McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896

QUOT homines, tot sententi?; so many men, so many fancies. My fancy was for an island. Perhaps boyhood's glamour hung still round sea-girt rocks, and "faery lands forlorn" still beckoned me; perhaps I felt that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. "Money can buy company," and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom's death had endowed me.

Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom's death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled even by the prospects of the island. My friends understood this wish for an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poor Tom. Beatrice was most emphatic in declaring that "a horrid little island" had no charms for her, and that she would never set foot in it. This declaration was rather annoying, because I had imagined myself spending my honeymoon with Beatrice on the island; but life is not all honeymoon, and I decided to have the island none the less. In the first place, I was not to be married for a year. Mrs. Kennett Hipgrave had insisted on this delay in order that we might be sure that we knew our own hearts. And as I may say without unfairness that Mrs. Hipgrave was to a considerable degree responsible for the engagement-she asserted the fact herself with much pride-I thought that she had a right to some voice in the date of the marriage. Moreover, the postponement gave me exactly time to go over and settle affairs in the island.

For I had bought it. It cost me seven thousand five hundred and fifty pounds-rather a fancy price, but I could not haggle with the old lord-half to be paid to the lord's bankers in London, and the second half to him in Neopalia, when he delivered possession to me. The Turkish government had sanctioned the sale, and I had agreed to pay a hundred pounds yearly as tribute. This sum, I was entitled, in my turn, to levy on the inhabitants.

"In fact, my dear lord," said old Mason to me when I called on him in Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the whole affair is settled. I congratulate you on having got just what was your whim. You are over a hundred miles from the nearest land-Rhodes, you see." (He laid a map before me.) "You are off the steamship tracks; the Austrian Lloyds to Alexandria leave you far to the northeast. You are equally remote from any submarine cable; here on the southwest, from Alexandria to Candia, is the nearest. You will have to fetch your letters-"

"I shouldn't think of doing such a thing," said I, indignantly.

"Then you'll only get them once in three months. Neopalia is extremely rugged and picturesque. It is nine miles long and five broad; it grows cotton, wine, oil, and a little corn. The people are quite unsophisticated, but very good-hearted-"

"And," said I, "there are only three hundred and seventy of them, all told. I really think I shall do very well there."

"I have no doubt you will. By the way, treat the old gentleman kindly. He is terribly cut up at having to sell. 'My dear island,' he writes, 'is second to my dead son's honor, and to nothing else.' His son, you know, Lord Wheatley, was a bad lot, a very bad lot indeed."

"He left a lot of unpaid debts, didn't he?"

"Yes, gambling debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris and London with his cousin Constantine, by no means an improving companion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to pay the debts, you know."

"Poor old chap," said I. I sympathized with him in the loss of his island.

"Here's the house, you see," said Mason, turning to the map, and dismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. "About the middle of the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I'm afraid it's a tumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without looking much better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception of the future Lady Wheatley would cost-"

"The future Lady Wheatley says she won't go there on any account," I interrupted.

"But, my very dear lord," cried he, aghast, "if she won't-"

"She won't, and there's an end of it, Mr. Mason. Well, good day. I'm to have possession in a month?"

"In a month to the very day-on the seventh of May."

"All right, I shall be there to take it;" and escaping from the legal quarter, I made my way to my sister's house in Cavendish Square. She had a party, and I was bound to go by brotherly duty. As luck would have it, however, I was rewarded for my virtue (and if that's not luck in this huddle-muddle world, I don't know what is): the Turkish ambassador dropped in, and presently James came and took me up to him. My brother-in-law, James Cardew, is always anxious that I should know the right people. The pasha received me with great kindness.

"You are the purchaser of Neopalia, aren't you?" he asked, after a little conversation. "The matter came before me officially."

"I'm much obliged," said I, "for your ready consent to the transfer."

"Oh, it's nothing to us. In fact, our tribute, such as it is, will be safer. Well, I'm sure I hope you'll settle in comfortably."

"Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you know; been there a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent two years hunting antiquities in the Morea and some of the islands."

The pasha stroked his beard as he observed in a calm tone:

"The last time a Stefanopoulos tried to sell Neopalia the people killed him, and turned the purchaser-he was a Frenchman, a Baron d'Ezonville-adrift in an open boat, with nothing on but his shirt."

"Good heavens! Was that recently?"

"No; two hundred years ago. But it's a conservative part of the world, you know." And his excellency smiled.

"They were described to me as good-hearted folk," said I; "unsophisticated, of course, but good-hearted."

"They think that the island is theirs, you see," he explained, "and that the lord has no business to sell it. They may be good-hearted, Lord Wheatley, but they are tenacious of their rights."

"But they can't have any rights," I expostulated.

"None at all," he assented. "But a man is never so tenacious of his rights as when he hasn't any. However, autres temps, autres moeurs. I don't suppose you'll have any trouble of that kind. Certainly, I hope not, my dear lord."

"Surely your government will see to that?" I suggested.

His excellency looked at me; then, although by nature a grave man, he gave a low, humorous chuckle, and regarded me with visible amusement.

"Oh, of course, you can rely on that, Lord Wheatley," said he.

"That is a diplomatic assurance, your excellency?" I ventured to suggest, with a smile.

"It is unofficial," said he, "but as binding as if it were official. Our governor in that part of the world is a very active man-yes, a decidedly active man."

The only result of this conversation was that, when I was buying my sporting guns in St. James's Street the next day, I purchased a couple of pairs of revolvers at the same time. It is well to be on the safe side; and although I attached little importance to the bygone outrage of which the ambassador spoke, I did not suppose that the police service would be very efficient. In fact, I thought it prudent to be ready for any trouble that the Old World notions of the Neopalians might occasion. But in my heart I meant to be very popular with them; for I cherished the generous design of paying the whole tribute out of my own pocket, and of disestablishing in Neopalia what seems to be the only institution in no danger of such treatment here-the tax-gatherer. If they understood that intention of mine, they would hardly be so shortsighted as to set me adrift in my shirt like a second Baron d'Ezonville, or so unjust as to kill poor old Stefanopoulos as they had killed his ancestor. Besides, as I comforted myself by repeating, they were a good-hearted race; unsophisticated, of course, but thoroughly good-hearted.

My cousin, young Denny Swinton, was to dine with me that evening at the Optimum. Denny (which is short for Dennis) was the only member of the family who thoroughly sympathized with me about Neopalia. He was wild with interest in the island, and I looked forward to telling him all I had heard about it. I knew he would listen, for he was to go with me and help me to take possession. The boy had almost wept on my neck when I asked him to come; he had just left Woolwich, and was not to join his regiment for six months. He was thus, as he put it, "at a loose end," and succeeded in persuading his parents that he ought to learn modern Greek. General Swinton was rather cold about the project; he said that Denny had spent ten years on ancient Greek, and knew nothing about it, and would not probably learn much of the newer sort in three months; but his wife thought it would be a nice trip for Denny. Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but if Mrs. Swinton had known-however, if it comes to that, I might just as well exclaim, "If I had known, myself!"

Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, and was drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. He wanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I sat down and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling with equal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first entrée and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for some reason, declared was "a lark") when two people came in and sat down at the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs had been tilted up in token of pre?ngagement. The man-for the pair were man and woman-was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark, and he had good, regular features; he looked, also, as if he had a bit of temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen him before, and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run up against him twice in St. James's Street that very day. The lady was handsome; she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace. Her manner was rather elaborate, and when she spoke to the waiter, I detected a pronounced foreign accent. Taken altogether, they were a remarkable couple, and presented a distinguished appearance. I believe I am not a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether their thoughts paid me a similar compliment, for I certainly detected both of them casting more than one curious glance toward our table; and when the man whispered once to a waiter, I was sure that I formed the subject of his question. Perhaps he, also, remembered our two encounters.

"I wonder if there's any chance of a row?" said Denny, in a tone that sounded wistful. "Going to take anybody with you, Charlie?"

