 to me, ' why I don't lie down and die, and be done with it, 
 is that the family will become extinct with me. I am the 
 last of my race, sir.' Of course he was braced up by the 
 liquor, or he would not have had the energy to confess the 
 fact. But he is a good fellow, my son," the father went on, 
 " a really not bad-hearted man at all. He means well, but
 
 DILUTED BLOOD. 253 
 
 he is unfortunate, you see. He is nothing, at last, but a poor 
 little pygmy, crushed to the earth by the coronets, castles, 
 rent-rolls, money-bags, chests of plate, hangers-on of a race 
 of giants. That is the merciful provision of nature ; the 
 dodo is not the only thing which has become extinct. Hun 
 dreds of the old houses of England have run out in that 
 way. The yellow fever dies, they tell me, for lack of ma 
 terial to feed upon ; well, the ducal house, in the case of this 
 man, is dying out for want of material ; " and the sensible old 
 man would have added much more, although to no one in 
 such a strain but his son. Henry Harris was, however, sud 
 denly called off. 
 
 But he thought of it all to-day when he saw who rode 
 with Lady Blanche. In all his knowledge there was no 
 woman so worthy to be queen of the world as she was, and 
 here she was about to marry a man who, in himself consid 
 ered, was hardly strong enough or sensible enough to hoe 
 cabbages in the meanest kitchen garden on her father's es 
 tates. " And the misery of it," he moaned, as he rode on, 
 " is that they know it, both of them. She knows the Duke 
 as well as I do, better perhaps. My father himself has not a 
 more accurate knowledge of him than she has. And he 
 knows it ! There is no conceit in him. No man knows 
 better than he does that she is marrying his title and his 
 estates, that there is no possible companionship between 
 them any more than between a pug and its mistress, with 
 the affection between a woman and her pet left out. Ah ! 
 but it is the devil's own world ! " 
 
 He remembered, as he said it, that he had a message from 
 his father, who had returned from Russia only to hurry back 
 again he almost lived on the road which would take him 
 to the house of Zerah Atchison. His bitterness died out as 
 he thought of the pleasure he would impart when he had 
 told his errand to the father and daughter. Reining Bessie 
 in, he turned down another street and rode slowly toward 
 the home of the old painter. And yet, how he suffered as 
 he rode along ! How could he see Lady Blanche married to
 
 254: TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 another ! And could his own father have known, when he 
 spoke of the Duke, of what was taking place ? It was not 
 often George Harris had spoken so freely ; he must have 
 had a motive. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 CREATIVE JOY. 
 
 WITH her refined nature and sensitive disposition, Mary 
 Harris inherited a love for the beautiful in all its forms. 
 She was an excellent judge of pictures, and her experience 
 and criticisms in passing through the art galleries of the 
 Exposition were invaluable. She intuitively selected the 
 choicest gems, and often became so enraptured with the 
 subject delineated on the canvas that she could readily in 
 terpret the spirit of the picture and almost read the thoughts 
 of the artist who placed the results of his imagination before 
 them. Passing rapidly over many of the most imposing 
 and highly colored paintings, she frequently lingered to 
 revel in the sentiment and finish of an unobtrusive canvas 
 half hidden in a secluded corner, and more than once inter 
 ested her companions in her descriptions far more than they 
 would have been capable of being interested under ordinary 
 circumstances. Her early education in biblical and historic 
 lore enabled her readily to unravel and decipher what seemed 
 to others a mass of mysteries. " Rizpah and her Seven 
 Sons," in the French Department, which attracted the atten 
 tion of everybody, yet often caused a repulsive shudder, 
 was to Mary Harris full of enjoyment, as typifying the in 
 tensity of the mother's love, and her hearers forgot the hor 
 ror of the surroundings while gazing upon the sublime hero 
 ism and unspeakable affection depicted upon the countenance 
 of the unhappy woman. 
 
 Without being an artist, she had a sincere appreciation 
 for art, far more skill than the average girl of the period,
 
 CREATIVE JOT. 255 
 
 and her fondness for ceramics, for statuary, mosaics, and 
 bronzes led her frequently to the repositories of art, and in 
 duced her friends who were not specially addicted to them 
 to acquire a similar taste, and to prefer spending their time 
 with her, instead of in other and hitherto more congenial 
 departments. 
 
 One morning she remained in the studio of Zerah Atchi- 
 son for some time, watching the painter and his daugh 
 ter at work. Isidore had removed the " Purpose," upon 
 which she had been so busy when Mary had been there be 
 fore,, and which the delighted mother and daughter had 
 claimed to be a likeness of Henry, and was engaged upon her 
 Sleeping Cupid. She seemed to be almost shy of her visitor 
 and was singularly silent throughout her stay, and Mary felt, 
 she knew not why, that it would be best to make no allusion 
 to the absent bust. It was on this account, also, that she 
 devoted herself to the old artist instead, who was still occu 
 pied with his endeavor to bring back again, on canvas at least, 
 the Delira of his earlier days. Mary had almost recoiled with 
 surprise when she first turned her eyes upon the painting. 
 
 " Oh, how good it is ! " she exclaimed. " It is as if the 
 girl were herself coming upon me out of the woods. She 
 looks like an Indian. What eyes ! What fawn-like freedom 
 of step ! She seems to be actually breathing between her 
 parted lips. Were she alive, it could hardly be more real. 
 Is it not wonderfully good ? " she asked, for information, and 
 as if the artist were merely a spectator like herself. 
 
 " Yes, it is admirably done. It is by far the best work I 
 ever did," the old man made answer with a species of solemn 
 joy. " As I have told you, my critical faculty exceeds my 
 creative power, exceeds it so much that I have not as yet 
 been able to produce one painting which I cared to preserve ; 
 not, at least, until I painted this. Sincerely, it is a master 
 piece. I am willing to place it on the walls of any exhibi 
 tion, confident that it will be recognized as such by every 
 one. I thank God that, for the first time in my life, I have 
 reached my ideal. It reminds me of Thorwaldsen."
 
 256 1SE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Oh no, father ! no, no ! " his daughter broke in, almost 
 in tears ; " please do not say that, please do not ! " 
 
 " You foolish child ! " the old man said, in loving tones. 
 " Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor of Denmark," he explained, 
 turning to their visitor, " was found lying almost insensible 
 at the base of a Christ which he had just finished in colossal 
 marble. ' Up to this hour,' he told his wondering friends, ' I 
 have never been pleased with what I have wrought. To 
 day I look at my Christ, and am perfectly satisfied with it. 
 By that I see that I have reached my highest summit. It 
 only remains that I should die,' which he did not long after 
 ward." 
 
 " Your picture is perfect, but," Mary ventured, " you are 
 too wise a man to indulge in such notions." 
 
 " Who is wise ? " the old man demanded ; " and what are 
 talent, genius ? I have known of great masters who have 
 toiled for years, and toiled in vain, to produce what was so 
 vividly before their very eyes almost that nothing less than 
 that could satisfy them. A painter looks at a completed 
 work ; alas ! it is but the ghost of what he had intended. 
 Over that he paints yet another, and of the same subject. 
 This also is the merest specter of what he had hoped to do ; 
 worse, perhaps, than the other. But his ideal burns in the 
 air before him, and he persists. The next time it is a cari 
 cature, a something worse still. But his ideal pursues him 
 day and night, as his murdered mother Clytemnestra did 
 Orestes, and he must put the haunting form upon canvas. 
 And so he goes patiently to work once more. On one occa 
 sion, when I praised a picture, the artist said to me, * Alas ! 
 yes ; but it is painted upon the top of many a failure ; under 
 neath that picture are buried a dozen pictures, each of which 
 cost me months of toil.' " 
 
 " It is so with me," Isidore said, modestly. " I am not a 
 great artist, yet the bust of my father, which you liked, 
 emerged out of weary months of work, out of cart-loads of 
 rejected clay, of ruined marble." 
 
 " But it was worth the effort," her friend said, eagerly ;
 
 CREATIVE JOY. 257 
 
 adding : " Is it not always so ? I was visiting once at the 
 house of a distinguished author. He had just published a 
 little volume which was having what is called a great run. 
 When I congratulated him, he said, ' Would you like to see 
 the chaos out of which that book arose ? ' Taking me to a 
 lumber-room adjoining his study, he showed me the whole 
 floor covered deep with blotted manuscript and scattered 
 masses of printed proof. ' Look,' he said, holding up his 
 wee bit of a book, ' it took all that to produce this? * Yes,' 
 I told him, ' but that is the dirt out of which a diamond has 
 come. Even if there were tons of quartz, the gold we have 
 got from it would be worth the litter and labor going be 
 fore.' ' I don't know,' he said ; ' if you but knew how very 
 often I had to revise every sentence, out of what a vexatious 
 whirlwind of mistake, blunder, blockheaded boobyism of 
 mine this little volume has emerged, you would agree with 
 me that it is hardly worth the work.' Dickens says the 
 same," Mary continued " that every page he wrote Avas the 
 result of long and hard work. The result seems so simple 
 that anybody could write it, and yet he had to write, re 
 write, revise, correct, correct corrections, and " 
 
 " Only to reach something at last," the old artist said 
 for her, "as simple as a pearl. It is as when one drives 
 an artesian well downward through thousands of feet of 
 rock, clay, sand, that the pure water may gush up. But it 
 is, when it does come, from the center of the globe, from the 
 heart of the world ! Heaven knows what sleepless nights, 
 days of toil and defeat, in addition to years of practice at 
 other work before, I have given to this canvas. At last, at 
 last, the Delira of my youth the living girl, as I knew her 
 among her mountains steps out, and, with a smile, says, 
 1 Well, here I am at last ! ' " 
 
 " She repays you for all," Mary murmured, as she gazed 
 upon the breathing result the hands reached out from the 
 canvas as if to greet again her creator ; the eyes, lips, 
 cheeks, instinct with life ; it was almost as if they could see 
 the robe lift to the throb of the heart, the heave of the lungs.
 
 258 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 "Yes, it is all I can do. And," the artist added, "it is 
 in that way that the Great Artist is at work upon each of us. 
 Ah, what years he has to give to a man or a woman ; what 
 severe, repeated, terrible trials ! Just as a man begins to 
 emerge, thinking, Now I must be all right at last ! his 
 Maker dashes him, as it were, into the dust again, saying, 
 No, not yet ! And all the suffering has to be endured again. 
 But in the end, when one comes up out of what seemed 
 at the time to be the utter wreck of death and the grave, 
 then even the Master can smile upon his perfected creature 
 and say, Very good ! So good as to be worthy of eternal 
 association with the best in the universe, with God him 
 self." 
 
 But at this moment Henry Harris entered. Isidore 
 seemed to awake suddenly out of her reserve. 
 
 " O Mr. Harris," she exclaimed, impulsively, " we have 
 found her, have found her ! " She pointed, as she spoke, to 
 the wild woman stepping out from the canvas. The next 
 instant she remembered herself and turned away, blushing 
 at her enthusiasm, mortified at herself, almost ready to cry 
 like a child. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 THE YEARNINGS OF NATURE. 
 
 HENRY HARRIS was as much delighted when he saw 
 Zerah Atchison's painting as his sister. " It must be an ex 
 cellent likeness of your Delira," he said, after gazing upon 
 it long and carefully ; " because it is true to nature. I do 
 not think that any one can improve upon the Supreme 
 Artist, and therefore my idea of a well-painted landscape, 
 for instance, is when its frame is as that of a window, through 
 which you actually look out upon nature itself. So of his 
 torical paintings. Who cares for those, as a specimen, which 
 portray Christ and his apostles as if dressed for a festival,
 
 THE YEARNINGS OF NATURE. 259 
 
 in theatrical attitudes, with voluminous robes, great keys, 
 shepherd crooks, crosses, and the like ? My heart is satisfied 
 when I see Jesus exactly as his own disciples saw him ; as 
 near to it, at least, as it is possible for the artist to put on 
 canvas. That is, I suppose, a defect of my practical char 
 acter. I don't want a particle of fog to rest upon anything 
 in which I am to be interested ; I must see it as under noon 
 day light ! " 
 
 But the old painter was looking dreamily upon his pic 
 ture. " Yes," he said, " that is DeKra. As I sit here it all 
 comes back to me, those young days of mine among the 
 wild woods, when I was so highly resolved to be a great 
 painter. How ardent I was, how eager, how confident ! I 
 would study, would work, work, work ! Oh, how hard I 
 would work ! Yes, I would paint pictures which would 
 electrify the world. I would build a studio, would fill it 
 with busts, bronzes, portfolios of engravings, suits of armor. 
 Men would come from far away to see me. I would help 
 poor students, would found an academy of arts. Yes, 
 Delira," he said, sadly, "you will bear me witness that it 
 was not you I loved, it was my divine art. I hardly blamed 
 you when you left me. I was almost glad of it ; it was my 
 art I loved. But you are alive again, Delira ; you rise from 
 the dead, bringing me in your hands those old, happy, hope 
 ful days. The hopes of success have vanished, but " 
 
 "Mary, Miss Atchison, Mr. Atchison, listen to me," 
 Henry interrupted him. " When David, the illustrious 
 French artist, had finished a painting of his coronation for 
 the first Napoleon, the Emperor visited it, attended by a 
 brilliant cortege of courtiers. "When he had examined it 
 long and thoroughly, he turned to David, lifted his hat 
 from his head, and bowing low, he said : ' M. David, in the 
 name of France and of the world, I salute you ! ' I am not 
 an emperor," Henry continued, " but I can represent all men 
 who have eyes to see, and, Zerah Atchison, you have achieved 
 a grand success ; you are one of the masters ; in the name 
 of America and of Europe I salute you ! " bowing low.
 
 260 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 It was done by the speaker with gravity, and even the 
 French Emperor could not have spoken with more dignity or 
 grace, and as he spoke his sister went up to the old man, 
 took his hand in hers, and kissed him. A new light flashed 
 in the aged eyes of the artist, the head was held more ergot, 
 the patience of the face became radiant, and Mary turned to 
 Isidore, placed a hand upon either cheek, and kissed her again 
 and again. But the girl shrank a little when Henry took 
 her little hand in his to congratulate her. Her eyes were 
 dim with tears, her color came and went ; she was silent, 
 embarrassed. Then she glanced at her father, her habitual 
 gladness came back, and, flying across the room, she kissed 
 and fondled him as a mother might have done rather than a 
 daughter. 
 
 As she did so, Henry, by some subtile reminder, saw once 
 more Lady Blanche instead seated beside the Duke of Plym 
 outh. " She, too, is beautiful," he said to himself of the 
 proud Englishwoman, " but she is, at best, merely a part of 
 a system of society. Strong, intelligent, lovely, full of all 
 daring impulse as she is, what at last is she but a bit of bril 
 liant stone ground down, shaped accurately, as by sharp tools, 
 to fit into her place in the grand mosaic of English society ? 
 She is but one figure of the procession which has come down 
 from the Norman conquest. Love her '{ I might as well try 
 to clasp to my heart one of those colossal caryatides of mar 
 ble which I saw at Athens. She is, alas ! but a pillar and 
 part of the British edifice. I dare say she will harden into 
 stone as she feels the pressure upon her more and more. 
 Duchess of Plymouth ! Yes, but I could wish your duke 
 were worthier of you ! " 
 
 " Is she not lovely ? " Mary was saying to him of Isidore. 
 " Did you ever know such a child, such a beautiful, gifted 
 child ? She is as much a part of nature as a rose or a lark. 
 Why is it that she has such a dewy smile ? Her face is like 
 morning ; even when she cries it reminds one of an April 
 day. I am in love with her ! But don't tell them about 
 that odious Achilles Deschards ; why should you ? "
 
 TEE YEARNINGS OF NATURE. 261 
 
 " It would," Henry whispered to her in return, " be like 
 letting Satan into Paradise to admit him here. But I can 
 not say as yet what I ought to do. I must wait and see." 
 
 " I only lack one thing," the aged artist said, as he began 
 again to touch his picture here and there, while Isidore 
 busied herself again with her Cupid, " and that is my boy." 
 
 "You do not know," Henry said, "that he is alive. 
 Even if he is living, who can say what sort of a man he may 
 be ? Suppose, for instance, that he is a dissolute, unprinci 
 pled, abandoned man. He might be a wretch who would 
 consume your earnings, who would reel home to you drunk, 
 who would insult you, terrify your daughter, break your 
 heart. If he is living, I merely say that he might be all this, 
 and worse." 
 
 " He would still be my son my own son, and I have 
 never seen his face. Bad as he might be," the artist pleaded, 
 " he would be, even then, but one of the many things belong 
 ing to me which have hurt and tried me to the utmost. 
 There are many men of my peculiar kind," the aged painter 
 continued, " to whom severe and unceasing pain of body and 
 of mind is assigned as their natural atmosphere. It is with 
 me, although I am like them only in my exceeding sensitive 
 ness, as it was with Chatterton, Burns, Keats, Coleridge, 
 Shelley, Alfred de Musset perpetual suffering is their por 
 tion and mine. We live in the tropics of flame. Did you 
 ever read, Mr. Harris, the story of poor Haydon, the Eng 
 lish painter ? He writhed, his life through, as upon burning 
 coals. But I have no intention of killing myself as he did," 
 the artist added, with a smile. " Ah, no ; God is preparing 
 me for something not here in the other and eternal life. 
 Moreover, have I not Isidore ? and you, too, have been so 
 kind, kind ! " 
 
 " You have Delira too ; you have forgotten her," his 
 daughter laughed. 
 
 " Yes, I have her, and the youth, the memories, she brings 
 with her. Old people," her father went on, " love the past. 
 To me it is as a dream ; my belief is in the future instead.
 
 262 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 My golden age is yet to dawn ! The best, the very best part 
 of my life," he said, with a happy face, " is yet to come. 
 Every faculty I have has been but a course of education for 
 that. Think of it, if you can," he said, like a boy who was 
 eager for a holiday ; " the entire universe will be thrown 
 open to me, every artistic taste will be gratified. Oh, how I 
 have loved beauty ! beauty of landscape ; and who can con 
 ceive of the grandeur, the sublimity, the varying and infinite 
 loveliness when I shall have free access to the entire range 
 of creation ? I have enjoyed beauty, too, of person ! My 
 young friend," he said, looking at Henry with kindling 
 eyes, "you imagine that you admire a beautiful woman. 
 Admire ? you have no idea how deeply, exquisitely, I enjoy 
 female beauty ! " The tones were such as to thrill the hear 
 ers. "Yes, enjoy until the tears come, until I turn away 
 from it, whether it be in marble, on canvas, in flesh, from 
 the Venus, the Madonna, the living loveliness, with excess 
 of pleasure which is almost pain. Now, just think of it," 
 exclaimed the speaker with zest, " I shall exist in the eternal 
 youth and keenest freshness of my faculties, in a universe 
 peopled only by myriads of the beautiful, by angels, saints, 
 glorious intelligences ! Yes, I shall enjoy all 'that exists of 
 beauty ; beauty of form, of color, of character, and " the 
 eager tones subsided in awe" I shall see the King in his 
 beauty! whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
 behold, and not another ! " 
 
 The face of the old artist was lifted, was luminous. It 
 was as if his hungry eyes were already feasting upon the 
 scenes and persons of which he spoke. "And beauty," he 
 said, slowly, " is but the divine food ; that which feeds and 
 is satiated upon beauty is love." 
 
 There followed silence for some time. Mary was watch 
 ing the artist as, at last, he resumed his brush, but her 
 brother was standing beside Isidore as she worked. She no 
 longer shrank from him, but she did not seem disposed to 
 talk. Her eyes would be lifted to his when he spoke, but 
 they fell again as she answered. He felt, none the less, more
 
 THE YEARNINGS OF NATURE. 263 
 
 at home with her than he had ever felt with Lady Blanche. 
 It was as if he were enjoying a bit of sunshine, a gentle breeze, 
 a June day, a strain of simple music, a mountain spring 
 anything and everything that was merely a part of nature. 
 
 " But I have almost forgotten what I wanted to say," he 
 said, finally. " How would you like to visit Russia ? " he 
 asked of Mr. Atchison. 
 
 " Russia ! " As the artist exclaimed it, his daughter 
 looked up at their visitor, alarmed as well as astonished. 
 
 "The matter is this. You must," Henry said, "have 
 heard of Prince Kalitzoff, the statesman and millionaire of 
 St. Petersburg. My father and all our family know him 
 very well. He was interested in our machine-shops, our 
 railroads across the empire. Events made us well acquainted, 
 for he is a noble-hearted man." 
 
 " What I liked him chiefly for," Mary added, " was his 
 devotion to the Princess Aura, his only daughter, a lovely 
 child. He seemed to care for nothing, you remember, Henry, 
 but that golden-haired, motherless girl." 
 
 " Yes, and the Princess Aura is dead, my father writes 
 me," Henry continued, "and the Prince has set his heart 
 upon building a monument to her, upon which he intends to 
 place a full-length statue of her in marble. He spoke to my 
 father to secure an artist for him, and my father has written 
 to me. Now, Mr. Atchison," the young man continued, 
 " I am determined to send, honestly, the best sculptor, the 
 very best, I can find in Paris, for the pay will be almost un 
 limited. If the very best is also an American, of course I 
 would prefer it." 
 
 " I wish I knew of some one, so that I could help you ; but 
 I do not go out, as you know," Zerah Atchison said. 
 
 "Thank you ; the fact is I want two persons. I must," 
 Henry continued, " have the best sculptor in Paris, and with 
 that sculptor must go the best critic I can find, so that, be 
 tween the two, the work may be perfect. I know of none 
 who fill my purpose so well as yourself and your daughter. 
 My mother agrees with me, so does Mary." 
 
 12
 
 264 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 The old artist looked up at the speaker with gratified as 
 tonishment ; his daughter had glanced up, but was working 
 again in silence. 
 
 " You will have a home in Prince Kalitzoff's palace, ser 
 vants to wait upon you, ample compensation, your own time 
 in which to do the work, the kindest of patrons," the visitor 
 urged ; " I am sure you will like it." 
 
 " A thousand thanks. And I do sincerely believe," Mr. 
 Atchison said, " that, between Isidore and myself, we could 
 satisfy him. What do you say, my child ? " 
 
 But Isidore lifted only troubled eyes from her work. " I 
 do not like to to leave Paris," she said, and she thanked 
 their friend heartily, but was silent again. The project did 
 not seem to please her at all. 
 
 " Think over it," Henry said as he took his hat to go ; 
 "and, by-the-by, I forgot to say that I am going to St. 
 Petersburg soon, to stay some time, and will be glad to es 
 cort you. Think of it. I will call again ; " and brother and 
 sister took their leave. 
 
 A sudden and remarkable change had taken place in Isi 
 dore. " O father, let us go ! I shall be delighted to go ! " 
 she said. 
 
 CHAPTER LIT. 
 
 M. POKTOIT, ANATOMIST. 
 
 IT was only the afternoon of the day after Henry Har 
 ris had told Zerah Atchison of the monument for the Prin 
 cess Kalitzoff, that his sister and himself, happening to pass 
 Notre Dame, turned into it as by a common impulse. It 
 was at an hour when the huge cathedral was least thronged, 
 and there was a refreshment in the dim religious seclusion. 
 The brother and sister strayed here and there with silent 
 steps, recalling to each other the wonderful events which had 
 taken place beneath that lofty roof.
 
 M. PORTOU, ANATOMIST. 265 
 
 " To think," Mary said, " of the great orators who have 
 made these walls reverberate with their eloquence, the kings 
 and emperors who have been crowned here ! But I shudder 
 when I remember how the mob filled this very place during 
 the Revolution, roaring with their new freedom. Just to 
 think that it was upon that very altar, now blazing with can 
 dles, thronged with priests, that they placed a vile woman as 
 their Goddess of Reason ! " 
 
 " Yes," her brother said, " and it was here, too, that the 
 Theophilanthropists set up their newly invented religion of 
 flowery ceremonies and sentimental eloquence. They had 
 to have some religion, and they had abolished the old 
 faith." 
 
 " What vast crowds have jostled each other here ! " Mary 
 added ; " and century after century they have come and gone 
 like ghosts." 
 
 " Whenever I see a great cathedral like this, or those at 
 Milan, at Rheims, at Cologne, especially when I stand under 
 the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, do you know, Mary," her 
 brother said, " the vast edifice reminds me of a fossil ? You 
 remember I described to you the megatherium I saw in Si 
 beria. Perhaps while Adam was still living it had been 
 frozen into the center of an iceberg. An extraordinarily 
 warm summer had melted it out of the primeval ice, wolves 
 had stripped it of hide and flesh, and there it lay, a colossal 
 framework of massive bones, white and bare. As I gazed 
 upon the wreck I said to myself, ' These bones were once filled 
 with life ; this enormous creature once breathed and fed, once 
 filled the air with the sound of its voice, and drove all lesser 
 things before it as it crashed its way through antediluvian 
 forests' ; how," Henry continued, pointing to where the 
 groined arches joined far overhead, " these great arches re 
 mind me of its ribs ! For this church, too, was once a living 
 thing. It made its voice heard, made its power to be felt, I 
 assure you ! The time has been when the world trembled 
 beneath its tread, when Jew and Huguenot were glad if 
 they could hide themselves, like the meanest of things, from
 
 266 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the glance of its eyes, the weight of its pulverizing hoof. 
 But now it is dead, dead ! " 
 
 " I do not know about that," his sister said, looking at the 
 women who were scattered about over the church, kneeling 
 in deep devotion at the central and side altars. " There is 
 life in the Church of Rome yet." 
 
 " Yes, but remember what it was, and then think of what 
 it is ! Spain was," her brother said, " master once of the 
 whole world. Except Great Britain and a handful of Hol 
 landers, who struggled almost hopelessly against it, Spain 
 grasped the entire globe as a strong man grasps an apple or 
 a dollar, and to-day Spain is so dwindled away that, as a 
 general thing, its existence is almost forgotten by men. 
 But even Spain, as it was and as it is, fails to be a symbol 
 of the way in which Rome, once the mistress of the world, 
 has shrunken and pined away into less than the specter of 
 its former self." 
 
 " I am glad to see that you are so good a Protestant," his 
 sister said. 
 
 " Yes, but you have not heard me out," Henry hastened 
 to add. " You know what a mechanical man I am, and the 
 way I look at it is this : Every man who ever lived has a 
 craving to know and to be at peace with his Maker. Hop 
 Fun quotes Kong-f u-tse to me, and there is a vast deal of 
 sound sense in what that sage had to say. Socrates, Zoro 
 aster, Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus, Boodha, Bramah not a 
 nation but has had some great teacher, and I believe that, 
 in a certain degree, each of them was helped of Heaven to in 
 struct men. ' Of a truth,' the Apostle Peter said, ' I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he 
 that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with 
 him.' I have sincere pity for a poor Thibetan kneeling 
 down before his Grand Lama, for a Turk going through his 
 devotions in his mosque, almost for a naked African begging 
 for something of the bundle of sticks and feathers which he 
 calls his god. Provided the poor creature knows no better, 
 depend upon it, every prayer is heard by God. So of the
 
 M. PORTOU, ANATOMIST. 267 
 
 Roman, the Greek, the Protestant Church there are bad 
 men and hypocrites in them all, and there are sincere souls 
 in them all." 
 
 At this moment a man looked at them in passing, then 
 turned and came back. Really, he had been upon their track 
 all the morning, as for days before, and as he would be for 
 days to come. It was M. Portou, the anatomist. The new 
 comer drew Henry to one side. " I am just going," he said, 
 in a low and reverential tone, " to a spectacle in a place near 
 by. If the lady and yourself would like to see something of 
 our religion, you can go with me ; it is not far away." 
 
 The brother consulted with his sister, made her known to 
 the anatomist, and they walked away together. Although 
 they were side by side, the men were really centuries apart. 
 It was as if they lived in different planets. The American 
 could not even perceive how it was possible for a man to be 
 lieve in the Roman Church, supreme, infallible ; and the 
 other was almost unable to conceive how any man in his 
 senses could fail thus to believe ! That the Pope was the 
 viceroy of the Creator on earth was as plain to him as the 
 midday sun. Having such belief, he was confident, also, that 
 this young American millionaire would, sooner or later, be 
 converted. With all sincerity, he had given days of fasting 
 and prayer to that very object, and he now prayed silently, 
 but fervently, for this as they walked. 
 
 "M. Portou, I have been greatly interested in you, as 
 you know," the American said. " I have conversed with my 
 mother and sister in regard to you. To tell you the truth, 
 you are the first Jesuit I have ever talked with. Let me say 
 this : I believe that if any other denomination had attained 
 to the power of your Church, they would have been, you 
 must excuse me, as corrupt and tyrannical." The Jesuit 
 was pacing along with a peculiarly soft and flowing gait ; 
 he merely closed his eyes and bowed his head, as if accus 
 tomed to blows. 
 
 " You see," the American went on, addressing his sister, 
 " Pius IX has published what he styles a Syllabus, in which,
 
 268 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 with the help of his clergy, he has stated very tersely what 
 Rome holds and teaches. Among other things he says, for 
 instance, that the right to educate children lies exclusively 
 with the Church. In regard to this, as to all his claims, the 
 Pope says that if any man does not believe that the Church 
 has the right to use force, when it can, for the accomplish 
 ment of this purpose, he is a heretic. It is so odd to me to 
 talk with a man who really believes that," the American said, 
 looking closely at his companion. 
 
 " Oh, no," Mary exclaimed, "he can not believe it all ! I 
 was just thinking about that terrible August day when the 
 Huguenots were massacred along these very streets. Seventy 
 thousand perished, it is said. When the news reached Rome, 
 the Pope celebrated the slaughter, you remember, by a pro 
 cession to the Church of St. Louis, by a ' Te Deum,' the 
 proclamation of a year of jubilee, and had a medal struck 
 representing the horrible carnage. But that was three hun 
 dred and six years ago ; now you do not believe in anything 
 of that kind, I know," she said, looking steadily at the rosy 
 and even sluggish and good-natured face of the Jesuit beside 
 whom she walked. " You wouldn't kill me, would you ? " 
 she asked, archly. 
 
 " The soul is more valuable than the body ; the life more 
 eternal than this transitory stage. Whatever God, by the 
 mouth of his Church, commanded me, that," the Jesuit said 
 in steady accents, " I would do ! You Protestants only pre 
 tend to believe, but I do believe," he added. 
 
 " I am glad we were not here St. Bartholomew's Day," 
 Mary said to Henry ; "but I am yet more so that he was 
 not," for as she said it she left the Jesuit, by whose side she 
 had been walking, and took her place so as to have her 
 brother between herself and the fanatic Frenchman. 
 
 " We, as an order, have been driven out from every na 
 tion on earth," their companion said, with a sad smile. " Mul 
 titudes even in our own communion abhor us ; and yet, 
 why ? We simply believe what they merely profess, and we 
 carry out, when we can, what we do believe."
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RELIGION. 269 
 
 " You are logical, consistent ! Yes, I understand, and, in 
 a certain sense," the American said, " I both understand and 
 honor you for it. But what is this place ? " 
 
 They had turned in through the stone gateway of an old 
 inclosure, in the midst of which stood a prison-like structure 
 several stories high. " Come in and you will see," their guide 
 said, in an austere voice. Mary shrank back, but her brother 
 laughed, and led her in after the Jesuit. This last said some 
 thing to a porter in a clerical habit at the doorway, and the 
 three entered and ascended one or two nights of stone steps, 
 went along a dark corridor, and passed in by a narrow door 
 into what appeared to be the gallery of a chapel. 
 
 " I can not stay with you," whispered the Jesuit, " but I 
 wanted you to see that with us there is such a thing as be 
 lief. You may find it, sir, to be as practical and positive a 
 force as your steam or iron," and with subdued footsteps he 
 stole away. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RELIGION. 
 
 X Henry Harris and his sister had returned to their 
 hotel after leaving, in a manner yet to be described, the 
 building into which the Jesuit had introduced them, they 
 found Mrs. Margaret Harris at the tea-table, in company with 
 Ellen Ellsworth and Virginia Jossellyn. 
 
 " Mary, my dear, what is the matter ? " her mother ex 
 claimed with anxiety, as soon as she saw her, while Ellen 
 added, " What is it, Mary ? you look, as if you had seen a 
 ghost." But it was not until they were all back again in the 
 parlor that Mary would explain. Even then she shook her 
 head. " Ask Henry ; he can tell you," she said. Her brother 
 was standing beside the piano, and while his mother sat near 
 by, looking at him, the young-lady visitors gathered about 
 him, entreating him to relieve their curiosity.
 
 270 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if I must tell you, I will assure you, 
 first of all, that what I have to say is perfectly true. You 
 must know that I have become acquainted with a certain 
 Achilles Deschards, of whom I have had to tell my mother 
 and sister something. From him, for he knows everything, 
 I learned what I am to relate. But," he said with affected 
 solemnity, " if I am to tell my story, you must sit down 
 before me. Moreover, Miss Jossellyn will please take her 
 place at the instrument and play a brilliant overture. I will 
 lift my hand at certain points of my story as I stand, and she 
 must strike in with appropriate music." There were wonder 
 ing eyes and exclamations and quite a deal of conversation 
 before he could obtain obedience ; but they quieted down at 
 last, and he made ready. " Now, attention ! audience, or 
 chestra ! " He raised his hand, and the music began. The 
 Southern brunette was a fine performer ; she played with 
 great feeling, as well as force, an improvisation of her own, 
 and the audience could not help applauding as she ceased. 
 The narrator stood before his company, waiting for them 
 to become silent, as noble-looking a gentleman, so at least 
 his mother and sister thought, as one could wish to see. If 
 the American had done a world of good to his friend Lord 
 Conyngham, he had unconsciously received also a benefit 
 from the Englishman in return. His manner was more 
 quiet, his voice better modulated, his whole bearing more 
 composed and refined than before. " I will call what I have 
 to tell you," he said, his eyes resting gravely upon them, 
 
 "THE STOKY or ADOLF AND MICHAL. 
 "Once upon a time, ladies and gentlemen," he began, 
 " there lived in a village of France, called Quimper-Corren- 
 tin, two families named respectively Portou and Axelles. 
 They were very plain, very poor, but hard-working people. 
 The Portou family lived out in the fields, and wrought hard 
 as tillers of the soil. They had but one child, a son, Adolf, 
 who was employed as a servant by the cure of the village. 
 Adolf was of a dull and sluggish disposition, but the cure
 
 TEE ROMANCE OF RELIGION. 271 
 
 took a fancy to him, educated him in the common branches, 
 allowed him the use of his library, which consisted only of 
 the 'Lives of the Saints' and kindred books. It so hap 
 pened that the cure was a great lover of natural history. 
 At every spare moment he would scour the fields around, 
 with Adolf at his heels, in search of birds, moths, butterflies, 
 beetles, snakes, and whatever he thought worth carrying 
 home he would impale with pins, would stuff, or preserve in 
 spirits. In this way Adolf Portou became as fond of such 
 studies as his master, became even more expert, since the 
 cure was short and fat, in catching and preserving whatever 
 he could find to add to his collection. On Sundays the boy 
 would throw the proper vestments over his coarse clothing, 
 and assist the cure at Mass as an altar-boy. And thus, as 
 the years rolled by, Adolf became at once a naturalist and a 
 devout Catholic. He remained a heavy-featured, dull-vis- 
 aged, slow-spoken person, and would have lived and died 
 such, if it had not been for one thing. Now, what was that ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I know," the lady at the instrument remarked with 
 a laugh ; and so certain was she that she proceeded to play 
 a very lively air. " For you refer," she said, when she had 
 finished, " to a young village maiden, of course." 
 
 " You are right. In the village of Quimper-Correntin 
 lived a girl some years younger than Adolf, an only daughter 
 in the family of the Axelles, named Michal. She was a very 
 pretty girl, with eyes like black beads, teeth like pearls, lips 
 like scarlet ; above all, a tongue which was as swift and 
 restless as her eyes, her hands, her feet. The village girls 
 called her La Hirondelle, she was in such incessant motion, 
 like a swallow." 
 