"Only Watkins. I must have him; he always knows where everything is; and I've told Hogvardt, my old dragoman, to meet us in Rhodes. He'll talk their own language to the beggars, you know."

"But he's a German, isn't he?"

"He thinks so," I answered. "He's not certain, you know. Anyhow, he chatters Greek like a parrot. He's a pretty good man in a row, too. But there won't be a row, you know."

"I suppose there won't," admitted Denny, ruefully.

"For my own part," said I meekly, "as I'm going there to be quiet, I hope there won't."

In the interest of conversation I had forgotten our neighbors; but now, a lull occurring in Denny's questions and surmises, I heard the lady's voice. She began a sentence-and began it in Greek! That was a little unexpected; but it was more strange that her companion cut her short, saying very peremptorily, "Don't talk Greek; talk Italian." This he said in Italian, and I, though no great hand at that language, understood so much. Now why shouldn't the lady talk Greek, if Greek were the language that came naturally to her tongue? It would be as good a shield against idle listeners as most languages-unless, indeed, I, who was known to be an amateur of Greece and Greek things, were looked upon as a possible listener. Recollecting the glances which I had detected, recollecting again those chance meetings, I ventured on a covert gaze at the lady. Her handsome face expressed a mixture of anger, alarm, and entreaty. The man was speaking to her now in low, urgent tones; he raised his hand once and brought it down on the table as though to emphasize some declaration-perhaps some promise-which he was making. She regarded him with half angry, distrustful eyes. He seemed to repeat his words; and she flung at him, in a tone that suddenly grew louder, and in words that I could translate: "Enough! I'll see to that. I shall come too!"

Her heat stirred no answering fire in him. He dropped his emphatic manner, shrugged a tolerant "As you will," with eloquent shoulders, smiled at her, and, reaching across the table, patted her hand. She held it up before his eyes, and with the other hand pointed at a ring on her finger.

"Yes, yes, my dearest," said he; and he was about to say more, when, glancing round, he caught my gaze retreating in hasty confusion to my plate. I dared not look up again, but I felt his scowl on me. I suppose that I deserved punishment for my eavesdropping.

"And when can we get off, Charlie?" asked Denny, in his clear young voice. My thoughts had wandered from him, and I paused for a moment, as a man does when a question takes him unawares. There was silence at the next table also. The fancy seemed absurd; but it occurred to me that there also my answer was being waited for. Well, they could know if they liked; it was no secret.

"In a fortnight," said I. "We'll travel easily, and get thereon the seventh of next month; that's the day on which I'm entitled to take over my kingdom. We shall go to Rhodes. Hogvardt will have bought me a little yacht, and then-good-by to all this!" And a great longing for solitude and a natural life came over me as I looked round on the gilded cornices, the gilded mirrors, the gilded flower-vases, and the highly gilded company of the Optimum.

I was roused from my pleasant dream by a high, vivacious voice, which I knew very well. Looking up, I saw Miss Hipgrave, her mother, and young Bennett Hamlyn standing before me. I disliked young Hamlyn, but he was always very civil to me.

"Why, how early you two have dined!" cried Beatrice. "You're at the savory, aren't you? We've only just come."

"Are you going to dine?" I asked, rising. "Take this table; we're just off."

"Well, we may as well, mayn't we?" said my fiancée. "Sorry you're going though. Oh, yes, we're going to dine with Mr. Bennett Hamlyn. That's what you're for, isn't it, Mr. Hamlyn? Why, he's not listening!"

He was not, strange to say, listening, although, as a rule, he listened to Beatrice with infinite attention and the most deferential of smiles. But just now he was engaged in returning a bow which our neighbor at the next table had bestowed on him. The lady there had risen already, and was making for the door. The man lingered and looked at Hamlyn, seeming inclined to back up his bow with a few words of greeting. Hamlyn's air was not, however, encouraging, and the stranger contented himself with a nod and a careless "How are you?" and with that followed his companion. Hamlyn turned round, conscious that he had neglected Beatrice's remark, and full of penitence for his momentary neglect.

"I beg your pardon," said he, with an apologetic smile.

"Oh," answered she, "I was only saying that men like you were invented to give dinners; you're a sort of automatic feeding-machine. You ought to stand open all day. Really, I often miss you at lunch time."

"My dear Beatrice!" said Mrs. Kennett Hipgrave, with that peculiar lift of her brows that meant, "How naughty the dear child is! Oh, but how clever!"

"It's all right," said Hamlyn, meekly. "I'm awfully happy to give you a dinner, anyhow, Miss Beatrice."

Now, I had nothing to say on this subject, but I thought I would just make this remark:

"Miss Hipgrave," said I, "is very fond of a dinner."

Beatrice laughed. She understood my little correction.

"He doesn't know any better, do you?" said she, pleasantly, to Hamlyn. "We shall civilize him in time, though. Then I believe he'll be nicer than you, Charlie. I really do. You're-"

"I shall be uncivilized by then," said I.

"Oh, that wretched island!" cried Beatrice. "You're really going?"

"Most undoubtedly. By the way, Hamlyn, who's your friend?"

Surely this was an innocent enough question; but little Hamlyn went red from the edge of his clipped whisker on the right to the edge of his mathematically equal whisker on the left.

"Friend!" said he, in an angry tone. "He's not a friend of mine. I only met him on the Riviera."

"That," I admitted, "does not, happily, constitute in itself a friendship."

"And he won a hundred louis of me in the train between Cannes and Monte Carlo."

"Not bad going, that," observed Denny, in an approving tone.

"Is he, then, un grec?" asked Mrs. Hipgrave, who loves a scrap of French.

"In both senses, I believe," answered Hamlyn, viciously.

"And what's his name?" said I.

"Really, I don't recollect," said Hamlyn, rather petulantly.

"It doesn't matter," observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters, which had now made their appearance.

"My dear Beatrice," I remonstrated, "you are the most charming creature in the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn't matter to you."

"Oh, don't be tiresome. It doesn't matter to you, either, you know. Do go away, and leave me to dine in peace."

"Half a minute," said Hamlyn. "I thought I'd got it just now, but it's gone again. Look here, though; I believe it's one of those long things that end in 'poulos.'"

"Oh, it ends in 'poulos,' does it?" said I, in a meditative tone.

"My dear Charlie," said Beatrice, "I shall end in Bedlam, if you're so very tedious. What in the world I shall do when I'm married, I don't know."

"My dearest!" said Mrs. Hipgrave; and a stage direction might add: "Business with brows, as before."

"'Poulos'?" I repeated.

"Could it be Constantinopoulos?" asked Hamlyn, with a nervous deference to my Hellenic learning.

"It might, conceivably," I hazarded, "be Constantine Stefanopoulos."

"Then," said Hamlyn, "I shouldn't wonder if it was. Anyhow, the less you see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that."

"But," I objected-and I must admit that I have a habit of thinking that everybody follows my train of thought-"it's such a small place that, if he goes, I should be almost bound to meet him."

"What's such a small place?" cried Beatrice, with emphasized despair.

"Why, Neopalia, of course," said I.

"Why should anybody except you be so insane as to go there?" she asked.

"If he's the man I think, he comes from there," I explained, as I rose for the last time; for I had been getting up to go, and sitting down again, several times.

"Then he'll think twice before he goes back," pronounced Beatrice, decisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island.

Denny and I walked off together. As we went he observed:

"I suppose that chap's got no end of money?"

"Stefan-?" I began.

"No, no. Hang it, you're as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean Bennett Hamlyn."

"Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe."

Denny looked sagacious.

"He's very free with his dinners," he observed.

"Don't let's worry about it," I suggested, taking his arm. I was not worried about it myself. Indeed, for the moment, my island monopolized my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs. Hipgrave said the engagement was based on "general suitability." Now it is difficult to be very passionate over that.

"If you don't mind, I don't," said Denny, reasonably.

"That's right. It's only a little way Beatrice-" I stopped abruptly. We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the menu card. I turned it over.

"Hullo, what's this?" said I, searching for my eyeglass, which was, as usual, somewhere in the small of my back.

Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. It was written in Greek, and it ran thus:

"By way of Rhodes-small yacht there-arrive seventh."

I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion or two. One was that my tall neighbor was named Stefanopoulos; another, that he had made good use of his ears-better than I had made of mine; for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, I fancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared she would accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these things should be so-why he wished to remember the route of my journey, the date of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to hire a yacht. Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed a more interesting complexion.

"When you've done with that bit of paper," observed Denny, in a tone expressive of exaggerated patience, "we might as well go on, old fellow."

"All right. I've done with it-for the present," said I. And I took the liberty of slipping Mr. Constantine Stefanopoulos's memorandum into my pocket.

The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly my interest in Neopalia. I went to bed, still thinking of my purchase, and I recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I went to sleep was, "What did she mean by pointing to the ring?"

Well, I found an answer to that later on.

Until the moment of our parting came, I had no idea that Beatrice Hipgrave felt my going at all. She was not in the habit of displaying emotion, and I was much surprised at the reluctance with which she separated from me. So far, however, was she from reproaching me, that she took all the blame upon herself, saying that if she had been kinder and nicer to me, I should never have thought about my island.

In this she was quite wrong; but when I told her so, and assured her that I had no fault to find with her behavior, I was met by an almost passionate assertion of her unworthiness, and an entreaty that I should not spend on her a love that she did not deserve. Her abasement and penitence compelled me to show, and indeed to feel, a good deal of tenderness for her. She was pathetic and pretty in her unusual earnestness and unexplained distress. I went the length of offering to put off my expedition until after our wedding; and, although she besought me to do nothing of the kind, I believe we might in the end have arranged matters on this footing had we been left to ourselves. But Mrs. Hipgrave saw fit to intrude on our interview at this point, and she at once pooh-poohed the notion, declaring that I should be better out of the way for a few months. Beatrice did not resist her mother's conclusion; but when we were alone again, she became very agitated, begging me always to think well of her, and asking if I were really attached to her. I did not understand this mood, which was very unlike her usual manner, but I responded with a hearty and warm avowal of confidence in her; and I met her questions as to my own feelings by pledging my word very solemnly that absence should, so far as I was concerned, make no difference, and that she might rely implicitly on my faithful affection. This assurance seemed to give her very little comfort, although I repeated it more than once; and when I left her, I was in a state of some perplexity, for I could not follow the bent of her thoughts, nor appreciate the feelings that moved her. I was, however, considerably touched, and upbraided myself for not having hitherto done justice to the depth and sincerity of nature which underlay her external frivolity. I expressed this self-condemnation to Denny Swinton, but he met it very coldly, and would not be drawn into any discussion of the subject. Denny was not wont to conceal his opinions, and had never pretended to be enthusiastic about my engagement. This attitude of his had not troubled me before, but I was annoyed at it now, and I retaliated by asseverating my affection for Beatrice in terms of even exaggerated emphasis, and her's for me with no less vehemence.

These troubles and perplexities vanished before the zest and interest which our preparations and start excited. Denny and I were like a pair of schoolboys off for a holiday, and spent hours in forecasting what we should do and how we should fare in the island. These speculations were extremely amusing, but in the long run they were proved to be, one and all, wide of the mark. Had I known Neopalia then as well as I came to know it afterward, I should have recognized the futility of attempting to prophesy what would happen there. As it was, we spun our cobwebs merrily all the way to Rhodes, where we arrived without event and without accident. There we picked up Hogvardt, and embarked in the smart little steam yacht which he had hired for me. A day or two was spent in arranging our stores and buying what more we wanted, for we could not expect to be able to procure anything in Neopalia. I was rather surprised to find no letter for me from the old lord, but I had no thought of waiting for a formal invitation, and pressed on the hour of departure as much as I could. Here, also, I saw the first of my new subjects, Hogvardt having engaged a couple of men who had come to him, saying they were from Neopalia and were anxious to work their passage back. I was delighted to have them, and fell at once to studying them with immense attention. They were fine, tall, capable-looking fellows, and they, too, with ourselves, made a crew more than large enough for our little boat; for both Denny and I would make ourselves useful on board, and Hogvardt could do something of everything on land or water, whilst Watkins acted as cook and steward. The Neopalians were, as they stated, in answer to my questions, brothers; their names were Spiro and Demetri, and they informed us that their family had served the lords of Neopalia for many generations. Hearing this, I was less inclined to resent the undeniable reserve and even surliness with which they met my advances. I made allowance for their hereditary attachment to the outgoing family; and their natural want of cordiality toward the intruder did not prevent me from plying them with many questions concerning my predecessors on the throne of the island. My perseverance was ill rewarded, but I succeeded in learning that the only member of the family on the island, besides the old lord, was a girl whom they called "the Lady Euphrosyne," the daughter of the lord's brother, who was dead. Next I asked after my friend of the Optimum restaurant, Constantine. He was this lady's cousin once or twice removed-I did not make out the exact degree of kinship-but Demetri hastened to inform me that he came very seldom to the island, and had not been there for two years.

"And he is not expected there now?" I asked.

"He was not when we left, my lord," answered Demetri, and it seemed to me that he threw an inquiring glance at his brother, who added hastily:

"What should we poor men know of the Lord Constantine's doings?"

"Do you know where he is now?" I asked.

"No, my lord," they answered together, and with great emphasis.

I cannot deny that something struck me as peculiar in their manner, but when I mentioned my impression to Denny, he scoffed at me.

"You've been reading old Byron again," he said, scornfully. "Do you think they're corsairs?"

Well, a man is not a fool simply because he reads Byron, and I maintained my opinion that the brothers were embarrassed at my questions. Moreover, I caught Spiro, the more truculent-looking of the pair, scowling at me more than once when he did not know I had my eye on him.

These little mysteries, however, did nothing but add sauce to my delight as we sprang over the blue waters; and my joy was complete when, on the morning of the day I had appointed, the seventh of May, Denny cried "Land," and, looking over the starboard bow, I saw the cloud on the sea that was Neopalia. Day came bright and glorious, and as we drew nearer to our enchanted isle, we distinguished its features and conformation. The coast was rocky, save where a small harbor opened to the sea; and the rocks ran up from the coast, rising higher and higher, till they culminated in a quite respectable peak in the centre. The telescope showed cultivated ground and vineyards, mingled with woods, on the slopes of the mountain; and about half way up, sheltered on three sides, backed by thick woods, and commanding a splendid sea view, stood an old, gray, battlemented house.

"There's my house!" I cried, in natural exultation, pointing with my finger. It was a moment in my life-a moment to mark.

"Hurrah!" cried Denny, throwing up his hat in sympathy.

Demetri was standing near, and met this ebullition with a grim smile.

"I hope my lord will find the house comfortable," said he.

"We shall soon make it comfortable," said Hogvardt. "I dare say it's half a ruin now."

"It is good enough now for a Stefanopoulos," said the fellow, with a surly frown. The inference we were meant to draw was plain even to incivility.

At five o'clock in the evening we entered the harbor of Neopalia and brought up alongside a rather crazy wooden jetty that ran some fifty feet out from the shore. Our arrival appeared to create great excitement. Men, women, and children came running down the narrow, steep street which climbed up the hill from the harbor. We heard shrill cries, and a hundred fingers were pointed at us. We landed; nobody came forward to greet us. I looked round, and saw no one who could be the old lord; but I perceived a stout man who wore an air of importance, and, walking up to him, I asked him very politely if he would be so good as to direct me to the inn, for I had discovered from Demetri that there was a modest house where we could lodge that night, and I was too much in love with my island to think of sleeping on board the yacht. The stout man looked at Denny and me; then he looked at Demetri and Spiro, who stood near us, smiling their usual grim smile. And he answered my question by another, a rather abrupt one: "What do you want, sir?" And he slightly lifted his tasselled cap and replaced it on his head.

"I want to know the way to the inn," I answered.

"You have come to visit Neopalia?" he asked.