 The audience glanced at Ellen Ellsworth, to whom the 
 description closely applied, but she shook her head at them 
 threateningly, and Henry proceeded. " Michal was appar 
 ently a good girl, exceedingly industrious, a remarkably 
 neat housekeeper ; her only fault was that she was given to 
 excessive fun. She laughed at Adolf when she saw him at 
 work in the onion-field. He could not come home past her
 
 272 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 house with a netful of butterflies, a dead snake hanging 
 over his arm, a box of bugs strapped on his back, without 
 being stopped, examined, and teased unmercifully upon his 
 game. Not even the presence of the priest could restrain 
 her. She carried her spirit of mockery to church. Adolf 
 dared not look toward the congregation during Mass. It 
 made not a particle of difference that he had on his robes 
 as an acolyte, that he held a censer in his hand, that he was 
 kneeling and making the sign of the cross ; if he forgot him 
 self and glanced at the people, he was sure to see Michal. 
 She was kneeling, it is true, like the rest ; but as soon as 
 their eyes met she would make a face at him, and he would 
 have to smother his laughter and his indignation alike in a 
 pretense of coughing. The older they grew the worse it 
 became the worse, for " And lifting his hand, Henry 
 whispered to the orchestra, " Pathetic music, if you please." 
 " For," he continued, as the sad strains sank sobbing 
 themselves into silence, " for the poor fellow was desperately 
 in love with Michal. The cure" remonstrated with his charge. 
 * You are falling into the wiles of the devil,' he said to him 
 every day. 'It is a just vengeance upon her parents for 
 naming a child after that accursed daughter of King Saul, 
 who mocked at David when he was worshiping God,' and 
 the good priest, who was getting old and short of breath, 
 waxed red in the face as he spoke. * You had agreed to 
 become both priest and a naturalist, and here comes this imp 
 of darkness ' ' Michal is nothing of the kind,' Adolf would 
 interrupt ; ' she is an angel of light instead, and we love 
 each other.' ' You thick-headed oaf ! ' the priest would say, 
 ' do I not know ? That girl has been a child of evil from 
 her birth. She looked up at me with a smile of derision 
 when I baptized her as a babe eighteen years ago. She will 
 not learn her catechism. Her rosary is worn only as an or 
 nament. I do not believe that she tells me anything but lies 
 in the confessional. She withholds the truth and charges 
 herself there with a thousand things she has only dreamed 
 of. When I reason with her, she laughs. When I threaten
 
 TEE ROMANCE OF RELIGION. 973 
 
 her, she laughs. She laughs when I inflict penance or refuse 
 absolution. I have seen her laugh in the very face of the 
 Blessed Virgin while on her knees before her image, even 
 when receiving the Host. She is possessed of the devil ! 
 Fly from her, my son, as you would from Satan himself.' 
 
 " But," Henry added, " what good did it all do ? What 
 good does it ever do ? The parents of Adolf died after 
 a while, leaving him their little home and a stockingful of 
 francs hidden under the thatch. Michal had her way ; such 
 women always do. Sorely against his will, the cure married 
 them. Then " But, without waiting for any signal, the 
 orchestra struck up a wedding-march. The audience laughed 
 and clapped their hands, applauding both Michal and Adolf, 
 as well as the music. 
 
 But Henry smiled upon them with pity. " You rejoice 
 too soon," he said, when the music ceased. " For, hardly 
 had they been married a year before a certain Guelf 
 Asnieres, who was doing business as a tobacco-smuggler 
 in Paris, came back to his native village upon a visit. 
 As everybody well knew, Guelf was a thoroughly unprin 
 cipled scamp, a Red of the deepest dye, an atheist, and 
 given to drink and gambling. He was none the less a 
 handsome fellow. His black mustache, bright eyes, rapid 
 tongue, Parisian ways, made poor Adolf seem in comparison 
 a stupid country lout. It is a sad story ; but when Adolf 
 came home one cold January day from his hard work in 
 the fields came home at night with his usual slow step 
 hungry, wearied out, he found his house deserted. The dog 
 met him at the gate, whining. The fire was gone out on the 
 hearth ; his wife had fled with Guelf to Paris ! The un 
 principled couple had robbed him also of the last franc ; 
 had taken even his Sunday clothes, and an old silver watch 
 which had come down to him for generations. All night 
 the poor, stupid, trusting husband lay upon the ground of 
 his desolate home, weeping, groaning, praying. The next 
 day he borrowed some money and started to Paris in search 
 of Michal. Of course, he might as sensibly have tried to find
 
 274: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 a coin lost in the Atlantic ; at least, the cur6 told him that 
 when he persisted in going, and told him so over again when 
 he returned without her, or any tidings of her. ' She is of 
 the devil, and always has been,' the old man said ; ' she has 
 gone back to her father, the black Satan, my son. Thank 
 God for your deliverance ! ' 
 
 " And thus," Henry continued, " matters seemed to slide 
 back into their former grooves. Adolf worked hard ; went 
 to church on Sundays and saints' days ; hunted for butter 
 flies and reptiles whenever he could. At the suggestion of 
 the cure he became a lay brother of the Jesuits. Gradu 
 ally he gave up the study of animal life in his devotion to 
 his order ; became first an enthusiast, then a fanatic. One 
 day he came to the cure with the key of his house. ' I am 
 going to Paris to find Michal,' he said. ' Never again can 
 she be my wife ; I go to save her soul ! ' He was so deter 
 mined that the cure saw in it a divine call, and gave Adolf 
 his blessing. But," Henry added, " it is too long and too 
 terrible a story to tell young ladies. Enough to say that 
 the deserted husband found Michal at last. Guelf had 
 robbed and forsaken her long before. She had become an 
 exceedingly wicked woman in every sense ; her very soul 
 seemed poisoned. She was a socialist, a Red, an atheist. 
 There was not a more intelligent, determined, desperate 
 woman in her way than she was ; but Adolf gave himself 
 up to following her. She allowed him to do it out of sheer 
 contempt. ' You want to save my soul,' she would say with 
 scorn, ' when I have no soul, and you persist in telling me 
 about le bon Dieu ! You might as well jabber to me about 
 Odin or Thor. Poor Adolf, you always were a fool ; that 
 is why I ran away from you. Convert me if you can ; I am 
 willing.' 
 
 " It was about this time," Henry Harris continued, " that 
 I met Adolf his full name is Adolf Portou for the first 
 time. He had opened a shop in Paris as an articulator of 
 bones ; he had learned the business under the cure of Quim- 
 per-Correntin ; but his chief object was to seek and save
 
 TEE ROMANCE OF RELIGION-. 275 
 
 his wicked wife. She called herself Madame Mosseline, and 
 was at the head of a club of Reds philosophers, they called 
 themselves." And then Henry Harris told his hearers at 
 length about his visit to the club of Madame Mosseline in 
 company with Lord Conyngham, and something of what 
 they saw there. 
 
 The ladies were exceedingly interested. " But how did 
 it end ? " They were eager to know that. 
 
 " I do not know whether it was his mere patient persist 
 ence," Henry added, in regard to M. Portou, " or not. The 
 abandoned woman helped her former husband to pass among 
 her associates as one of them he would not have been al 
 lowed otherwise but she took special pleasure in shocking 
 and distressing him. She would provoke her atheist com 
 panions to say their worst, would herself indulge in horrible 
 blasphemy and all immorality as if to defy the patient- 
 hearted man. No," Henry added, " I can not tell you the 
 whole story, it is too sad ; the woman must have been pos 
 sessed, as the cure said, of the very devil. She was, as I 
 have said, as comely, bright-eyed, neatly dressed, intelligent 
 a woman as you would wish to see. She made her worst 
 associates obey her. Whether, after a long time, it was the 
 determined persistence of her former husband, or her own 
 conscience, or a severe illness she had, I do not know But 
 I will let Mary finish the story ; a little solemn music, if 
 you please ; " and he sat down. 
 
 " Well," Mary began, standing up beside the performer 
 as the music ceased ; "this afternoon Henry and I happened 
 to be at Notre Dame, and there I saw Adolf Portou. My 
 brother had told me that he was a Jesuit, and I was anxious 
 to hear him talk ; " and she recounted what had passed be 
 tween them up to the moment the Jesuit had parted with 
 them in the building into which he led them, and which 
 proved to be a convent of the most austere of nuns. 
 
 " When we glanced about," Mary continued, " we found 
 that we were in a small gallery looking down upon what 
 seemed to be a little chapel. It was dimly lighted from the
 
 276 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 altar, and filled with a silent and kneeling congregation of 
 veiled women. A low music was trembling upon the air 
 from a hidden organ. We waited for some time, but sud 
 denly every candle was lighted, the organ pealed into a 
 wedding-march. Imagine my astonishment when what ap 
 peared to be a bridal procession came up the aisle to the al 
 tar ! At least, there was what seemed to be a bride, superbly 
 dressed in white satin, with a train, and diamonds, flowers, 
 and a white veil covering her from head to foot. She knelt 
 before the priests, and a service of some kind followed, with 
 responses and prayers. There was no bridegroom, however, 
 and all at once some of the black-robed women began to take 
 off her finery from the bride while the choir chanted a dirge. 
 At last the poor thing was left lying prostrate on the floor. 
 Then she was helped up, clad by this time only in black, 
 a white linen cloth about her face. ' Look at her,' Henry 
 whispered to me. I did so, and will remember her corpse- 
 like face for ever. ' Now look at him,' Henry said. It was 
 the Jesuit, and I had been doing so all along, for he was 
 dressed in vestments, and had been assisting the priests. 
 His face was cold and stern. The priest said something to 
 the Jesuit, and he advanced, took the hand of the woman in 
 his, kissed her on the forehead, and stepped back as she sank 
 again upon the floor. Then some women covered her with 
 a black pall to the saddest music I ever heard ; the lights 
 were lowered. As we stole quietly down stairs and into the 
 sunshine again, Henry said to me, ' She is a nun, and he will 
 never see her again. And he has at last, at last ! saved, as 
 he believes, her soul. For that is Adolf and Michal.' " 
 
 There were tears in the eyes of all present as Mary ceased 
 to speak, and, her hands resting lightly on the keys, the 
 Southern girl played and sang softly a beautiful song, with 
 which all were familiar, the refrain of which was, 
 
 " O love, love, victorious love! " 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Harris said, when the music ended, " fa 
 natic as your Jesuit is, Henry, in the case of his wretched
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 277 
 
 wife his is a fanaticism of affection, also, which it is impos 
 sible not to admire." 
 
 " His society has," her son replied, " for its motto, Ad 
 major am Dei gloriam, that is, they will do whatever they 
 think is for the greater glory of God ; perinde ac cadaver, 
 obedient as a corpse to authority. France has always been 
 confronted by some terrible foe, the Bourbon, the Robes 
 pierre, the Napoleon, of the hour. You admire his spirit, 
 and yet, to-day the Republic seems to be victorious ; but if I 
 were a painter I would depict her as Joan of Arc risen from 
 the dead, and on the alert with keen eyes and ready sword 
 against the twin specters which bar her path and seek to 
 strike her down. One of these is the Jesuit, and the other " 
 
 " Is the atheist," Mrs. Harris said for her son, " and God 
 alone knows which is the worst." 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 
 
 THE morning after young Harris and his sister told their 
 friends the story of Adolf and Michal, he came, as he was 
 riding out toward Versailles, upon his friend Lord Conyng- 
 ham, also on horseback. The nobleman was returning from 
 his ride, but was not in his usual spirits. He seemed to be 
 fagged out, and was riding with slackened rein and troubled 
 brow ; but his face brightened as he recognized the Ameri 
 can, and, after a few words, he turned his horse's head and 
 went with him. 
 
 " What a beastly world it is ! " he said, after a while. It 
 was a beautiful morning ; both of the young men had appar 
 ently all that heart could wish to make them happy, and 
 Henry said, " Do you think so ? " but he could readily imag 
 ine what occupied the mind of the other. However Earl 
 Dorrington might outwardly consent to the marriage of his
 
 278 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 son and heir to Mary Harris, such an alliance, Henry knew 
 as well as his companion, was dreadfully against the wishes 
 of the old Tory. But there were things which no one out 
 side of the family could know, for, as with the poorest, pro 
 vided they possess good sense, to say nothing of good breed 
 ing, household affairs were the last topics upon which the 
 members thereof would converse with strangers. Now, as 
 Lord Conyngham had told his friend, Lady Blanche stood 
 his ally in regard to Mary Harris. She did so, because she 
 had learned to love the fair American very sincerely, but 
 chiefly because she was convinced that her brother's success 
 in life, as well as happiness, was concerned. In all England 
 there was hardly a young woman but was, unless already 
 engaged, at his choice. The old Earl had often gone over 
 the roll, so to speak, of possible wives for his son ; had gone 
 carefully over it with his daughter, who was his only confi 
 dential companion now that her mother was dead. One lady 
 was wealthy, but too homely to be thought of. Another 
 was beautiful and of excellent birth, but without sufficient 
 dower. Yet another was beautiful, rich, of high rank, but 
 too frivolous to be the wife of a man who aspired to hold 
 an influential position in the affairs of England and of na 
 tions, as also in fashionable circles. Not that Lady Blanche 
 and her father did not know of many an Englishwoman of 
 high intellect, but some of these were too old, too opinion 
 ated. 
 
 " Or too ugly ; for," Lady Blanche reasoned, " if Alfred 
 is to take the stand we wish, he must have a wife whom he 
 can love and be proud of. Now," she said to the Earl, only 
 the day before Lord Conyngham had come upon his friend 
 the American as he rode, " I believe that for every Adam 
 God makes a definite Eve. So far as I can see, Mary Harris 
 is the only woman who combines all the qualities with none 
 of the defects. You know what Aspasia was to Pericles ? " 
 
 " I know," the Earl remarked, " what Lady Palmerston 
 was to her husband : the secret soul of his political success, 
 if that is what you mean."
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 279 
 
 "Yes, sir. Now," said Lady Blanche, bitterly, "no 
 woman could make anything of the Duke of Plymouth, but 
 in this case there is some hope. My brother's entire future 
 depends upon his marrying her, so far as I can see. If he 
 does not, he will dawdle away his life in billiard-halls and 
 club-rooms, like so many of his class, disgracing us, most 
 likely, by disreputable connections, to be married at last to 
 some inferior woman. Let him follow his heart and marry 
 her, and she will make him a success in spite, if necessary, 
 of himself. I want to see him made a duke, and so does 
 that beautiful, sensible, ambitious American girl. Our fam 
 ily needs new blood," and then the poor girl thought of the 
 Duke to whom she was betrothed, and turned pale. 
 
 " Miss Harris has no ancestry," groaned the Earl. " Her 
 father is not even a tradesman ; he was a common mechanic 
 an engineer. No, I can not consent ! Whatever I may 
 have said, I can not, can not ! Worse, if possible, the young 
 woman is an American. I detest Americans ! " the Earl 
 continued ; " they are parvenus, upstarts, mushrooms. The 
 Spaniard, the Russian, the French, or the German, is bad 
 enough, but the American ! Not only is he insolent, aggres 
 sive, boastful, ostentatious, without reverence for his superi 
 ors, but he speaks English, is a sort of relative of whom we 
 can not be rid, go where we may." 
 
 " Is Mr. George Harris insolent ? Is his son an up 
 start in bearing ? Is Mary Harris boastful, or her mother, 
 and" 
 
 " Assuredly not," her father interrupted her ; for he was 
 truthful and a gentleman to the core. " It is of the Yankee 
 in general that I speak. Why Heaven allowed their republic 
 to stand I can not see. With all the nobility, I counted con 
 fidently upon the success of Jefferson Davis. When Louis 
 Napoleon urged England to recognize and help him, we 
 ought to have done so, as I said at the time. No, I grant 
 you that Miss Harris is amiable, estimable ; but, Blanche, 
 you and your brother must wait until I die ! The traditions, 
 the prejudices, the life-long habits, in me of too many gen-
 
 280 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 erations, are against it. I can not consent. You must wait. 
 The sacrifice is too great ! " 
 
 " Is it as great, sir," his daughter demanded, " as mine in 
 consenting to become the Duchess of Plymouth ? " But as 
 she spoke she observed for the first time a peculiar ashen 
 something in the face of the Earl, generally so ruddy ; his 
 lips were white, his eyes dim, his hand trembled, and, with 
 terror for what might befall, she ceased to contend, and 
 kissed him instead. But her face was cold and hard even as 
 she did so. 
 
 " You must wait," she said to her brother, bitterly, " if 
 you would not kill him. I do my part as a daughter when 
 the Duke is in question." 
 
 It was of this that Lord Conyngham had been thinking 
 as he rode beside his friend ; but all that he said was, " Have 
 you heard from your father yet in regard to my suit ? " 
 
 " Yes, my lord," the American replied, " and it is only 
 what I have already had the honor to tell you myself. Apart 
 from your rank, there is no man we would like better for my 
 sister. To us your rank is a much more serious objection 
 than if you were very poor, or without a profession. But, 
 in any case, it is impossible for my father or myself to give 
 any reply to your suit until we are approached upon the 
 subject by your father the Earl." It was said gravely. 
 
 Lord Conyngham uttered something very like an oath, 
 gave his horse a cut, then reined him in. " You do not 
 know the Earl ! " he said at last. 
 
 " No, but we do know ourselves," the other replied. 
 " We like you sincerely, my lord, and we are profoundly 
 concerned in the happiness of Mary ; but, whatever befalls, 
 we can do nothing which even seems to place us on a lower 
 level than that which your father occupies. When the Earl 
 asks the hand of Mary of her parents he shall have his an 
 swer." It was said very quietly. The American had seen 
 too much of English insolence not to assert himself when it 
 was necessary ; moreover, he had been hurt to the soul by 
 the course of Lady Blanche.
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 281 
 
 "As things go," he had argued with himself, "the Duke 
 is a splendid match, as it is called, for her. Nothing more 
 natural than that she should yield to the temptation, espe 
 cially when the urgency of her father and of every relative 
 and friend she has is to the same end. And yet the Duke is 
 a worn-out roue, and she knows it. Making all allowance 
 for her education, how a true woman a pure and noble wo 
 man can sacrifice herself to such a Moloch I can not under 
 stand. She need not marry me, but to marry him ! " He 
 had almost forgotten who rode by him as he said to himself 
 in addition, as he had often done before : " I am an engineer, 
 and have lived too much among machinery to permit myself 
 to be crushed by the wheels. At best, Lady Blanche, beau 
 tiful as she is, is but a glittering part of the social mill. 
 You are very lovely, my lady, but I do not propose to perish 
 at your feet ! " 
 
 Which shows how little we know our own hearts. Mrs. 
 Harris and Mary had spoken of it to each other ; for, of all 
 persons, Henry was the one of whom they thought and con 
 versed most. " Even if there were no other objections," the 
 mother had said to her daughter, " it would never do. Henry 
 and Lady Blanche are too much alike to be happy together. 
 If she is proud, he is as much, if not more so. In an un 
 happy moment an unguarded word would surely be spoken 
 by her, by him, it matters not which. It would need but 
 one word. Like a spark to a train, it could not be recalled, 
 and there would follow misery unspeakable." 
 
 " There would be no fear of that between between " 
 But Mary could not complete her thought. 
 
 " Between your lover and yourself ? No," her mother 
 said, with a smile. " I have no fear that you would quarrel ; 
 but your father, your brother, and myself are agreed, and 
 you will agree with us, until the Earl asks your hand, we 
 can do nothing." 
 
 And Mary, hesitating a little, had said, " Don't you think, 
 mamma, that a new influence is helping Henry to endure his 
 disappointment ? "
 
 282 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 The fact is, as he and his English friend rode together in 
 silence, he had ceased to think of Lady Blanche. The time 
 had been when she was almost his only thought, although 
 she had never come into his very practical mind except as in 
 a sort of halo of impossible possession. When he thought 
 of her now, his mind glanced away to Isidore Atchison. 
 From, in fact, the outset of his acquaintance with her he had 
 fallen into the habit of comparing Lady Blanche with the 
 artist. At first, the Englishwoman entered his mind ac 
 companied by the young girl, as a stately lady is attended by 
 a maid of honor, who lingers behind and smiles and blushes 
 in the shadow of her mistress. Then the two presented 
 themselves to his thought side by side, in strong contrast. 
 Lady Blanche was the statelier, the more striking, but the 
 shy yet joyous Isidore was more homelike, easier of access, 
 appealing to him as a younger sister might have done. Lady 
 Blanche was cold in comparison to the childlike cordiality of 
 the other ; was almost artificial in contrast, so purely native 
 and natural was the daughter of the old artist. 
 
 It was a silent ride the two friends had of it. " We 
 have got into a dead-lock," the nobleman was the first to ob 
 serve. 
 
 " So it seems," was the cold reply. 
 
 " I say, Harris," Lord Conyngham demanded, " I thought 
 that in your country the young people fall in love and marry 
 without all this accursed red tape. Isn't that so ? " 
 
 " It used to be so, my lord, but," the other replied, " our 
 young men, at least, are growing more sensible ; even they 
 are ceasing to yield to mere passion. Now a man allows 
 himself to fall in love only when he can see his way clear 
 to an income which will support a family. In this case we 
 are dealing with something vastly more important than in 
 come ; we have to do with Earl Dorrington." 
 
 " Do you know," Lord Conyngham said, " we did our 
 best to persuade your sister to run away ? I believe it 
 was Blanche who suggested it ; in any case, she went into 
 the idea with all her heart. We made every arrangement ;
 
 THE INEVITABLE. 283 
 
 Blanche was to go with us, a clergyman was in waiting, 
 everything was so neatly planned, but your sister would not 
 hear of it ! " 
 
 " No, I suppose not," the other said, with a laugh. " You 
 did not know her, or you would not have proposed it, my 
 lord. When will you understand us ? " the American said, 
 with an impatient gesture. " Try and understand ! We are 
 plain, practical, matter-of-fact people. We never act except 
 as in broad day. We ask favors of no one ; fear no one ; 
 consider ourselves inferior to none." 
 
 " Noblesse oblige, hey ? and," the Englishman exclaimed, 
 " there are millions of you in that remarkable America of 
 yours ! Forty million democratic dukes and duchesses of you ! 
 No, it is of no use ; I can not understand you Americans ! " 
 
 " They say that the census of 1880 will make us fifty 
 millions, my lord, but," the other added, gravely, " we have 
 no such inferior order of nobility as dukes among us ; every 
 man is a king, every woman is a queen, I assure you. They 
 had a vague idea of this even here when they dubbed poor 
 old Louis Philippe King of the French not of France. 
 With us, America is more than a nation composed of nations ; 
 it is a sovereignty composed of sovereigns. Now " 
 
 " Mr. Henry Harris," Lord Conyngham broke in, " Amer 
 ica, with every State and Territory in it, Canada thrown in, 
 may be con to put it in the mildest way founded! as also 
 may England, all Europe ! What I care for is your sister. 
 Meanwhile, I have only one thing to say : suppose we go to 
 Russia. We have long proposed to do so. I must either 
 do that or take to absinthe and baccarat. Something may 
 turn up while we are gone. What do you say ? " 
 
 A long conversation followed upon this. 
 
 That night, just before "going to bed, Henry suddenly 
 said to his mother, " By the by, you have not given either 
 to Mary or myself the present you promised for finding your 
 favorite works of art." 
 
 " That is a fact," echoed his sister ; " what are our presents 
 to be, and when are they to be ? "
 
 284: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " My children," Mrs. Harris said, gravely, " I have not 
 forgotten what I promised. You shall each of you have your 
 gift, and," the wise lady added, with a loving smile, " I will 
 guarantee that each of you will be more than satisfied when 
 I give it." There was so much of meaning in the words 
 that the young people looked at her with sudden surprise ; 
 but Mr. George Harris, who had lately returned from Rus 
 sia, laughed outright, a thing he rarely did. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 ART AND HEART. 
 
 THE matter of Achilles Deschards had rested upon the 
 mind, and upon the heart, too, of Henry Harris, as a heavy 
 burden. After long and thorough investigation he had come 
 to know that the versatile and venal Bohemian was beyond 
 doubt the son of Zerah Atchison and the Delira of the ar 
 tist's youth. And yet so far he could not bring himself to 
 reveal to those most concerned the secret in which they, of 
 all, were most interested. After considering the matter with 
 his mother, he determined to bring the affair to a crisis, for, 
 if Mr. Atchison and Isidore were to go with him to Russia, 
 some final decision must be reached. 
 
 In accordance with the suggestions of Mrs. Harris, her 
 son contrived to bring Achilles Deschards to the studio one 
 afternoon when she was present. Deeply interested in the 
 man, Henry had associated himself with him so long and 
 so closely that they were as intimate as persons of charac 
 ter so diverse could be, and the American had little diffi 
 culty in inducing the other to go with him. Of a disposition 
 as intense as it was restless, the Bohemian was ever on the 
 alert for a new sensation, and he glanced swiftly about him 
 when he came into the room. 
 
 " Is there anything in mere relationship ? " Mrs. Harris
 
 ART AND HEART. 285 
 
 had been asking herself, " which will compel this father to 
 recognize a son whom he has never seen ? Can this son know 
 a father of whom he has not even heard ? " For, as she 
 knew, Achilles Deschards had never been told that the man 
 who had stolen his mother from Zerah Atchison was not his 
 father. He was, in fact, utterly ignorant of the early events 
 in the life of his mother. So far as he was aware, she had 
 herself been born in France, and had never been outside of 
 it. It was natural that Mrs. Harris should await the result 
 with almost painful interest. 
 
 When the aged artist looked up from the picture of 
 Delira for he could not tear himself away from perpetually 
 touching and retouching it he returned in his usual quiet 
 way the salutations of the gentlemen. As had become the 
 habit of his life, he fastened his eyes upon the stranger who 
 accompanied Henry Harris with sharp, penetrating gaze. 
 A lapidary looks in that way at the stones which come un 
 der his observation, however cursorily, and can tell in the 
 first glance the diamond from the imitation. So of a banker : 
 when notes or coin pass within the sweep of his eyes, whether 
 he has anything to do with them or not, and from sheer force 
 of dealing with such things, an instinctive estimate is made, 
 Good or counterfeit ? If good, what is the amount ? Where, 
 in such case, there is any doubt, one touch with the adroit 
 finger, and the man of money says to himself, almost with 
 his eyes shut : " This note is good, is bad ; this gold is al 
 loyed ; this silver is pure," as the fact may be. Now, to the 
 artist, men and women were as the jewels, the money, with 
 which he had to do. He might have taken the worst wine 
 for the best, the clumsiest paste for the true diamond, the 
 poorest counterfeit for the good money, but it was very dif 
 ferent where a man was concerned or a woman ; then his 
 unerring decision struck through the mere outer appearance 
 to the very soul, which is at last the real person. 
 
 Even in the act of introduction, the old critic was say 
 ing to himself of Deschards : " By what accident is it that 
 this friend of mine is associated with such as you? He
 
 286 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 is thoroughly true, genuine, reliable, while your inmost na 
 ture is adulterated, perverted. And yet what noble eyes ! 
 what an intellectual brow ! Surely some cruel circumstance 
 has seized upon and twisted this soul awry even from in 
 fancy ! " 
 
 Both Mrs. Harris and her son were watching the artist 
 closely. " Yes, he is struck with him, interested in him ! " 
 they were saying to themselves. " Surely blood will tell ; at 
 least a father must recognize his own child ! " 
 
 Alas ! the only interest of the artist was in Deschards 
 as probably the best Mephistopheles he had as yet encoun 
 tered. Mrs. Harris and her son glanced at Isidore. She had 
 acknowledged the salutations of the gentlemen with her 
 wonted modest grace, but it was evidently plain that the 
 stranger was more interested in her than she was in him. 
 Had she put her rapid ideas into words, they would have 
 been : " And here is the man I saw with his old mother that 
 day. Yes, he evidently is what Mr. Harris described him to 
 be, talented but unprincipled. Poor fellow ! Absinthe ! 
 Intellect ! No conscience ! Atheist and yet," and she 
 looked at him again, " he loves his old mother ! " 
 
 Meanwhile, Henry Harris introduced him also to Mrs. 
 Harris, and the conversation became general, even animated. 
 The sincerest thoughts of every one there were not always 
 uttered, yet much was talked about. Achilles Deschards 
 moved around the apartment, looking rapidly at the pic 
 tures, the carvings, full of compliment, placing himself near 
 Isidore, engaging her in lively talk, while a feeling of almost 
 profound disappointment fell upon the mother and son. 
 
 But their expectation revived as the stranger stood at 
 last beside the picture of his own mother. He seemed to be 
 exceedingly struck by it, declared it to be a masterpiece, and 
 was extravagant in his praises. 
 
 " Do JQ\\ know, sir," he remarked at length to the artist, 
 after gazing upon it steadily, " that your portrait is exceed 
 ingly like what I can imagine my mother must have been 
 when young ? And the likeness grows upon me ! "
 
 ART AND HEART. 287 
 
 Mrs. Harris glanced at her son with eager eyes ; her 
 heart rose to her lips ; she was witnessing one of the sub 
 tlest, profoundest workings of nature. Surely the father 
 would recognize the son ! 
 
 " Look at it in this light, if you please." As Henry Har 
 ris said it, he contrived to place Deschards beside the wonder 
 ful painting, so that the artist and Isidore, too, could not 
 help contrasting the son with the almost living effigy of his 
 mother. The likeness was so startling that Mrs. Harris could 
 scarcely restrain herself. " They must be blind, must be 
 absolutely stupid, not to see it ! " she said almost aloud. 
 
 But they did not, and, after more conversation, in which 
 the visitor praised the painting, as well as the carvings, in 
 the warmest terms, he begged permission to call again and 
 took his departure. 
 
 " I am free to say," Mrs. Harris remarked to her son 
 when they were together in their hotel that night, " that I 
 have rarely been more mistaken, more disappointed. It 
 seemed impossible that there should be no recognition. 
 What a pity ! " 
 
 " Yes, it is a pity ! " was the reply. 
 
 But, strange to say, her son was thinking of Lady 
 Blanche instead. "That I should not have known her /" he 
 was complaining to himself. " That she should not have 
 known me ! and when we knew almost everything concern 
 ing each other, were thrown, and for so long, into such close 
 relation to each other ! We even supposed that we loved 
 each other ! And yet I knew as little about her real self as 
 if she were Queen Elizabeth instead. And she never saw me 
 in her life, never will know me as I am ! " But, ah ! the dull, 
 deep pain of it all ! Yet his pain was as nothing to what 
 Lady Blanche endured. She did know, did appreciate him. 
 And with her the alternative was the Duke of Plymouth. 
 While, irresistibly breaking through his sorrow like spring 
 through the chill of winter, as slowly and imperceptibly too, 
 the daughter of the artist was changing his loss into un 
 speakable gain. But, if he was conscious of it at all, it was 
 13
 
 288 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 only as is the oak which feels, not understanding it, the 
 blind motions within itself of approaching summer. 
 
 " I am coming to understand it," the mother said to her 
 son a few days afterward. 
 
 " To understand what ? " he asked, coloring almost guilt 
 ily under her calm eyes. He was thinking of Lady Blanche. 
 
 " To understand why there was no recognition between 
 the father and the son. It is because there was no relation 
 ship, at last, of soul between them. The son is a thoroughly 
 bad man, and has," Mrs. Harris continued, " for everybody 
 except his mother a bitter indifference, if not contempt. 
 The father and the daughter have no love except for the 
 character, the inmost heart and soul, of any whom they meet. 
 When the whole person is as utterly perverted as in the case 
 of Deschards, I doubt if in the other world even, and through 
 eternity, recognition, much less relationship, will continue. 
 No, Henry, I would not say anything to them of the matter, 
 at least not yet. Wait. Recognition in this case would 
 only bring misery to the father and to Isidore. As to the 
 son, his character is fixed ; even they could not change him." 
 
 " And it is circumstance which has made him what he is ; 
 is it his fault ? " 
 
 " Yes, circumstance, and the most powerful circumstance 
 of all is the overpowering influence in him," Mrs. Harris re 
 plied, " of the peculiar character of Delira, his mother. But 
 that, my son, is one of the terrible mysteries which can be 
 solved only when we come, in a world wherein is no night, 
 to know even as also we are known. The one thing we do 
 know now is that Heaven makes accurate allowance for 
 everything. No one is punished except for his own delib 
 erate wrong-doing against sufficient light."
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 289 
 
 CHAPTER LVL 
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 " I AM glad I came with you ! " 
 
 It was Lord Conyngham who said it to his American 
 friend. They were standing together upon the highest of 
 the gilded galleries which ornament the lofty spires of the 
 Admiralty edifice in St. Petersburg. The air was bright 
 and bracing, and the young men were full of the ardor and 
 energy which flushes the very soul also of those who are em 
 barked upon a noble but hazardous enterprise. The capital 
 of Russia lay at their feet like a vast picture. " Yes, and 
 so am I," Henry Hams said, more calmly. " I was weary 
 of Paris and of the Exposition. When I have been shut up 
 too long in what is styled the best society, I become like a 
 bad boy imprisoned in a dark closet ; I batter at the door 
 with fist and foot until I am let out, otherwise I break it 
 down. You have been in St. Petersburg before, my lord, 
 but it is a noble sight, is it not ? When Peter the Great 
 stood here in 1703 upon the bank of the Neva, it was almost 
 as when the Creator took chaos in hand at creation. You 
 see those islands which make up the Delta ; well, this region 
 was then one vast malarious marsh. I like a strong man ! 
 Peter said : ' Let St. Petersburg exist ! ' and here it is ! " 
 
 "Yes, here it is," his companion added, "a city of one 
 hundred and fifty bridges, three hundred churches, seven 
 hundred thousand people, covering an area of over forty 
 square miles. I have been informing myself, you see. Five 
 hundred streets, think of it ! and not a lane or alley in the 
 city. Yonder runs the Nevskoi Prospekt, one hundred and 
 thirty feet broad, four miles long, the finest street in Chris 
 tendom, they say." 
 
 "I like Russia," the American responded. "See those 
 long lines of houses, like soldiers in gray uniform. They form 
 themselves in those sixty-four hollow squares you see to the 
 north and the south, or'deploy like skirmishers over Aptekar-
 
 290 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 skoi, Kammanoi, and the other islands yonder. Russia is 
 young. Like America, it is rough and very strong." What 
 the speaker did not add aloud was, " And Russia and Amer 
 ica are the twin masters of the future." 
 
 " Do you know," his companion added, " that the Emperor 
 can put forty thousand troops through their evolutions in the 
 Field of Mars yonder ? The Winter Palace over there is ac 
 knowledged to be the most magnificent on earth ; yonder is 
 the University with its five hundred students, and I can see 
 the roof of the Imperial Library, which has over eleven hun 
 dred thousand volumes. There is something outside of Eng 
 land, I must confess ! " 
 
 " Ther,e are two thousand pictures and more than a hun 
 dred thousand books in the Hermitage Palace across the 
 Neva," his friend said, as they turned at last to go. "I 
 have lived in Russia," he added, as they came slowly down, 
 "since I was a boy, and how can an American help lik 
 ing it ? It has a territory of eight million square miles ; 
 think of that ! More than double the size of all Europe, with 
 nearly one hundred million people. When my father first 
 came to Russia, in the days of Nicholas, it was as when the 
 first railway engineers crossed the Mississippi going west, 
 only in this case a vaster continent was before him. When 
 the great line was to be thrown across the. empire, every town 
 within five hundred miles on either side wanted the road to 
 run by it. Of course, to accomplish their ends, they did not 
 fail to bribe the nobleman in charge. My father was present 
 when they presented their zigzag route for the approval of 
 the Emperor, and he told me that he never enjoyed anything 
 more than when he saw the Emperor spread the map upon 
 a table, place an iron ruler with an end at each terminus, 
 and then, with a red pencil, which he took from my fa 
 ther's hand, draw a line, straight as an arrow, from point to 
 point. ' The road will be built along that ! ' he said, and 
 left the room. And it was. My father preserves the impe 
 rial pencil still. When Nicholas died, less than three thou 
 sand miles of rail had been laid."
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 291 
 
 " I see that you are in haste to return to Prince Kalit- 
 zoff's," Lord Conyngham said, with a smile, as the two men 
 stood at length in the great square of the Admiralty. " Do 
 not forget that we are to visit the Annitchkoff Palace. I 
 am by no means as deeply interested in St. Petersburg as 
 you are. Good-by ; you know my hotel." 
 
 There was that in the manner of the Englishman which 
 caused the American to color a little as he bade him good 
 day, and walked in an opposite direction. Two weeks be 
 fore they had left Paris. But not alone. Zerah Atchison 
 could see no object which justified him in refusing the offer 
 of Prince Kalitzoff and remaining in Paris. It is true, he 
 had heard nothing as yet of his lost son, but he had long 
 ago learned to wait. He had been brought from Virginia to 
 Paris by no planning of his own. Now that the way, with 
 out any thought of his, had been opened for his daughter to 
 go to the Russian capital, " I go there," he had said, " be 
 cause that is the one thing to do. And I am glad you agree 
 \vith me, Isidore." 
 
 " You dear father ! " she replied, " you and I are like a 
 pair of pigeons, except that we have no home of our own 
 anywhere in all the world. Here we are, high up in the sky, 
 with the wide, wide earth lying below us, nothing about 
 us but the sunshine, and the winds, and the immeasurable 
 heavens ! The least thing can turn us one way or the other. 
 We curve about as easily as birds on the wing. Yes, I am 
 willing to go to China, if you say so. If the man in the 
 moon were to ask me to visit him a while, provided you went 
 with me, I would say ' Yes.' When you die, father dear, all 
 I beg is that you will let me go with you. I am ready for 
 anything." 
 
 Her father looked at her with loving eyes. Until within 
 a few weeks he had been as the child and she as the parent. 
 Of late Isidore had become a child once more. The respon 
 sibilities of a father were pressing upon him as never before. 
 A singular change had come over his daughter. Not that 
 she was not as thoughtful of him as before ; or that she
 
 292 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 did not seem outwardly as brave and hopeful as ever. In 
 fact, she talked and laughed and sang and worked more 
 eagerly than before ; but the old artist had too sensitive 
 an insight not to know that her outer gladness was put en. 
 Evidently she had entered into a new world, of thought at 
 least, into which he could not accompany her. She had long 
 periods also of absence. "I was at the Louvre, at the Expo 
 sition," she would explain when she came back ; but she 
 moved among the miles of pictures in the Louvre as if the 
 walls were bare instead. She threaded her way through the 
 crowds of the Exposition, among the brilliant display, as if 
 she were in an uninhabited desert. 
 
 " I must be losing my mind," she remonstrated with her 
 self. " Why is it that I lay awake at night, when I am so 
 tired, too ? How is it that Paris is little more to me than a 
 dull village? I have no appetite, no interest in anything. 
 Really, I care no more for art than I do for arithmetic, and I 
 used to be so ambitious, too. Worst of all, I must be losing 
 my very soul. I do not seem to love even my dear old father 
 as I used to do ; and here I am crying as if I were a baby. 
 What is the matter with me ? " But all this took place in 
 the privacy of her inmost heart, and she would bathe her 
 face, arrange her hair, array herself in some new article of 
 dress, and kiss her father, talk with him, occupy herself in 
 some task more feverishly than before. As if from the ur 
 gency of the case he had come to be a mother to her also, 
 Zerah Atchison exerted himself more than ever to enter into 
 her moods to entertain her as he best could. He could not, 
 however, but be conscious that Isidore was not really listen 
 ing to him. Even when he was talking of art to her in his 
 brightest vein, she would say, " Yes, father ; " " No, father ; " 
 " You are right, sir ; " " So I think, too," and would have 
 said the same had he been telling her of the irruptions 
 more than a thousand years ago of the Goths into Italy. 
 
 The old artist saw and knew the meaning of all this, even 
 when he seemed to be blind. He could not have had so 
 unerring an insight as to objects of art if he had not been
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 293 
 
 able to see through mere color and curve in the case of his 
 daughter also, and he was glad to get her away from herself, 
 if possible, by taking her from Paris. Yes, he would fly 
 farther than to Russia if he could bear Isidore with him 
 from that which he began to dread, however patient he 
 might be, with terror. " He will be with us only while on 
 our journey," the father said to himself ; " after we get to 
 St. Petersburg we will see him no more for ever." 
 
 But the artist did not allow for what might take place 
 during the journey. By some blind instinct Lord Conyng- 
 ham devoted himself almost the whole way to Zerah Atchi- 
 son. The young nobleman had come to feel an indifference 
 the most profound in relation to all women except one, and 
 Isidore was given over by him, even more than due courtesy 
 allowed, to his companion, Henry Harris. Now, there are 
 no circumstances which draw people so closely together as 
 when traveling with each other, and where in the world are 
 fellow-travelers drawn as closely together as when riding on 
 the cars through the long and desolate reaches of Russia ? 
 
 " It reminds me," Henry said to Isidore, seated beside 
 him, " of the deserts of Southern Russia in the days of Cath 
 arine II, when hardly a miserable peasant was to be seen, 
 nor even a hovel, for a hundred versts at a stretch. Catha 
 rine made Potempkin governor of the entire region, and 
 when she proposed to go through it to the Black Sea and 
 witness for herself the vast improvements of which Potemp 
 kin had boasted, he was at his wits' end. In his desperation 
 he caused an immense number of wooden houses to be so 
 made that they could be rapidly erected and taken down. 
 When the Empress got to the edge of the wilderness, she 
 found what seemed to be a flourishing town filled with thriv 
 ing villagers. The instant she was through it the entire 
 town was taken to pieces, hurried ahead in wagons at least, 
 so they say and set up again by the roadside farther on ; and 
 when, in her slow and stately progress, she arrived, it was 
 to find what seemed to be another town, inhabitants and all, 
 as flourishing as that which she had left behind. Potempkin
 
 294 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 repeated the device over and over again along the highway, 
 until she wondered at the innumerable prosperous towns 
 through which she journeyed. Arrived at last, after a 
 travel of many weeks, upon the shores of the Black Sea, and 
 standing delighted in the same old town, now erected for her 
 inspection for the twentieth time upon its edge, Catharine 
 heaped additional wealth and honors upon the governor who 
 had made the desert the most populous and prosperous por 
 tion of her dominions." 
 
 Isidore laughed. "See," she said, as the train moved 
 slowly along, " what a weary wilderness it is. Where do 
 the people live ? Nothing but forest and plain to be seen," 
 and she was not sorry that she had a protector by her side. 
 This was great Russia ! Her father was old and feeble. Ex 
 cept her father and her companions, she was alone in the wide 
 world ! It waa dangerous for both of them, since by an irre 
 sistible fate each was finding in the other his and her highest 
 ideal. Isidore had never loved before. As to her compan 
 ion, he had come to know that what he had once thought to 
 be love for Lady Blanche had really been an admiration 
 merely, admiration so great that he had mistaken it for 
 affection. When the Englishwoman surrendered herself 
 to such a man as the Duke of Plymouth, she repelled the 
 American from her with a force which startled him, it was 
 so much like unspeakable disgust. And now he was thrown 
 into intimate relations with a woman who was the most 
 charming because the most perfect of contrasts to the lady 
 of rank. Yes ; she was as beautiful, more beautiful, than 
 Lady Blanche ! The daughter of Earl Dorrington was a 
 creature of society ; here was a woman as fresh from nature 
 itself as Venus arising from the foam of the sea. No palace 
 or castle had she ; no retinue of friends or of servants. Ex 
 cept her father, she was as much alone in the world as Eve 
 in Paradise, unless he who sat beside her was a third. The 
 truth is, these two persons were not journeying toward St. 
 Petersburg. They never thought of Russia, or Prince Ka- 
 litzoff, or of anything in all the world as they went. Each
 
 PRINCE KALITZOFF. 295 
 
 was approaching nearer and nearer to the other. That was 
 all. To each, life had, at last, no other goal but that. 
 
 On reaching, and it astonished them how soon they did 
 so, the capital of Russia, they found the carriages of the 
 Prince awaiting them at the station. Prince Kalitzoff him 
 self stood at the door of their car when they alighted. They 
 were warmly greeted by him, and the father and daughter 
 were driven to his palace upon Nevskoi Prospekt. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 PRINCE KALITZOFP. 
 
 WHEN Prince Kalitzoff assisted Isidore Atchison to alight 
 from the railway train at the St. Petersburg station, she was 
 struck by his appearance. He was quite a large man, with 
 a broad face, kind but sad, of a fair complexion, with dark 
 eyes, his abundant hair and beard being of a color she had 
 never before seen. " It is," her father told her afterward, 
 " of that shade of orange which painters call ' lion's-eye,' and 
 it sets out his pleasing features, his whole person, in fact, as 
 a gilded frame does a picture." 
 
 " Welcome to Holy Russia ! " the Prince said to the artist 
 and his daughter in good English, for he had once been sec 
 retary of legation from Russia to England. " I esteem my 
 self honored by the company of artists above all other of the 
 nobility, and," he added, taking the hand of Isidore again 
 in his, " when one of them is a lady also But, dear me, 
 madame," he added, with an impulsive ardor which made her 
 flush, as Isidore unveiled herself to reply, " you are only a 
 child, a beautiful child ! " In half an hour afterward father 
 and daughter were comfortably housed in their own apart 
 ments. 
 
 The palace of Prince Kalitzoff was one of the largest 
 upon the Nevskoi Prospekt, but the glory of it was the am-
 
 296 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 pie grounds with conservatories and flower-gardens in which 
 it was nestled. At some distance from the stately mansion, 
 and separated from it by a little grove of firs, was a two- 
 storied cottage which the Prince had set apart and hand 
 somely furnished for the exclusive use of his guests. It pos 
 sessed the appointments and conveniences of a comfortable 
 home, and there was a large studio, lighted only by a sky 
 light, which filled Zerah Atchison with delight. 
 
 "I built this cottage," the Prince said, when he visited 
 them a day or two after their arrival, " as an Easter gift to 
 my child, the Princess Aura, of whom you must endure to 
 hear me speak, perhaps too much. You will be wholly inde 
 pendent of me, with, of course, your own table and carriage 
 and servants ; but I will be happy to have you consider my 
 palace as equally at your disposal. My bronzes and paint 
 ings have remained in the palace, covered from sight since 
 the death of my child, and, at your convenience, sir, I hope 
 you will select such as you wish to be conveyed here. As 
 to the monument, I desire you should take your own time, 
 if it be years. I am a lonely man, and I am honored by 
 your company." But it was the evident sincerity of the 
 Prince which gave to his cordial, almost boyish, manner its 
 chief charm, and father and daughter soon found themselves 
 conversing with him as if he had been an old and intimate 
 friend. They found it easy to lead the conversation back to 
 his daughter, and listened with unfeigned interest as he told 
 them, with an exaggeration which was natural in so devoted 
 a parent, many incidents of her short life. 
 
 <: Why is it," he exclaimed, when he arose to leave at last, 
 " that you Americans are so different from the English ? I 
 have, like you, a passion for art, and I know that popes, em 
 perors, and kings have always considered the Michael An- 
 gelos, Rubenses, Titians, Canovas, Thorwaldsens, as more 
 than their equals ; but why is it that, unconsciously to your 
 selves, simply because you are Americans, you make your 
 selves friends also upon first acquaintance ? " And thus, with 
 many kind words, there began between the Russian and his
 
 PRINCE KALITZOFF. 297 
 
 guests an acquaintance which ripened so rapidly, as the 
 time passed, into friendship that Isidore could not refrain 
 from saying in the end to her father, as to herself, "And 
 this is Russia ! Russia ? I feel more at home almost than 
 I did in America." 
 
 " That, my child, is," her father replied, " because, for 
 the first time in your life, you are placed in the sphere to 
 which you naturally belong. It is not often that God docs 
 this until we die. The happiness, the peace, rather, of heav 
 en will consist in our being perfectly fitted for it as it will 
 be for us ; in the deepest sense, dear, you and I will find 
 ourselves perfectly at home there." 
 
 Meanwhile Henry Harris and Lord Conyngham made 
 themselves comfortable at their hotel. Dressed as students, 
 and guided by Toffski, the moujik, who was born in St. Pe 
 tersburg, where he had first become the servant of Henry 
 Harris, the young men penetrated into every part of the 
 city by night as by day. But there was rarely a day that 
 the American did not find himself a visitor at the palace 
 of the Prince or the cottage of the artists. In fact, the 
 Prince was to be found of an evening only with Zerah At- 
 chison and his daughter. He had long secluded himself 
 seemingly from an active part in public affairs, nor had he 
 gone into general society since the death of his daughter. 
 The mother of Princess Aura never was much of a compan 
 ion for him, and she had died many years before her daugh 
 ter. A man of simple and sincere disposition, of warm and 
 loving heart, accustomed all his life to do as he pleased, 
 with little to occupy his attention elsewhere, the Prince 
 came at last to feel as if he was nearest to the daughter he 
 had loved so well when in the cottage he had erected for 
 her, and with the friends who were engaged in bringing her 
 back to him again, so far as it could be done by the power 
 of genius. For artistic purposes, also, they were continu 
 ally asking about the Princess Aura, for the father and 
 daughter were as eager to hear about her as the Prince was 
 to speak.
 
 298 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 And thus it happened that Henry Harris found himself 
 one evening with them in the cozy parlor of the cottage. 
 The invariable samovar of boiling tea was still upon the 
 table, which was heaped with photographs of the dead Prin 
 cess, for it had been her father's weakness to have her taken 
 in all varieties of costume and attitude. In the studio ad 
 joining there were portraits of her also from her earliest 
 infancy, and medallions. Isidore had, in fact, entered with 
 enthusiasm upon her work. 
 
 " I have come," she now said, " to feel as if I knew her 
 all my life. If I had lived with her, I do not see how I 
 could have a clearer conception of her than I have at this 
 moment. When I know and see, almost touch and hear, an 
 ideal, as I am coming to do in regard to her, it is more viv 
 idly before me than if it were actually present. Sleeping 
 and waking, I can not be rid of it, even if I would." 
 
 " I thank you," said the Prince, whose large, slow eyes 
 had been dwelling upon the young girl as she spoke with 
 deep attention, " but you must not allow even my sainted 
 child thus to haunt you. You look pale ; you speak of dis 
 turbed repose. I learn from your perhaps over-anxious ser 
 vants that you eat as little as a canary-bird. We must not 
 allow it," he added to the old artist. " Miss Isidore is in 
 juring her health. As her doctor, also, I prohibit any work 
 for a week or two. You must ride ; must go to the opera 
 more ; must ramble about the city. I can not," he said, with 
 his eyes again upon her, " I will not, suffer you to sacrifice 
 yourself ! " 
 
 As it was said, a sudden something smote Henry Harris 
 almost like a blow. He observed, or imagined he did, a ten 
 derness upon the part of the Prince. When he glanced at 
 Isidore, her face paled and then flushed. He did not know 
 what to make of it. " You must remember," the Prince con 
 tinued, still looking at his lovely young guest, " that you are 
 not in your America now, nor even in republican France. 
 This is Russia ; you are under a despotism. If you do not 
 obey orders, you may find yourself in Siberia."
 
 PRINCE KALITZOFF. 299 
 
 
 
 In however playful a manner it might be said, the young 
 man almost resented it, and hastened to change the subject 
 to the political condition of the empire. The Prince had 
 known George Harris, as well as his son, too long not to 
 speak unreservedly in reply. 
 
 " It is explained in a few words," he summed up at last. 
 " Your Shakespeare says that there are tides in the affairs of 
 men. He is right. The Atlantic does not ebb and flow with 
 more regularity than does the intellect. With this excep 
 tion, that as the Atlantic is but a drop of water compared to 
 the depth and breadth of the human soul, so are the tides of 
 the soul deeper, slower, more certain, more irresistible. The 
 mastery of the world by the Roman Empire was one of these 
 tides, and the decay of that empire was its ebb. There was 
 not a soul in Europe that did not feel the rush of the tide in 
 the days of the Crusades, as well as the subsidence of the 
 reaction which followed. So of the Renaissance. What a 
 grand upheaval, and from the very depths, during that re 
 vival of ancient learning, with its refluent waters afterward ! 
 The Reformation under Huss, Wickliffe, Luther, was an 
 other flood ; the ebb is in the Protestant rationalism, espe 
 cially of Germany, which ensued. So of Russia. Peter the 
 Great was but the crest of such an upheaving. Russia rose 
 upon it only to subside somewhat during the reigns which 
 followed. To-day the intellect of the race has broken over 
 all separating barriers. Humanity is one ; and over the 
 whole world the awakening intellect is one, as if it were one 
 vast ocean, covering almost the entire planet. Very well. 
 The tide which rises in America lifts also every soul in Eng- 
 land, France, Germany, Italy. Even such stagnant bays as 
 Spain, Portugal, and the Papacy are affected by it. Shall 
 not Russia also yield to the lift of the universal tide ? If 
 we are Russians, are we not part also of the race ? " 
 
 " Your Excellency is right," the young engineer hastened 
 to say. " But that is why, if you will allow me, repression 
 is so dangerous a task. There is vast intellectual force in 
 Russia ; but how can it reveal itself ? You need not tell
 
 300 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 me of outlets for it in literature, in art, in science, in com 
 merce. God has so made the human mind that if it is re 
 pressed in even one respect it is held in check in all. It 
 must have the absolute freedom of the ocean in every point 
 if it is to rise and flow at its highest power in any. Amer 
 ica has political freedom, your Excellency ; is absolutely un- 
 trammeled ; therefore it produces also artists, poets, orators, 
 inventors, discoverers. The unparalleled power of our West 
 ern farmers to feed the world, of our miners to supply the 
 silver of the world, its coal and oil and gold, is merely a 
 part of the same force, because freedom, of our newspaper 
 press, of our inventive genius. To reach his highest stature, 
 your Excellency, the Russian, like the American, must be ab 
 solutely free and in every possible sense. You likened the 
 intellect of the race to the ocean and its tides, and, no more 
 in Russia than elsewhere, can you suppress the ocean your 
 Excellency, you can not do it ! " 
 
 " Do you think so ? " The Prince asked the question 
 with the gravity of a statesman. Apparently he had sud 
 denly grown older as well as colder. It was as if his face, 
 so genial before, had become a mask of stone. His tones 
 were severe as well as serious. " Being an American, it is 
 natural you should speak as you do," he said, sententiously. 
 " But we are of another race. Our traditions, our religion, 
 are different; " and for some time the Prince continued to con 
 verse as became the conservative philosopher he had the rep 
 utation of being. A chill, almost a gloom, had fallen upon 
 all present. Isidore gave an almost perceptible shiver, as if 
 touched by the bitter blasts of Siberia. Henry Harris was 
 sorry he had alluded to the matter, and soon after with 
 drew. 
 
 But it was not of political matters he thought as he 
 mounted his tarantass and was driven to his hotel. " I had 
 not imagined," he said to himself, " that she could seem so 
 lovely ! And what did Prince Kalitzoff mean by his linger 
 ing glances at her ? He is still young and of a passionate 
 temperament. A Russian is either utter master or utter
 
 THE DEPTHS. 301 
 
 slave. Under a mere varnish of politeness Kalitzoff is, at 
 best, a semi-civilized savage, a Tartar, and I must be on my 
 guard. Suppose he should dare ? " 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 THE DEPTHS. 
 
 ONE evening the young American summoned his man 
 Toffski into a room in which Lord Conyngham and himself 
 were busy preparing themselves for a midnight expedition 
 into the deepest depths of St. Petersburg. The moujik 
 was, as has been said, an undersized and very thickset man. 
 His full and florid face looked, in its environment of hay- 
 colored hair and whiskers, like, Isidore had told his master, 
 " the harvest moon in a halo of fog." Perhaps it was be 
 cause he was nearly as broad as he was long, but as he now 
 stood waiting he was almost as solid, as stolid, and as still as 
 a block of wood. The young men paid no attention to him 
 for some time, aware that Toffski could stand without mo 
 tion in the same four-square repose for hours, could sleep as 
 he stood all night, could die, if need be, without movement or 
 the least noise. A being more absolutely the property of his 
 master it was impossible to imagine. 
 
 " Toffski Ivanovitch," the American said at last, in Rus 
 sian, " listen. I want this gentleman to know. Tell no lies. 
 What are the occupations of the Russians in general ? " 
 
 " Henry Georgeovitch," was the slow but steady reply, 
 "the Russians beat or are beaten. They tell lies, drink vodka, 
 and gamble at stuJcolka" 
 
 "Ask him what, then, are their vices," Lord Conyngham 
 said, when this had been translated to him, for, although the 
 man knew a little English, his master and himself always 
 conversed in Russian. 
 
 " Henry Georgeovitch," the moujik answered, when the
 
 302 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 question had been asked, " the Russians beat each other, tell 
 lies, drink vodka, gamble. They are raskolinks, rascals." 
 
 "This Aglitcha, Englishman," his master asked next, 
 " demands what are the amusements of the Russians. An 
 swer, Toffski Ivanovitch." 
 
 "Henry Georgeovitch," came the reply, "the Russians 
 go sometimes to church or play the accordeon, but that is 
 not always. They amuse themselves by gambling, drinking 
 vodka, telling lies, and beating whoever they can with a big 
 stick," and, standing solidly upon his short legs, the moujik 
 seemed quite willing to be questioned, or himself beaten, 
 until the others should be exhausted. 
 
 " Who in the devil's name is Bakunin ? " demanded Lord 
 Conyngham, suddenly. 
 
 " He is the devil himself ! " the Russian answered, cross 
 ing his forehead and each shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, as to Michael Bakunin," his master explained for 
 him, " he was a rich native of St. Petersburg, born in 1814, 
 who, bitterly disappointed in his ambition, devoted himself 
 to philosophy and insurrections. Have you seen none of his 
 innumerable pamphlets ? He says that right is merely an 
 invention of might, that conscience is the creature of educa 
 tion, that God is only the personification of tyranny. Here 
 is one of his proclamations the better to inform myself, I 
 obtained it to-day ; " and, taking it from an inner pocket, 
 the American translated the closing threat : " I, Michael Ba 
 kunin, summon you to the destruction of emperor and em 
 pire. Tear out of your souls all belief in the existence of 
 God. Property, marriage, morality, science, justice, civil 
 ization I doom to eternal death. No law, no religion, 
 nihil!" and a good deal more to the same effect. "Yet 
 Bakunin," Henry Harris added, putting the paper up, " devil 
 as he is, has disciples all over Russia by the thousands, in 
 all ranks. Let us go and see what we can for ourselves." 
 
 Saying a few words to his man, the three set out. The 
 two gentlemen were wrapped up in cloaks to hide their 
 coarse student apparel until they got into a tarantass, in
 
 THE DEPTHS. 303 
 
 which, with Toffski upon the seat by the driver, they were 
 driven eastward and toward the worst part of the city. At 
 a certain point they alighted from their vehicle, leaving the 
 driver to wait for them, which he did by falling sound asleep 
 on the seat before they were gone a hundred yards into the 
 darkness. 
 
 " We are well armed, and Toffski knows where to go," 
 the American said as they strode on through the dimly 
 lighted streets. It was very late. Now and then a dog 
 barked, or a watchman went by, looking at them closely. 
 
 " I see a light glimmering in every house ; why is that ? " 
 the Englishman asked as they walked with Toffski leading 
 the way. 
 
 " In every home in Russia," his companion replied, " a 
 lamp burns always before the sacred images. Do you know, 
 my lord, I can not believe that Heaven despises those poor, 
 smoking lights ? Wherever and whenever a living creature 
 tries to pray, and the best he knows how, I believe it is as 
 acceptable to God as if it was the most powerful prayer ever 
 put up in Westminster Abbey by your Archbishop of Can 
 terbury himself. God looks at the intention only, and he 
 knows that very often people are no more responsible for 
 their situation than they are for the color of their eyes or the 
 malaria in which they are condemned to live." 
 
 At this moment Toffski halted before the red curtain of a 
 small and poorly lighted house, and said something in Rus 
 sian to his mastei*. 
 
 " This is one of the lowest of the Nihilist cafes" the lat 
 ter explained to his friend. " We are Russian students, you 
 know. They are the worst socialists in Russia, so that no 
 body will be surprised to see us. Our flaxen wigs make us 
 sufficiently Russian, but you, especially, must keep silent, 
 whatever befalls." Saying which, the three entered the house. 
 It was not as much unlike the London pothouse as one would 
 have expected. There was the same bar, presided over by a 
 very fat and ugly woman, a large inner room with black 
 walls, an immense stove in the center, a number of tables,
 
 304 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 about which coarse and heavy-featured men, and men also of 
 more cultivated appearance, sat drinking kislitchi or vodka, 
 playing at games, smoking. And yet, and from the outset, 
 Lord Conyngham felt as if almost every one present was dis 
 guised as well as himself and his companion. There was no 
 platform, as in " The Hammer an' down wi' 'em," nor was 
 there any general conversation. 
 
 Every one looked sharply at them as they took their seats 
 at a table in a corner and ordered drink and pipes. The 
 American conversed with his moujik in angry Russian, as if 
 in continuance of a quarrel, emphasizing what he had to say 
 with a blow on Toffski's ear at last, which was quite in 
 keeping. As he had said, students from the universities were 
 frequent visitors, and very soon their presence seemed to be 
 forgotten. The attention of the nobleman was drawn, he 
 knew not why, to a number of beardless youths off to them 
 selves at a table. Several of them wore spectacles ; the hair 
 of all was cut short ; some smoked cigarettes or cigars. They 
 conversed with each other in whispers, but as a rule they 
 listened instead, continually glancing at each other ; occa 
 sionally laughing, as if to themselves also. There was some 
 thing odd in the manner in which they were grouped. 
 
 " They are girls, women, even ladies ! " the American 
 cautiously whispered to his friend, " and they are entirely 
 virtuous and respectable, too. They have sons, brothers, 
 husbands, among these men. As in America during our 
 civil war, the women of Russia are, if possible, more deeply 
 interested in the impending revolution than the men. The 
 worst feature of Nihilism is that its female adherents seek to 
 unsex themselves ; they are the most frantic of its disciples 
 drinking, smoking, wearing their hair short, in sheer bra 
 vado. Listen." For two men were engaged by this time in 
 a noisy discussion at a table near the center of the room. 
 
 " The Nihilists are scoundrels ! " the Englishman was 
 astonished to hear one of them exclaim at last. " Our 
 Emperor has many thousand rubles a day, but does he not 
 deserve it for being the father of his people ? Suppose our
 
 THE DEPTHS. 305 
 
 army does number nearly two millions, and suppose they are 
 drawn from the shops and the fields, have we not to fight, to 
 fight England, which is becoming a republic? Look at 
 France ; it is free, as they call it ; it is a republic, and as 
 such is growing richer every day. It must be crushed ! " 
 The one who spoke was a powerful-looking man, with broad 
 shoulders and a fierce air as of authority. 
 
 " But surely the people of Holy Russia should be free 
 also," remonstrated his opponent, a pale, weak-eyed man, in 
 spectacles, and with a timid manner. " Look at our taxes. 
 Consider our sons torn from us by conscription. Our press 
 has it any freedom? The Emperor has emancipated twenty 
 million serfs. That was in 1861. Surely it is time to give 
 freedom to the remaining sixty millions of his subjects. 
 Bulgaria is obtaining a constitution. Surely we are " 
 
 " Silence ! " roared the other. " You must be a socialist 
 yourself ! I dare say if your house were searched we would 
 find copies of the Nihilist papers, the l Zamlja i Wolja ' or 
 the ' N^abab." 1 And to think that even women, respectable la 
 dies, are taking part in the accursed movement. There are " 
 and Lord Conyngham observed the intense interest shown 
 at the table of the disguised women as this was said " there 
 are Vjera Sassulitch, Sophia Loschern von Herzfeld, even a 
 daughter of an imperial councilor, Nathalie von Armfeldt. 
 Mary Kovalerski is one of the nobility, yet she has given 
 money, circulates socialist papers, such as ' The Pole Star ' 
 and ' The Clock.' The father of Katharina Sarandovitch is 
 a high official, and it was proved that she was active in the 
 same detestable business." 
 
 " But it was also proved," ventured the other man, " that 
 Vjera Sassulitch only knew Netchaieff as the brother of h<!r 
 friend ; had no part nor sympathy in his socialistic ideas, and 
 she was eleven years in prison merely upon vague suspicion. 
 As to the assault on the rascal police-chief Trepoff, was it 
 not because she had been driven, after she was released, to 
 desperation by what she knew had been done to Bogoljuboff, 
 an innocent prisoner, whom she had never even seen ? The
 
 306 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 men who try to assassinate our Emperor, Karakasoff, Ber- 
 zowski, Solouveff, are madmen. But tell me," persisted the 
 pale-faced man, " what drove them mad ? " 
 
 " They are devils ! " shouted his burly antagonist. " To 
 day sixty thousand political exiles toil, I am glad to say, in 
 the mines of Siberia. Twelve hours a day do they have to 
 work, with no such thing as Sunday the year round. Eas 
 ter and the Emperor's birthday are the only days they rest. 
 Scoundrels ! They will broil in hell for ever ! And to think 
 that there are nobles among them, princesses, too ; judges, 
 who betrayed the Czar by being too lenient to their prison 
 ers ; learned men, educated men, priests, school-teachers, 
 scientists, men who ought to know better than to try and 
 overturn our holy empire. They would try to drag us down 
 to the level of France, England ; down even to the level of 
 America, where everybody does what he pleases. Wretches ! 
 It is radical writing, like that of Berzen ; it is treasonable 
 poetry, like that of Pushkin, which puts the torch to Russia, 
 as Rostoptchin did to Moscow in 1812 ; it is such rascals 
 who seek to destroy us." And for some time the conversa 
 tion continued, the pale man attempting to defend, the black- 
 bearded giant assaulting the revolutionists with almost elo 
 quent denunciation, in which the labors of the radicals 
 throughout Russia, of democrats throughout the world, in 
 fact, were detailed in fierce displeasure. All around them 
 sat the people, drinking, smoking, listening above all, lis 
 tening ! It was like bedlam to the English nobleman, who 
 could see, but could understand nothing. Standing upon 
 his feet in one corner, the moujik had fallen apparently sound 
 asleep. 
 
 In continuation of his denunciation, the burly defender 
 of the Government told at last with indignation of an inroad 
 made, a few days before, by the police at Kief, upon a Ni 
 hilist club, their object being the arrest especially of Cata- 
 rina Simolovitch, the daughter of a university professor, 
 who had made herself peculiarly obnoxious. As the police 
 burst in at the front door, Catarina and her husband rose
 
 THE DEPTHS. 307 
 
 from the garden behind the house in a balloon held in 
 readiness. The pale man ventured to laugh at this, and in 
 an instant the other, knocking down the table between them, 
 displaying as he did so his badge as an officer of police, took 
 him by the throat. It was a frightful spectacle. The pale 
 man was comparatively small and weak, and the officer, who 
 was a giant, in the extremity of a wrath which it was hard 
 to comprehend, seizing the other about the throat with both 
 hands, lifted him from the floor, strangling, writhing like a 
 worm, struggling, his eyes protruding, his tongue hanging 
 out of his mouth, his face blackened by his agony. Both of 
 the visitors hurled themselves forward to prevent, but Toff- 
 ski had clasped his arms about his master, and was holding 
 him as he would have held a baby, while the Englishman, 
 exclaiming and making furious efforts to get through the 
 crowd, which had arisen and interposed, could only see at 
 last that the poor wretch hung motionless and dead in the 
 remorseless grasp of his powerful executioner. 
 
 " Even the women did not shriek or lift a finger to 
 help ! " he said, as they drove home at length through the 
 early dawn. " They are Nihilists, and yet allow a policeman 
 to kill their own defender ! Cowards ! " 
 
 " It is because you did not understand my explanation all 
 along," his friend said. " The defender of the Nihilists was 
 really a Government spy, collecting evidence to send us all 
 to Siberia. I informed myself before I went. The police 
 man is the celebrated Borozoffski, who is also a Nihilist 
 leader. He edits, they say, the Nihilist paper, ' Land and 
 Liberty,' but his seeming denunciation of the revolution was 
 merely one way of disseminating socialistic news. Except 
 that unfortunate spy, every one there understood. There 
 are over three million Nihilists in Russia. PriestSj bishops, 
 students, professors, commanders in the navy, generals even 
 in the army, vast numbers in the police, are active members of 
 the propaganda. I like Alexander, I love Russia, but a rev 
 olution is impending which will grind it to chaos, out of which 
 God alone knows what kind of a new Russia is to arise ! "
 
 308 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " The most hopeless thing in Russia," he added, a mo 
 ment after, " is that women are so prominent among the 
 revolutionists women who are making themselves worse 
 than men? No, there is one thing worse, if possible, than 
 that. It is that the Greek Church and it is about the only 
 Christianity Russia has is utterly powerless either to purify 
 the empire or to prevent the revolution." 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 INTO PERIL. 
 
 ONE evening, when Henry Harris and Lord Conyngham 
 were spending the evening in the cottage of Zerah Atchison, 
 Prince Kalitzoff being in the room, Henry Harris said to 
 Isidore, " Let me tell you a little story." The young girl 
 had been hard at work all day, and was seated by her father, 
 his paralyzed hand lying in her lap. She raised her eyes 
 almost timidly to his face, and said, " I would like to hear 
 it," whereupon the other began : 
 
 " Once upon a time, there was a handsome but bearded 
 ogre, who was extremely fond of young people. Not that 
 he broiled and ate them, but that be loved to give balls at 
 his palace, and to see them dancing, eating ice-cream, and 
 enjoying themselves. One day he was told that he had 
 neglected a girl, who, although the daughter of a poor car 
 penter, was the prettiest girl in all that region. And so the 
 bearded ogre, who was very rich as well as kind-hearted, 
 gave a ball expressly in her behalf, and when the time came 
 sent his carriage for her. He was in waiting at the door of 
 his palace when the carriage drove up, and helped her off 
 with her wrappings. As soon as he saw her face he ex 
 claimed, ' Why, you dear child, how very pretty you are ! ' 
 and, in a few months after that, he married her, and they 
 made one of the happiest couples in the world."
 
 INTO PERIL. 309 
 
 " And who was the ogre ? " Isidore demanded. 
 
 " His name," the narrator replied, " was Count Bodisco. 
 He was minister from Russia to the United States at Wash 
 ington City, and ever since his marriage to that poor but 
 good and beautiful American girl there has been a sort of 
 love match also between Russia and America." To this 
 Prince Kalitzoff assented, even cordially, confirming the 
 story from his own knowledge. It was plain that he ap 
 proved of what the ogre had done. 
 
 " That is what perplexes me, Prince you must allow me 
 to say it," Lord Conyngham broke in ; " but I never could 
 understand why the Americans always side with you Rus 
 sians against us English, who are of their own blood. It is 
 absurd ! " 
 
 " Not," the American interposed, " if you remember that 
 Russia has always been our stanch friend. When the no 
 bility of England pardon me, my lord were exulting, dur 
 ing our civil war, in our speedy destruction as a nation, Rus 
 sia never wavered. It was the hour of our supreme struggle 
 for existence, and centuries hence we will remember that the 
 Pope took sides with the Confederacy against us, the only 
 power that did so ; that Charles Dickens, whom we had 
 almost worshiped, was, in his letters, rejoicing in our appa 
 rent destruction, heaping contemptuous epithets upon us ; 
 that Louis Napoleon, perjured scoundrel that he was, did 
 his utmost to induce England to join him against us. You, 
 my lord, were too young then to have an opinion of your 
 own. You, Mr. Atchison, although in the ranks against us, 
 were always an artist and never a partisan. When England 
 attacks Russia, and especially in defense of the Turks, she 
 must excuse us if we will not weep if she is defeated." 
 