A number of people had gathered round us now, and all fixed their eyes on my face.

"Oh," I said carelessly, "I am the purchaser of the island, you know. I have come to take possession."

Nobody spoke. Perfect silence reigned for half a minute.

"I hope we shall get on well together," I said, with my pleasantest smile.

Still no answer came. The people round still stared.

At last the stout man, altogether ignoring my friendly advances, said, curtly:

"I keep the inn. Come. I will take you to it."

He turned and led the way up the street. We followed, the people making a lane for us, and still regarding us with stony stares. Denny gave expression to my feelings, as well as his own:

"It can hardly be described as an ovation," he observed.

"Surly brutes," muttered Hogvardt.

"It is not the way to receive his lordship," agreed Watkins, more in sorrow than in anger. Watkins had very high ideas of the deference due to "his lordship."

The fat innkeeper walked ahead. I quickened my pace and overtook him.

"The people do not seem very pleased to see me," I remarked.

He shook his head, but made no answer. Then he stopped before a substantial house. We followed him in, and he led us up-stairs to a large room. It overlooked the street, but, somewhat to my surprise, the windows were heavily barred. The door also was massive, and had large bolts inside and out.

"You take good care of your houses, my friend," said Denny, with a laugh.

"We like to keep what we have, in Neopalia," said he.

I asked him if he would provide us with a meal, and, assenting gruffly, he left us alone. The food was some time in coming, and we stood at the window, peering through our prison bars. Our high spirits were dashed by the unfriendly reception; my island should have been more gracious, it was so beautiful.

"However, it's a better welcome than we should have got two hundred years ago," I said, with a laugh, trying to make the best of the matter.

Dinner, which the landlord brought in himself, cheered us again, and we lingered over it till dusk began to fall, discussing whether I ought to visit the lord, or whether, seeing that he had not come to receive me, my dignity did not demand that I should await his visit; and it was on this latter course that we finally decided.

"But he'll hardly come to-night," said Denny, jumping up. "I wonder if there are any decent beds here!"

Hogvardt and Watkins had, by my directions, sat down with us; and the former was now smoking his pipe at the window, while Watkins was busy overhauling our luggage. We had brought light bags, the rods, guns, and other smaller articles. The rest was in the yacht. Hearing beds mentioned, Watkins shook his head in dismal presage, saying:

"We had better sleep on board, my lord."

"Not I! What, leave the island, now we've got here? No, Watkins!"

"Very good, my lord," said Watkins, impassively.

A sudden call came from Hogvardt, and I joined him at the window.

The scene outside was indeed remarkable. In the narrow, paved street, gloomy now in the failing light; there must have been fifty or sixty men standing in a circle, surrounded by an outer fringe of women and children; and in the centre stood our landlord, his burly figure swaying to and fro, as he poured out a low-voiced but vehement harangue. Sometimes he pointed toward us, oftener along the ascending road that led to the interior. I could not hear a word he said, but presently all his auditors raised their hands toward heaven. I saw that the hands held, some guns, some clubs, some knives; and all the men cried with furious energy: "Nai, nai!" ("Yes, yes!") And then the whole body-and the greater part of the grown men on the island must have been present-started off, in compact array, up the road, the innkeeper at their head. By his side walked another man, whom I had not noticed before, and who wore an ordinary suit of tweeds, but carried himself with an assumption of much dignity. His face I did not see.

"Well, what's the meaning of that?" I exclaimed, looking down on the street, empty now, save for groups of white-clothed women, who talked eagerly to one another, gesticulating, and pointing now toward our inn, now toward where the men had gone.

"Perhaps it's their parliament," suggested Denny. "Or perhaps they've repented of their rudeness, and are going to erect a triumphal arch."

These conjectures being obviously ironical, did not assist the matter, although they amused their author.

"Anyhow," said I, "I should like to investigate the thing. Suppose we go for a stroll?"

The proposal was accepted at once. We put on our hats, took sticks, and prepared to go. Then I glanced at the luggage.

"Since I was so foolish as to waste my money on revolvers," said I, with an inquiring glance at Hogvardt.

"The evening air will not hurt them," said he; and we each stowed a revolver in our pockets. We felt, I think, rather ashamed of our timidity, but the Neopalians certainly looked rough customers. Then I turned the handle of the door. The door did not open. I pulled hard at it. Then I looked at my companions.

"Queer," said Denny, and he began to whistle.

Hogvardt got the little lantern, which he always had handy, and carefully inspected the door.

"Locked," he announced, "and bolted top and bottom. A solid door, too!" and he struck it with his hand. Then he crossed to the window, and looked at the bolts; and finally he said to me: "I don't think we can have our walk, my lord."

Well, I burst out laughing. The thing was too absurd. Under cover of our animated talk the landlord must have bolted us in. The bars made the window no use. A skilled burglar might have beaten those bolts, and a battering-ram would, no doubt, have smashed the door; we had neither burglar nor ram.

"We are caught, my boy," said Denny. "Nicely caught. But what's the game?"

I had asked myself that question already, but had found no answer. To tell the truth, I was wondering whether Neopalia was going to turn out as conservative a country as the Turkish ambassador had hinted. It was Watkins who suggested an answer.

"I imagine, my lord," said he, "that the natives [Watkins always called the Neopalians "natives"] have gone to speak to the gentleman who sold the island to your lordship."

"Gad!" said Denny, "I hope it will be a pleasant interview."

Hogvardt's broad, good-humored face had assumed an anxious look. He knew something about the people of these islands; so did I.

"Trouble, is it?" I asked him.

"I'm afraid so," he answered; and then we turned to the window again, except Denny, who wasted some energy and made a useless din by battering at the door, till we beseeched him to let it alone.

There we sat for nearly two hours. Darkness fell, the women had ceased their gossiping, but still stood about the street, and in the doorways of the house.

It was nine o'clock before matters showed any progress. Then came shouts from the road above us, the flash of torches, the tread of men's feet in a quick, triumphant march. Then the stalwart figures of the picturesque fellows, with their white kilts gleaming through the darkness, came again into sight, seeming wilder and more imposing in the alternating glare and gloom of the torches and the deepening night. The man in tweeds was no longer visible. Our innkeeper was alone in front. And all, as they marched, sang loudly a rude, barbarous sort of chant, repeating it again and again; and the women and children crowded out to meet the men, catching up the refrain in shrill voices, till the whole air seemed full of it. And so martial and inspiring was the rude tune that our feet began to beat in time with it, and I felt the blood quicken in my veins. I have tried to put the words of it into English, in a shape as rough, I fear, as the rough original. Here it is:

"Ours is the land!

Death to the hand

That filches the land!

Dead is that hand,

Ours is the land!

Forever we hold it.

Dead's he that sold it!

Ours is the land.

Dead is the hand!"

Again and again they hurled forth the defiant words, until they stopped at last opposite the inn, with one final, long-drawn shout of savage triumph.

"Well, this is a go!" said Denny, drawing a long breath. "What are the beggars up to?"

"What have they been up to?" I asked; for I doubted not that the song we had heard had been chanted over a dead Stefanopoulos two hundred years before.

At this age of the world the idea seemed absurd, preposterous, horrible. But there was no law nearer than Rhodes, and there only Turk's law. The only law here was the law of the Stefanopouloi, and if that law lost its force by the crime of the hand that should wield it, why, strange things might happen even to-day in Neopalia. And we were caught like rats in a trap in the inn!

"I do not see," remarked old Hogvardt, laying a hand on my shoulders, "any harm in loading our revolvers, my lord."

I did not see any harm in it either, and we all followed Hogvardt's advice, and also filled our pockets with cartridges. I was determined-I think we were all determined-not to be bullied by these islanders and their skull-and-crossbones ditty.

A quarter of an hour passed, and there came a knock at the door, while the bolts were shot back.

"I shall go out," said I, springing to my feet.

The door opened, and the face of a lad appeared.

"Vlacho, the innkeeper, bids you descend," said he; and then, catching sight, perhaps, of our revolvers, he turned and ran down-stairs again at his best speed. Following him, we came to the door of the inn. It was ringed round with men, and directly opposite to us stood Vlacho. When he saw me, he commanded silence with his hand, and addressed me in the following surprising style:

"The Lady Euphrosyne, of her grace, bids you depart in peace. Go, then, to your boat, and depart, thanking God for his mercy."

"Wait a bit, my man," said I. "Where is the lord of the island?"

"Did you not know that he died a week ago?" asked Vlacho, with apparent surprise.

"Died!" we exclaimed, one and all.

"Yes, sir. The Lady Euphrosyne, lady of Neopalia, bids you go."

"What did he die of?"

"Of a fever," said Vlacho, gravely. And several of the men round him nodded their heads, and murmured, in no less grave assent: "Yes, of a fever."

"I am very sorry for it," said I. "But as he sold the island to me before he died, I don't see what the lady, with all respect to her, has got to do with it. Nor do I know what this rabble is doing about the door. Send them away."

This attempt at hauteur was most decidedly thrown away. Vlacho seemed not to hear what I said. He pointed with his finger toward the harbor.

"There lies your boat. Demetri and Spiro cannot go with you, but you will be able to manage her yourselves. Listen, now! Till six in the morning you are free to go. If you are found in Neopalia one minute after, you will never go. Think and be wise." And he and all the rest of them, as though one spring moved them, wheeled round, and marched off up the hill again, breaking out into the old chant when they had gone about a hundred yards; and we were left alone in the doorway of the inn, looking, I must admit, rather blank.

Up-stairs again we went, and I sat down by the window and looked out on the night. It was very dark, and seemed darker now that the gleaming torches were gone. Not a soul was to be seen. The islanders, having put matters on a clear footing, were gone to bed. I sat thinking. Presently Denny came to me, and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Going to cave in, Charlie?" he asked.

"My dear Denny," said I, "I wish you were at home with your mother."

He smiled and repeated, "Going to cave in, old chap?"

"No, by Jove, I'm not!" cried I, leaping up. "They've had my money, and I'm going to have the island."

"Take the yacht, my lord," counselled Hogvardt, "and come back with enough force from Rhodes."

Well, that was sense; my impulse was nonsense. We four could not conquer the island. I swallowed my pride.

"So be it," said I. "But, look here; it's only just twelve. We might have a look round before we go. I want to see the place, you know." For I was very sorely vexed at being turned out of my island.

Hogvardt grumbled a little at this, but here I overruled him. We took our revolvers again, left the inn, and struck straight up the road. For nearly a mile we mounted, the way becoming steeper with every step. Then there was a sudden turn off the main road.

"That will lead to the house," said Hogvardt, who had studied the map of Neopalia very carefully.

"Then we'll have a look at the house. Show us a light, Hogvardt. It's precious dark."

Hogvardt opened his lantern, and cast its light in the way. But suddenly he extinguished it again, and drew us close in to the rocks that edged the road. We saw coming toward us in the darkness two figures. They rode small horses. Their faces could not be seen; but as they passed our silent, motionless forms, one said in a clear, sweet, girlish voice:

"Surely they will go?"

"Ay, they'll go, or pay the penalty," said the other voice, and at the sound of it I started. For it was the voice of my neighbor in the restaurant, Constantine Stefanopoulos.

"I shall be near at hand, sleeping in the town," said the girl's voice, "and the people will listen to me."

"The people will kill them, if they do not go," we heard Constantine answer, in tones that witnessed no great horror at the idea. Then the couple disappeared in the darkness.

"On to the house!" I cried in sudden excitement. For I was angry now, angry at the utter, humbling scorn with which they treated me.

Another ten minutes' groping brought us in front of the old gray house which we had seen from the sea. We walked boldly up to it. The door stood open. We went in, and found ourselves in a large hall. The wooden floor was carpeted, here and there, with mats and skins. A long table ran down the middle. The walls were decorated with medi?val armor and weapons. The windows were but narrow slits, the walls massive and deep. The door was a ponderous, iron-bound affair, that shamed even the stout doors of our inn. I called loudly, "Is any one here?" Nobody answered. The servants must have been drawn off to the town by the excitement of the procession and the singing; or perhaps there were no servants. I could not tell. I sat down in a large armchair by the table. I enjoyed the sense of proprietorship. Denny sat on the table by me, dangling his legs. For a long while none of us spoke. Then I exclaimed, suddenly:

"By heaven! why shouldn't we see it through?" And I rose and put my hands against the massive door, and closed and bolted it, saying, "Let them open that at six o'clock in the morning."

"Hurrah!" cried Denny, leaping down from his table, on fire with excitement in a moment.

I faced Hogvardt. He shook his head, but he smiled. Watkins stood by, with his usual imperturbability. He wanted to know what his lordship decided, that was all; and when I said nothing more, he asked:

"Then your lordship will sleep here to-night?"

"I'll stay here to-night, anyhow, Watkins," said I. "I'm not going to be driven out of my own island by anybody!"

And I brought my fist down with a crash on the table. And then, to our amazement, we heard-from somewhere in the dark recesses of the hall, where the faint light of Hogvardt's lantern did not reach-a low, but distinct, groan, as of some one in pain. Watkins shuddered; Hogvardt looked rather uncomfortable; Denny and I listened eagerly. Again the groan came. I seized the lantern from Hogvardt's hand, and rushed in the direction of the sound. There, in the corner of the hall, on a couch, covered with a rug, lay an old man in an uneasy attitude, groaning now and then, and turning restlessly. And by his side sat an old serving-woman in weary, heavy slumber. In a moment I guessed the truth-part of the truth.

"He's not dead of that fever yet," said I.

I looked for a moment on the old man's pale, clean-cut, aristocratic face; then I shook his attendant vigorously by the arm. She awoke with a start.

"What does this mean?" I demanded. "Who is he?"

"Heaven help us, who are you?" she cried, leaping up in alarm. Indeed, we four, with our eager, fierce faces, may have looked disquieting enough.

"I am Lord Wheatley; these are my friends," I answered in brisk, sharp tones.

"What, it is you, then-?" A wondering gaze ended her question.

"Yes, yes, it is I. I have bought the island. We came out for a walk and-"

"But he will kill you, if he finds you here."

"He? Who?"

"Ah, pardon, my lord-they will kill you, they-the people-the men of the island."

I gazed at her sternly. She shrank back in confusion. And I spoke at a venture, yet in a well-grounded hazard:

"You mean that Constantine Stefanopoulos will kill me?"

"Ah, hush!" she cried. "He may be here! He may be anywhere!"

"He may thank his stars he's not here," said I grimly, for my blood was up. "Attend, woman! Who is this?"

"It is the lord of the island, my lord," she answered. "Alas, and he is wounded, I fear, to death. And yet I fell asleep. But I was so weary."

"Wounded-by whom?"

Her face suddenly became vacant and expressionless.

"I do not know, my lord. It happened in the crowd. It was a mistake. My dear lord had yielded what they asked. Yet some one-no, by heaven, my lord, I do not know whom-stabbed him! And he cannot live."

"Tell me the whole thing," I commanded.

"They came up here, my lord, all of them-Vlacho and all, and with them my Lord Constantine. And the Lady Euphrosyne was away; she is often away, down on the rocks by the sea, watching the waves. And they came and said that a man had landed who claimed our island as his-a man of your name, my lord. And when my dear lord said he had sold the island to save the honor of his house and race, they were furious, and Vlacho raised the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard wrote on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos long ago. And they came near with knives, demanding that my dear lord should send away the stranger; for the men of Neopalia were not to be bought and sold like bullocks or like pigs. At first my lord would not yield; and they swore they would kill the stranger and my lord also. Then they pressed closer. Vlacho was hard on him with drawn knife, and the Lord Constantine stood by him, praying him to yield, and Constantine drew his own knife, saying to Vlacho that he must fight him also before he killed the old lord. But at that Vlacho smiled-and then-and then-ah, my dear lord!"