 " My father, by the by, writes me to-day," Lord Conyng 
 ham said, " that our friend Hassan Pasha is dead. He sud 
 denly disappeared from Paris, you will remember. He re 
 turned, it seems, to Constantinople, raised an insurrection 
 against the Sultan, failed, and was found next day dead in a 
 bath-tub in his own palace. Whether he had been killed, or
 
 310 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 had opened his veins with his own hand and bled to death, 
 no one will ever know." As this was said, Henry Harris was 
 aware that Isidore Atchison had turned very pale ; even he 
 did not know, nor her own father, all the attempts which had 
 been made upon her honor by the Turk. In some way she 
 had learned that the letter over which she had at first re 
 joiced, but which she had given up to Henry Harris, was but 
 one of these attempts. Her eyes were fixed upon the noble 
 man as he now said : 
 
 " There was a singular story afloat in Paris in connection 
 with his sudden leaving. The landlord of his hotel explained 
 that early one morning a gentleman went into the rooms 
 of Hassan Pasha and gave him a severe beating before he 
 was out of bed. It seems that the rascal had written to some 
 lady. It served him right ! I wish I knew who the gentle 
 man was. The Turkish villain did well to fly to Constanti 
 nople." 
 
 Henry Harris, as this was said, felt rather than saw that 
 the eyes of Isidore were fastened upon him, her face was 
 in a sudden glow, her lips were parted, and he hastened to 
 change the subject. 
 
 " We were speaking of Russia," he remarked. " Your 
 emperor has a terrible time of it," turning to Prince Kalit- 
 zoff. " He has been very kind to my father and myself, and 
 I am Russian enough to like him heartily." 
 
 The same singular change took place, as he said it, in the 
 Prince which the American had before observed. Generally 
 he was the most cordial and off-handed of hosts in his man 
 ner ; now he became cold and cautious in his bearing, and 
 said, slowly : 
 
 " His Majesty has had a severe training. From his earli 
 est boyhood he was an officer in the army. He had to arise 
 before day, to drill and be drilled for many hours at a time, 
 to live upon hard fare, exposing himself to all weather, even 
 the most bitter cold. There is not a moujik in his em 
 pire who has had to work as hard as he, not a Tartar of the 
 Ukraine who has lived as much in the open air and on horse-
 
 INTO PERIL. 311 
 
 back. It was against the most violent opposition that he 
 emancipated, in 1861, over twenty million serfs. People 
 are greatly mistaken when they imagine that he inaugurates 
 war against Turkey, threatens England in Afghanistan, occu 
 pies Khiva, annexes fragments of Persia, of China. Holy 
 Russia is immeasurably the largest empire history tells of. 
 It is like an immense ship of war," the Prince added, " of 
 which Alexander II is merely the pilot. If he had only to 
 hold the helm while an unceasing tempest raged, that would 
 task the energies of a Hercules ! that is the least of his work. 
 The empire is made up of many peoples and religions, and 
 there is mutiny on board always. Mutiny among the nobles, 
 insurrection among the peasants, disaffection among the war 
 ring religions, and all the time there is the dry rot, as among 
 the very timbers of the ship, of such corruption as no nation 
 has ever before conceived. It is not merely that officials ha 
 bitually steal, from the lowest to the highest ; in this last war 
 against the Turk, admirals, commanders-in-chief, as much as 
 quartermasters, even grand dukes, bribe and are bribed." 
 
 " The Emperor knows all "this," the American assented, 
 " and is, your Excellency knows, almost as helpless to pre 
 vent it as I am. You speak of the empire as a ship. Yes, 
 and I have been long enough in Russia to know that it is 
 seized upon by unexpected currents, whirled about by cy 
 clones beyond any foresight of the Emperor. Nicholas and 
 his minister Nesselrode could not prevent the disaster of the 
 Crimean War, any more than Alexander and Gortchakoff 
 can help this war with Turkey. But Alexander is a strong, 
 stern, sorrowful man, who fails where God only can be czar. 
 I sincerely honor and respect him. But, your Excellency, I 
 would rather be what I am an engineer." 
 
 " We have all simply to do our duty and to be patient," 
 Zerah Atchison added, with a happy face, as the visitors 
 arose to go. Isidore seemed to cling more closely to the 
 old artist as they bowed and left the room. She had glanced 
 at Prince Kalitzoff, then at the American. Her face was 
 
 troubled. 
 
 u
 
 312 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Yes, I fear she is overtasking herself," the Prince said, 
 as he accompanied the gentlemen to the door. " The young 
 lady has shown me her first draughts for the monument. 
 They are beyond my expectations. Even her father ap 
 proves of them," he added, with a smile. " Miss Isidore is 
 more than a genius, however. She is the most charming of 
 women. Ah ! Mr. Harris, yours is a great country. I ad 
 mire your little story exceedingly. Happy Bodisco ! " And 
 he shook his guest warmly by the hand, contenting himself 
 with bowing, almost coldly, to the Englishman. 
 
 " What possessed me to tell that story in his hearing ? " 
 the American exclaimed to himself, angrily. " Am I becom 
 ing a fool ? " 
 
 But Lord Conyngham was thinking of something else. 
 
 " We are bound to have it out with them some day," he 
 said, haughtily, as the two walked away. " We can whip 
 them on the water, but if we go at it in India there'll be the 
 deuce of a mess. You see," he explained, " there's no telling 
 which side those Sikhs, Afghans, Hindoos, and the like, will 
 take. Rascals ! I'm afraid the beggars don't like us any too 
 much ! We visit the Annitchkoff Palace to-morrow ; don't 
 forget. Until the Earl writes that he is ready to let me 
 marry as I please, I stay, you observe, where I am." 
 
 But his companion was not listening to him. He was 
 thinking how old and feeble Zerah Atchison appeared to 
 have become ; how timid and shrinking his daughter seemed ; 
 " and it does appear to me," he thought, " that the Prince 
 might be more fatherly than he is in his regards for her. 
 He is immensely rich ; is lonely in his great palace ; has such 
 an ardent and despotic nature, who can tell what he From 
 my very soul I am sorry she is here ! " 
 
 The next day the American and his English friend had, 
 while inspecting the pictures in the Annitchkoff Palace, an 
 unexpected adventure. In consequence of a special permit, 
 they were standing together, no one but a servant with them, 
 before a painting of the coronation of Alexander II, when 
 the door opened and a gentleman entered. At a glance Lord
 
 INTO PERIL. 313 
 
 Conyngham saw that it was the monarch depicted upon the 
 glowing canvas, and both visitors turned and stood with un 
 covered heads as the stately sovereign passed rapidly by. 
 But his sharp, military eye recognized the engineer, whom 
 he had often seen before. 
 
 " Mr. Harris," he said in English, " I am pleased to see 
 you. You were in Paris. What are you doing in Rus 
 sia ? " 
 
 Lord Conyngham was as brave, as manly an Englishman 
 as any, but royalty had a glamour for him which it did not 
 have for his friend. " Confound it ! how cool he is ! " he 
 thought, for the American was standing as erect as the Czar, 
 only less tall than the colossal Alexander, and was looking 
 the other composedly in the face. 
 
 " Does your Majesty insist upon knowing ? " he asked, 
 with deference, but composedly. 
 
 " I do," was the reply, with some surprise in the face of 
 the Emperor, which seemed set into a certain bronze, as of 
 unspeakable sadness. 
 
 " If you will permit me," and the American passed from 
 English to Russian, " I am trying to understand Nihilism, 
 even to the very bottom. Does your Majesty object ? " 
 
 " You are an American," was the reply, in the same lan 
 guage ; " but you do so at your peril ! " 
 
 The next moment the Emperor passed out at the other 
 door. 
 
 " I warn you again not to go with me," was all the ex 
 planation Henry Harris gave his companion. "But to 
 morrow I go to Kiev. I want to get through with this 
 thing."
 
 314: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 WOMAN'S WIT. 
 
 WHEN the American and his friend returned to their 
 hotel after their interview with the Emperor, they found let 
 ters awaiting them. 
 
 " I do not altogether like your experiment in regard to 
 Nihilism," Mr. George Harris, who was again in Paris, wrote 
 to his son, " and yet I can not say but that I admire your 
 energy in the matter. Your mother and myself agree that 
 your life must be in many respects unlike mine. I have 
 been obliged to concentrate myself upon my business, and 
 in doing that I have been constrained to remain, as to many 
 matters, merely a spectator. There are things in Europe, as 
 in America also, which are foolish, silly, even pitiful, in their 
 abject folly. The dullest machinist would be an idiot to tol 
 erate in a locomotive any defect which could be as easily 
 remedied as are many mistakes in the working of our civili 
 zation. Like you, I have chafed at the horrible forms of 
 wrong which have come down from barbarous times, but I 
 had other affairs in hand. Thank Heaven, we have trained 
 you to do grander work than I could ever do, and that in a 
 grander time than the days in which your mother and my 
 self have lived. We will leave your sister and yourself 
 more money than perhaps you have supposed would come 
 to you. Money is a tremendous force, my son. It is more 
 powerful and dangerous than dynamite or nitro-glycerine. 
 If you do not expend it toward honest effort for the good of 
 youi kind, it will recoil and in some way blow you to atoms. 
 That is all I have to say. Be prudent. Learn all you can 
 of Russian explosives. Amazing events are to take place in 
 that empire." 
 
 "I am glad," Mrs. Margaret Harris wrote to her son, 
 " that Mary and her lover seem to be so utterly in love with 
 each other. It is doing her a world of good, because she is 
 possessed with the purpose of being more than merely a lov-
 
 WOMAN'S WIT. 315 
 
 ing wife. Your father was laughing at her last night. 
 ' From whom do you get your ambition ? ' he asked her. ' I 
 am an American girl,' she said, ' and I intend that Alfred 
 shall become a leader in Parliament. He has promised me 
 to become some day prime minister ! You need not laugh,' 
 she added. ' Look at Lord Beaconsfield ! All that lifts him 
 to his position is his life-long and unconquerable purpose. 
 Alfred is superior to him any day, and even if he were not, I 
 will be with him as his undying purpose.' I never saw her 
 look so beautiful as when she said that ! 
 
 " ' It is a singular thing about America,' your father told 
 me when she left us. ' It is coming to be what the Roman 
 Empire once was. That is, Rome conquered the world and 
 drew into itself, as into the vortex and center of the earth, 
 all races of men, only to cause them to rot together until the 
 whole world was poisoned by the deadly corruption.' In the 
 same way all races of men are being sucked in, as if in spite 
 of themselves, under American influence, but it is to purify, 
 I hope, and save them ; yet I do not want Mary to become 
 ' strong-minded,' and I told her that she could be a genuine 
 American woman only so far as she was intensely and en 
 tirely a woman, and in no sense a man. Take care of your 
 self, my son," and Mrs. Harris added a hundred cautions. 
 
 The son said nothing about his letters, but his friend was 
 not so reticent. "By Jove ! " he had exclaimed again and 
 again as he read a letter which he had received by the same 
 mail from Mary, " there is a page or two which is none of 
 your business," he remarked to his companion when he had 
 read the letter over once or twice, " but listen to this, will 
 you ? " and he read : 
 
 " Yes, Alfred, I am only a girl, but I am in good earnest. 
 You are a nobleman in more senses of the word than one ! " 
 " Glad to hear it," her lover interjected. "And there is a 
 glorious future before me if I am ever to marry you. Be 
 cause you are to accomplish so much ! For there is so much 
 to be done in the world ! Yesterday my father said to me 
 of a mob of Parisian school-boys which happened to pass us :
 
 316 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ' Those and the rest of the French boys have a vast work to 
 do ; they have to hold and develop the French Republic 
 against a thousand foes, inside and out ! The work of the 
 world is only beginning, my dear. Why, Mary,' he said, in 
 his calm, methodic way, ' if I were a professor in college I 
 could write out on a blackboard, for the use of young men, 
 the life-work before them.' ' Write it out for me,' I begged, 
 and, sure enough, he scratched it down on the paper I in 
 close." 
 
 Lord Conyngham passed the document to his friend. It 
 was written out, the American saw at a glance, somewhat as 
 his father did his first draughts of work in his machine shops, 
 and was in this shape : 
 
 " THE WORK OF THE WOKLD. 
 
 "Africa. Discover; build railroads ; send missionaries of all sects ; 
 found and build up Christian nations. 
 
 "Asia. Obliterate Turkisb empire ; ease to tbe ground the impend 
 ing downfall of Persia, China, Afghanistan, Thibet; replace Pal 
 estine in possession of Jews ; Christianize the whole. 
 
 "Italy. Maintain unity of HlHan kingdom till fit for republic ; ease 
 down Papacy. 
 
 "Russia. Transform empire into constitutional monarchy ; then 
 monarchy into the Kussian republic; repress anarchy during 
 transition. 
 
 "Germany. Hasten transformation of empire into republic of United 
 States of Germany ; revolutionize excessive use of beer, tobacco, 
 and metaphysical speculation. 
 
 "France. Educate children ; separate Church from State ; maintain 
 republic; see that Napoleonism, legitimacy, ultramontanism, 
 have sure, but, if possible, peaceful decay. 
 
 "England. Disestablish Scotch Church ; disestablish English Church ; 
 abolish primogeniture ; smooth the way for the inevitable coming 
 of the republic of Great Britain." 
 
 " By Jove ! " Lord Conyngham exclaimed, and his friend 
 read on : 
 
 "America. Establish civil service reform ; bring South into lines of 
 emigration and commerce ; guard against partisan politics ; pre-
 
 WOMAN'S WIT. 317 
 
 pare to meet and survive unparalleled trials, perhaps, and catas 
 trophes; maintain public schools against all foes; develop power 
 of press ; compel world to conform to American example by 
 sheer force of superiority. 
 
 "Everywhere. Perfect electric light and force ; heat as well as light 
 every city from a common center within same; cook and wash 
 also at same; if possible, navigate air; cut Isthmus of Panama; 
 discover and invent as needs of men demand; abolish war and 
 intemperance ; reconcile labor and capital. 
 
 " With energy, the above work should be done by the year 2000." 
 
 " It is odd," Henry Harris said, as he laid down the pa 
 per, " but the year 2000 will be the seventh or Sabbatical 
 age of the world. It will be a remarkable coincidence if 
 the six thousand years of work is done by then." 
 
 " But you must hear what Mary says," her lover added, 
 and he read from her letter: "Don't think me a fanatic. 
 Who can tell what is to be done ! Whatever it is, you will 
 do your share, Alfred, if only to please me ! As to Eng 
 land, I love and admire it almost as much as you do, be 
 cause you were born there, and because it is every day 
 more and more one with America. Yes, it is older, slower, 
 wiser than we. No greater poet ever lived, Alfred, than 
 your Laureate, our other Alfred, whom I love almost as 
 much as I do you, but not quite, and he sings of it : 
 
 " 'Land of jut and old renown, 
 
 Where freedom broadens slowly down 
 
 From precedent to precedent, 
 "Where faction seldom gathers head, 
 
 But by degrees to fullness wrought, 
 The strength of some diffusive thought 
 Hath time and space to work and spread.' " 
 
 " I won't read any more," the Englishman added, as he 
 folded the letter carefully up, and placed it in his breast 
 pocket. " There is more, but 'that also is nobody's business 
 but ours. The only thing I want to say is, that your sister 
 is the noblest as well as the most beautiful woman I know !
 
 318 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 But if we are to start for Kiev in the morning, it is high time 
 we were going to bed. Good night." 
 
 The truth is, the lover wanted to be off by himself, in 
 order to read his letter over again. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 THE CKOWING OF THE BED COCK. 
 
 FROM his boyhood Henry Harris spent much of his Bpare 
 time in his father's railway shops in Russia. Now, a strik 
 ing peculiarity of the Russian is his excessive fondness for 
 children, and from his earliest remembrance Henry found 
 small difficulty in becoming acquainted with the workmen 
 of all grades employed in constructing and repairing locomo 
 tives. Among these was a brawny, red-headed Russian, 
 who was stone-deaf to any question, remark, or command 
 unless it was addressed to him accompanied by his full name, 
 which was Constantinovitch Miralovinski Stephanoff. His 
 face had been sadly damaged by an explosion, his flannel 
 and sheepskin attire were generally odorous with lubricating 
 oil, and he seemed to wear his name as if it were royal and 
 voluminous raiment which made up for all deficiencies. 
 Now, Henry Harris had long known that this man was deep 
 in the secrets of the Nihilists, and, addressing him by his 
 full name through the mail before leaving Paris, he learned 
 in reply that he was now engineer upon a line running from 
 St. Petersburg toward Odessa. It was from him in person, 
 and after arriving in St. Petersburg, that Henry Harris ob 
 tained the information which led to his visit to the Nihilist 
 cafe in St. Petersburg the night the spy was strangled. 
 From him also he learned that there was to be " a Crowing 
 of the Red Cock," as the man styled it, at Kiev, in Little 
 Russia, at a certain date near at hand. 
 
 " Yes," the American said to him ; " but, Constantino-
 
 THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK. 319 
 
 vitch Miralovinski Stephanoff, what do you mean by the 
 Red Cock?" 
 
 "My little father, JBatushka, if you and your friend," 
 was the reply, " want to know, you can read. If you want, 
 as you say, to see, you must go to Kiev. If you will be en 
 gineer, I and your friend will be your firemen." And thus 
 it happened that, suitably dressed, with Toffski on a baggage- 
 car, the friends made the journey upon his locomotive as far 
 as the Russian went. At this point he gave them letters, 
 passwords, and grips, which would insure them access at 
 Kiev to all they would like to see. It is true, the man was 
 under the most awful oaths to do nothing of the kind, but 
 for a friend like Henry Harris he would have done, always 
 provided his name was given him in full, much more. 
 " Henry Georgeovitch Harrisinki," the oily and ill-smelling 
 engineer said in parting, " you may be going to your death," 
 and he kissed him fervently. " Constantinovitch Miralovin 
 ski Stephanoff, we will risk it," was the reply. Thus it was, 
 within a few weeks after leaving St. Petersburg, the Ameri 
 can and his English friend found themselves in Kiev, in Lit 
 tle Russia. They were now dressed as moujiks, and, except 
 that they were taller, seemed duplicates of Toffski. 
 
 " I can understand how he has come to be such a block of 
 wood," Lord Conyngham said to his companions one night, 
 as all three strode together through the mire of the unpaved, 
 half -lighted streets. "In such an atmosphere of brandy, 
 blows, gambling, lying, bribing, ignorance, a man must 
 become a brute if he is to escape being a madman. We are 
 centuries behind England and America in this antediluvian 
 region. I feel as if it would take me a lifetime to get back 
 to Paris. How dark it is ! " 
 
 " Yes, and windy. That," said the American, pointing 
 to a building which loomed through the darkness, " is the 
 beet-root sugar-factory ; on the left is the place we visited 
 yesterday, where they make delft-ware. This building which 
 we are now passing is one of the innumerable distilleries. 
 Even Toffski has told you that vodka and usury are the twin
 
 320 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 curses of Little Russia. Add to that gambling, conscription 
 for the unceasing wars " 
 
 " And superstition," the nobleman added, as they passed 
 a church towering through the night. 
 
 " What you call superstition is the only relief to absolute 
 and utter brutality. Better," his companion added, "that 
 worship of God than none at all ! But it will be like going 
 to heaven to get back to our friends again." 
 
 " I know at least one angel there who will welcome me," 
 the Englishman thought, but said nothing, for by this time 
 they had turned down a narrow lane, gone through a stable, 
 and entered a sort of open court littered with straw, deep in 
 manure, and having horses, cows, oxen, tethered to the low 
 stone walls by which it was surrounded. There must have 
 been nearly a hundred men therein, dressed like themselves, 
 and all were grouped about a large and Tartar-visaged man, 
 with small eyes and flat nose, who was saying something to 
 them in Little Russian. All at once there was a hush, and a 
 small man in a corner insisted upon being heard. He spoke 
 in shrill tones and eagerly. After him another spoke, and 
 then another, all very earnestly. 
 
 " What is it all about ? " Lord Conyngham demanded. 
 He was wedged in with his friend and Toffski between an ox 
 and an ass. 
 
 " They speak in different dialects, and I do not under 
 stand it perfectly," was the reply ; " but one says that he 
 wants all property to be divided ; another is violent against 
 that, and wishes a monarchy like England ; the last man 
 seems to be enraged against religion and marriage." A tall, 
 thin man, his sinewy face illumined by the light of the lan 
 terns which many carried, was making a speech with much 
 gesticulation at this moment, but Henry Harris could not 
 understand it, and asked Toffski what he was saying. The 
 moujik had a face of horror. 
 
 " He says," and the man began crossing himself, " that 
 he wants the blessed saints to be destroyed, the churches to 
 be blown up with powder, the Virgin, the Patriarch, the Em-
 
 THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK. 321 
 
 peror, and God to be assassinated. He says he can do it 
 himself. BatushJca" added the moujik, " let us go away 
 from here ; this is hell ! " 
 
 " No two Nihilists in Russia agree as to what they want," 
 the American explained to his friend. " Listen," for he for 
 got that the other could not understand. " Brethren of 
 light," the burly leader was exhorting, " all that will follow 
 in due time. The one thing in which we are now agreed is 
 to destroy the Empire. Chaos first, then cosmos ! " and he 
 recited in a loud, deep voice the creed of Nihilism, which 
 was as follows : 
 
 "ARTICLE 1. The Nihilist is a condemned man. He can have no 
 interests, business, feelings, property, or even a name. He must 
 absorb all in one sole and exclusive interest, in one single idea and 
 passion revolution. 
 
 " ART. 2. He must break every bond with the civil order, laws, 
 customs, and moral rules of civilization, and be toward the world a 
 pitiless enemy, living only to destroy. 
 
 " AET. 3. He must renounce all doctrines and science, save that 
 of destruction. 
 
 " ART. 4. He must neither have pity nor mercy for any one; nor 
 must he expect mercy or pity. He must learn to endure severity, 
 and be severe toward all. 
 
 " ART. 5. All tender feelings of family, love, friendship, grati 
 tude, and honor must often be stifled in his breast by the passion for 
 revolution for this must be his only repose, consolation, recompense, 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 " ART. 8. He must have no friends, and must regard, as men, only 
 fellow-revolutionists. 
 
 " ART. 12. If a companion fall into misfortune, it becomes a ques 
 tion whether or not he shall be saved. The revolutionist must not 
 consult his personal feelings, but the revolutionary cause." 
 
 At the conclusion a deep " Amen ! " broke from all pres 
 ent. There was the sullen silence after that as of a gather 
 ing storm. The air seemed charged with hate and war as a 
 cloud is with electricity.
 
 322 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " I would not be surprised if he is a professor in some 
 college, possibly a nobleman," the American explained, as he 
 translated in a whisper to his companion. " Crouch lower, 
 my lord," he added, suddenly ; " I fear we have done a most 
 foolish thing to come here ! " 
 
 As he spoke, there was a hush as of breathless waiting, then 
 a low murmur of exultation as the sky over the open court 
 began to redden. Next a word, only one, was spoken, and, 
 as if in an instant, the throng had dispersed through every 
 opening, and the three men were left alone. 
 
 " Heigh, presto ! But what does that mean ? " exclaimed 
 the nobleman, aloud, as he came out from among the cattle 
 and stretched himself. 
 
 " It means fire, my lord," the American exclaimed. " The 
 signal has been given, and these wretches have dispersed to 
 fire the city in as many places as possible. That is the Crow 
 ing of the Red Cock, then ! I was a fool not to have known 
 of it. We must get back to our hotel as soon as we can. 
 Toffski Ivanovitch, lead on." But the moujik had planted 
 himself like a log before them. 
 
 " No, my little father," he said, " the streets are full of 
 troops from Odessa. Listen ! " and there came the roll of 
 drums and occasional shots in the distance. Then the ring 
 ing of what seemed to be, one after another, all the bells of 
 the city ; then the galloping of horses, the rattle of wheels, 
 and loud shouts in every direction. Meanwhile the sky had 
 grown almost as bright as day. 
 
 " Yes, our best plan is to stay here for the present," the 
 American said. " If we go out we are almost sure to be shot 
 down by the patrol or the troops, or at least arrested. We 
 will wait until it is broad day, and then go boldly home." 
 
 " I don't object to a lark," his friend said, as they stood 
 together, " but when I get out of this I will consider that I 
 have graduated in Nihilism. By Jove ! I rather like it, only 
 I hope they won't nihiiize me. Not that I object particu 
 larly to death, but I do to Siberia. Hallo ! " for as he spoke 
 a man ran in, kneeled in one corner among the straw on the
 
 THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK. 323 
 
 other side of the court, and was in the act of striking a match 
 in it when the moujik hurled himself upon him, extinguish 
 ing the flame and the incendiary at the same moment. The 
 two others hastened to his assistance. As they did so a girl 
 stole in from the other end of the inclosure. She could not 
 have been twenty years of age ; her dress was kilted about 
 her waist, her feet were bare, her long, black hair had broken 
 loose and was hanging down her shoulders. The others did 
 not observe her until Lord Conyngham, glancing around, 
 saw that she had stuck a flaming mass of burning tow into 
 the hay heaped upon that side, and before he could get to 
 it the Avhole place was in a blaze. It was a frightful spec 
 tacle. Most of the animals were tethered to their troughs. 
 Even the horses, which were loose, tore around and around 
 within the burning inclosure, too panic-stricken to make their 
 escape through the broad and open doorways. The bellow 
 ing of the oxen, the furious plunges of the horses were ter 
 rible, and the unintending conspirators hastened out, the 
 burning fragments of straw falling upon them as they did so. 
 
 But they escaped only to fall into the hands of a military 
 squad outside. In an instant they found themselves grasped 
 on every side by powerful men. Pistols were held to their 
 heads, bayonets gleamed about them, and one man, the cor 
 poral apparently, repeated the same phrase over and over 
 again. 
 
 " What does he mean by that ? " the Englishman asked, 
 as, after struggling in vain to get away, he submitted with 
 the others, and they were being rapidly marched off. 
 
 " He says, ' these servants of God are caught in the very 
 act' ; it is the legal phrase of indictment," his friend an 
 swered. 
 
 " I am an Englishman, and, by Jove ! they'll be made to 
 know it," said the other. 
 
 " Unless they shoot us first. Hark ! " for, as his com 
 panion said it, above the clamor of the bells, the rush of 
 wheels, the roar of flames, making the scene as bright as day, 
 could be heard the bugle-calls of cavalry, the rattle of drums,
 
 324: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 and now and then a fusillade of small arms. Strange to say, 
 the spirits of the young men rose as the danger became 
 greater. They thought of those far away who would be 
 terrified when they knew of the danger into which they 
 were entrapped, and yet they thought even of that with a 
 species of exhilaration, and almost enjoyed the peril of the 
 moment. The moujik Toffski had disappeared. At first 
 sight of the soldiers he had rushed back into the blazing 
 building behind them. Better that than arrest. " He ought 
 not to have abandoned me," his master thought ; " but, poor 
 fellow, he has perished in the act. He thinks that the fire is 
 better than the ice of Siberia." 
 
 There was no time for regrets, however. The building 
 into which the moujik had rushed was a mass of flame, and 
 the Cossacks who guarded them, black and bearded, mere 
 military machines, marched the American and his companion 
 in their center so rapidly along that they gasped in the 
 stifling air for breath. At one time they were rushed yet 
 more rapidly on to escape the walls of some burned-out build 
 ing, which came down in their very faces with a crash. 
 Now they were thrown to the earth by the shock of an ex 
 plosion near by. Once or twice they stepped upon the bodies 
 of men lying in pools of blood where they had been shot. 
 The whole city seemed to be on fire. As they rounded a 
 corner through the crush of wagons laden with household 
 furniture, of men and women, children even, forcing their 
 way along, bent down under goods which they had stolen or 
 were trying to save from the wrecks of their homes, they 
 were almost stunned by sudden musketry. As soon as the 
 blinding smoke lifted, they saw a line of men and women 
 lying dead, or struggling in the agonies of death, on the 
 ground in front of a rank of soldiers before a massive edifice. 
 Upon some of these they had to step as they were forced on 
 past the striped sentry-boxes of the prison, for such it was. 
 Door after door was locked upon them, and at last the two 
 men found themselves alone in a species of loathsome cellar 
 with grated windows and dripping walls of stone.
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 325 
 
 "Well," Lord Conyngham remarked, "Nihilism means 
 the destruction of everything, does it ? Then we are begin 
 ning to understand it at last. But why didn't they shoot 
 us?" 
 
 " Because," the American replied, " they take us to be, as 
 I heard them say to each other, the prime leaders of the 
 whole affair. As it is, they may do so at any moment." 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHKIST. 
 
 UPON the Rue d'Hiver, in the outer suburbs of Paris 
 toward Versailles, there stands an odd little two-storied house 
 with dormer windows. It is separated from the street by a 
 high brick wall, guarded along the slated top by spikes, 
 which incloses also a quarter acre of ground well supplied 
 with trees, flowering plants, summer arbors, and fountains, 
 with statuary. The place appeared, at the time now spoken 
 of, to have nothing whatever in common with the nearest 
 houses on either side, keeping itself to itself under its trees 
 and overhanging roof, like a surly neighbor who folds his 
 arms upon his breast, draws his hat down over his eyes, and 
 has not a syllable to say to anybody. And as the winters 
 seemed but to freeze the household more closely in from the 
 world, so the summers, as they came and went, might cause 
 the windows of the house and the leaves of the trees to open, 
 but could not thaw out the inhabitants, who, for many years 
 now, remained the same. All that Zerat, the bald-headed 
 little cobbler who had his shop near by, could testify, was 
 that there lived in the house an old madame who came out 
 at certain regular intervals to do her marketing, attended by 
 an aged servant-woman with a basket, while a little dog, 
 black and fat, invariably accompanied them to the grated 
 door, but was always locked in and remained whining there
 
 326 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 until the women toiled slowly back with their purchases. 
 Old Zerat told people who loitered in his shop, waiting for 
 their shoes to be mended, that the old lady was named Ma 
 dame Deschards, her servant Gretchen, the dog Pinquette. 
 
 "Monsieur arrives every afternoon at five," he would 
 add, "evidently from Paris. He is a man far from stout, 
 and looks as if he studied hard and drank deep. Ciel! what 
 eyes he has ! also, what a forehead ! Madame is in waiting 
 at the gate to admit him, as is Pinquette. He kisses her, 
 have I not observed it ? invariably. Late in the morning he 
 comes out. Madame, who seems to be his mother, accompa 
 nies him for a little walk if the weather be fine. Monsieur 
 knows no one, speaks to no one, but supports her footsteps 
 carefully, and kisses her when they part. He is a good son, 
 although he may also be a mouchard, a counterfeiter, a col 
 lege professor, or a member of the Government who can say 
 what?" 
 
 One gloomy evening Achilles Deschards, for it was none 
 other, sat in what was the largest and best room of the 
 house. Beneath a window on one side was the table at 
 which he always worked. It was littered with MSS., while, 
 under it, and as if trodden contemptuously down, were 
 journals, reviews, daily papers of all sorts ultramontane, 
 Napoleonist, legitimist, Orleanist, republican, communist, 
 atheist there was no party in France which had not its 
 representative there even such comic sheets as "Figaro" 
 and the "Journal pour Hire" were not lacking. A close 
 observer would have been astonished at the almost terrible 
 mixture of the same kind, upon the shelves of a bookcase 
 which filled two sides of the room. The leading writers, 
 past and present, of every faction which agitates the soul 
 and tears the flesh of France, crowded each other upon the 
 boards Voltaire and Chateaubriand, Pascal and Liguori, 
 Guizot and Thiers, Dupanloup and About, Balzac and Ma 
 dame Guy on, Lamartine and Alfred de Musset, Buckle and 
 Thomas a Kempis, Darwin and Cardinal Manning. One re 
 mained amazed that, with such fierce and warring antagonists
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 327 
 
 brought so closely together, there was no explosion. Facing 
 each other, like the leaders of the opposing hosts, upon iron 
 brackets fastened to opposite sides of the wall, were two 
 busts. One, in bronze, appeared to be that of Voltaire or 
 Satan, it was hard to tell which ; the other, of white marble, 
 was an admirably executed head of Christ. 
 
 The owner of these discordant forces had taken from 
 the lowest shelf of his bookcases what seemed to be a large 
 Bible. It leaned against a leg of his table, half opened, but 
 was really no book at all. It was merely a case instead, 
 made to resemble a folio book, and filled with liquors of vari 
 ous kinds in cut-glass bottles. Evidently he had drawn 
 much of his inspiration thence while he wrote during the 
 long hours of the night, yet it was as evident that he had 
 thus arranged matters in order to deceive some one who 
 lived in the house and was closely associated with him. But 
 he had not been drinking of late. Pallid and haggard as 
 was his face, that was evident. He had been writing, and 
 the MS., neatly folded, tied about with tape, and directed 
 upon the back, lay upon the table. The man seemed to be 
 absorbed in thought. Once he arose, walked to and fro, 
 looked at his watch, then out of the front window, lifting 
 the curtain to do so. After that he unlocked what seemed 
 to be a secret drawer, and took out two small boxes. One 
 was full of gold coin, and he counted them carefully over 
 and put the box on the table beside the document. Then he 
 opened the other box with a smile which was ghastlier than 
 tears. It was filled with what seemed to be wafers or loz 
 enges, and he put one to his lips, as if to taste it, but re 
 frained with a laugh, placed it back, and shut the box and 
 let it lie. He glanced again at his watch, walked once more 
 to the window, and looked out. Through the tops of the 
 trees and over the wall, he could catch glimpses of people 
 going this way and that, of vehicles driven up and down. 
 "Rats," he said aloud, "mice, beetles, lice ! " and he turned, 
 lit a student-lamp on the mantel, and sat down. 
 
 But there was the sound of scratching and whimpering at
 
 328 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 the door. " Pinquette," he said, and opened it to let in a 
 little black dog, almost too fat to move, looking more like a 
 leech than a quadruped. It seemed to be very old, too, for 
 it waddled slowly into the room, and, when the man sat 
 down again near his table, it squatted between his feet upon 
 the floor, looked up at him with filmy but inquiring eyes, 
 made an abortive effort to wag its tail, and whined uneasily 
 like a sick child. Then it got up, walked with difficulty into 
 an alcove at the farthest end of the apartment, slipped under 
 the curtain which partitioned it off, and began such an out 
 cry of barking and whining that the man arose and followed 
 it. Looping up the curtain so that the light from the lamp 
 could fill the alcove, he stood over a bedstead upon which 
 lay something covered up. Pinquette, by a desperate effort, 
 had lifted itself up, its forepaws upon the edge of the bed 
 stead, and was actually weeping as it whimpered. 
 
 " Yes, Pinquette, she is dead," the man said, and he 
 turned down the sheet, and revealed the face of his old mo 
 ther. As is often the case, even with the aged, the cold, 
 white countenance of Madame Deschards had taken on again 
 what must have been the aspect, almost the beauty, of her 
 girlhood. Isidore Atchison had been startled at the picture 
 her father had painted from memory of the Delira of his 
 early manhood. Merely as a painting, it was his master 
 piece, a work of which the greatest artist might have been 
 proud, because Memory had taken the brush softly from the 
 enfeebled hand of Age, and had produced the girl as she was 
 when the artist had first known her, in her wild home among 
 the mountains of Virginia. Save that color was lacking, 
 here was Delira once more in the white clay of the original 
 master, a clay which was, alas ! so soon to be dust. In the 
 picture of Zerah Atchison, the vigorous girl, lawless, unedu 
 cated, governed purely by passion, almost stepped, in the 
 eagerness of a deer-like vigor, from the painter's canvas ; 
 but in this case she lay sleeping instead, as she used to do in 
 her cabin, ah, how many, many years before ! She must 
 have had more in her than merely a passionate devotion to
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 329 
 
 this, her only son ; hers must have been a character also to 
 awaken unusual love in return. There must have been in 
 her an original flavor of her wild country home, a something 
 both peculiar and essential to her, like the sassafras and pine 
 of her native mountains. This old mother was all Des- 
 chards had on earth, all he had worked for so long and vig 
 orously. And yet, as he spread the cover again over her 
 face, he merely repeated what he had said as he looked out 
 of the window at the people passing. 
 
 " We are all the same, and she also ! "What else are we 
 but beetles, mice, the moths of the moment ? " 
 
 As he took his seat again, the dog lying between his feet, 
 in sheer lack of anything else to do, he lifted his eyes to the 
 bust of Voltaire upon its bracket against the wall upon his 
 left. The bracket might have supported a mirror instead, 
 which reflected his own face, so wonderfully like his own 
 was that of the brilliant philosopher of Ferney the fore 
 head, high but narrow, the face, thin and haggard, the lips, 
 whose very smile was a sneer, the large eyes, through which 
 the eager but eternal unrest looked forth. There was strong 
 likeness, but no love between the two. 
 
 " I know by heart, Voltaire, all you have to say," the 
 man murmured at last. " You were very much of a genius, 
 but you had no sincere love even for yourself. Of all men, 
 you despised yourself most heartily, even while you had no 
 other god. And you also, you poor Arouet, you called your 
 self Voltaire, but that did not make you any the less a rat, a 
 mouse, a fly ; yes, a fly with a sting, not a bee, only a hor 
 net. You buzzed and you stung until all Europe knew your 
 buzz and your sting, and then you too dropped into the dust 
 dead. But yow," and he turned and looked at the head of 
 the Christ ; " you I can not make out ! I wonder how men 
 got it into their heads that you once lived. You also are 
 dead. The priests say you rose again ; but they are such 
 liars ! I wish I knew you, could come at you, could " And 
 his eyes rested upon the marble face with a wistful look. 
 
 As he sat, the door-bell rang. * He was expecting it, and
 
 330 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 arose, went out, and returned, ushering in no less a person 
 than M. Portou, the Jesuit anatomist. 
 
 " Don't tread on my dog," he exclaimed, with sudden 
 irritation, as the other laid aside his hat and wrappings and 
 took a seat. " Pinquette ! Pinquette ! " and he stooped 
 down and patted the old dog upon its head. It looked up 
 at him with a loving eye, acknowledged the caress with its 
 tail, but seemed too lazy to do more. 
 
 "And so your mother is dead," the visitor remarked, 
 with a singular blending of condolence and austere coldness, 
 as of a man who was visiting him under protest. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur le Jesuit" the other said, " with myriads 
 of moths, bats, butterflies, kings, cats, queens, sheep, forest- 
 leaves, and flowers, my mother is gone. We all drop back 
 into the dust, you observe. Old Gretchen was a good soul," 
 he added to his visitor, as he lifted the poodle in his arms. 
 " She loved us, and made mayonnaise of chicken better than 
 any servant I know. Her cafe au lait was excellent, and 
 she went, as you are shocked to know, with my mother to 
 the Protestant church." He arose, took the dog, laid it on 
 the foot of the bed in the alcove, and returned and sat down 
 again. His visitor had been speaking meanwhile to him, but 
 he paid no attention. 
 
 " Last week I sat beside Gretchen," he now added. " I 
 said to myself, ' Here is a human being I will watch closely, 
 with scientific vigilance, to see if I can detect any difference 
 between hers and the death of, let us say, a rabbit.' My 
 mother was too weak to be with her, but I waited on Gret 
 chen, did what she wished. I read her Bible to her, I heard 
 what she had to say. She was peaceful. I had no idea a 
 Savoyard cook could talk as she did. The poor woman was 
 feeble, but very eloquent. You would have despised her be 
 lief, for you are a Jesuit. At least, she was very happy. 
 She truly believed that she was going to heaven. People 
 are not as sincere in the shop, the ballroom, the Cham 
 ber of Deputies, as she was then. But I did not listen. 
 You observe, sir, I wanted to see if there is any difference
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 331 
 
 in dying between the human being and the merely animal. 
 My finger was on her pulse as it fluttered, feebler and fee 
 bler. Her lips ceased to whisper her prayers. But her eyes, 
 life lingered in them. They were fastened upon me, for she 
 loved me since I was a boy. I bent over and watched the 
 life no, I mistake, it was the love which lingered in them ! 
 It slowly died out, as fire does in an ember, and she was 
 dead. What is the difference ? None at all. The verdure 
 dying from an aspen-leaf until it is utterly sere and wilted 
 and falls to the earth, the breath ceasing just now from the 
 nostrils of my mother, a snowflake melting, a gnat ceasing 
 to move it is the same with us, one and all." 
 
 The Jesuit crossed himself and engaged, as he sat with 
 closed eyes, in silent prayer. He had discussed matters too 
 often with Deschards ; what good could it do to talk ? 
 
 " The only thing I believe in," Deschards began again, 
 " is love ! That is why I wrote to you to come. I don't 
 believe in your Church, my poor Portou. The reverse ! But 
 I saw that you loved the wife who had betrayed and fled 
 from you. Do I not know how you gave up all to follow 
 her, to save her, as you call it ? " 
 
 " I love my order," said the Jesuit ; " the Church is more 
 to me than my wife ever was. For it I would gladly die." 
 
 "It is so odd," Deschards reflected aloud. "This man 
 actually believes in his Church, when, as all history teaches, 
 no organization since history began is so stained with igno 
 rance, brutal oppression, foul corruption. Its inquisitions, St. 
 Bartholomews, Armadas, wars of Alva, this man, he swal 
 lows it all ! He believes in infallibility, yet Pope Honorius 
 was condemned for heresy by a council of his own Church, 
 and Pius IX desired to recognize the Southern Confederacy 
 of Jeff Davis. This man believes in his order, yet has it 
 been driven out of every land as the most devilish of all so 
 cieties ! Yet he so believes in as actually to love these 
 brutalities. No, my poor Portou, I can not believe in your 
 love for your order, your Church. As to that you are insane. 
 But your love for your wife I do believe in. Therefore I
 
 332 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 sent for you. The Protestant minister who buried Gretchen 
 comes to-morrow to bury my mother also. He will find, if I 
 should not be here, in this paper on the table, all I wished to 
 say ; in this drawer, the money necessary. But you, and be 
 cause you loved your wife, I wanted to see I wanted to 
 ask" 
 
 " You are in danger of damnation ; I would save your 
 soul if I could. If you would but hear me," the Jesuit be 
 gan, as the other ceased to speak. 
 
 " My friend," the other interrupted him, " according to 
 you, Gretchen and my mother are damned already. They 
 alone loved me. Out of all the world, they only have I 
 found to be good and true. Let me be damned with them ; 
 have that kindness, if you will be so good. As to your or 
 der, your Church, no, M. Portou ! Do I not already know 
 all you would say ? You would have to take my brain out 
 first, and twist it around. Before then I would have to for 
 get all history. When I can believingly say twice two are ten, 
 you can convince me ; until then, no, my friend, no, no ! " 
 
 "And is there anything left you but despair ? " the Jesuit 
 demanded. 
 
 "Very true. I have read everything, have defended 
 everything, have attacked everything. No," Deschards said, 
 " I do not deny it. Schopenhauer says it, Hartmann repeats 
 it, existence is misery insufferable. Two thousand years 
 ago, the intelligent Hindoos discussed it to rags. Life is 
 not worth living. Man's highest expectation is for Nirvana, 
 annihilation. You are right. We are but as bugs, vermin, 
 toads, lizards ; we live, we know nothing, we die. Alexan 
 der von Humboldt knew everything, traveled everywhere, 
 and he says : ' Happy is he who was born a Flat Head ! ' 
 Extinction is man's only hope." 
 
 The head of the man sank upon his bosom. But the 
 Jesuit softly began to speak. He told of the necessity of a 
 Creator, Preserver, Ruler, Judge. That it was reasonable 
 this God should give to men a revelation. So far the other 
 hearkened, but when the Jesuit added that of this revela-
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 333 
 
 tion the Catholic Church is the sole keeper and teacher, he 
 broke out violently : 
 
 " No, no ! if God can feed me only out of a platter as 
 filthy as that, then must I starve ! " 
 
 " Why, then, did you send for me ? " the Jesuit demand 
 ed, angrily, rising to his feet. 
 
 The eyes of his companion ;were fastened upon the head 
 of the Christ. 
 
 " Gretchen told me," he began, " my mother said to me 
 when I was a child and since My friend," he added, inter 
 rupting himself, and with a species of dignity, " I sent for 
 you because I thought you might forget your accursed 
 Church for a little and tell me about him." The gaze of the 
 despairing man lingered upon the face of the marble Christ. 
 " If I had any political belief," he said, " it is in the Repub 
 lic. Now, in America alone does the Republic really exist, 
 and America is Protestant. Here in France it is not the 
 ultramontanes who love liberty. What care I for Protes 
 tant any more than Catholic, except as I see that in Catholi 
 cism, men like you thrust yourselves between me and the 
 man of Nazareth more than is permitted among Protestants ? 
 As to the Huguenots, there is this good in them, as I under 
 stand it so it is in England, in America people take their 
 filthy hands, their thick heads, their hard hearts and foul 
 souls out of the way. People ? do any of them know, of 
 themselves, anything more than I do, poor devil that I am ? 
 To the gutter with Catholic and Protestant ! What I wanted 
 was to get to Christ by myself, for myself. I have a terri 
 ble deal to tell him, if I thought he was a living person and 
 .would hear me." 
 
 " The Son of Mary saves only in and by and through his 
 Church," the other interrupted, and proceeded to talk upon 
 that theme. He spoke in a low and gentle voice, but it was 
 no more to the other than the purring of a cat. With his 
 eyes upon the floor, he sat as if listening for a long time, but 
 when the other demanded something of him at last, he looked 
 at him with surprise.
 
 33 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " I had forgotten your existence," he said. " Many thanks, 
 M. Portou, but you are merely a poor ignorant fool like my 
 self. I had hoped you could have led me to to somebody 
 higher than either of us," and his haggard eyes were lifted 
 despairingly to the marble countenance above him. 
 
 Without saying another syllable, the Jesuit crossed him 
 self, went slowly out, descended the stairway, and Deschards 
 heard the door close behind him without moving. 
 
 " Alone at last, utterly alone," he said. " No," he added, 
 in a dull way, after a while ; " I hear Pinquette." 
 
 The dog was whining, from where it lay at the feet of 
 the dead woman. It was cold. The brilliant writer arose, 
 took the animal in his arms as tenderly as he would have 
 done a babe, and sat down with it upon his knees. 
 
 " There are only two of us now, Pinquette," he said, and 
 he stroked the black face of the old poodle as it looked up 
 at him and whimpered. " They were women, and this is 
 only a cur," Deschards reflected, as he looked intently in the 
 eyes which were fastened upon his, "and yet here is the 
 same thing we call love. Love ! What is love ? Who 
 knows ? I do not. Love, love, love ! " His gaze was riveted 
 upon the expression of this, in the filmy organs which looked 
 up at him. 
 
 " They are growing dim and dimmer, but it is love, still 
 love, only love. Yes, dimmer and dimmer," he murmured. 
 " They are gone out ! No, a flickering spark rekindles ; it 
 also is love, only love ! " But he sat for some time, the dog 
 in his arms, before he arose. " Gone out for good, but it was 
 to the last love!" Saying this, he laid the dead animal 
 tenderly upon the rug, drew on his coat, took it again in his 
 arms, carried it down stairs and out into a hidden corner of 
 his garden, and buried it. 
 
 " And now I am alone," he said, when he had returned. 
 " What does it matter ? It is with me also as with the rest. 
 Frogs, bats, lice, lions, dogs, eagles, mites in a cheese, in 
 fusoria in a drop of dirty water we are all alike." He 
 glanced at his watch. It was near daybreak, and it had run
 
 THE VOLTAIRE AND THE CHRIST. 335 
 
 down. "And it also ! " It was all he said. Then he opened 
 and read over the document upon the table, and placed the 
 box of coin beside it. 
 
 " They will be here in a few hours," he said. Then he 
 took out the box containing the wafers. 
 
 " Oh, if I could but know you ! " he groaned, his dull eyes 
 lingering upon the sculptured face of the marble. " If you 
 were not a myth, but a living person." He turned, he was 
 about to fall upon his knees. As he did so, he caught sight 
 of the scoffing lips of Voltaire. The bronze seemed almost 
 alive, its eyes were lurid, its mouth almost spoke. 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes," he said, we*arily. Then he crossed the 
 room, the box in his hand, blew out his lamp, went to the 
 bed on which his dead mother lay. Turning the cover gently 
 down, he crept to her side, slipped the wafers into his mouth, 
 laid his head upon her bosom. 
 
 " Rats, mice," he whispered ; " oxen, moths, the Christ, 
 too, love 'itself, we are all alike ! Death is the end to all." 
 
 A moment after profound silence had fallen upon the 
 house. Outside was the roll of early wheels, the sound of 
 feet and of voices, as men and man-like women hastened to 
 their daily toil. A child sang as it went, the hucksters be 
 gan to cry their fish and fruit, now and then came a laugh 
 as the world rapidly awakened. But the trees clustered, as 
 it were, more closely about the house, the birds chirped upon 
 its roof in cautious ways, the building seemed to draw itself 
 more apart from the houses to the right hand and the left. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " the bald - headed cobbler said, as he 
 slouched by to his shop from buying a few sous' worth of 
 onions and mutton. "This house, del! how it resembles a 
 tomb! But what matters it to thee, Jules Zerat ? In twenty 
 minutes thou shalt taste thy ,soup." 
 
 15
 
 336 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 THE LAST DATS OF THE EXPOSITION. 
 
 THE French Exposition was drawing to a close ; the 
 chestnut foliage on the Champs Elysees was assuming its 
 russet robes under the October frosts ; the garden fetes were 
 withdrawn into the great halls of the city ; the splendors of 
 the Jardin Mabille were chilled by the searching rains ; and 
 there were visible preparations for a long winter campaign. 
 A winter in London is denounced as a season of fog and 
 drizzle and storm, and there are weeks and months of un 
 speakable gloom ; and Paris is, outwardly, as inhospitable 
 as the shrouded British capital : but then it must be remem 
 bered that, as Paris is a paradise in spring and summer and 
 autumn, London, most cheerless in its wintry streets, is a 
 perfect saturnalia of inside luxury. The English are accus 
 tomed to rains and fogs, and, as they never suffer from our 
 severe American cold, they enjoy the rich comforts of their 
 homes. It is otherwise with the French. They are unpre 
 pared for a severe December or January, with their scarcity 
 of fuel, their unsatisfactory stoves, and their out-of-door 
 habits ; and so those who can rush to the South of France, 
 to Nice, and Cannes, and Hyeres, and Monte Carlo, and 
 Mentone, and the soft and salubrious vicinity of Bay Na- 
 poule. Paris, in these two months, is often as repellent as 
 St. Petersburg ; not so entombed in snow nor so monumen 
 tal in ice, but hard upon the poor, thousands of whom have 
 no place in which to shelter, no home in which to hide, and 
 often no occupation for their desperate hands. And now 
 that winter is at their doors, and the fine republican show of 
 the Exposition is being dismantled, they would be objects of 
 pity indeed if the Republic had not provided them cheap 
 amusements within walls, and if they had not acquired the 
 habit of making a little food go very far. 
 
 One night Mrs. George Harris, not having heard as yet 
 of the peril to which her son and his companion were ex-
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EXPOSITION. 337 
 
 posed in Russia, had a large party at the Hotel Bristol, in 
 cluding ladies and gentlemen of all nations. The American 
 manufacturer was a royal host. Pie had not lived in St. Pe 
 tersburg so many years without acquiring the tastes of high 
 society, and understood the art of entertainment as well as 
 he did the science of practical engineering. He had gone 
 back from Russia after the rebellion broke out, and had 
 thrown his whole soul into the Union side, not as a parti 
 san, but as a patriot. His early years had been lived in Bal 
 timore, and he never was what might be called an abolition 
 ist. He loved the South only less than the Union, and la 
 bored long and vainly to dissuade it from rebellion ; and 
 when at last his Southern friends insisted upon secession, 
 even as he gave his money and his counsel to the side of the 
 Government, he always cherished the hope that they would 
 finally be induced to return to their allegiance. 
 
 The Hotel Bristol is in the magnificent Place Yendome, 
 with the tall, gorgeous, carved column, covered with bas-re 
 liefs representing the victories of the first Napoleon, in the 
 center ; and on this gala night the superb square blazed with 
 a rare effulgence. It was a glorious evening, and the scene 
 was worthy of the host and of the country. George Harris 
 was a generous patron of the arts, at home and abroad, and 
 had given much time to the American Department in the 
 French Exhibition. His great business operations brought 
 him in contact with official, financial, aesthetic, and fashion 
 able society, and the company that flocked to his wife's levee 
 included the men and women of all these circles. The Ho 
 tel Bristol was also the home of the British heir-apparent, 
 whose long suite of rooms flanked the north side of the 
 Place Vendome, and whose little court could enjoy the spec 
 tacle of the American carnival from their great windows 
 overlooking the square. Beyond the British Plenipotentiary 
 to France, Lord Lyons and his legation, there were no offi 
 cial English among the guests. Mrs. Margaret Harris shared 
 with her husband a great unspoken contempt for the Ameri 
 can snobbery that too often sighs for royal recognition.
 
 338 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 She held, as he did, that Americans owed nothing but ordi 
 nary civility to these dynasties, which had done their work 
 and were outliving their era. The sight of an American 
 lady or gentleman proffering incense to the scions of royalty, 
 either in America or in foreign countries, was simply dis 
 gusting ; and as this incense is always laughed at by those 
 who receive it, when they are alone, the practice assumes 
 the aspect of degrading servility. But the republican lady 
 of the great millionaire and manufacturer had no lack of 
 sovereigns at her reception, sovereigns of learning and ge 
 nius, the princes of the academies, the chiefs of the Cabinet, 
 the leaders of the Assembly, the press, the stage, even the 
 ancien regime, and of course the architects of the Republic, 
 including the best culture of the Americans still lingering 
 in Paris to see the close of the Exhibition. 
 
 In the lighted space outside thousands of spectators had 
 gathered to see the arriving and departing celebrities. There 
 was no confusion or indecorum. The Marshal-President had 
 sent a detachment of his guard, handsome young Frenchmen, 
 to preserve order, but their presence rather added to the ele 
 gance of the pretty pageant than to the order of an occasion 
 made peaceful by the respect of the republican people of 
 Paris. These people knew that they looked upon the hospi 
 tality of an American, that the wife of the late President of 
 the United States was the principal lady of the evening, and 
 so they honored the occasion as a tribute to their Republic. 
 The Prince of Wales could not fail, in his frequent visits to 
 the French Exhibition, to ponder upon these lessons. He 
 came almost weekly to the gay capital. The splendors of 
 the Trocadero, and the richer temple of the Champ de Mars, 
 were enhanced by his own contributions, and his India House, 
 like the costly boudoir which he now and then occupied with 
 Alexandra, his Danish queen, were something more than con 
 cession to the spirit of neighborhood ; they meant deference 
 to the improvement of the masses, to the success of the Re 
 public, to coming democratic empire in Great Britain, and, 
 perhaps, at the same time, a protest against the too promi-
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE EXPOSITION. 339 
 
 nent and offensive autocracy of his mother's Prime Minister, 
 who seemed to be never satisfied with his Oriental vision of 
 British supremacy over other nations. And as the Prince 
 stood, with his courtiers, gazing out upon this brilliant scene, 
 in the Place Vendome, in a certain sense a new panel in the 
 great picture of the French Exhibition, he could not sup 
 press the fear can we say, terror? that when the masses 
 work for their rights with the weapons of reason, there is an 
 end to privilege and to royal rule. On the morning of that 
 day the Prince had met Gambetta at a social breakfast, as 
 he had met him before, and that civility had given offense 
 to the Queen and to her Machiavelian Premier. M. Gam 
 betta, who was standing at the side of Mrs. Margaret Harris 
 and Mrs. Grant, with Lady Blanche and Mary Harris, and a 
 radiant bouquet of English and French ladies, in the circle 
 about the American hostess, was no curled darling of power. 
 The Prince of Wales could not make the excuse that he had 
 been entertaining a diplomate, an official, an inventor, an 
 owner of yachts and blooded horses, a republican Sardana- 
 palus, a dilettante reformer, with castles and millions at his 
 command. Gambetta's mission was the destruction of roy- 
 alism. His purpose was the overthrow of caste. His faith 
 in the people was complete, amounting to blind trust. To 
 him there could be no religion of the state, no class by in 
 heritance, no divine right, no superiority of blood or name, 
 no peers that were not made by the intellect, and no aristoc 
 racy but that won by superior excellence and good works. 
 Nor did the Prince of Wales deceive himself by a different 
 belief. He understood and respected democracy precisely 
 as his mother and her minister hated and feared it. 
 
 The guests continued to pour into Mrs. Harris's recep 
 tion. Her husband was a quiet spectator of the brilliant 
 festival, and he pointed out the Prince of Wales, in the op 
 posite window, to Earl Dorrington. 
 
 " The Prince, your lordship, is a willing witness to a nov 
 elty to-night ; but why should I say so ? He has been in my 
 country, has met my countrymen in England and here, and
 
 340 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 certainly knows what he is about. I sometimes think he is 
 prepared for great changes even in his own country, and that 
 his frequent visits to Paris are rather errands for informa 
 tion than voyages of pleasure. His intimacy with M. Gam- 
 betta is very manly, and means more than princely courtesy. 
 
 " You sincerely think," the Earl asked, in his usually ur 
 bane manner, "that political changes are impending? If 
 you speak of permanent change, I am constrained to dissent 
 from you. Revolutions there have been, there will be, but 
 reaction is as sure as revolution. In the madness of a pass 
 ing frenzy the mob may cut off the head of a Charles I, of a 
 Louis XVI, but the nation invariably comes back again to 
 order and the lawful rule of king and nobles. At the mo 
 ment, we are here," and the Earl waved a dignified but some 
 what disdainful hand toward Paris and France, "beneath 
 a republic. For how long ? Do you chance to remember 
 how many republics France has had ? The number of them 
 escapes me at this moment. Pardon me, sir, but I prefer 
 the everlasting to the mutable, the divinely ordained domin 
 ion of legitimate law to the bubble, however it swells and 
 glitters, of evanescent liberty, as it is misnamed." 
 
 His companion looked for a moment at the Earl, steadily, 
 respectfully, silently. He had for him a sad yet profound 
 deference as toward the living symbol of what had been, and 
 for a thousand years, a magnificent and, upon the whole, 
 essential and beneficent supremacy. Mr. Harris venerated the 
 Earl and all he represented as one does the colossal ruins of 
 Karnac or Baalbec. Beneath the calm composure of the old 
 aristocrat there was, as the American well knew, a profound 
 disquiet, an anxious apprehension for what might be coming. 
 The world would stand fast, the Earl believed, during his 
 own day, but what would be the chaos which might befall 
 his country, his children, when he was gone ! 
 
 " This is neither the time this is not," Mr. Harris said at 
 last, " the place, in which I should speak upon such topics ; 
 yet, if you will allow me " 
 
 " Assuredly so ! " said the Earl.
 
 THE LAST DATS OF THE EXPOSITION. 341 
 
 " What I wished to state," the old mechanic continued, 
 " is not theory, but fact. It was not the Republic, my lord, it 
 was the theatrical Empire of France which plunged France 
 into war with Germany and into the most disastrous defeat 
 known to history. It was the Empire which forced it, as the 
 result, to pay four billions of indemnity to Germany. It 
 was the Empire which made the disgraceful debt ; it is the 
 Republic which pays that debt. Mr. Gladstone well says 
 that the way in which America, France republics both pay 
 off their national indebtedness is something unparalleled in 
 the annals of the race. France is a Republic because Amer 
 ica is such. Do you know, my lord, why America is becom 
 ing so rich ? " 
 
 " It is a large and fruitful region, sir." It was said with 
 great kindness. 
 
 "The reason, my lord," Mr. Harris said, in his steady 
 tones, "is this : in Europe millions of men, men in the prime 
 of their powers, are kept under arms. Their days are wasted 
 in drill or in killing each other in battle. In America " 
 
 " War has its advantages, sir," the Earl interrupted him, 
 warmly. " It suppresses indolence, luxury, the mere shop- 
 keeping baseness of sordid existence. It develops, elevates, 
 teaches manliness, self-sacrifice, obedience, endurance ! Ter 
 rible as it is, a corrupting peace is worse ! " 
 
 " Very true," Mr. Harris assented, with energy. " But, 
 consider this, my lord : while no man of the fifty million 
 Americans is forced into the ranks, every soul of them is 
 conscripted instead into a war which never ceases, a battle 
 which demands and develops all the drill, discipline, cour 
 age, manhood which is, as you say, essential to a people. In 
 stead of years wasted in waiting, with arms in our hands, for 
 the breaking out of hostilities, ours is a war which knows no 
 truce it never ceases. But it does not consist in killing any 
 one. During every waking hour we are attacking the im 
 measurable soil with plow and harrow ; we slay the armies 
 of grain with swords which never tire ; we use a thousand 
 times as much powder as Europe, but it is in blasting a path
 
 342 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 for ourselves through the mountains, in compelling the rocks 
 to surrender their metals. Our strategy is exerted in a com 
 petition which taxes to the utmost every faculty. During the 
 fiercest campaigns of Wellington, the gallant English never 
 toiled, endured, dared, as your descendants are doing to-day, 
 my lord, in America. We disco ver, invent, experiment. In 
 educating our children, in controlling our politics between 
 dangerous extremes, in maintaining a religion which shall be 
 true to its original, in assimilating our foreign influx, in de 
 veloping art as against mere money-making in too many 
 modes to specify, we arouse and keep up almost to the fury of 
 battle the utmost there is in us. All the more, my lord," Mr. 
 Harris added, " that we are warring in behalf of the entire 
 race, not to feed it alone, not to supply it only with labor- 
 saving machinery. Napoleon expended billions of treasure, 
 myriads of lives and for what ? America has entered upon 
 its campaign against Europe, Africa, Asia, to revolutionize it 
 by saving, not slaying. Our fields of Austerlitz, of Water 
 loo" 
 
 Mr. Harris paused. " I should not have allowed myself 
 to speak so long. It is because," he said, " everything ap 
 pears to me, mechanic that I am, so evident, so glorious, be 
 cause so beneficent in our future. You will excuse an Ameri 
 can ? " 
 
 " Assuredly so, assuredly so ! " The Earl was interested 
 beyond his wont. "And you are confident of impending 
 changes in Europe ? " he asked, gravely. 
 
 " I am sure of it. You remember," Mr. Harris replied, 
 "how your own Beaconsfield says : It is the unexpected that 
 always takes place. The first step will be the disarmament of 
 Europe. I know how philosophers like Von Moltke, at Ber 
 lin, and Gortchakoff, of St. Petersburg, laugh at such a hope, 
 and regard it as chaotic intoxication ; but these new forces 
 are organized and organizing, and the fiat has gone forth 
 that kings must cease killing other men, at least as useful as 
 themselves, or other men will kill the kings. There are two 
 tremendous evils unsleepingly engaged in watching each
 
 THE LAST DA YS OF TEE EXPOSITION. 343 
 
 other, the despot and his assassins. The one may raise an 
 army, but the other may do more than twenty armies. De 
 pend upon it, the sovereignty, under God, is in the individual, 
 educated, purified by suffering, prepared for it. I repeat, 
 the empire of the one ruler is over ; the empire of the million 
 is here. The future of the race is, my lord," Mr. Harris 
 added, " in the hands of your great nation and mine. I stood, 
 one mid-day, upon the center of the suspension bridge below 
 Niagara, thinking how the torrent was as that of history 
 itself in its rush, its roar, most of all in the shattering force 
 with which it plunged at last downward to perish upon the 
 rocks in the agonies of anarchy and chaos. Then I lifted 
 my eyes to the magnificent rainbow which spanned the 
 cataract, and how could I help observing that, if one end 
 rested upon the American, the other was based upon the 
 British soil ! Believe me, my lord, in your country and 
 in mine is the supreme promise, the sure hope of the 
 world ! " ^ 
 
 It is unnecessary to state tnat the Earl was surprised. 
 George Harris was cool, passionless, and pale ; and as the two 
 men looked into each other's eyes, the nobleman seemed to 
 feel that the earnest language of the American was not a 
 paroxysm, but an absolute principle a principle, too, which, 
 like the axioms of mathematics, carries within itself toward 
 its execution the omnipotence of the Almighty Ruler. Such 
 principles are the artillery which sweep the field and inva 
 riably conquer. 
 
 " I am glad," Earl Dorrington said to Lady Blanche the 
 next morning, at breakfast, when speaking of his conversa 
 tion with Mr. George Harris, " I am glad that I shall not live 
 to see, much less to take an active part in the revolutions of 
 the future. I am a very old and obstinate King Canute who, 
 seated on his throne upon the edge of the ocean, sees the 
 Atlantic tide coming in. The ocean may be advancing upon 
 us from the American side of the planet, may be coming in 
 with flood sufficient to roll over us of the Old World, but I 
 prefer being drowned to changing my seat. And yet I am
 
 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 glad," he added, musingly, " that Alfred and yourself will 
 live and be actors in the great future." 
 
 For some time the Earl pondered as he sat. " If there is 
 to be," he said, after a while, " a new civilization, it will pro 
 duce, rather, it will be produced, established, maintained, by 
 an order of nobles adapted to it. The word aristocracy 
 means no more than the rule of the best, the strongest. So 
 it ever has been, so it will always be. The old order was by 
 the creation of kings, the new may be by the creation, who 
 can say ? of the King of kings, by the gift of character, in 
 tegrity, sense, vigorous and original manhood. Assuredly 
 so ! There may be a new nobility who can read the fu 
 ture ? " It was with himself the aged peer was commun 
 ing, his head fallen upon his breast. There was such dignity 
 in his aspect that Lady Blanche murmured to herself : " The 
 Goths are breaking into Rome, and this grand old father of 
 mine he endures it as the Roman senators did then, seated 
 each in his curule chair, undaunted, unchanged, unchange 
 able." 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 TRANSITION. 
 
 ONE morning, some time after Henry Harris and Lord 
 Conyngham had left St. Petersburg for Little Russia, Zerah 
 Atchison and his daughter were in their studio together. Isi 
 dore was busy at a table upon her designs for the monument 
 to the Princess Aura. Her father was not at work. He had 
 brought with him to Russia his full-length portrait of the 
 Delira of his youth, and was now feasting his eyes on it as 
 he sat in his easy-chair, his paralyzed right arm supported 
 upon a pillow in his lap. He was evidently older and feebler. 
 Had he been an ailing and only child, his daughter could not 
 have looked at him more often and anxiously as she busied 
 herself with her work. If he had become a child, she had
 
 TRANSITION. 345 
 
 changed from a child to a woman of late, and a very lovely 
 woman, whose lithe form, pliant curves, graceful ways, seemed 
 to move to music. But of late, too, it was a sad music. 
 Evidently it was to interest her father, to hide her own 
 trouble, that she assumed a cheerfulness she did not feel. 
 
 " You enjoy your picture," she now said. 
 
 " Because it is finished," he replied ; " it is the master 
 piece of my life ; I will never attempt to paint any more." 
 
 It was, as has been said, a wonderful picture. The wild 
 girl of his early years was alive, was breathing, and in gaz 
 ing upon her the old artist had returned to his youth, and 
 was resting as at the end of a completed circle. The painter 
 had laid aside his brush, but the critic remained. 
 
 " We were speaking of drapery," he went on. " Always 
 remember, my child, that the flesh also is but an inner and 
 more closely fitting drapery. What you and I, Isidore, strive 
 to attain is, as you well know, the most perfect expression of 
 the nude. The person is more than what it wears, but never 
 forget that it is the person within the outer person which we 
 would express. It is the soul itself which is really the nude. 
 You pare away the clay, you cut away the marble, to get at 
 that, my child. Yes, you have well illustrated it by what 
 you have said of Prince Kalitzoff, our host. His gracious 
 manners are as much a clothing as are his furs and broad 
 cloth. Not that he does not have a kind, even a noble, gen 
 erous, and loving soul, but he has been rich, powerful, pros 
 perous, all his life. Were he, like Solomon, to write out his 
 experiences of life, he also would say that all is vanity and 
 weariness. He wears the aspect of his earliest manhood still, 
 but who can fail to see how disgusted he is ? Now that his 
 child is dead, what has he to live for ? Politics ? society ? 
 wealth ? all these he has long ago exhausted. Isidore," the 
 old man added, " there is but one thing in the world worth 
 living for, and that is love." 
 
 Almost at the same moment Achilles Deschards was say 
 ing the same thing in France with dying lips. At last, is it 
 not the verdict of the human heart the world over ?
 
 346 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 " Even my art is nothing to me of late," Zerah Atchison 
 continued. " I possess the living image of Delira, but I now 
 feel that she is no longer alive. You know how eagerly I 
 hoped to have seen her son and mine ; I desire it no longer. 
 You are all that is left me. Under all his vesture of mere man 
 ner I believe the Prince is sincere." It was added meaningly. 
 
 " Dear father," Isidore left her drawings and stood over 
 the old man, her hand upon his shoulder ; " it is so sudden ; 
 who could have imagined such a thing ? He is a prince, 
 please remember that ; not merely a rich man with estates 
 and servants, not only a Russian and a few months ago the 
 very word Russia meant nothing to us but Siberia and 
 despotism and awful snow and polar bears but he is a 
 prince ; think of that, a prince I " 
 
 " The Russians are not cold, like the Germans or the Eng 
 lish," her father replied. " Although as fiery as the Italians, 
 more so than the French, there is a solid substance in their 
 passion. If they are barbaric in their ways, sudden at times, 
 and violent as the Tartars from whom they sprang, they are 
 constant. See, for instance, how devoted our Prince is to the 
 memory of his only daughter. Until he knew you, she was 
 his one thought." 
 
 " But it is like a wild dream that he should want me to 
 be his wife," his daughter pleaded. " When we were in Vir 
 ginia, who could have imagined that I, your little Isidore, 
 would ever visit this vast, dreadful Russia ? Even after we 
 had lived in Paris, if anybody had said to me, ' You little 
 artist, take off your calico apron, tear off your paper cap, 
 wash the clay from your hands, comb your hair, put on your 
 best clothes, here is somebody who wants to make you a Rus 
 sian princess,' I would have known that whoever said it was 
 crazy, and so would you. Dear father," and the girl placed 
 herself between him and his picture, " please take a good, 
 long look at me, and remember I am not a princess ; I am 
 only your poor little girl, Isidore. What is more, I do not 
 want to be anything but that." The tears rose, as she spoke, 
 to her eyes.
 
 TRANSITION. 347 
 
 " I acknowledge that it takes us both by surprise," her 
 father replied ; " but the Russians are not like other people 
 any more than are you like other girls, my dear. As I told 
 you, they are Tartars still, sudden, violent, vehement. You 
 remember the Prince told us how his ancestors used to win 
 their brides." 
 
 " Yes ; the young girl mounted a swift horse," Isidore 
 laughed, " her lover another, and pursued her across the im 
 measurable steppes of the Ukraine. He had her if he could 
 catch her ; but I told the Prince that " 
 
 " He could never catch you ? At least, it would be like 
 you to say so," the old artist interrupted. "My dear 
 child," he began a moment after, " let us look our affairs 
 calmly in the face. Here we are in the center of Russia, 
 far away from everybody. Apart from our power as ar 
 tists" 
 
 " I am not an artist," his daughter broke in, almost vehe 
 mently ; " there is where the Prince also is mistaken. Say I 
 succeeded in making that head of ' Patience,' what did I do 
 but simply copy your dear head? And I could not have 
 done that if I had not loved you so well. This monument 
 to the young Princess even with your help, I may not suc 
 ceed in it. No, I am no artist ; at best I am an artist only 
 where I love." 
 
 " My child," the aged critic made answer, " the ideal head 
 of ' Purpose,' which you made without any help from me, 
 and which Mrs. Harris mistook for the portrait of her son, is 
 far superior to that of the 'Patience.' Any artist will tell 
 you that it is a work of astonishing genius. Was that a 
 result of " 
 
 " Love," he would have added, but that the deep dismay, 
 shame, confusion, upon the face of the young girl arrested 
 him. By a strong effort she turned silently away, and began 
 again to work at her designs. 
 