For a moment her voice broke, and sobs supplanted words. But she drew herself up, and, after a glance at the old man, whom her vehement speech had not availed to waken, she went on:

"And then those behind cried out that there was enough talk. Would he yield or would he die? And they rushed forward, pressing the nearest against him. And he, an old man, frail and feeble-yet once he was as brave a man as any-cried, in his weak tones: 'Enough, friends, I yield; I-' And they fell back. But my lord stood for an instant; then he set his hand to his side, and swayed and tottered and fell, and the blood ran from his side. And the Lord Constantine fell on his knees beside him, crying: 'Who stabbed him?' And Vlacho smiled grimly, and the others looked at one another. And I, who had run out from the doorway whence I had seen it all, knelt by my lord and stanched the blood. Then Vlacho said, fixing his eyes straight and keen on the Lord Constantine, 'It was not I, my lord,' 'Nor I, by heaven!' cried the Lord Constantine; and he rose to his feet, demanding: 'Who struck the blow?' But none answered, and he went on: 'Nay, if it were in error, if it were because he would not yield, speak! There shall be pardon,' But Vlacho, hearing this, turned himself round and faced them all, saying: 'Did he not sell us like oxen and like pigs?' and he broke into the death chant, and they all raised the chant, none caring any more who had struck the blow. And Lord Constantine-" The impetuous flow of the old woman's story was frozen to sudden silence.

"Well, and Lord Constantine?" said I, in low, stern tones, that quivered with excitement; and I felt Denny's hand, that was on my arm, jump up and down. "And Constantine, woman?"

"Nay, he did nothing," said she. "He talked with Vlacho a while, and then they went away, and he bade me tend my lord, and went himself to seek the Lady Euphrosyne. And presently he came back with her. Her eyes were red, and she wept afresh when she saw my poor lord, for she loved him. And she sat by him till Constantine came and told her that you would not go, and that you and your friends would be killed if you did not go. And then, weeping to leave my lord, she went, praying heaven she might find him alive when she returned. 'I must go,' she said to me; 'for though it is a shameful thing that the island should have been sold, yet these men must be persuaded to go away and not meet death. Kiss him for me if he awakes.' Thus she went, and left me with my lord, and I fear he will die." And she ended in a burst of sobbing.

For a moment there was silence. Then I said again:

"Who struck the blow, woman? Who struck the blow?"

She shrank from me as though I had struck her. "I do not know, I do not know," she moaned.

Then a thing happened that seemed strange and awful in the gloomy, dark hall. For the stricken man opened his eyes, his lips moved, and he groaned: "Constantine! You, Constantine!" and the old woman's eyes met mine for a moment, and fell to the ground again.

"Why-why, Constantine?" moaned the wounded man. "I had yielded-I had yielded, Constantine. I would have sent them-" His words ceased, his eyes closed, his lips met again, but met only to part. A moment later his jaw dropped. The old lord of Neopalia was dead.

Then I, carried away by anger and by hatred of the man who, for a reason I did not yet understand, had struck so foul a blow against his kinsman and an old man, did a thing so rash that it seems to me now, when I consider it in the cold light of the past, a mad deed. Yet then I could do nothing else; and Denny's face, aye, and the eyes of the others, too, told me that they were with me.

"Compose this old man's body," I said, "and we will watch it. And do you go and tell this Constantine Stefanopoulos that I know his crime, that I know who struck that blow, and that what I know all men shall know, and that I will not rest day nor night until he has paid the penalty of this murder. And tell him I swore this on the honor of an English gentleman."

"And say I swore it, too!" cried Denny; and Hogvardt and Watkins, not making bold to speak, ranged up close to me; and I knew that they also meant what I meant.

The old woman looked at me with searching eyes.

"You are a bold man, my lord," said she.

"I see nothing to be afraid of up to now," said I. "Such courage as is needed to tell a scoundrel what I think of him, I believe I can claim."

"But he will never let you go now. You would go to Rhodes, and tell his-tell what you say of him."

"Yes, and farther than Rhodes, if need be. He shall die for it as sure as I live."

A thousand men might have tried in vain to persuade me; the treachery of Constantine had fired my heart and driven out all opposing motives.

"Do as I bid you," said I, sternly, "and waste no time on it. We will watch here by the old man till you return."

"My lord," she replied, "you run on your own death. And you are young, and the young man by you is yet younger."

"We are not dead yet," said Denny; and I had never seen him look as he did then; for the gayety was out of his face, and he spoke from between stern-set lips.

She raised her hands toward heaven-whether in prayer or in lamentation, I do not know. We turned away and left her to her sad offices, and going back to our places, waited there till dawn began to break, and from the narrow windows we saw the gray crests of the waves dancing and frolicking in the early dawn. As I watched them the old woman was by my elbow.

"It is done, my lord," said she. "Are you still of the same mind?"

"Still of the same," said I.

"It is death-death for you all," she said; and without more she went to the great door. Hogvardt opened it for her, and she walked away down the road, between the high rocks that bounded the path on either side. Then we went and carried the old man to a room that opened off the hall, and, returning, stood in the doorway, cooling our brows in the fresh, early air. And while we stood, Hogvardt said suddenly:

"It is five o'clock."

"Then we have only an hour to live," said I, smiling, "if we do not make for the yacht."

"You're not going back to the yacht, my lord?"

"I'm puzzled," I admitted. "If we go this ruffian will escape. And if we don't go-"

"Why, we," Hogvardt ended for me, "may not escape."

I saw that Hogvardt's sense of responsibility was heavy; he always regarded himself as the shepherd, his employers as the sheep. I believe this attitude of his confirmed my destiny, for I said, without hesitation:

"Oh, we'll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is, they'll turn against him. Besides, we said we'd wait here."

Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined to do a rash thing, there is great comfort in feeling that you are already committed to it by some previous act or promise.

"So we did," he cried. "Then that settles it, Hogvardt."

"His lordship certainly expressed that intention," observed Watkins, appearing at this moment with a large loaf of bread and a great pitcher of milk. I eyed these viands.

"I bought the house and its contents," said I. "Come along."

Watkins's further researches produced a large chunk of native cheese; and when he had set this down, he remarked:

"In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front door, two cows tethered."

I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.

"We can stand a siege, you mean?" I asked. "Well, I hope it won't come to that."

Hogvardt rose, and began to move round the hall, examining the weapons that decorated the walls. From time to time he grunted disapprovingly; the guns were useless, rusted, out of date, and there was no ammunition for them. But when he had almost completed his circuit, he gave an exclamation of satisfaction, and came to me, holding an excellent modern rifle and a large cartridge case.

"See!" he grunted, in huge satisfaction. "C.S. on the stock, I suspect you can guess whose it is, my lord."

"This is very thoughtful of Constantine," observed Denny, who was employing himself in cutting imaginary lemons in two with a fine damascened scimiter that he had taken from the wall.

"As for the cows," said I, "perhaps they will carry them off."

"I think not," said Hogvardt, taking an aim with the rifle through the window.

I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past six.

"Well, we can't go now," said I. "It's settled. What a comfort!" I wonder if I had ever in my heart meant to go!

The next hour passed very quietly. We sat smoking pipes and cigars, and talking in subdued tones. The recollection of the dead man in the adjoining room sobered the excitement to which our position would otherwise have given occasion. Indeed, I suppose that I, at least, who had led the rest into this imbroglio through my whim, should have been utterly overwhelmed by the burden on me. But I was not. Perhaps Hogvardt's assumption of responsibility relieved me; perhaps I was too full of anger against Constantine to think of the risks we ourselves ran; and I was more than half persuaded that the revelation of what he had done would rob him of his power to hurt us. Moreover, if I might judge from the words I heard on the road, we had on our side an ally of uncertain, but probably considerable, power, in the sweet-voiced girl whom the old woman called the Lady Euphrosyne; and she would not support her uncle's murderer even though he were her cousin.