 " My dear," urged her father, " you are an artist of the 
 highest genius. But how will that help you when I am 
 gone ? You are here in Russia, far away from every friend
 
 348 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 of your own sex a young, beautiful, unprotected girl. Sup 
 pose I were to die " 
 
 But Isidore had dropped her crayons, had run to his side, 
 had taken his head in her arms, was kissing his forehead. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no ! " she said, " that would be too dreadful. 
 If you were to die I would go too. God would not be so 
 cruel as to leave me here alone alone. Oh, this horrible 
 Russia ! Why did I come here ? " And the tears ran piteously 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 The more agitated she became, the calmer grew the aspect 
 of her father. His face took the whiteness as it already had 
 the strength of marble as he silently endured, for he had 
 suffered all this in advance. " My dear," he said, as her 
 tears gave place to the quick sobs of a child, " all my life I 
 have known of things only as they came to pass. Nothing 
 has happened as I expected. The great events of life have 
 come to me suddenly, without forewarning, without time for 
 preparation. Hence I have learned, having done all I could 
 do, to wait. When the event befell, there was but one thing 
 to do. That is the benefit of not trying to look into the 
 future ; it merely embarrasses and bewilders one, and all the 
 planning and discussion goes at last for nothing. When the 
 hour strikes, however vast, unexpected, the emergency, there 
 remains but one thing to be done. So now, any day I may 
 die. Without thought of such an event on our part, here 
 we are in Russia. Prince Kalitzoff has become deeply at 
 tached to you. He is universally known as one of the noblest, 
 sincerest, most generous, of the Russian nobility. But he is 
 a lonely and warm-hearted man, to whom you have come, as 
 he told me, like an angel sent from God. I know it is sud 
 den, very sudden, but he wishes to marry you." 
 
 " The Emperor will never consent," began the girl. She 
 seemed bewildered. 
 
 "Prince Kalitzoff showed me a letter from Alexander 
 yesterday. I confess it surprised me, but the Emperor has 
 consented. It is with the Prince as it was in the instance of 
 Count Bodisco in Washington. With Russians, all Ameri-
 
 TRANSITION. 349 
 
 cans would seem to rank almost as of the nobility. There 
 seems also to be some special reason in this case, I know not 
 what. Therefore " 
 
 " But the Prince is of the Greek Church," sobbed the 
 frightened girl, " while I am " 
 
 " The angels of God are of the most celestial religion of 
 all. At least," her father laughed, "that is the way the 
 Prince met that objection when I urged it. But what I was 
 trying to say, my dear, was that, most unexpectedly, this 
 marriage comes to us as the one thing, the only thing to be 
 done. How could I die, my darling, and leave you alone, my 
 dove, my lamb, in this wide, wild world ? " The daughter 
 only clasped her arms more closely about him and wept in 
 silence. 
 
 " And what makes your path plainer," her father con 
 tinued, in a lower voice, " is that you have not already given 
 your heart away. You love no one." But the aspect of the 
 old artist grew stern as he added, " At least, I am sure that 
 no other man has asked you to love and to marry him. You 
 would have told me, had he done so." 
 
 He could not help seeing how the cheek of his child 
 glowed as he said it, although her face was almost hidden in 
 his bosom. Yet he did not need that to teach him anything. 
 He knew her heart better than she did herself. 
 
 But there came at the moment a knock upon the door. 
 Isidore arose and escaped into her own room through an 
 other way, and a servant came in to request permission from 
 Prince Kalitzoff to visit Mr. Atchison. Very soon the Prince 
 came in ; he seemed to be holding himself under control, as 
 after a few words of salutation he said : 
 
 " I fear I have bad news for you ; there has been a 
 Nihilist rising at Kiev, in Little Russia. The city has been 
 burned by the conspirators, but a number of them have been 
 arrested. Chief among them, taking, I am astonished to 
 learn, the most active part in firing the city, are our friends 
 would you believe it ? Mr. Harris and Lord Conyngham. 
 I knew them to be daring and resolute young men, but I had
 
 350 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 no idea that they were emissaries of the revolutionary so 
 cieties. They are lying in jail at Kiev, will be rapidly con 
 demned, and sent to Siberia. I fear there is nothing we can 
 do!" 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 STRUGGLE. 
 
 IF a quantity of straws, chips, feathers, trash of any kind, 
 be scattered widely apart upon the surface of a pond, although 
 there is no wind to blow, no billow to heave them together, 
 in a short time they will be found drawn into a mass by we 
 know not what species of magnetism. Certainly it is so of 
 people. Apart even from their own will, those of a like 
 sort are compelled to come together from points however 
 widely separated. Stranger still, there is a certain concur 
 rence of events also. Similar events cluster as by a univer 
 sal law, which groups into bunches the cherries of a tree, the 
 planets of a system. So it was in St. Petersburg at the 
 critical juncture here spoken of. 
 
 When Prince Kalitzoff announced to Zerah Atchison, as 
 related, the arrest of the American engineer and his Eng 
 lish companion, each had reasons for an even deeper interest 
 in the disaster than the other could have imagined. 
 
 " I have already done all in my power," the Prince said, in 
 the end. " Telegrams have been sent to Earl Dorrington and 
 to the British Government in regard to Lord Conyngham. 
 I have telegraphed to Mr. George Harris in France ; have 
 communicated with the American Embassy. I would have 
 seen the Emperor, but that he is not in the city. The state 
 of things with Turkey, the possibility of the breaking out at 
 any moment of war with England and other powers, the 
 danger from the Nihilists, leave the Emperor no time for the 
 consideration of lesser matters. He is obliged to hurry here
 
 STRUGGLE. 351 
 
 and there as affairs demand. Our friends are in serious 
 peril." 
 
 " But it is absurd," Mr. Atchison reasoned, " that Mr. 
 Harris, that Lord Conyngham, should be engaged in setting 
 fire to a city ! " 
 
 " The Chief of Police assures me that they were caught 
 in the very act. There is no telling," the Prince said, " what 
 young men may do in moments of excitement. Why should 
 they have been in Kiev at all ? It is out of the track of 
 tourists, especially at this season of the year midwinter. It 
 was rash to the last degree. This is worse than a political 
 affair ; it is arson ; it is felony ; it is the most frightful of 
 crimes. How can the Government of England or America 
 protect its subjects when taken, red-handed, in burning a 
 great city ? Have you read, Mr. Atchison, of the Siberian 
 mines ? Except that it is not eternal for our friends could 
 not long survive Siberia is worse than hell." 
 
 The nobleman shuddered as he said it. There seemed to 
 be a horror resting upon him ; a shadow cast over him by a 
 something behind, and more than the fate of the adventurous 
 young men. He rose and sat down, walked up and down, 
 started at every sound, looked fearfully out, now of one 
 window and then of the other. 
 
 " This magnificent Prince is a brave man," the artist said 
 to himself ; " yet he is as sympathetic as he is courageous. 
 It is that which so agitates him." 
 
 But the artist was himself to endure more than he had 
 thought. Through all the conversation he had continued to 
 glance anxiously at the door by which Isidore left the stu 
 dio. As soon as the Prince was gone he hastened thither, 
 pushed open the door, which stood ajar, and was astonished, 
 when he had done so, to find his daughter standing in the 
 center of her room, dressed as for a journey. 
 
 " I know all," she interrupted him, with a countenance 
 which was so composed, it was almost glad. " At first I 
 fainted a little only a little bit, father. But all that is over, 
 you see." And she paused from what seemed to be the hur-
 
 352 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ried packing of a valise to say it. " I did not close the dooi- 
 when I ran in, and could not help hearing. Siberia ! It is 
 too horrible ! " 
 
 Her face grew white ; her eyes were closed to shut out 
 the vision ; she shuddered. Then she threw on a shawl and 
 began to tie her hat upon her head. 
 
 " What do you mean ? "Where are you going ? " her 
 father demanded, trembling so greatly in his agitation that, 
 holding his paralyzed arm in his left hand, he sank into a 
 chair and looked up at her with a face whose calmness was 
 white with fear. But his daughter did not seem to have seen 
 him, even while she talked with him, so absorbed was she in 
 her preparations. " Where are you going ? " the old artist 
 demanded again. 
 
 " Going ! Where could I go ? " she said. " I am going 
 to find the Emperor. Prince Kalitzoff said that his Majesty 
 was pleased with me when I was presented to him last month. 
 I am going to tell him that he they, I mean had no more 
 to do with the Nihilists than I had. Nihilists, indeed ! The 
 Emperor is not deranged. The idea of his setting fire of 
 their setting fire, I mean to anything is too absurd ! When 
 I have explained it to him, Alexander will laugh at the idea 
 and release them. I hope he will have the good sense even 
 to apologize to him to them for the arrest." 
 
 And the ardent girl hastened to and fro, opening and shut 
 ting drawers, selecting this article for her journey and that. 
 
 "My child," exclaimed the father, as the whole truth 
 broke upon him, " you do not know what you are going to 
 risk. The Emperor is a sad, stern man. He has been shot 
 at until he is savage. Besides, he is " 
 
 " I am not afraid of a thousand emperors ! " the girl 
 replied, lightly gladly. 
 
 " But for you, a young and beautiful woman, to go alone, 
 to risk yourself " 
 
 " God goes with me. You would be the first to say so, 
 father. Please do not try to stop me." 
 
 But even as she said it her eyes fell for the first time
 
 STRUGGLE. 353 
 
 upon the old man. There was that in his face which caused 
 her to hesitate, to halt in her packing. She glanced again 
 at him. There was silent yet unutterable entreaty in his 
 face ; but she saw even more than that, as in a moment she 
 had cast aside her wrappings, thrown off her hat, seated her 
 self on the floor at his feet, her head upon his knee. " You 
 are right, father," she said, simply. " My first duty is to 
 you. I am not going." But not until then did she give way 
 to her weeping ; her high resolves melted like ice into a flood 
 of tears. 
 
 An hour or two after she was ready to receive Prince 
 Kalitzoff when he called again. She had become almost 
 stern, so cold and pallid was she with suppressed feeling, as 
 the three conversed in regard to the dreadful tidings. Even 
 in her distress Isidore could not understand why their host 
 should seem to be so deeply concerned. She could learn 
 nothing from him in regard to the Nihilists. Of them and 
 of their plans, their motives, he appeared to be profoundly 
 ignorant. His conversation was concerning the American 
 and his friend. Nor could he cease to speak of Siberia. 
 There was a terrible fascination to him in the theme. 
 
 " It is twice as large as Europe," he said, " and is a vast 
 desert of rock and snow, upon whose iron coasts grind ice 
 bergs which never melt. Its three immense rivers, the Obe, 
 the Yenisei, the Lena, pour into the Arctic Ocean, gloomy 
 as the river Styx. And yet there are twenty-one volcanoes 
 in Siberia in perpetual eruption mouths of hell ! You re 
 member that it was discovered in the sixteenth century by 
 Vassili Yermak, an atrocious felon, who fled thither on ac 
 count of his crimes. It ought to be called Scoundrels' Land. 
 More than half the population are those who have been ex 
 iled there for political or criminal offenses, or are the chil 
 dren of exiles. Of these, some are at large, under the eye of 
 the police ; some are forced to work in shop and field ; the 
 rest toil without rest in the mines. It is all the same, they 
 are alike in hell ! " 
 
 The Prince arose and walked up and down the room in
 
 354 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 strong excitement. "I have friends there," he said. "I 
 have read of it. When I was a child I used to dream of 
 Siberia and awaken the household with my shrieks. Dante 
 falls short of its horrors in his ' Inferno.' Your Milton, Mr. 
 Atchison, tells how the damned are hurried from seas of fire 
 and plunged in oceans, more agonizing still, of ice. That is 
 Siberia. Death is heaven in comparison to it ! " And he 
 continued to pace up and down. 
 
 " But I came for another object," he said, after a little. 
 "In this valise," and he pointed to one which a servant had 
 brought in, " is the amount I shall be owing you when the 
 cenotaph to my child is completed. I have been seized with 
 the whim of putting it in your possession to-night. The 
 amount is large, but I love my child, and have no use for 
 wealth except for her sake, unless " and he fastened his 
 eyes respectfully but almost eagerly upon Isidore, who was 
 seated beside her father. " Money, my friend, is," he con 
 tinued, handing the key of the valise to the artist, " only less 
 than God. No thanks ! I am a Russian, and my whims 
 are imperious. But that is the least part of my errand. I 
 hope you will pardon my importunity, but, Miss Atchison," 
 and he bowed with deference to the shrinking girl, " I do 
 not intend to press my suit too much upon you. There are 
 reasons for it ; but if you could gain your own consent I 
 wish you could promise me your hand. I can not explain, 
 but it must be given, a hope of it at least, very soon if you 
 would have me succeed in rescuing our young friends. No 
 one knows what insurrections may break out, like a Siberian 
 volcano, under our very feet, and I desire to give myself bet 
 ter opportunity of caring for you. I know how sudden, 
 how abrupt, all this is. Young ladies should be wooed for 
 months, if not for years. But in Russia, especially in such 
 times as these " 
 
 " Prince," Mr. Atchison said, " please give Isidore and 
 myself time to think. We are exhausted, all of us, by the 
 events of to-day. To-morrow " 
 
 " Miss Isidore " Prince Kalitzoff seemed to have hardly
 
 STRUGGLE. 355 
 
 heard the father " please," he said, " do not misunderstand 
 me. There are reasons. It is not merely as your lover I 
 speak. I would be a brother to you a friend, if you pre 
 fer it. I would be as a father to you ! " He had taken her 
 hand, and was looking at her more like a suppliant, magnifi 
 cent as he was in his bearing and genial aspect, than as a 
 noble. " Think of it. I am true as gold. And now, good 
 night ! " And, lifting her hand to his lips, he bowed and 
 left the room. 
 
 Father and daughter were almost worn out, but they 
 conversed together long and lovingly before they parted for 
 the night. Isidore had been his nurse for years, and she 
 was glad afterward that she had never tended him as affec 
 tionately as on that evening. 
 
 " My dear child," he said to her at last, when he was 
 comfortably in bed for the night, " do not misunderstand 
 our host. He would not have placed that money in my 
 hands, and against my protest, too, unless he had good rea 
 son. If we wait we will understand. No gentleman is 
 better aware than he that money should not accompany his 
 request for your hand. He has urgent reason. Simply 
 wait, and we will know what to do. Wait ; that is all ; 
 wait ! And now, remember, dear, the child that waits sleeps. 
 Sleep sweetly, Isidore ; I am sure I shall." 
 
 Several times during the night Isidore stood at her fa 
 ther's door, listening. More than once or twice she crept 
 softly into his room, stooped over, and kissed him while he 
 slept. By reason of her weariness she slept until the sun 
 was high in the heavens next morning. Hastening with 
 many self-reproaches to his bedside, she bent down and 
 kissed her father. The patient face had become marble in 
 deed. She had long expected it. She was hardly surprised. 
 Even in that agonizing instant, it was the sublime patience 
 of his aspect which calmed her. She had long been familiar 
 with it, but now it was patience merged at last into serene 
 and eternal possession.
 
 356 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER LXYI. 
 
 A RUSSIAN HOME. 
 
 " SUEELY there never were servants as attached to a mis 
 tress as these seem to be to me ! " Even in the depths of her 
 grief the young girl, so suddenly orphaned, could not but 
 say it to herself. From the day of her first arrival the wo 
 men who waited upon her had seemed to live only to do her 
 pleasure. Vadka, her little plump-bodied maid ; Ovalinka, 
 the homely old Russian peasant, who brought in the sam 
 ovar and made the queer dishes for her eating ; Catarina, 
 who sewed for her, or took the place of a comely lay figure, 
 upon which Isidore tried the effect of draperies for her de 
 signs every servant down to old and ugly Malashoff, her 
 coachman, seemed to be devoted to her. It is the redeem 
 ing trait of Russian domestics. Moreover, the young and 
 beautiful American had treated them with such kindness as 
 they had not before known. Even the Princess Aura, if the 
 truth must be told, and of whom they continually spoke as a 
 heavenly saint, even she had boxed, and very often, the ears 
 of every one of them, old Malashoff included. They won 
 dered all the more at the fair girl, their new mistress, who 
 never asked or received their service without a smile of 
 thanks and a gentle word. " And to think," Catarina often 
 said, "that Matushka, our little mother, can make blessed 
 images for our worship, and she a woman too, only a child ! 
 Surely she is herself very near to God, our Maker ! " crossing 
 herself. And now the old father was dead ! Even in her 
 darkest hours, during the days which went before the fune 
 ral, Isidore was touched by their affection. Little Vadka 
 slept on the 4oor beside her bed ; Catarina and Ovalinka 
 appeared never to leave her during the day, bringing her 
 food, soothing her by their tears, and by words which she 
 understood without knowing their meaning. 
 
 Nor could a father, a brother, have been kinder to her 
 than was her host. The Prince brought the American Min-
 
 A RUSSIAN HOME. 35Y 
 
 ister to see her, and he was so much interested that his wife 
 came and insisted that Isidore should make her home at the 
 embassy, at least for the present, when the funeral was over. 
 There were Protestant clergymen in St. Petersburg, and the 
 oldest of these conducted the service, which was attended 
 by many American and English people, by the Prince also 
 and his immediate friends. And then the orphan was in 
 deed alone in the world ! 
 
 A few days after the funeral Prince Kalitzoff asked per 
 mission to call upon her at the house of the American Minis 
 ter. If he had needed to be more interested than he already 
 was, the sight of the poor girl in her deep mourning would 
 have touched him to the heart. She was pale, silent ; but it 
 was not of her father alone that she was thinking. In his 
 cordial way the Prince took her by the hand, led her to a 
 sofa, spoke tenderly of the old artist. The Russian noble 
 man was a man, as has been said, of imposing appearance, of 
 even haughty bearing, but the tears were in his eyes as he 
 dwelt upon the many happy and instructive hours he had 
 spent in the society of the deceased. And so he came to the 
 chief object of his visit. He would not press her to speak, 
 but she was now her own mistress in every sense. The cir 
 cumstances were peculiar. Would she not accept him as her 
 husband ? His life should be devoted to her. He would 
 take no answer now, would visit her again. After he had 
 gone the American Minister and his wife took occasion to 
 speak of the Prince in the highest terms. In some way the 
 white-headed Protestant pastor, who had buried her father, 
 knew of the intention of Prince Kalitzoff, and he, in call 
 ing, spoke of the noble character of the man, of his gener 
 osity to the poor. No one stood higher in Russia. 
 
 When the Prince called again the mind of the girl was 
 clear. She seemed so strong and glad when she welcomed 
 him that he felt assured of his success. But he was mis 
 taken. Modestly, but firmly, with thanks for his kindness, 
 she assured him that it was impossible. Her father had 
 charged her to wait ; she had waited, and now she knew
 
 358 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 what to do ; knew with absolute assurance. She spoke with 
 her clear eyes full in his. There was such force of simple 
 truth and sincerity in her whole manner that he saw the 
 matter was ended, and turned from her to the window in 
 silence. 
 
 " I never knew how much I lose in you, as I do now," he 
 said, slowly, as he came back to her after a long silence. 
 " Perhaps you do not know all I might have been to you. 
 Even now my deepest regret is that, unconsciously, you 
 have put it out of my power to help you as to Mr. Harris 
 and his friend." 
 
 While she was wondering what he could mean, he had 
 turned toward her his face, white, as with an unspeakable 
 anguish, ghastly to behold. For a long time he pleaded with 
 her, but it was in vain. She was almost astonished at her 
 own calm and final resolve ; it was fixed as if beyond her 
 own power to change. The Prince read it at last in the 
 face which was hardening under its tears into adamant, and, 
 in utter despair, he took a respectful leave of her, and was 
 gone. She was to know only too well afterward the whole 
 meaning of his entreaty. For political reasons, also, the 
 Emperor had desired that the marriage should take place. 
 The Prince was, in that case, although he knew nothing of 
 it, to have been sent as. minister to Washington with his 
 young bride. And why that was a desirable thing Isidore 
 learned from what took place afterward. 
 
 " I have sad news for you, Miss Atchison," the American 
 Minister said a few days after ; " Prince Kalitzoff has been 
 sent to Siberia." 
 
 The shock was almost greater than the death of her fa 
 ther, for that she had expected somewhat, and it took some 
 days even to believe, and then to understand it. " I might 
 have been more astonished," the Minister explained in the 
 end, " if I did not already know how thoroughly Nihilism 
 has worked its way up and into the highest classes, as it has 
 down and into the lowest. The Prince is by no means the 
 only instance in his order. There seems to be no doubt that
 
 A RUSSIAN HOME. 359 
 
 he is a leader among the revolutionists ; that he has contrib 
 uted immensely toward their funds ; that frequent meetings 
 of the rasJcolinks, malcontents, have been held by night in 
 his palace. I do not understand the Russian character," the 
 Minister continued ; " under their icy surface their blood 
 boils like the geysers of Iceland, ready to break forth at any 
 instant. The Prince was a man of generous soul, and he 
 has long groaned at the dreadful oppression which the Em 
 peror himself can not prevent. He is a man of powerful 
 intellect, of abundant leisure, of fiery energy, and there is 
 something in despotism which represses every ambition, un 
 til explosion is inevitable. That is the curse of tyranny. 
 It wars upon the deepest laws of the human soul. To-day, 
 money by millions, armies of soldiers, myriads of police, 
 whole swarms of detectives, are sleeplessly employed against 
 the revolutionists. These we can, to some degree, see and 
 hear, but these are, in a certain sense, the insufficient mea 
 sure and evidence of subterranean and unseen forces, yet 
 more tremendous, against which they are contending. The 
 Emperor was anxious to save the Prince ; he wanted to send 
 him to America, and thus out of the way ; but the facts 
 became known, and at last he could do nothing. "We are 
 very diplomatic, Miss Isidore," the statesman continued, 
 " very cautious what we say ; but you are prudent, and I will 
 let you into a state secret. It is this : of all men in Russia, 
 it is Alexander who most feels and suffers from and is most 
 helpless under the Empire. Really, he is the sincerest Nihil 
 ist of all. Another secret is this : a vast revolution is im 
 pending. Whether it is to work slowly, as constitutional 
 changes do in England, whether it is to burst forth and shat 
 ter all things to a chaos in a worse fashion than in France, 
 who can say ? " 
 
 "In other words," Isidore ventured, "all the world has 
 to become like America in the end." 
 
 " Yes, swiftly or slowly, through horrible convulsions or 
 peaceful processes, all nations on earth have to work their 
 way out to the same end. If the miserable politicians at 
 
 16
 
 360 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 home could but know what America already is ! what we 
 may yet be " And the astute statesman waxed indignant 
 as he spoke at length upon the sore subject. But Isidore, 
 already exhausted by suffering, hardly knew that he was 
 speaking. She was thinking of her benefactor, of his horror 
 of Siberia. And then she came back to that which had not 
 ceased to fill her mind the fate of Mr. Harris and his friend. 
 
 " We have done all we can," her host explained yet once 
 more, when he saw what so occupied and distressed her ; 
 " all that diplomacy can do for them has been done, will be 
 done. The Government is by no means sorry as to Lord 
 Conyngham. You have no idea how bitterly England is 
 hated just now by the Russians. They are glad to have an 
 English nobleman in their clutches to mortify the people 
 in Downing Street, to bring them to their knees. Because, 
 as you observe, here is in his instance a case of Nihilism of 
 the worst kind, of arson, which is wholesale murder, not of 
 Government officials, but of helpless women and children." 
 
 " But Mr. Harris is well known, and he is an American," 
 exclaimed the eager girl. 
 
 " Very true, Miss Isidore ; but," her host remarked, " how 
 can they hold one of the incendiaries and release the other ? 
 They were arrested together." 
 
 " He is not they, I mean are not incendiaries ! " the 
 young girl protested. " The very idea is absurd. That Mr. 
 Harris should go to Kiev to burn the property of " 
 
 " Of course it is absurd ; but how to prove it ? How 
 to single these two out and save them, yet send the others 
 to Siberia, that is the trouble. I admire your sex amaz 
 ingly, Miss Atchison," the diplomate continued, with a smile 
 at her impulsive ardor, " but it would never do to make one 
 of your lovely sex an ambassador. You, for instance, would 
 plunge Russia into war with America and England over 
 these young gentlemen in less than a week. Provided Amer 
 ica was her ally, nothing could please England more. But 
 we do not care to please England, nor to worry Russia. 
 America has no warmer friend on earth than Russia, you
 
 A RUSSIAN HOME. 361 
 
 observe. She did not hunger for our destruction during the 
 civil war." 
 
 " At least I would do something ! " Isidore exclaimed, with 
 her soul in her eyes. " Yes, and I will do something ! " she 
 added. 
 
 "Let me read you a letter I have just received," was the 
 reply. " It is from Mrs. George Harris, in Paris." The Min 
 ister paused, strangely impressed by the fire in the tones, the 
 eyes, of the girl. Then he took a letter from his pocket and 
 said : " Mrs. Harris speaks at length of the terrible distress 
 into which the family are thrown ; of the efforts they have 
 made at Washington and elsewhere ; of the wrath, rather 
 than anxiety, of Earl Dorrington ; of the agony of his 
 daughter, and of all that they have done. But she goes on 
 to say that the Earl is confined to his house by the gout. 
 "Worse, Mr. George Harris has been so severely hurt while 
 superintending the erection of certain machinery in a beet- 
 sugar refinery near Paris that he can not leave his rooms, 
 nor can he dispense with the attendance of his wife. Ah, 
 here is the part will interest you most," and he read : " ' Our 
 daughter Mary insists upon hastening, with friends who go 
 there, to St. Petersburg, to see what can be done. Please 
 see that she meets Miss Atchison, the artist, who is with her 
 father ' Pardon me ! " the reader said, conscious of the 
 grief of the orphaned girl, " for not leaving that out ; " and 
 he continued to read from the letter : " ' I wish Isidore and 
 Mary to consult with Prince Kalitzoff and yourself. No 
 time is to be lost.' And here follows," the Minister added, 
 " the most earnest entreaty to me to do what I can. As if I 
 needed entreaty ! The letter is dated some days ago. I 
 would not be surprised if Miss Mary Harris were to come at 
 any moment." 
 
 As he said it, a servant handed him a card. " She is in 
 the reception-room now," the gentleman said, and Isidore 
 arose and eagerly accompanied him to meet her friend.
 
 362 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 IN PRISON. 
 
 THE attempt of the Nihilists to burn the city of Kiev 
 was not, up to the moment of the arrest of the two friends, 
 as already related, wholly successful. A large part of the 
 place was laid in ashes, but it was not from any lack of pur 
 pose upon the part of the revolutionists that the entire town 
 had not perished. 
 
 "What in the name of all the devils in hell do they 
 mean ? " Lord Conyngham demanded of his companion, when 
 they found themselves alone at last in their prison. 
 
 " Do you ask what the authorities mean ? " replied the 
 American, who understood the exceeding peril in which they 
 were far better than did the other. " They mean to bring 
 iis before a military court and send us to Siberia." 
 
 " They had better try it ! " the nobleman exclaimed. 
 " As I have already told the old chap who arrested us, I shall 
 write as soon as it is light to the * Times.' Moreover, my 
 Government will interpose immediately. Oh, I do not ob 
 ject ! We are on a lark ! It will be something to tell about 
 in the clubs when I am back in London. No, I meant what 
 do the incendiaries hope to gain by burning out the very peo 
 ple they are proposing to help ? " 
 
 " My lord," his friend said, as he sat in the straw beside 
 the other, " it is best for us to look our situation squarely in 
 the face, and from the outset my deepest regret is that you 
 have insisted upon coming with me on this expedition. You 
 will bear me witness that I did my utmost to dissuade you. 
 Had I known, as I do now, what the Crowing of the Red 
 Cock meant, I would not have come myself. But that you 
 should be involved " 
 
 "Don't mention it, my dear fellow," interrupted the Eng 
 lishman ; "I would not have missed it for the world." 
 
 " Yes, but you do not realize how we are placed. We 
 have been arrested in, apparently, the very act of arson. I
 
 IN PBISON'. 363 
 
 do not see how your Government or mine can help us, for 
 how can we prove our innocence ? It was very wrong for me 
 to come. At least, I ought not to have allowed any one to 
 accompany me. Poor Toff ski ! What a horrible death ! " The 
 tears rose to the eyes of the American as he recalled the 
 many years of dogged fidelity upon the part of his servant. 
 Toffski had been to him more like a very large and rough 
 Newfoundland dog than an ordinary servant, but, somehow, 
 he thought of the faithful moujik the more tenderly on that 
 account. For some time he did not even hear what the Eng 
 lishman was saying. Like all of his class and blood, Lord 
 Conyngham was a perfectly brave man. And now, as if he 
 were a pugilist going into the prize-ring, he had stripped 
 himself, as if unconsciously, of the last rag and shred of his 
 mere mannerism. He was, as it were, naked to the girdle, 
 and all muscle and quiet readiness for whatever might fol 
 low. He even enjoyed it thoroughly. 
 
 "But may I be hanged," he was saying, "if I can under 
 stand what the socialists can gain by burning towns ! " for, 
 at that moment, the whole prison was illumined through the 
 bars of their one small window with the glare of what ap 
 peared to be a nearer and more terrible conflagration. 
 
 " The men who do it," Henry Harris replied, " are des 
 perate rascals who have nothing to lose." 
 
 "That's a fact ; I remember reading about something 
 like it at school. Sallust tells of the scoundrels under Cati 
 line," said the nobleman, " who went in for a row because, 
 having nothing to lose, they had at least a chance of plun 
 der when the scrimmage began." 
 
 "Another reason," the American said, " is that the Nihil 
 ists regard the entire civilization under which they are forced 
 to live as radically and thoroughly and hopelessly corrupt. 
 That is the meaning of their name. They propose to make 
 a clean sweep of everything emperor, nobility, army, church, 
 property, marriage, society ! In their idea the whole struc 
 ture is a vast but rotten affair, infested throughout with 
 malaria and loathsome vermin, and they intend to bring it in
 
 3G4 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 ashes to the earth, so as to begin what they call the social 
 republic from the very foundations." 
 
 " Fools ! as if," the Englishman said, " there would not be 
 the same human nature in whatever they erected instead." 
 
 ." That," the American added, " is what Ishra Dhass was 
 always urging, only he believed that the utter destruction of 
 the old in order to the creation of a new civilization is by the 
 power of the coming Christ dealing direct with the heart of 
 every man. He is right ! That is American freedom, which 
 these madmen can not understand. But a last reason why 
 some, at least, of the Nihilists turn incendiaries is in order 
 to strike terror into the heart of the Government. Since they 
 can not fight it in the field and with cannon, they burn cities 
 instead. They want to compel the Czar to call a convention 
 which shall make a constitution for Russia." 
 
 "And have his head chopped off for his pains, as in the 
 case of Louis XVI. If Alexander has read history, he will 
 see them hanged first. I would ! " Lord Conyngham said. 
 " Hush ! " he added, in a lower tone, " what is that ? " 
 
 " It sounds like the gnawing of a rat," his companion 
 suggested. 
 
 " By Jove ! yes. We are going to be burned out," Lord 
 Conyngham added, gayly. " I don't blame the rats for try 
 ing to escape. See how bright the flames are getting ! Can't 
 you invent a steam fire-engine, old fellow ? " 
 
 But the American had just discovered something even 
 more important ! He had long known many of the ways of 
 the police, and in the gnawing sound he had detected the 
 scratching of a pen in some hidden recess near by. Nothing 
 could have pleased him more ! Spies were listening to and 
 writing down every word they said. The Government would 
 learn what was their real relation to the Nihilists, and he 
 continued to speak himself, encouraging his still more anti- 
 republican friend to speak in the same line. At great length, 
 and with the vehemence of his excitement, .Lord Conyng 
 ham, while the subdued gnawing continued, broke into yet 
 louder and more heartfelt denunciations of communism, de-
 
 IN PRISON. 365 
 
 mocracy even, in all its forms, the Russian most of all. Had 
 he known that it would be of advantage to him, he would 
 not have said a word, would have denounced the Czar in 
 stead ; but the American gave him no hint, and even Earl 
 Dorrington would have been satisfied with the views of his 
 son. 
 
 Meanwhile, the air grew so hot as to be almost unendur 
 able ; the dungeon became as light as day. When at last it 
 seemed to the friends as if they must perish, their door was 
 thrown suddenly open, a body of soldiers marched in, seized 
 upon them, hurried them out, and, leaving their prison to the 
 flames, rushed them along the streets through the blazing 
 city to another and stronger building in the suburbs. There 
 they left them at last, lying exhausted and dripping with 
 perspiration, and begrimed with mire and smoke, upon the 
 floor of an upper room, scantily furnished. 
 
 " We would not have been rescued," the American ex 
 plained to his friend, " if we had not been such distinguished 
 incendiaries. Lesser criminals would have been left to 
 roast," and, utterly worn out, the two stretched themselves 
 upon the bare floor, and fell fast asleep. They needed no 
 covering ; the heat of the burning city sufficed. After hours 
 of unconsciousness they were awakened by the entrance of a 
 Cossack, who brought them black bread and water, refused 
 to speak, even in answer to the Russian of Henry Harris, and 
 disappeared. After they had eaten, they tried to look out, 
 but there was nothing to be seen through the small and 
 grated opening, even when, at his request, the Englishman 
 had climbed up for the purpose upon the shoulders of his 
 fellow-prisoner. 
 
 The fire seemed, as the day wore by, to be subdued at 
 last, but there was nothing to do but to wait. And thus day 
 after day came and went. In vain did the American en 
 deavor to bribe their jailer to furnish them with pen and 
 paper. The Cossack glanced at the money, the watch held 
 out to him, with keen and covetous eyes, shook his head, 
 and -disappeared. That evening the friends were thor-
 
 366 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 oughly searched and relieved of everything except their 
 clothing. 
 
 " At least, they have not chained us," the Englishman 
 rejoiced, " and I rather like it, you see," he argued, as the 
 days went slowly by. " I wanted to understand the case of 
 criminals, too, as well as the rest of the lower classes. Well, 
 here I am, a felon myself ! There is not a dirtier murderer 
 alive, nor one more thoroughly uncombed. Who could have 
 more vermin upon him than I have ? If any rascal in New 
 gate has fare as hard to swallow, water as foul to drink, 
 smells as awful to endure, a turnkey tougher than our Cos 
 sack, walls thicker, or a floor harder to sleep upon, I am sorry 
 for him. My dear friend," he remarked to their jailer, who 
 came in at the moment with their repulsive breakfast, " if 
 you love me, bring me a clean shirt, a bit of soap, a tooth 
 brush, a hot muffin, and a copy of the ' Morning Chronicle.' " 
 The face of the Englishman was so bright as he said it that 
 the Cossack, who did not understand a syllable, grinned, 
 while he shook his shock of red hair and departed. 
 
 " Who cares ! " the English noble said. " It is true, I 
 would like a chop and a comb, but I know dozens of fellows 
 who have seen rougher times in the Crimea, in India. We 
 have men in the clubs who are everlastingly telling how they 
 were wrecked on cannibal islands, half eaten by lions in 
 Africa, and the like. Anyhow, I feel more nearly of kin 
 to my fellow-creatures, to the poorest, lowest, most unfortu 
 nate devil among them, than in all my life. Wait till I get 
 out. I have material to brag about till I die. Why don't 
 they bring us to a trial and be done with it ? " 
 
 " Their hands are too full just now," the American said. 
 
 He was even more patient than his companion, if not as 
 jolly. It was of his mother, of his sister, he thought. Of 
 his father, too ; but, strange to say, he thought most of all 
 of the young girl whom he had left with Prince Kalitzoff. 
 " I wish the Prince had not been quite so cordial in his ap 
 preciation of her," he said to himself ; " and I hope she will 
 hear about our trouble and write to Paris."
 
 IN PRISON. 367 
 
 " Your sister could not find it in her heart to refuse me 
 now," his companion said. " As to the Earl, he will embrace 
 me and say, ' Marry whom you please, my boy, even if it 
 is a republican.' Blanche will acknowledge that I am some 
 what of a hero at last. And then I am sure the ' Times ' 
 has already published tremendous leaders about me ; it will 
 help me in Parliament ; " and he whistled " God Save the 
 Queen." 
 
 But the days passed by. Then the weeks rolled on. 
 There was a hasty examination before a military board at 
 last. The American told his story frankly who he and his 
 friend were, how they chanced to be in Kiev that disastrous 
 night. His knowledge of Russian was a great help to him, 
 but he gathered nothing from his grim and formal judges. 
 His request for means of writing Avas peremptorily refused. 
 Lord Conyngham, who had assumed a haughty bearing, was 
 treated with contemptuous indifference, and the two found 
 themselves again in their prison about as they were before. 
 
 " It is becoming somewhat monotonous," the Englishman 
 said at last. " If we could only play billiards, get some 
 cigars, or something of the kind. I wonder how Lady 
 Blanche likes it ! The Earl never did love the Russians, 
 anyhow. Barnum would rejoice in us, for, Mr. Harris, you 
 and I are to-day the most thoroughly advertised fellows in 
 England and America." 
 
 To do him justice, ever since they were arrested, and 
 under all his light talk and almost reckless bearing, the Eng 
 lishman was thinking more soberly and deeply than during 
 all his days before, and every thought revolved about Mary 
 Harris as its center. It would be impossible for him to be 
 again the same man he was before. 
 
 " One thing is becoming very clear to me," he remarked 
 one morning, " and that is this : when I see how desperate 
 these Russian malcontents are, I feel satisfied that those must 
 be terrible wrongs which goad them to it. The worst and 
 most ignorant of any nation are left to their vice and igno 
 rance at the peril of the rulers, whose business it is to teach
 
 368 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 and elevate as well as to tax and govern them. If I ever get 
 out" 
 
 At that instant their jailer came in. 
 
 " Two blessed nuns," he said, in Russian, to the Ameri 
 can, " and a son of the stick, an accursed moujik, have been 
 permitted to see you." 
 
 As he said it, the three thus designated came in. 
 
 " By Jove ! " the Englishman said, but not without a 
 pallid face and a sudden sinking of the heart, as he saw the 
 black drapery of the veiled nuns ; " it is a military execution. 
 Very good. I had rather be prepared for death by a nun 
 than by a Russian priest ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 RESCUE. 
 
 WHEN the two Russian nuns and their attendant moujik 
 entered the room of the prison in which the American and 
 his companion were confined, there was an instant of sur 
 prise. The nuns were draped from head to foot in black, 
 their faces hidden by hoods of crape, a cross of jet sus 
 pended by a rosary of black beads completing their mourn 
 ful costume, their servant remaining out of sight behind 
 them. Henry Harris knew from their costume that these 
 nuns belonged to an Order devoted to hospitals and prison 
 ers condemned to death, but his sudden dismay at their com 
 ing in was as nothing to the amazement which overwhelmed 
 him when the taller of the visitors lifted her hood and, re 
 vealing the face of his sister, cast herself with tears and cries 
 f joy upon his bosom. 
 
 " By Jove ! " It was all Lord Conyngham could ex 
 claim before the ardent girl had broken from her brother's 
 grasp, and had hastened toward him, her face wet with tears, 
 but radiant with joy. There was not an instant's hesitation.
 
 RESCUE. 369 
 
 It was the first time he had ever dared to do it, but the Eng 
 lishman had her in his strong arms in a moment, his own face 
 overflowing with joy and love. " Great heavens ! " he sud 
 denly cried, breaking away from her, " I'm too awfully dirty 
 to touch you. I hadn't thought of it ! " 
 
 " No, you are not ; I love you all the more for it ! " Mary 
 said ; and the offense was repeated. Nor did he show any 
 signs of letting her go again, and for a good long while the 
 lovers remained locked in each other's arms, with kisses and 
 murmurs of unspeakable affection. 
 
 But the girl tore herself away at last. " I am ashamed 
 of myself," she said. " Alfred, Henry, this is Isidore." 
 Even from the instant of recognizing his sister, her brother 
 hj*l hoped it was the artist. In fact, he had known it was 
 her ; but she had shrunk back, and stood veiled and silent 
 beside the moujik. " And her father is dead," Mary whis 
 pered in the same breath to her brother. As Henry started 
 toward her, the girl had lifted her hood ; her face was an 
 April of tears and smiles, and her lover was on the very point 
 of taking her, as she shrank and blushed, into his arms. 
 
 It is a harsh thing, apparently, to say it, but he did no 
 thing of the kind. It was owing, in part, to the unsleeping 
 good judgment which he inherited from his practical father, 
 and especially from his sensible mother. Moreover, he had 
 been trained as an engineer. When driving his locomotive 
 sixty miles an hour, his eye had learned to live, as it were, 
 along the rails in advance. As far as he could see, if a spike 
 had started, a rail had broken, a pebble had fallen on the 
 track, he would have detected it. In that case, before he 
 had time, as it were, to think, he would have acted. His 
 hand would have been prompt, and as if in advance of the 
 intellect, to open the valve which applied the brake, to grasp 
 the lever, and reverse the wheels. But this resulted from a 
 habit which went before everything else the habit of self- 
 control, instant, and under every emergency. So it was 
 now. He had come to love the girlish artist with his whole 
 heart. She seemed so beautiful in her nun's attire ; her sud-
 
 370 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 den orphanage appealed so to his pity ; the daring which had 
 brought her with his sister to his side so awoke his admira 
 tion ; he was so thrilled by the instant hope, at least, that it 
 was love for him which had caused her to do it everything 
 aroused an affection in return which really needed no arous 
 ing. But, even in that supreme moment, he grasped and 
 held himself, saying to himself : " Perhaps she has given her 
 heart to Prince Kalitzoff ! Even if she has not, I can not 
 commit myself even to her until I have consulted my mother ! 
 There may be reasons ! " Mary glanced at her brother. Even 
 in the blissful bewilderment of the moment she was aston 
 ished at him. Modest and silent as the artist was, she had . 
 shown such devotion that Mary was almost angry at her 
 brother for his coldness. All that he did was to take the 
 timid hand of Isidore in his, and to thank her cordially for 
 coming with his sister. 
 
 " For coming with me ! " Mary exclaimed. " Why, 
 Henry, it is Isidore who made me come with her ! It is she 
 who planned everything, did everything. She it is " 
 
 "And how did you happen to arise from the dead?" 
 The words were not addressed to her ; her brother was glad 
 to interrupt her, for he had seized upon his moujik Toff- 
 ski, now noticed for the first time, who stood beside the 
 door as if carved in wood, as if he had been born stand 
 ing there, would stand there so long as he lived. "But 
 is this Toffski ? " he added, looking at him again. " You 
 are sure you are not a ghost ? " and, as the most acceptable 
 token to the man of his affection, his master gave him a cuff 
 which would have knocked over any one less squarely planted 
 upon his short, thick legs. The moujik laughed with pleasure. 
 
 " But where, where is your beard ? and your hair ? " 
 Henry asked. 
 
 " If he is a ghost, Toffski is the most useful ghost that 
 ever took bodily shape ! " his sister hastened to say. " When 
 he saw that you and Alfred were arrested, he dashed back 
 through the burning house into a back street don't you see 
 how dreadfully he is burned ? and made his escape."
 
 RESCUE. 371 
 
 His master laid strong hands upon the man, and dragged 
 him forward. Sure enough, his voluminous beard had been 
 singed away ; his hair and eyebrows had gone with the 
 beard. Toffski had never been other than exceedingly like 
 an uncommonly furry bear, and now it was as if he had 
 passed through the hands of a Parisian barber. 
 
 " He has become positively handsome," Lord Conyngham 
 exclaimed ; but then clapped his hands to his own beard. 
 " Really, ladies," he said, with something of his old fastidious 
 ness of manner, " I am dreadfully unfit to be seen of any 
 body, much less of you ! We are not allowed a looking- 
 glass. If we had a razor we might kill ourselves or cut open 
 the walls of our prison. Soap is contrary to the dogmas of 
 the Greek Church. Please look at us as little as possible," 
 and he shrank back with affected dismay, but somehow he 
 took Mary with him in his arms as he did so. 
 
 " You never looked so well in your life," she said, proudly, 
 passing her hands through his tangled hair, smoothing down 
 his tumbled beard, kissing him ; " although," she added, 
 holding him off from her for a moment, " your clothing cer 
 tainly does look " 
 
 " Is it not awful ! " her lover assented ruefully, glancing 
 down at his tattered garments, to which the straw of their 
 floor was clinging. "If you ladies will kindly retire and 
 order in a tailor But you," he said, with enthusiasm, " you 
 look charming ! more so than ever ! If we are to be shot, 
 you can mourn for us most becomingly. And if we are to be 
 married instead, you shall be dressed as you now are. You 
 could not look so beautiful in anything else." He tried to 
 clasp the nun again to his bosom, but she resisted. All her 
 thought now was for Isidore. The poor girl was standing off 
 to one side by herself, pale, drooping, bewildered, ready almost 
 to fall, her hand grasping the serge sleeve of the moujik. 
 
 " You darling ! " Mary exclaimed, casting a reproachful 
 glance at her brother, and taking her companion to her 
 bosom. "It is to you we owe everything, everything ! " 
 And, with her arm about her friend, she told their story.
 
 372 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 The news had broken upon her in Paris of the burning of 
 Kiev, and of the arrest of the daring investigators of Nihil 
 ism. But Earl Dorrington could not escape from his gout, 
 nor could Lady Blanche from her attendance upon him. " Is 
 it not strange how things happen ? " the excited girl contin 
 ued ; and she told how her father had received his hurt, not a 
 fatal one, however, in the sugar refinery, and how Mrs. Harris 
 was kept in Paris to care for him. Application on behalf of 
 the prisoners had been made to the American and British 
 governments, to the Ministers in Paris and St. Petersburg. 
 "But I could not have been held away by chains," Mary 
 continued. Then she told of her journey to St. Petersburg, 
 and of the arrest of Prince Kalitzoff, at which Henry 
 Harris and his friend were astonished beyond measure, and 
 greatly shocked. " I learned that Isidore was with the 
 American Minister," Mary hurried on, "and that she had 
 already done all she could. Oh, but we were so glad 
 to see each other ! " and Mary embraced and kissed her 
 friend. " Just to think," she went on, " while we were talk 
 ing and crying together, before we could even begin to plan 
 what to do next, who should come in but dear old Toffski ! 
 His escape through the burning building was the least of his 
 adventures. In fact, he had escaped only to go to St. Peters 
 burg and get help for his master ; for," Mary added, with a 
 saucy look at her lover, " Henry is all Toffski cares for. I 
 doubt, Alfred, if he knows of your existence." It was a long 
 story of how the moujik had begged, and, at times, fought, 
 his dogged way back to the capital. " He got there as by 
 the instinct of a dog," Mary explained, "and, oh ! how lovely 
 his burned face did seem ! We made him show us the way 
 here," she added. 
 
 But there was a vast deal to tell of their adventures upon 
 the very roundabout road by which the girls had come, dis 
 guised as nuns. 
 
 " We had to go to Moscow in search of the Emperor," 
 Mary explained, and told of their perilous wanderings, Toff 
 ski at their heels, among the camps of the army, day and
 
 RESCUE. 373 
 
 night, through all kinds of weather. " We had a satchel full 
 of letters from the American and British Ministers, and oth 
 ers, in case of need. It was a sufficient protection to us 
 everywhere that we were taken for nuns. The Russians 
 looked upon us, you know, as if we were angels." 
 
 "Sensible fellows! they were right!" interjected her 
 lover. 
 
 " But," Mary continued, as she embraced and kissed Isi 
 dore in her exultation, " we did not have to use one of our 
 letters at last ; Isidore did it all," and, with a wrathful look 
 at her brother, the ardent girl took the young artist again to 
 her heart. 
 
 Her brother grasped the little hand of Isidore, and lifted 
 it respectfully to his lips. Lord Conyngham, his arm about 
 Mary, did the same, with eager expressions of gratitude, as 
 well as reiterated apologies for his appearance. 
 
 "I am so awfully ashamed," he said, with a desperate 
 motion of his hand over his hair, "to be seen in such a 
 plight." 
 
 But Mary broke in once more : " We managed to see the 
 Emperor at last. One morning, he had just mounted his 
 horse, when, after a weary journeying to and fro, we found 
 him. I have often seen him, but he looked so sad and stern 
 that I was afraid to speak. What do you think Isidore said 
 to him the very first thing ? " Mary went on with enthusiasm. 
 " We were led up to him as he sat on his great horse in a 
 hurry to ride away, and he towered above us like a colossus. 
 He thought we were Russian nuns. ' What do you want, my 
 little pigeons?' he said. Isidore knew enough Russian," 
 Mary added, " to understand the phrase. Would you believe 
 it, she answered : ' We are not pigeons, your Majesty, we are 
 ladies, American ladies ! ' She said it in English, for he un 
 derstands it perfectly, and, O you darling ! " with an embrace 
 and a shower of kisses, " you looked like a queen when you 
 said it. 'American ladies ?' Alexander asked, looking down 
 at her. And what do you think Isidore said then ? " Mary 
 demanded, with large eyes. " She said : ' If your Majesty
 
 374- THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 will be so good as to get off of your horse, we can talk 
 to you better. We are ladies, American ladies.' You should 
 have seen how surprised he was. He frowned, then smiled, 
 then actually dismounted. We were sovereigns, were his 
 equals ; being ladies, as well as Americans, we were his supe 
 riors," Mary added, her head in the air, her eyes glittering. 
 " Oh, yes, he was glad to get off his great horse and listen 
 to us. I do believe he would have taken off his military hat 
 if he could ; but, you see," Mary added, with a laugh, " it 
 was fastened on by a silver chain under his chin ; he knew 
 he could not get it off if he tried. But Isidore was very re 
 spectful. It was as if she were talking to a venerated father, 
 and oh, how you talked, you darling ! " 
 
 "You did it better than I," the other said; but she was 
 pale, almost listless ; her enthusiasm seemed to have flown 
 for ever. 
 
 " I only came in when you had said all that you could 
 say," Mary remonstrated. "That was enough, you know, 
 and the Emperor evidently knew all about it already. Some 
 report had been made to him. But, oh ! if you could have 
 seen Isidore ! The Emperor, grave and solemn as he is, was 
 greatly taken with her, and " 
 
 " With you" Isidore said, with a smile. 
 
 " With you both, and, by Jove ! an old bear as he is, he 
 would be blind as well as deaf if he were not," Lord Con- 
 yngham broke in, looking at Mary especially with such ad 
 miration as brought the glad color to her cheeks. 
 
 " It was Isidore, Isidore ! " persisted the girl. " Do you 
 know, when the Emperor alluded to your being incendiaries, 
 Isidore said, almost angrily, ' The idea of his being an in 
 cendiary ! It is absurd.' " 
 
 " Of their being incendiaries, dear ? " her companion in 
 sisted, blushing painfully. 
 
 " No, no : 'Of his being an incendiary ! Absurd ! ' That 
 is what you said, and the Emperor almost laughed aloud. 
 Then he looked at us as a father might. ' I will give orders 
 about it,' he said, bowed as a gentleman should, mounted his
 
 DAWN AGAIN. 375 
 
 horse, and rode away. After that," Mary added, " Toffski 
 showed us the way here. We will tell you some time all 
 about how we traveled in telegas, how our tdrantass broke 
 down once or twice in the horrible roads ; but our nun's dress 
 helped us, and we had money and Toffski, and here we are. 
 And, O Alfred ! O Henry ! " she added, with joy, " the com 
 mandant has already had his orders from the Emperor. You 
 are free. But you both owe it all to Isidore, Isidore, you 
 darling ! " and, with an almost ferocious glance at her brother, 
 the excited girl took her friend again to her bosom. The 
 heart of the engineer struggled within him ; he longed to 
 clasp in his arms the pale and lovely girl. He had almost 
 passed beyond his own control, when the door opened, and 
 the Russian commander entered the room, an enormous doc 
 ument in his hand. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 DAWN AGAIN. 
 
 IT took but a few days after their rescue from the prison 
 at Kiev for Henry Harris to return to St. Petersburg, ac 
 companied by Lord Conyngham, the two fair rescuers, and 
 their faithful moujik. An agreeable surprise awaited them 
 there. Mr. George Harris had recovered sufficiently from 
 his hurt to travel, and, intensely anxious as to their son and 
 daughter, he and his wife had come on to the Russian capi 
 tal. It is easy to imagine with what gladness the family 
 found themselves together again in the rooms the father had 
 secured at the Imperial Hotel. Almost before eating his 
 first meal, the Englishman had hurried to a celebrated tailor, 
 and, by paying double prices, it did not take long to restore 
 him to his former respectability of appearance. 
 
 " You looked better in your rags," was all the congratu 
 lation he received from Mary Harris. " If I could but have
 
 376 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 had you photographed as you and Henry were when we first 
 found you ! " 
 
 "But why do you still play the nun and wear black?" 
 her lover asked. " Now that the winter of our discontent is 
 past, I had hoped that you would bloom out in bright colors, 
 the first and fairest flower of the blessed summer which is 
 to be ours hereafter and for ever." 
 
 " I am sorry that I look so homely," Mary began ; but 
 her lover took effectual means to suppress the slander upon 
 the very lips which uttered it, and Mary broke away from 
 him to explain : 
 
 " It is of Isidore I am thinking ! Her father is dead, you 
 know. She is alone in the world. We did our best to have 
 her make her home with us at our hotel, for the present, at 
 least ; but she would not hear of it. The American Minister 
 pressed her to stay with them. But, no, she has gone to 
 board at the house of the old clergyman who buried her 
 father, and who has the best old white-haired wife in the 
 world. And she is so heart-broken ! How can I dress in 
 bright colors while she is in black ? I am angry with 
 Henry ! " she added, with energy, for her brother came in as 
 she was saying it. 
 
 Lord Conyngham became very grave. He understood 
 why Mary was angry, but he could not understand why his 
 friend had held himself almost coldly toward Isidore At- 
 chison. It is his lingering devotion, he thought, for Lady 
 Blanche which had come between Henry and Isidore. He 
 could not allude to it, but he said : " I found letters awaiting 
 me on my arrival. The Earl and my sister have not been un 
 easy about me. My father wrote to the ' Times ' and to the 
 Government as soon as he heard of the scrape into which I 
 had fallen, and, having done that, he had not an atom of 
 doubt as to the result. I wish I had the faith he has in our 
 British lion. Lady Blanche," the Englishman added, with 
 troubled face, " is about to marry the Duke of Plymouth. 
 They have gone back to England, and I must be there to 
 attend the wedding. The Duke is a poor stick, but, if
 
 DAWN AGAIN. 377 
 
 Blanche consents, I have no more to say. Apart from the 
 bridegroom," the brother added, with something of a gri 
 mace, " it is a good match. Blanche will have rank to her 
 heart's content. It is what she is suited to. Leaving her 
 husband out of question, I think she will find it very pleas 
 ant. A queer world it is, is it not ? " 
 
 " Give her my congratulations," Mary said, but immedi 
 ately added : " It is of Isidore I wanted to speak. Do you 
 know, she has gone hard to work already ? It is only a day 
 or two since we came, but she is having her room at the old 
 clergyman's fitted up already. When I went there yester 
 day, she was full of her plans. It seems that the Prince has 
 left large amounts in her father's hands, now in hers, toward 
 the monument for his daughter ; and oh ! is it not sad, sad ? " 
 
 " The death of Prince Kalitzoff ? Well," her lover said, 
 coolly, " if I were on my way to Siberia, I think I too would 
 take the earliest moment to blow out my brains. Hurled 
 as he was from the position of a Prince to the bowels of a 
 lead mine, seven days' toil every week with the pick, eternal 
 slavery and wretchedness, and all as in an hour, who can 
 blame him ? " 
 
 " Isidore is dreadfully distressed," Mary continued. " The 
 Prince was the noblest of men, the purest of patriots, the 
 soul of kindness. She was weeping as if her heart would 
 break, even while she was hard at work. That is another 
 thing to interest her in her monument ; she intends to add 
 to it now a statue of the Prince in the act of embracing 
 again his dead child. She told me that work, hard work, 
 was the one thing she needed. For my part," Mary added, 
 almost bitterly, " I can not understand you men ! " 
 
 Her lover opened his eyes, but drew her off to the jew 
 elers to consult with reference to certain diamonds and other 
 gifts he was having prepared for presents to his sister. His 
 own wedding, however, was the subject which most inter 
 ested them both, and that although Earl Dorrington had 
 so far shown no sign of yielding thereto. 
 
 The first thing Henry Harris had said to his mother when
 
 378 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 they were alone together after his return to St. Petersburg 
 was in reference to Isidore, and, " I did love Lady Blanche," 
 he remarked, in the end ; " but when I saw her deliberately 
 surrender herself to such a man as the Duke, my whole soul 
 revolted at it and at her. Not that I condemn her. "We 
 are too far apart to understand each other, that is all. She 
 is superb in her way, but we were born in different planets." 
 
 " In different eras, you mean. My dear boy," his wise 
 mother said, with a smile, " you should have only gratitude 
 toward the Duke. Lady Blanche is as superb a specimen of 
 the Englishwoman as I know ; beautiful, highly cultivated, 
 charitable to the poor, proud, strong-hearted ; but she would 
 have made you miserable. You are too much alike ; that is, 
 you have, both of you, a vigorous will, a determined pur 
 pose ; it would have been impossible for you not to have 
 clashed ; your training, too, has been so utterly unlike. She 
 will adorn her sphere. That is what she was born into, pre 
 cisely what she is adapted to. If you were entering into a 
 partnership to lead a party, to manage a business, whatever 
 of money, rank, strong will, daring purpose, each can bring 
 in, would be so much gain. In marriage it is different ; such 
 things are desirable in that also, provided there be a love 
 for each other supreme over all ; love must be the master 
 motive, my son." 
 
 "And I do love Isidore with all my soul," he said ; 
 "that I know ! " for he had told her the whole story of his 
 affection for the artist. " And now, mother " 
 
 " There is a change in the world since I was a child," 
 Mrs. Harris mused aloud. " Once girls and boys fell in love 
 with each other on first sight, and married as matter of 
 course. It was St. Valentine's day the year around, and 
 young people mated as readily as did the birds. ISTow both 
 sexes, almost from their birth, are more cautious. Your fa 
 ther and I loved each other on first sight, and yet we, too, 
 had to reflect, to wait, to reason long and well, before we 
 married. Your father says the change these days toward 
 caution is because people are more practical than they used
 
 DAWN AGAIN. 379 
 
 to be. Competition is fiercer ; the standard of living is 
 raised, but not the salary. Do you know," she laughed, " he 
 thinks that the rage for science and scientific results has its 
 influence ? People are making arithmetic the law of their 
 lives. My judgment approves ; but, Henry, merely as a 
 woman, I declare " and the words faltered on the lips of 
 the mother " I do not know " 
 
 " My dear mother," he soon hastened to say, " I believe 
 in love with all my heart, but I have to hold myself in strong 
 control. Besides, I was born practical, as Lady Blanche was 
 born noble. There was my education, too. It takes inces 
 sant care to keep from being crushed by machinery ; by 
 money, even, when it is your own. People who hold and 
 use power of any sort leara to be careful as well as strong. 
 But who cares for all that ? " he broke off abruptly. " The 
 only thing I think of now is Isidore ! Mary looks on me as 
 a monster because I have tried to restrain myself. Dear 
 mother, I am one, I suppose ; but I wanted to consult with 
 you ; for if I do not marry her I marry no one. She is the 
 loveliest, most thoroughly sensible, most charming " and 
 he ran ardently on with fervor long suppressed. 
 
 People thought Margaret Harris cold, because she was 
 wise and calm ; but she listened to her son with a new light 
 in her eyes, a smile as when she was a girl upon her lips. 
 " Let me speak to your father to-night," was all she said at 
 last, and then she changed the conversation. " To-morrow," 
 she said, " I intend to give you the present I promised so 
 long ago to the one who found in the Exposition the work 
 of art I had preferred. For all these days I have been in 
 search of my gift. There are many rare and precious things 
 to be found in St. Petersburg. I think I have selected it at 
 last." 
 
 She drove off in her carriage, and her son hastened to go 
 abroad into the city. Except during the night and when at 
 his meals, he could not endure to remain in the house ; it 
 seemed too much like a prison. Even a tdrantass confined 
 him too closely, and he rode hither and thither on horseback
 
 380 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 instead. He was glad of the happiness of his sister and her 
 lover, but he knew they would rather be alone, and it was 
 his mood to be by himself. When he wearied of his horse 
 he walked. Up and down the streets he went, through the 
 great squares. 
 
 " I am glad, on the whole," he said to himself, " that I 
 have had a taste of life in jail ; it enables me to sympathize 
 henceforth and for ever with all who are imprisoned." 
 
 But he could not assure himself sufficiently that he was, 
 indeed, a free man until he had ascended to the top of the 
 spires of the Admiralty Building, upon which he had stood 
 with Lord Conyngham, looking down upon St. Petersburg, 
 before their dangerous trip to hear the Crowing of the Red 
 Cock. Once more the great city lay spread out before him 
 like a living map. He was glad that no one was with him ; 
 his sense of freedom was more complete on that account. 
 For a long time he stood in absolute silence, feeding upon 
 the vast panorama of palaces and hovels, streets, squares, 
 moving multitudes. The sounds of voices, hurrying feet, 
 rolling wheels, came up to him, blended into one and softened 
 by the distance, like the surge of a sea. 
 
 " Oh, how sweet liberty is ! " he cried at last. " I had no 
 idea it was so unspeakably precious ! " He was like an 
 eagle long caged which had broken loose and was perched 
 again upon its native mountain-top, and which can not at 
 first get enough of the open sunshine, of the free air, of soar 
 ing through the infinite blue with powerful wing. The 
 young man drew in deep breaths of the atmosphere ; he lift 
 ed and let fall his arms. But it was not chiefly of his free 
 dom he was thinking. 
 
 " Be ashamed of yourself," he said at last ; " are you 
 changed into a spasmodic, gesticulating Frenchman ? How 
 can I be master of the so'rrows sure to befall me if I do 
 not learn to master my joys also ? " And he grew more 
 sober, turned, descended the steps, and went gravely back 
 to his hotel. 
 
 He did not confess it to himself, but the truth is, be-
 
 DA WN AGAIN. 381 
 
 neath his gladness burned the flames of his gratitude and 
 love to the fair girl who, at her own peril, had hastened to 
 his rescue ; he thought of nothing but her. The next morn 
 ing he was in all the glow of rapturous anticipations in re 
 gard to Isidore when his mother came into his room. She 
 refused to speak about the artist, although eagerly pressed 
 to do so by her son. 
 
 " My son," she said, and her face had never seemed so 
 bright, " I want you to go with me from the breakfast table, 
 and I am here so early to make sure of catching you before 
 you go out. It is a glorious day, and I wish to make you 
 the present I have promised you so long." 
 
 At the breakfast table, under outward semblance of a 
 calm demeanor, neither had much appetite ; they were feed 
 ing instead on things yet to be. 
 
 " At last ! And now let us go," Mrs. Harris said, as they 
 laid their napkins aside and rose from the table. She was as 
 eager as a child. 
 
 " I am at your service," her son consented, greatly won 
 dering at what she had in view. " When a thunderstorm is 
 coming up," he remarked, with a laugh, "we can feel the 
 electricity in the air before it strikes. Whenever any sorrow 
 has struck me, it is the same way ; for hours beforehand I 
 could feel it in the very atmosphere. It is so this morning ; 
 something serious is impending, so serious that I can not tell 
 whether it is terribly bad or exceedingly good. Let the 
 lightning strike ; I am ready ! " 
 
 Even as he said it, an official of the telegraph office put 
 in his hand a telegram. Excusing himself to his mother, he 
 tore it open ; his color changed as he read it. 
 
 " I can not go with you this morning," he said, after long 
 silence, while he read the dispatch over and over again ; "nor 
 can I explain. This is one of the occasions when a son has 
 to act without his mother. You are the best as well as the 
 wisest of mothers," he added, as he pressed a grave kiss upon 
 her forehead ; " but you must leave me to myself for to 
 day."
 
 382 TEE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 He left the room as he said it, and even then it struck 
 Mrs. Harris that she had never before seen him look so like 
 his father. And even then she was forced to acknowledge 
 to herself, " I know that Mary will grow to be far superior 
 to me, but I did not know before that Henry too, Henry, 
 will be a stronger man than his father ; if possible, a nobler 
 man." 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 TELEGRAM. 
 
 To explain the telegram received by Henry Harris, it is 
 necessary that we should hasten to England, whither Earl 
 Dorrington and his daughter had returned from Paris to 
 make the final preparations for the marriage of Lady Blanche 
 with the Duke of Plymouth. To almost every other unmar 
 ried woman in England it would have been the most joyful 
 of occasions. According to the universal social estimate, the 
 Duke was the best match in Europe. The papers were full 
 of it. There were pages of statements concerning the an 
 tiquity of his family, his estates, his houses in London, his 
 yacht. There were pictures in the pictorial sheets of his 
 magnificent table services, his ancestral jewels. Certain of 
 the more gossipy papers went so far as to give illustrations 
 of the diamonds and other trousseau of the bride, and the 
 most fabulous stories were abroad as to the wedding presents 
 which were in preparation for her from the Queen and other 
 members of the royal family. Moreover, the chief residence 
 in London was in course of decoration for the newly married 
 pair, and it was to be on a scale, it was said, of almost wicked 
 extravagance. As the result, there was hardly an unbetrothed 
 girl in England who did not envy Lady Blanche with her 
 whole heart ; nor were pillows lacking which were wet with 
 bitter tears shed by some of the weaker of them while re-
 
 TELEGRAM. 383 
 
 membering how mean and obscure their own lives were in 
 comparison. 
 
 For some weeks now Earl Dorrington had lived as upon 
 the summits of things. With Lady Blanche he had been 
 distressed beyond what he allowed to manifest itself at the 
 peril of his son in Russia. Like her, however, he was all the 
 more proud of his son for entering upon an undertaking so 
 daring. There was this difference between father and daugh 
 ter : the old Earl had faith so unbounded in the power of his 
 Government, that, as has been said, he had no really serious 
 fears as to the result. 
 
 " They dare not injure a hair of Alfred's head," he re 
 marked over and over again to his daughter, while his son's 
 case seemed to be still undecided. " Were he the humblest 
 Englishman, he would have nothing to fear. And when they 
 know who he is, they will be but too glad to release him with 
 infinite apologies. The Czar dare not risk war with us ! I 
 have no fear as to the result. Assuredly not ! " 
 
 It was on this account that the Earl read to Lady Blanche 
 the telegram announcing at last the release of his son, with a 
 grave rebuke to her for her fears. " It is merely as I said," 
 he reiterated. " Russia dared not do other than hasten to 
 let him go, and you should have believed what I told you 
 from the outset. I would like to have seen them presume ! 
 Alfred should not have led his young American friend into 
 circumstances so perilous ahem ! not perilous ; so compro 
 mising, I should say. Alfred is a man of spirit, more ven 
 turesome than I had supposed. I am not sorry that young 
 Mr. Harris, who seems to be a really respectable and deserv 
 ing gentleman, should have had the guidance of Alfred. 
 For once Mr. Harris will learn that England, at least, is 
 feared by Russia. It is an excellent lesson for him. Really, 
 we must ask him to visit us when we go into the country. 
 Assuredly so ! " 
 
 And thus it was that the old Earl ascended, if possible, 
 to loftier heights. Was not Blanche to be Duchess of Plym 
 outh ? There did not exist a better father on earth. Nor 
 17
 
 384 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 did the Earl abhor less than any of the rest of us the abstract 
 vices of which the Duke had long been guilty. Had the 
 man, soon to be the husband of his daughter, been any other 
 than a nobleman, the Earl would have been mortally insulted 
 at his presuming to solicit an alliance with him. If the 
 lover, not being noble, had possessed tenfold the wealth he 
 did, it would have made little difference. Would he sell his 
 only daughter, a pure and high-bred woman, for gold ? Per 
 ish the thought ! But when the worn-out roue and gambler 
 was a Duke, the head of one of the oldest families in Eng 
 land ah, what a difference it made ! 
 
 When we strike our artesian iron down to the solid facts 
 of the case, we must agree that caste is as strong in Eng 
 land as it has ever been in India. Alas ! if we push the 
 artesian inquiry deeper still, we must agree that it would 
 be precisely the same in America, if circumstances were the 
 same. Thank Heaven for our democracy, which originated 
 and exists apart from and in spite of us all ! Its charters 
 are only less inspired than are the pages of Scripture itself, 
 and the churches of Christendom are not more evidently up 
 held, and against the vices and weaknesses of their own 
 membership, by a divine hand than are the republics of the 
 world. We exclaim in wonder at the starry worlds, which 
 are driven along the paths of their inconceivable grandeur 
 and velocities, making music for ever in their orbits about 
 the central sun. Who doubts that these well-ordered worlds 
 were made and are upheld of their Maker ? Even so, that 
 man is a fool who does not know that, however men may be 
 overruled as instruments, this constellated republic of ours 
 is the work, grander yet, of God himself. Upon him, and 
 not upon us, exclusively depends its continuance. 
 
 But it is of Earl Dorrington we are speaking. With the 
 release of his son and heir, and the approaching alliance of 
 his daughter with the Duke, he had reached the highest 
 point in his life. It was as if he had attained to the ever 
 lasting ice, also, of Alpine summits. While always a gentle 
 man in his bearing toward even the lowliest, he had now
 
 TELEGRAM. 385 
 
 become colder, statelier, more reserved, more intensely the 
 aristocrat than before. Not that he was not gracious enough 
 in his demeanor, unusually so, but it was, more than ever, 
 the gracious condescension of a king. He was uncon 
 scious of it, but even his equals laughed among themselves 
 about the increased and almost portentous dignity of the 
 Earl. 
 
 " It is all very well for him," even so reticent a man as 
 Lord Derby was heard to say, " and for old noblemen like 
 him ; but we younger men should know better. Look at 
 Disraeli ; he is the last man living who should play chariot 
 eer just now. An adventurer like him, a Jew, fond of flash 
 and dash, is sure to overdo things. If ever there was a day 
 when we should drive the old-fashioned coach of state care 
 fully, it is now, because it is rickety even if it is gilded, and 
 we are going so fast with our imperial policy that I fear a 
 smash. Hang him ! who knows but that the very object of 
 Dizzy in taking off the brakes and putting on the lash is that 
 he may demolish things ? It would be just like the sensa- 
 tionist he is. I will give him until aboiit the end of Parlia 
 ment in 1880 to make a finish of his tawdry, un-English 
 imperialism." 
 
 As to Lady Blanche, she was not a generation or so 
 younger than her father for nothing. And what English 
 woman had a clearer intellect ? Nor was there a warmer 
 heart, in spite of her rank, than hers. Because she re 
 garded Henry Harris as one of the manliest of men, she 
 had first admired, then loved him. When, notwithstand 
 ing his passion for her in Paris, he had held himself sternly 
 aloof from her, she admired and loved him so much the 
 more. Such women love none but strong men men so 
 strong as to be able to stand up and hold their own against 
 the woman herself. That he should have traced Nihilism 
 into its inmost lair, as a hunter follows a dangerous wolf into 
 its deepest den, had intensely interested her in him, and her 
 affection had increased with her interest. When she heard 
 of the capture of her brother and Henry, her anxiety had
 
 386 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 been, however she concealed it, for the American chiefly, for 
 she rated him highest as well as loved him most. With the 
 release of the two men, had come to her a fever, almost of 
 joy, chiefly on his account. Nor did it diminish her admira 
 tion and love when he did not send her a word thereafter. 
 She was proud of his pride. 
 
 Who can say what effect the gladness also of her brother, 
 in view of his hoped-for marriage with Mary Harris, had 
 upon his sensitive sister, whose feelings were all the stronger 
 in proportion as she had schooled herself to conceal them 
 under an aspect of pride? The letters Lord Conyngham 
 wrote her, immediately on his return to St. Petersburg from 
 his prison, were as torches to what was already fire. So long 
 as the Earl held out, Lord Conyngham could not marry ; 
 that, of course ; and the Earl was so much the more of an 
 aristocrat of late that there was less hope than ever of his 
 yielding. But, like her brother, Lady Blanche felt sure that 
 some day he must yield, and their hope was something 
 stronger than faith it was assurance itself ; because that 
 which ought to be always seems to be certain. 
 