Presently Watkins carried me off to view his pen of goats, and, having passed through the lofty, flagged kitchen, I found myself in a sort of compound formed by the rocks. The ground had been levelled for a few yards, and the cliffs rose straight to the height of ten or twelve feet; from the top of this artificial bank they ran again, in wooded slopes, toward the peak of the mountain. I followed their course with my eye, and five hundred or more feet above us, just beneath the summit, I perceived a little wooden chalet or bungalow. Blue smoke issued from the chimneys, and, even while we looked, a figure came out of the door and stood still in front of it, apparently looking down toward the house.

"It's a woman," I pronounced.

"Yes, my lord. A peasant's wife, I suppose."

"I dare say," said I. But I soon doubted Watkins's opinion-in the first place, because the woman's dress did not look like that of a peasant woman; and, secondly, because she went into the house, appeared again, and levelled at us what was, if I mistook not, a large pair of binocular glasses. Now, such things were not likely to be in the possession of the peasants of Neopalia. Then she suddenly retreated, and through the silence of those still slopes we heard the door of the cottage closed with violence.

"She doesn't seem to like the look of us," said I.

"Possibly," suggested Watkins, with deference, "she did not expect to see your lordship here."

"I should think that's very likely, Watkins," said I.

I was recalled from the survey of my new domains-my satisfaction in the thought that they were mine survived all the disturbing features of the situation-by a call from Denny. In response to it I hurried back to the hall, and found him at the window, with Constantine's rifle rested on the sill.

"I could pick him off pat," said Denny, laughingly, and he pointed to a figure which was approaching the house. It was a man riding a stout pony. When he came within about two hundred yards of the house he stopped, took a leisurely look, and then waved a white handkerchief.

"The laws of war must be observed," said I, smiling. "This is a flag of truce." And I opened the door, stepped out, and waved my handkerchief in return. The man, reassured, began to mop his brow with the flag of truce, and put his pony to a trot. I now perceived him to be the innkeeper Vlacho, and a moment later he reined up beside me, giving an angry jerk at his pony's bridle.

"I have searched the island for you," he cried. "I am weary and hot. How came you here?"

I explained to him briefly how I had chanced to take possession of my house, and added, significantly:

"But has no message come to you from me?"

He smiled with equal meaning as he answered:

"No. An old woman came to speak to a gentleman who is in the village."

"Yes, to Constantine Stefanopoulos," said I with a nod.

"Well, then, if you will, to the Lord Constantine," he admitted, with a careless shrug; "but her message was for his ear only. He took her aside, and they talked alone."

"You know what she said, though."

"That is between my Lord Constantine and me."

"And the young lady knows it, I hope-the Lady Euphrosyne?"

Vlacho smiled broadly.

"We could not distress her with such a silly tale," he answered; and he leant down toward me. "Nobody has heard the message but the lord and one man he told it to; and nobody will. If that old woman spoke, she-well, she knows, and will not speak."

"And you back up this murderer?" I cried.

"Murderer?" he repeated, questioningly. "Indeed, sir, it was an accident, done in hot blood. It was the old man's fault, because he tried to sell the island."

"He did sell the island," I corrected. "And a good many other people will hear of what happened to him."

He looked at me again, smiling.

"If you shouted in the hearing of every man in Neopalia, what would they do?" he asked, scornfully.

"Well, I should hope," I returned, "that they'd hang Constantine to the tallest tree you've got here."

"They would do this," he said, with a nod; and he began to sing softly the chant I had heard the night before.

I was disgusted at his savagery, but I said coolly:

"And the lady?"

"The lady believes what she is told, and will do as her cousin bids her. Is she not his affianced wife?"

"The deuce she is!" I cried in amazement, fixing a keen scrutiny on Vlacho's face. The face told me nothing.

"Certainly," he said, gently. "And they will rule the island together."

"Will they, though?" said I. I was becoming rather annoyed. "There are one or two obstacles in the way of that. First, it's my island."

He shrugged his shoulders again. "That," he seemed to say, "is not worth answering." But I had a second shot in the locker for him, and I let him have it for what it was worth. I knew it might be worth nothing, but I tried it.

"And secondly," I observed, "how many wives does Constantine propose to have?"

A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! I could have sung in glee. The fellow was dumb-founded. He turned red, bit his lip, scowled fiercely.

"What do you mean?" he blurted out, with an attempt at blustering defiance.

"Never mind what I mean. Something, perhaps, that the Lady Euphrosyne might care to know. And now, my man, what do you want of me?"

He recovered his composure, and stated his errand with his old, cool assurance; but the cloud of vexation still hung heavy on his brow.

"On behalf of the lady of the island-" he began.

"Or shall we say her cousin?" I interrupted.

"Which you will," he answered, as though it were not worth while to wear the mask any longer. "On behalf, then, of my Lord Constantine, I am to offer you safe passage to your boat, and a return of the money you have paid."

"How's he going to pay that?"

"He will pay it in a year, and give you security meanwhile."

"And the condition is that I give up the island?" I asked; and I began to think that perhaps I owed it to my companions to acquiesce in this proposal, however distasteful it might be to me.

"Yes," said Vlacho; "and there is one other small condition, which will not trouble you."

"And what's that? You're rich in conditions."

"You are lucky to be offered any. It is that you mind your own business."

"I came here for the purpose," I observed.

"And that you undertake, for yourself and your companions, on your word of honor, to speak not a word of what has passed in the island, or of the affairs of the Lord Constantine."

"And if I won't give my word?"

"The yacht is in our hands; Demetri and Spiro are our men; there will be no ship here for two months."

The fellow paused, smiling at me. I took the liberty of ending his period for him.

"And there is," I said, returning the smile, "as we know by now, a particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island."

"Certainly; you may chance to find that out," said he.

"But is there no antidote?" I asked; and I showed him the butt of my revolver in the pocket of my coat.

"It may keep it off for a day or two; not longer. You have the bottle there, but most of the drug is with your baggage at the inn."

His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges apiece.

"But there is plenty of food for Constantine's rifle," said I, pointing to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.

He suddenly became impatient.

"Your answer, sir?" he demanded, peremptorily.

"Here it is," said I. "I'll keep the island, and I'll see Constantine hanged."

"So be it, so be it!" he cried. "You are warned; so be it!" and without another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down the road. And I went back to the house, feeling, I must confess, not in the best of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed, they applauded me, and we made up our minds to "see it through," as Denny said.

That day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his house, having wrapped him in a sheet, and we dug for him as good a grave as we could, in a little patch of ground that lay outside the windows of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the house. There he must lie for the moment. This sad work done, we came back, and-so swift are life's changes-we killed a goat for dinner, and watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when evening came we ate our goat flesh, and Hogvardt milked our cows, and we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.

But the evening was hot, and we adjourned out of doors, grouping ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door. Hogvardt had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape, depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side of the island, and finding there a boat, which we had no reason to suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying, "Hark!"

From the direction of the village and the harbor came the sound of a horn, blown long and shrill, and echoed back in strange, protracted shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us; and following on the blast, we heard, low in the distance and indistinct, yet rising and falling, and rising again in savage defiance and exultation, the death chant that One-eyed Alexander the Bard had made on the death of Stefan Stefanopoulos two hundred years ago. For a few minutes we sat listening, and I do not think that any of us were very comfortable. Then I rose to my feet, and I said:

"Hogvardt, old fellow, I fancy that scheme of yours must wait a little. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we're going to have a lively evening."

Well, and then we shook hands all round, and went in, and bolted the door, and sat down to wait. We heard the death chant through the walls now, for it was coming nearer.

(To be continued.)

* * *

A BROOK IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VAR, FRANCE. FROM A PAINTING BY HENRI HARPIGNIES.

In the galleries of the Luxembourg, Paris. First exhibited at the Salon of 1888.

A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

NOTES DESCRIPTIVE AND CRITICAL.-COROT AND THE MODERN PASTORAL.-THE MEN OF 1830.-ROUSSEAU, DIAZ, DUPRé, AND DAUBIGNY.-FOUR FIGURE PAINTERS OF DIFFERING AIMS.