 Meanwhile, the preparations were proceeding for her 
 marriage with the Duke. From morning till night, Lady 
 Blanche lived in a throng of milliners, upholsterers, jewel 
 ers. As rarely as possible was she with her affianced. It 
 was the old story of Beauty and the Beast, except that the 
 beauty became every day more beautiful, and the beast, to 
 her at least, all the beastlier. The loveliness of Lady Blanche 
 was fed, as flowers are by the furnace-fires of hot-houses, by 
 the hidden fever within her heart. She disliked the Duke 
 more and more. Anonymous letters were continually com 
 ing to her. Perhaps they were in some cases genuine ; in 
 others they were dictated, doubtless, by envy, jealousy, 
 devilish desire to mar a happiness which, to the miserable 
 and ignorant writer, seemed to be too great for this world. 
 By whomsoever written, they were filled with tales of cheat 
 ing at cards by the Duke ; of instances of cowardice in mo 
 ments of sudden peril ; of insults patiently endured ; of se-
 
 TELEGRAM. 387 
 
 ductions concealed by free use of gold. They came to her 
 from the Continent, from various parts of London and Eng 
 land. People even attempted to force their way to her to 
 tell her " things which Lady Blanche must be told before 
 she marries the Duke of Plymouth." If she had loved the 
 Duke, these things would have been less to her than nothing; 
 but, as it was 
 
 Poor girl ! Her brother was absent, her mother had long 
 been dead, it was out of the question to trouble her father 
 with matters of this kind. She had retinues of friends, but 
 there was not one of them to whom she was not too proud to 
 go for help. She became pale, even while, with a feverish 
 color on her cheeks, she grew lovelier than ever. It was 
 impossible for her to eat, to sleep. 
 
 One day she resolved in her desperation to make a confi 
 dant of the Duke himself. If he was to be her husband, 
 surely she should be frank with him. When he entered the 
 room, she compelled herself not to see how weak and insig 
 nificant he was. She did not know that his Grace had all 
 along been afraid of her, or rather she had been too con 
 temptuous to think of it. To-day there was that in her 
 aspect which positively alarmed him ; he was thoroughly 
 frightened, in fact. Possibly his conscience warned him 
 that she might have been told certain things. He grew em 
 barrassed, persistently refused to see what she would be at, 
 stammered, hesitated, took an earlier leave than he was ac 
 customed to do, and she found it impossible to force herself 
 to speak to him as she intended to do. 
 
 Lady Blanche had lost much sleep ; her head was dizzy. 
 On going to her room after he left, she found quite a long 
 letter from her brother, still in St. Petersburg. It was filled 
 with praises, as usual, of Henry Harris, and of his charming 
 sister. He was very happy. For a moment the English 
 peeress lost herself ; she was nothing but an English dairy 
 maid. She could not endure it. She would act ; but it 
 should be, as became her, boldly. Rapidly dressing herself 
 as plainly as possible, and throwing a thick veil over her
 
 388 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 walking hat, she had herself driven to the nearest telegraph 
 station. She was there but a moment, and then returned to 
 her house and room, and lay waiting in an agony of shame, 
 gladness, apprehension, stupor. 
 
 And it was thus that Henry Harris came to receive in St. 
 Petersburg the telegram which had separated him for the 
 time from his mother. Nitro-glycerine is merely a transpar 
 ent oil, and nothing could seem more simple than the line 
 which he repeated over and over again when he was by him 
 self. It was from England, but had neither date nor signa 
 ture ; it needed neither : 
 
 " Are you of the same mind and heart you once were f " 
 
 That was all, but it was terrible. At the first glance he 
 understood everything. There had been a time, not so 
 long ago, when he had admired and loved Lady Blanche be 
 yond all women. As he sat locked in his room at this su 
 preme crisis of his life, he could recall every line of her face, 
 every look of her proud eyes, every tone of her voice. From 
 the ashes of his heart the old fires threatened to break 
 forth again with consuming power. He had not whispered 
 a syllable which committed him to the daughter of the artist. 
 And now this proud Englishwoman had laid aside her re 
 serve, had committed herself to his honor. She was ready to 
 risk her father's anger, to break off her brilliant match all 
 for him. He had not imagined she had loved him so. Should 
 he refuse to return such love ? 
 
 And there was Isidore, who had risked what was dearer 
 to her than life to save him. He went over every attribute 
 of her beauty, of her peculiar, childlike charm. It was one 
 of those times which try a man through every fiber. "What 
 ever he did, no human being must know of the telegram 
 which he was afraid to let out of his hand. 
 
 And yet he knew from the outset what his answer must 
 be. None the less as carefully as if he had to do with the 
 working designs, instead, of some vast mechanical work, he
 
 TELEGRAM. 339 
 
 slowly and deliberately went over the whole matter. When 
 the first tempest of emotion had subsided, he reviewed every 
 thing that could possibly be said for and against, in case of 
 Lady Blanche, in case of Isidore. Slowly but clearly he 
 worked out a result which had been from the outset as much 
 the one thing to do as if it had been merely a question as to 
 what twice two might be. 
 
 It was very, very long before the head could comprehend 
 and the heart could ratify what the supreme sense had 
 decreed ; but at last, when night had fallen, he lit the gas, 
 held the telegram over it until it fluttered and fell to the 
 floor a flake of ashes. Then he drew on his hat and overcoat 
 and went steadily down stairs, out of the house to the tele 
 graph station. 
 
 Before Lady Blanche went to her bed that night a tele 
 gram was handed her. It was long before she could open it, 
 for upon it depended all her after existence. She did so at 
 last, but the words, as she read them, were merely as one 
 reads what one has already known by heart and perfectly. 
 They could be no other : 
 
 " With profoundest respect. Between us alone. JBut it 
 is too late." 
 
 " But I am glad I did it," she said, coldly. " It ends it ! " 
 And the dairy-maid had become an English lady of rank 
 again and for the rest of her days. 
 
 Strange to say, she undressed herself without a tremor, 
 laid down, slept until morning, and awoke strong and fresh. 
 There could be no more trouble about it now ; nor was there. 
 
 Let it be recorded here, as it has been upon a thousand 
 bloody fields of battle : in woman, as in man, there is nothing 
 known to the ages which reveals a fiber quite as fine and 
 strong as English pluck !
 
 390 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 CULMINATION. 
 
 LIKE Lady Blanche, on the reception of the reply to her 
 telegram, Henry Harris felt, when he had sent his message, 
 a sense of instant and exceeding relief ; for, like the Eng 
 lishwoman, he knew that what had been done was the one 
 thing alone which could or should be done. The Duke of 
 Plymouth was surprised and almost bewildered by the man 
 ner in which he was received by his betrothed the next time 
 he called upon her. There was in it a gleam of reckless 
 ness, of defiance almost, which he could not understand. 
 Henry Harris was calm, knowing that he had arrived at a 
 final and just conclusion, and jubilant too, since he had 
 come to a conclusion also which allowed him to give way 
 to the deep affection for Isidore which had long been kin 
 dled in his bosom. It was an unconscious uncertainty still 
 in regard to Lady Blanche which had held him in suspense 
 so long. That was all past. He had attained to certainty 
 at last ! His was the gladness a skilled workman enjoys 
 when he has wrought out and verified beyond question a prob 
 lem which had once seemed to be impossible of solution. 
 " Now I know, and I love," he said to himself the first thing 
 when he awoke next morning. " When heart and head are 
 satisfied, surely the hour of action has struck," and he dressed 
 himself with unusual care. 
 
 But his mother seated herself beside him at their hotel table 
 before he was done breakfast. He was always glad to see 
 her, but he would much rather have been left to himself, for 
 he intended to go as soon as he could from the table to call 
 upon the woman he loved. It is true, he had not heard the 
 decision of his parents upon the matter, but he felt sure of 
 that in advance. " You look pale this morning," his mother 
 said, as they arose from the table at last ; and at one glance 
 she looked him through and through as she had done since 
 he was a baby.
 
 CULMINATION. 391 
 
 " I am very well, I thank you," he answered, lifting to her 
 own his eyes so full of the gladness of certainty and expectant 
 love that the tears rose to her own. For she understood per 
 fectly what had happened. Neither then, nor at any time 
 thereafter, was any allusion made by either of them to Lady 
 Blanche, and yet Mrs. Harris knew, almost as well as if she 
 had seen it, that her son had received a telegram from the 
 proud Englishwoman. His mother could have given almost 
 the exact words in which the betrothed of the Duke had tele 
 graphed ; she could have written out almost word for word 
 the message he had sent in reply. The numerals of arithme 
 tic produce invariably the same results, however used, wheth 
 er in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to their 
 very decimals are they true to themselves and to each other ; 
 and so of human hearts, provided only they act according to 
 the law of eternal right, which is part of their nature ; the 
 workings of the heart as of the intellect are as unswervingly 
 the same as mathematics itself. Without a word then or after 
 upon the subject, mother and son knew and rested in each 
 other as in absolute right and certainty, and the peace thereof 
 is as that of heaven. 
 
 " No, I can not let you off ; you must go with me to-day," 
 Mrs. Harris said to her son. " My present burns, I like it so 
 well, in my hands, and I must give it to you and be done 
 with it. After that you can go where you please." 
 
 Henry was in no mood for gifts. He had so long con 
 trolled his love that it was flaming in him now with an almost 
 unendurable impatience to declare itself ; but he entered her 
 carriage with her, was driven he did not care to observe where 
 with her, but could not conceal his surprise when the vehicle 
 halted, at length, in another part of the city, and before the 
 door of a modest-looking house. Entering this with her son, 
 she begged him to wait for her for a time in the plain little 
 parlor while she withdrew. He strode up and down the room. 
 He looked almost angrily at the pictures upon the walls. 
 What had he to do there when his heart was with Isidore ? 
 His mother was trifling w T ith him. It was easier to endure
 
 392 THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 his jail at Kiev ! What could she me^n ? She was gone so 
 long too ! He looked at his watch a dozen times. At last 
 he heard his mother call him, standing, as she did so, her face 
 flushed as from weeping, the door of the room across a hall 
 held half opened in her hand. 
 
 " Here is my little present," she said, in a whisper, her face 
 all tears and smiles ; " looking more beautiful," her son after 
 ward declared, "than I ever saw her." 
 
 In amazement he passed into the room, not observing that 
 she had passed out as he did so, and closed the door behind her. 
 Henry Harris, for the first time in his life, lost his presence 
 of mind. On the other side of the room, apparently just 
 risen from her litter of designs upon the table, dressed in black, 
 her face a sweet confusion of blushes and pallor and tears, 
 stood Isidore. But the young engineer was, as has been said, 
 prompt in times of emergency, and in an instant he had the 
 shy and trembling girl in his strong arms, pressed to his heart, 
 was devouring her with kisses. 
 
 " I have been starving so long," he explained to her half 
 an hour later. There is no telling, in fact, when he would 
 have been satisfied if his sister had not come running in. 
 Her mother had driven home, had told her all, and, interrupted 
 in her conversation with her own lover, Mary understood 
 everything perfectly. Taking the weeping, radiant girl into 
 her own arms, she was so overbearing as to give her brother 
 a kiss and put him out of the door. There were not two more 
 intelligent and sensible girls alive, and yet, when the sisters, 
 for such they now were, had the room to themselves, the first 
 thing they did was to have a good long cry together. 
 
 "Your mother told me," Isidore said at last, laughing 
 through her tears, " that I am to consider myself a gift from 
 her to Henry, the best gift she could find. And she said 
 that you have your gift from her already." 
 
 " In Alfred ? Yes," Mary replied, " and we must not let 
 them know, lest they should be too conceited ; but I am sure 
 we are, both of us, satisfied." 
 
 The next day Lord Conyngham left for England, and
 
 CULMINATION. 393 
 
 there came within two weeks thereafter a description from 
 him of the marriage of his sister to the Duke of Plymouth. 
 " She was as beautiful," he said at the end of many pages to 
 Mary, " as a statue." 
 
 But a telegram came even while the letter was being read. 
 Earl Dorrington had died a few days after the ceremony. 
 He had been long a victim to heart disease as well as gout ; 
 the excitement had been too much for him. Immediately 
 after the funeral Lord Conyngham came to St. Petersburg, 
 but he was Lord Conyngham no more. As Earl Dorrington 
 he had become a graver, more sedate man. 
 
 "Do you know," he said to Mary, almost at their first 
 interview, " Blanche is eager we should marry ? I do not 
 understand women. She is positively eager for it. The 
 Duke, poor fellow ! is very proud of her, but, unless I am mis 
 taken, he is terribly afraid of her, too. Yes, she sends her 
 dearest love with this letter," and Mary was surprised at the 
 ardor with which the Duchess of Plymouth wrote, entreating 
 her to yield to the addresses of her brother. 
 
 But months had to pass, long months, before the marriage 
 could take place. Not a week before the ceremony the new 
 Earl, who had been going between England and Russia con 
 tinually, received in St. Petersburg a letter which he read to 
 Mary. 
 
 " It is impossible for me to understand Blanche," he 
 groaned. "She had fully determined to bring the Duke 
 over to our wedding. Now she sends her presents, and says 
 it will be impossible. I am sure she loves you, is delighted 
 with our marriage. What can she mean ? " 
 
 " I think I understand," Mary said, quietly, and added no 
 more. But she was mistaken. 
 
 " No, my dear," her wiser mother explained to her that 
 night. " You are right in supposing that Blanche can not 
 endure to contrast her married estate with that of yourself 
 and the Earl. But she has learned that Henry and Isidore 
 are to be married at the same time. There are things, my 
 child, concerning which it is best not even to make a con-
 
 394: THE NEW NOBILITY. 
 
 jecture," and she changed the topic. " Henry has not told 
 Isidore in regard to her half brother," she said. " He was 
 glad that he had said nothing of Deschards to his father. 
 Both are dead. It is better as it is, and I am glad that 
 Isidore, dear child ! has made such a success of her work in 
 memory of Prince Kalitzoff and his daughter. She was re 
 solved to finish that first, you know. They are singularly 
 adapted to each other, Henry and herself, and so are you and 
 your lover. Both of my sons are to have noble careers," the 
 mother said, smiling, "but they will owe most of their suc 
 cess to women. The question, my child, is not one of pov 
 erty or wealth, of plebeian or noble, of England or America 
 when a man and woman, as in the case of your father and 
 myself, as in the case of yourself and your lover, of Henry and 
 Isidore, are found, after full trial, to be thoroughly essential 
 to each other it is then that they will possess paradise, for 
 then will they be wedded together, as Adam and Eve were, 
 by their Maker himself." 
 
 It is unnecessary to describe the brilliant double wedding, 
 to which Ellen Ellsworth and Virginia Jossellyn came on 
 from Paris to assist as bridesmaids, and at which George 
 Harris and his wife seemed to be in the sober joy of their 
 hearts almost as young as their children. A full account was 
 published at the time in the St. Petersburg " Golos," and so 
 generally copied therefrom into the journals of Europe and 
 America that the reader could not have escaped seeing it at 
 the time. If it is needed, he will recall it by the mention 
 made in the descriptions of the magnificent gifts pi'esented to 
 the couples by the Emperor, who sent an aide-de-camp to 
 represent him at the ceremony. 
 
 Invitations were sent to Ishra Dhass and to Hop Fun. 
 The former, however, had left Paris for India, whence he 
 wrote a letter of joyous congratulation, with descriptions of 
 his great and successful work as a missionary among his coun 
 trymen. Hop Fun was in the act of returning to China, and 
 he sent his cards of congratulation. Each of these was two 
 feet square, and gorgeously inscribed in letters of purple and
 
 CULMINATION. 395 
 
 green and gold. Henry Harris went to the trouble of hav 
 ing the Chinese characters translated. In addition to the 
 name and titles of the Mandarin, there ran down the side of 
 each card an inscription. Upon that sent to Earl Dorring- 
 ton it was : " Kong-fu-tse says, He who marries a queen be 
 comes himself a king." "Which," Earl Dorrington assented, 
 with a bow to his courtiers, " is assuredly so ! What a sen 
 sible wooden-headed beggar he is ! " 
 
 " Mine is better still," Henry Harris exclaimed ; " it reads : 
 ' Kong-fu-tse says, He who has love can do without rice ' ; 
 that is, he who has love has everything ! And it is a fact, 
 is it not, Isidore ? " 
 
 " I am a very practical man," George Harris added, and 
 he took his comely wife by the hand and looked with sober 
 happiness upon his four children ; " I am a machinist, and one 
 who has seen a good deal of almost the whole world, and I 
 know something of the value of position, talent, money, and 
 all that ; yet I can assure you that, at last, the only thing in 
 this world worth living for is to labor faithfully in the work 
 given us to do, and " 
 
 " To love," his wife added for him, smiling through her 
 happy tears. 
 
 " Yes," her husband assented gravely, " and to love." 
 
 THE END.
 
 NEW BOOKS. 
 
 MARY MARSTON. A Novel. By GEORGE MACDONALD, author of "Robert 
 Falconer," "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood," etc., etc. (From advance- 
 sheets.) 1 vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 ANECDOTAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 From the Earliest Periods to the Present Time, with Notices of Eminent 
 Parliamentary Men and Examples of their Oratory. Compiled by G. H. 
 JENNINGS. 1 vol., crown 8vo, 546 pages, cloth, $2.50. 
 
 "As pleasant a companion for the leisure hours of a studious and thoughtful 
 man as anything in book-shape since Selden." London Telegraph. 
 
 " It would be sheer affectation to deny the fascination exercised by the ' An 
 ecdotal History of Parliament.' " Saturday Review. 
 
 New Volume in International Scientific Series. 
 
 THE ATOMIC THEORY. By AD. WTTBTZ, Member of the French Insti 
 tute. Translated by E. CLEMINSHAW, M. A., Assistant Master at Sberborne 
 School. Number XXIX of " The International Scientific Series." 12mo, 
 cloth, price, $1.50. 
 
 Health Primers. No. 8. 
 
 THE HEART AND ITS FUNCTIONS. Previously published : " Exer 
 cise and Training" ; "Alcohol: its Use and Abuse" ; "The House and 
 ita Surroundings"; "Premature Death: its Promotion or Prevention" ; 
 "Personal Appearance in Health and Disease" ; "Baths and Bathing"; 
 " The Skin and its Troubles." Square 16mo, cloth, 40 cents each. 
 
 ALL. ALONE. A Novelette. By ANDRE THEURIET, author of " Gerard's Mar 
 riage," " The Two Barbels," etc., etc. Appletons' " Ne'.v Handy- Volume 
 Series." Paper, 25 cents. 
 
 Cheaper Edition. 
 
 YOUNG IRELAND. A Fragment of Irish History, 1840-1850. By the Hon. 
 Si r CHARLES GA VAN DtirFT,K.C.M. G. New cheap edition. 1vol., 12mo, 
 cloth, $1.50. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or any work sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt 
 of price. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 1, 3, & 5 BOND STREET, NEW YORK.
 
 NEW BOOKS. 
 
 AMERICAN PAINTERS. New and enlarged edition, containing Biograph 
 ical Sketches of Sixty-eight American Artists, with One Hundred and Four 
 Examples of their Work, engraved on Wood in the most perfect manner. 
 One volume, quarto, cloth, extra gilt, price, $8.00 ; in full morocco, $15.00. 
 
 A new edition of this superb work is now ready, extending the number (if en 
 gravings from eighty-three to one hundred and four, representing sixty-eight of 
 the leading painters. No similar work, in any country, illustrative of con 
 temporaneous art, surpasses it in the number or excellence of its engravings. 
 
 BRITISH PAINTERS. With Eighty Examples of their Work engraved on 
 Wood. One volume, quarto, cloth, extra gilt, price, $6.00; full morocco, 
 $12.00. 
 
 "British Painters," in size and general character, is a companion-work to 
 "American Painters." It contains eighty examples of their work, engraved on 
 wood, representing forty painters, including Turner, Constable, Mulready, Wil- 
 kie, Haydon, Etty, Eastlake, Stanfleld, Landseer, and Creswick, among earlier 
 painters, and Faed, Alma-Tadema, Poynter, Walker, Holl, Paton, and Reviere, 
 among contemporaneous painters. 
 
 A PHYSICAL TREATISE ON ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM. 
 
 By J. E. H. GORDON, B. A., Assistant Secretary of the British Association. 
 8vo, with about 200 full-page and other Illustrations. Cloth, price, $7.00. 
 
 "The want has long been felt of a work on Electricity, which should treat 
 the subject much more fully than is done In the existing elementary works, and 
 which should, at the same time, regard it from a physical as distinguished from 
 a mathematical point of view. In this work the author has attempted to meet 
 the above want. All the higher and later experimental developments of the sci 
 ence are treated of, but without the use of symbolical mathematics. Every phe 
 nomenon is considered, not as a mathematical abstraction, but as something 
 having a real physical existence. It contains matter which, as far as the author 
 is aware, has not yet appeared in any text-book." Extract from Preface. 
 
 THE ORTHOEPIST. A PRONOUNCING MANUAL, CONTAINING ABOUT THHEE 
 
 THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED WORDS, INCLUDING A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER 
 OF THE NAMES OF FOREIGN AUTHORS, ARTISTS, ETC., THAT ARE OFTEN 
 MISPRONOUNCED. By ALFRED AYRES. One volume, 18mo. Cloth, price, 
 
 $1.CO. 
 
 This manual will be fount! invaluable to all persons desirous of making their 
 pronunciation conform to the best usage and established authority. 
 
 A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE COLLECTION LAWS OF THE 
 UNITED STATES AND CANADA. Compiled under the direction 
 of DOUGLASS and MINTON, Attorneys of the Law and Collection Depart 
 ment of the Mercantile Agency of Dun, Wiman & Co. One volume, 8vo. 
 Cloth, price, $1.50. 
 
 This book will supply a want long felt by the business community, giving in 
 a nutshell, as it were, the more important features of the laws relating to the 
 collection of debts throughout the whole country. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 D, APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York.
 
 NEW BOOKS. 
 
 FROM DEATH INTO LIFE ; OB, TWENTY YEARS OP MY MINIS- 
 TRY. By the Rev. W. HASLAM, author of " Building from the Top," " The 
 Threefold Gift of God," etc. 1 vol., 12mo. With Illustrations. Cloth. 
 Price, $1.50. 
 
 The work is a narrative of remarkable religious and ministerial experiences 
 in a mining district in England, among a rude, hearty, hardy, aud industrious 
 people. . . . The book is taken up with the sensation created by his new style 
 of preaching, by accounts of numerous individual conversions, and of revivals 
 among his tumultuous and enthusiastic audience. It has attained a great suc 
 cess in England. 
 
 STUDIES IN THE MOUNTAIN INSTRUCTION. By GEORGE DANA 
 BOARDMAN, D. D., author of " Studies in the Creative Week," " Studies in 
 the Model Prayer," etc. One vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 
 
 " This book consists of lectures, nine of which were delivered in Association 
 Hall, Philadelphia, on successive Tuesday noons, during the autumn of 1880. 
 Accordingly, its style is marked by the characteristics of oral address. 
 
 "As the INSTRUCTION OF THE MOUNTAIN underlies Authoritative Morality, 
 the author sincerely hopes that the publication of these lectures may be of ser 
 vice in directing attention to Christian ethics, or the foundation-stones of true 
 BO cie ty . " Preface. 
 
 UNCLE REMUS : HIS SONGS AND HIS SAYINGS. The Folk-Lore of 
 the Old Plantation. By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. 
 Illustrated from Drawings by F. S. Church, whose humorous animal draw 
 ings are so well known, and J. H. Moser, of Georgia. Price, $1.75. 
 
 "These sketches embody the best imitation of the ne^ro dialect, character, 
 and customs yet attempted. They are natural, graphic, and amusing to young 
 and old, and will be doubly appreciated by those in the South who have still a 
 soft spot in their hearts for the good old time, and a tear trembling in the eyelid 
 and ready to be shed to the memory of the sable ' uncles ' and ' aunties ' of their 
 youth." New Orleans Picayune. 
 
 ENDYMION. By the Right Hon. BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfleld. 
 8vo, paper, 75 cents; 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 
 
 MASHAIXAH! A FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. A BOOK OF ADVEN 
 TURES AND TRAVEL ON THE NILE. By CHARLES WARREN STOD- 
 DARD, author of " South-Sea Idyls." Appletons 1 "New Handy-Volume 
 Series." Paper, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents. 
 
 POVERINA. An Italian Story. Appletons' " New Handy- Volume Series." 
 18mo. Paper. Price, 25 cents. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond St., N. Y.
 
 ENDYMION 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 By the Rt. Hon. BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield, K. G., 
 
 AUTHOR OF " LOTHAIR," ETC., ETC. 
 
 "A novel by the Earl of Beaconsfield may with some propriety be 
 described as a political event. It is a study of society by one who has 
 probed deeply the conditions, the tendencies, and the perils of the exist 
 ing order." New York Sun. 
 
 " Its distinctive merit consists in the unconsciousness of its charac 
 terization and the epigrammatic brilliancy of the dialogue." Philadelphia 
 North American. 
 
 " We are glad to feel that the book which has given us so much in 
 terest and pleasure shows that in a green old age the gifted writer and 
 illustrious statesman retains possession of his genius and his power." 
 New York Herald. 
 
 " There is hardly a character that can not readily be recognized by 
 the appreciative reader, and not a few of them are forcibly or at least 
 entertainingly depicted." New York World. 
 
 "It is full of its author's glistening sentences, and the surprises 
 which he is accustomed to give his readers and hearers." Evening Ex 
 press. 
 
 " It has so much epigram, satire, and dogma in matters of social eth 
 ics, politics, literature, religion, which interest the world to-day, that it 
 would provoke perusal, even if its author were not the famous man he 
 is." Home Journal. 
 
 " It flashes with genial wit and sparkles with brilliant epigrams ; but 
 the wit is idle mockery, and the epigrams are profitless except as arrows 
 for the woundings of the author's enemies." New York Evening Post. 
 
 In two styles : 12mo, cloth, $1.50 ; cheap edition, 12mo, cloth, tl.OO. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 1, 3, & 5 BOND STREET, NEW YORK.
 
 UNCLE REMUS: 
 
 His Songs and His Sayings. 
 
 THE FOLK-LORE OF THE OLD PLANTATION. 
 
 By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. 
 
 " We are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at 
 home, what a great mine there is to explore, and how quaint and peculiar 
 is the material which can be dug up. Mr. Harris's book may be looked 
 on in a double light either as a pleasant volume recounting the stories 
 told by a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable contribution 
 to our somewhat meager folk-lore. ... To Northern readers the story 
 of Brer (Brother Brudder) Rabbit may be novel. To those familiar 
 with plantation life, who have listened to these quaint old stories, who 
 have still tender reminiscences of some good old mauma who told these 
 wondrous adventures to them when they were children, Brer Rabbit, the 
 Tar Baby, and Brer Fox, come back again with all the past pleasures of 
 younger days." New York Times. 
 
 "The volume is a most readable one, whether it be regarded as a 
 humorous book merely, or as a contribution to the literature of folk 
 lore." New York World. 
 
 " This is a thoroughly amusing book, and is much the best humorous 
 compilation that has been put before the American public for many a 
 day." Philadelphia Telegraph. 
 
 " One of the most novel books of the year. ... If the book in its 
 entirety is not widely read, we shall be greatly disappointed ; and, if any 
 one misses the story of the Rabbit and the Fox, be will deny himself 
 much pleasant mental recreation." Boston Courier. 
 
 " Uncle Remus's sayings on current happenings are very shrewd and 
 bright, and the plantation and revival songs are choice specimens of their 
 sort." Boston Journal. 
 
 Well illustrated from Drawings by F. S. Church, whose humorous ani 
 mal drawings are so well known, and J. H. Moser, of Georgia. 
 
 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.5O. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price. 
 
 D. APPLE TON &> CO., Publishers, 
 
 1, 3, & 5 BOND STREET, NEW YORK.
 
 " We can not too highly commend this latest scheme for presenting good 
 literature in comely and convenient shape, at extremely low prices.' 1 ' 1 NEW 
 YORK EVENING POST. 
 
 Appletons' New Handy-Yolnme Series. 
 
 BRILLIANT NOVELETTES; ROMANCE, ADVENTURE, TRAVEL, HUMOR; 
 HISTORIC, LITERARY, AND SOCIETY MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 1. Jet : Her Face or her Fortune ? A Story. By Mrs. ANNIB 
 
 EDWARDES. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 2. A Struggle. A Story. By BARNET PHILLIPS. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 3. Misericordia. A Story. By ETHEL LYNN LINTON. Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 4. Gordon Baldwin, and The Philosopher's Pendulum. By 
 
 RUDOLPH LINDAU. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 6. The Fisherman of Ange. A Story. By KATHARINE S. MAC- 
 QUOID. Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 6. The Essays of Elia. First Series. By CHARLES LAMB. Paper, 
 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 1. The Bird of Passage. By J. SHERIDAN LE FANU. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 8. The House of the Two Barbels. By ANDRE THECRIET. 
 
 Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 9. Lights of the Old English Stage. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 10. Impressions of America. By R. W. DALE. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 11. The Goldsmith's Wife. A Story. By Madame CHARLES RET- 
 
 BAUD. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 12. A Summer Idyl. A Story. By CHRISTIAN REID. Paper, 30 cts. ; 
 
 cloth. 60 cts.
 
 Appletons 1 New Handy -Volume Series. 
 
 13. The Arab Wife. A Romance of the Polynesian Seas. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 14. Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds. A Story. By JULIAN HAW 
 
 THORNE. Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 15. Liquidated, and The Seer. By RUDOLPH LINDAU. Paper, 25 ct's. 
 
 16. The Great German Composers. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts 
 
 17. Antoinette. A Story. By ANDRE THEURIET. Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 18. Johu-a-Dreams. A Tale. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 19. Mrs. Jack. A Story. By FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE. Paper, 
 
 20 cts. 
 
 20. English Literature. By T. ARNOLD. From the " Encyclopedia 
 
 Britannica." Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 21. Raymonde. A Tale. By ANDRE THEURIET. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 22. Beaconsfield. By GEORGE MAKEPEACE TOWLE. Paper, 25 cts. ; 
 
 cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 23. The Multitudinous Seas. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 24. The Disturbing Element. By CHARLOTTE M. YONQE. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 25. Fairy Tales : their Origin and Meaning. By JOHN THACKRAY 
 
 BtiNCE. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 26. Thomas Carlyle : His Life his Books his Theories. By ALFRED 
 
 H. GUERNSEY. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 27. A Thorough Bohemienne. A Tale. By Madame CHARLES 
 
 REYBAUD. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 28. The Great Italian and French Composers. By GEORGE T. 
 
 FERRIS. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 29. Ruskin on Painting. With a Biographical Sketch. Paper, 
 
 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 30. An Accomplished Gentleman. By JULIAN STURGIS, author 
 
 of " John-a-Dreams." Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts.
 
 Appleionf New Handy -Volume Series. 
 
 81. An Attic Philosopher in Paris ; or, a Peep at the World 
 from a Garret. Being the Journal of a Happy Man. From the 
 French of EMILE SOOVESTRE. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 32. A Rogue's Life : From his Birth to his Marriage. By WILKIE 
 
 COLLINS. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 33. Geier-Wally : A Tale of the Tyrol. From the German of WILHEL- 
 
 MINE VON HILLERN. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 34. The Last Essays of Elia. By CHARLES LAMB. Paper, 30 cts. ; 
 
 cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 35. The Yellow Mask. By WILKIE COLLINS. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 
 
 60 cts. 
 
 3(5. A-Saddle in the Wild West. A Glimpse of Travel. ByWiL- 
 HAM H. RIDEING. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 37. Money. A Tale. By JCLES TARDIEU. Paper, 25 cents. 
 
 38. Peg Woffington. By CHARLES READE. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 39. " My Queen." Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 40. Uncle Cesar. By Madame CHARLES REYBAUD. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 41. The Distracted Young Preacher. By THOMAS HARDY. 
 
 Hester. By BEATRICE MAY BUTT. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 42. Table-Talk. To which are added Imaginary Conversations of 
 
 Pope and Swift. By LEIGH HUNT. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 43. Christie Johnstone. By CHARLES READE. Paper, 30 cts.; 
 
 cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 44. The World's Paradises. By S. G. W. BENJAMIN. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 45. The Alpenstock. Edited by WILLIAM H. RIDEING. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 46. Comedies for Amateur Acting. Edited, with a Prefatory Note 
 
 on Private Theatricals, by J. BRANDER MATTHEWS. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 47. Vivian the Beauty. By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES. Paper, 30 eta. ; 
 
 cloth. 60 cents.
 
 Appletons' New Handy -Volume Series. 
 
 48. Great Singers: Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag. Paper, 
 
 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 49. A Stroke of Diplomacy. From the French of VICTOR CHERBU- 
 
 LIEZ. Paper, 20 cts. 
 
 50. Lord Macaulay. His Life his Writings. By CHARLES H. JONES. 
 
 Paper, 30"cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 51. The Return of the Princess. By JACQUES VINCENT. Paper, 
 
 25 cts. 
 
 52. A Short Life of Charles Dickens. With Selections from his 
 
 Letters. By CHARLES H. JONES. Paper, 35 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 53. Stray Moments with Thackeray : His Humor, Satire, and Char 
 
 acters. By WILLIAM H. RIDEING. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 
 
 54. Dr. Heidenhoff's Process. By EDWARD BELLAMY. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 55. Second Thonghts. By RHODA BROUGHTON. Vol. I. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 56. Second Thonghts. By RHODA BROUGHTON. Vol. II. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 57. Two Russian Idyls : Marcella, Esfira. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 58. Strange Stories. By EKCKMANN-CHATRIAN. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 59. Little Comedies. By JULIAN STURGIS. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 60. French Men of Letters. By MAURICE MAURIS (Marquis di 
 
 Calenzano). Paper, 35 cts. 
 
 61. A Short Life of William Ewart Gladstone. By CHARLES 
 
 H. JONES. Paper, 35 cts. 
 
 62. The Foresters. By BERTHOLD AUERBACH. Paper, 50 cts. 
 
 63. Poverina. An Italian Story. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 64. Mashallah I A Flight into Egypt. By CHARLES WARREN STOD- 
 
 DARD. Paper, 30 cts. 
 
 65. All Alone. A Story. By ANDRE THEURIET. Paper, 25 cts. 
 
 APPLETONS' NEW HANDY- VOLUME SEEIEB is in handsome 18mo volumes, in large 
 type, of a size convenient for the pocket, or suitable for the library-shelf, bound in 
 paper covers. A selection of the volumes bound also in cloth, 60 cts. each. 
 
 Any volume mailed, post-paid, to any address within the United States or Canada, 
 on receipt of the price. 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO., PMishert, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York.
 
 "The enduring monuments of Fenimore Cooper are his works. 
 While the love of country continues to prevail, his memory will exist in 
 the hearts of the people. So truly patriotic and American throughout, 
 they should find a place in every American's library." Daniel Webster, 
 
 COOPER'S NOVELS. 
 
 NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 
 
 The Novels of J. FENIMOKE COOPER, with 64 Engravings on Steel, from Drawings 
 by F. O. C. DABLBT. Complete in 16 volumes. Price, for the complete 
 set, in cloth, $30.00. 
 
 COOPER'S 
 
 "LEATHER-STOCKING TALES" 
 
 AND "SEA TALES." 
 
 NEW AND REMARKABLY CHEAP EDITIONS. 
 LEATHER-STOCKING TALES: 
 
 SI. The Last of the Mohicans. 
 II. The Deerslayer. 
 III. The Pathfinder. 
 IV. The Pioneers. 
 V. The Prairie. 
 
 Complete in one volume, 8vo, with Illustrations by F. O. C. Barley. In cloth, 
 with gilt side and back. Price, $2.00. 
 
 THE SEA TALES. 
 
 Uniform with the " Leather-Stocking Tales." 
 
 SI. The Pilot. 
 II. The Bed Rover. 
 III. The Water- Witch. 
 IV. Wingr-and-Wing-. 
 V. The Two Admirals. 
 
 Complete In one volume, 8vo, with Illustrations by F. O. C. Darley. Cloth, 
 With gilt side and back. Price, $2.00. 
 
 D APPLE TON & CO., Publishers, 
 
 1, 3, & 5 BOND STREET, NEW YORK.

 
 
 UCSOUTHERNREGONAUB^ACILjV 
 
 000037459 5