By Will H. Low.

ICTURES?" boasted Turner. "Give me canvas, colors, a room to work in, with a door that will lock, and it is not difficult to paint pictures!" This was the spirit of the older men, against which Constable rose in his might. It was the legacy of the past; the principle, or the lack of it, which permitted Titian (in a picture now in the National Gallery, London) to paint the shadows of his figures falling away from the spectator into the picture, and towards the setting sun in the background. The return to nature, however, was not accomplished at once. It is doubtful, indeed, if a painter can ever arrive at a respectable technical achievement without imbibing certain conventions which prevent complete submission to nature; absolute na?veté thus becoming only theoretically possible. Constable, with all his independence, dared not throw over all received canons of art. And Géricault, while daring to paint a modern theme, daring still more to embody it in forms plausibly like average humanity, and refusing to place on a raft in mid-ocean a carefully chosen assortment of antique statues, still did not think, apparently, that the heavily marked shadows prevalent throughout his picture were never seen under the far-reaching arch of the sky, but fell from a studio window. Nor do the early pictures by Corot free themselves from the influences of the academy at once. In the studies which he bequeathed to the Louvre-two tiny canvases on which are depicted the Coliseum and the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome-the conventional picking out of detail, the painting of separate objects by themselves, without due relation to each other, is the effect of early study; and it is only in the as yet timid reaching for effect of light and atmosphere that we feel the Corot of the future. These studies were painted in 1826; and as late as 1835 the same influences are manifest in the "Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert," a historical landscape of the kind dear to the academies, but saved and made of interest by the native qualities of the painter struggling to the surface.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was born in Paris, July 28, 1796. His father was originally a barber; but, marrying a dressmaker, he joined forces with his wife to such effect that they became the fashionable house of their time; and a "dress from Corot's" found its place in the comedies of the early part of the century, very much as the name of Worth has been potent in later days. The youth's distaste for business (certain unfortunate experiences in selling olive-colored cloth leading directly thereto) at length vanquished the parents' opposition to his choice of a career; and after a solemn family conclave, it was decided that he was to have an allowance of three hundred dollars a year, and be free to follow his own inclinations. Procuring materials for work, Corot sat him down the same day on the bank of the Seine, almost under the windows of his father's shop, and began to paint. It is prettily related that one of the shop-women, Mademoiselle Rose by name, was the only person of his entourage who sympathized with the young fellow, and who came to look at his work to encourage him. Late in life the good Corot said: "Look at my first study; the colors are still bright, the hour and day remain fixed on the canvas; and only the other day Mademoiselle Rose came to see me; and, alas, the old maid and the old man, how faded they are!"

JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT. AFTER A PHOTOGRAPH FROM LIFE.

This portrait represents "good Papa Corot," as he was universally known, at work out of doors.

It was Corot's good fortune to meet at the start a young landscape painter, Michallon, who had lately returned from Rome, where he had gone after winning the prize for historical landscape, which then formed part of the curriculum of the école des Beaux Arts. Michallon died in 1824, when only twenty-eight years old, too soon to have shown the fruits of an independent spirit which had already revolted against the trammels of the school. Desiring to save Corot from the mistakes which he had himself made, he adjured him to remain na?f, to paint nature as he saw it, and to disregard the counsels of those who were for the moment in authority. Gentle, almost timid by nature, having met so far in life with little but disapproval, Corot disregarded his friend's advice at first, and placed himself under the guidance of Victor Bertin, a painter then in vogue, and, needless to say, deeply imbued with scholastic tradition. In his company Corot made his first voyage to Italy, in 1825, and thus came for the first time under the true classic influence. The lessons taught in the school of nature, where Claude had studied, were those best fitted for the temperament of Corot, who has been called "a child of the eighteenth century, grown in the midst of that imitation of antiquity so ardent, and so often unintelligent, where the Directory copied Athens, and the Empire forced itself to imitate Rome." It is a curious and interesting fact that when, as in this case, the spirit of classicism reveals itself anew, its never-dying influence can be the motive for work as fresh and modern as that of Corot. It is also true that the rigid enforcement of the study of drawing was a healthy influence on Corot's early life. All the pictures of his early period show the most minute attention to form and modelling; and when he had finally rid himself of the hard manner which it entailed, there remained the substratum of a constructive basis upon which his freer brush played at will.

A BY-PATH. FROM A PAINTING BY JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT.

One of Corot's later works, and treated with greater freedom than the earlier.

Many years, however, Corot was to wait before the memorable day when he bewailed that his complete collection of works had been spoiled, he having sold a picture. Living on his modest income, which his father doubled when, in 1846, the son was given the cross of the Legion of Honor, he was happy with his two loves, nature and painting. Little by little he gained a reputation among the artists, especially when, after 1835, on his return from a second voyage to Italy, he found that the true country of the artist is his native country. After that period his works are nearly all French in subject, many of them painted in the environs of Paris; though, with his Theocritan spirit, he could see the fountain of Jouvence in the woods of Sèvres, and for him the classic nymph dwelt by the pond at Ville d'Avray. His life was long-he died February 22, 1875-and completely filled with his work.

After Corot's death, there was exhibited at the école des Beaux Arts in Paris a collection of several hundred of his pictures, and then, perhaps for the first time, the genius of the man was profoundly felt. To those who were inclined to undervalue the pure, sweet spirit which shone through his work, and to complain of the representation of a world in which no breeze stronger than a zephyr blew, in which the birds always sang, and the shepherd piped to a flock unconscious of the existence of wolves, there were shown efforts in so many and various directions as to forever silence their reproach of monotony, so often directed against Corot's work. There were landscapes, showing the gradual emancipation, due to the most sincere study of nature, hard and precise, in the early period; vaporous and filled with suggestion, as the sentiment of the day and hour represented became important to the painter, and his technical mastery became more certain in later years. There were figures, none too well drawn from the point of view of David or Ingres, but serving, to a painter whose interest in atmospheric problems never ceased, as objects around which the luminous light of day played, and which were bathed in circumambient air.

EARLY MORNING. JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT.

From a painting now in the Louvre. One of the best known of the works of the master, executed during the transitional period, when he still gave great attention to detail. The original is remarkable for its sense of dewy freshness.

DIANA'S BATH. JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT.

From a painting in the Museum at Bordeaux.

A SHALLOW RIVER. FROM A PAINTING BY THéODORE ROUSSEAU.

With all this variety, however, the true value of Corot's work lies in the expression of the spirit of the man himself. It is often possible, and it is always theoretically desirable, to separate the personality of a painter from his production in any critical consideration of his achievement. It is at least only fair to believe that the light which shines from so many canvases is the true expression of many a life which is clouded to our superficial view. With Corot, however, it is impossible to make this separation. Every added detail of his life-and they are so numerous that in the difficulty of a choice they must remain unrecorded here-gives a new perception of his work. A youthful Virgilian spirit to the day of his death, as old at his birth as the classic source from which he sprang, he invented a method essentially his own, in which to express his new-old message. In our work-a-day, materialistic age, like a thrush singing in a boiler-shop, he is the quiet but triumphant vindication of the truth that all great art has its roots firmly implanted in the earth of Hellenic civilization, though its expression may be, as in Corot's case, through an art unknown to the Greeks, and even, as in the case of the one greater man of this century than Corot-Millet-by the presentation of types which the beauty-loving sons of Hellas disdained to represent.

Millet's work must be considered later in these papers, but it is useful here to make this passing comment, that with Corot he represents what is best in our modern art; that the greatest quality of our modern art is its steadfast reliance on nature; and that, paradoxical as it may seem, they are alike in taking only that from nature which is serviceable to the clarity of their expression, being in this both at odds with the common practice of modern painting, which usually adopts a more servile attitude towards nature. Corot painted out of doors constantly; but in the maturity of his art his work was only based upon the scene before him, a practice dangerous to the student, and fraught with difficulty to the master. In the fever of production; in the almost childish joy which the long neglected painter felt when dealers and collectors besieged his door; and, finally, in the necessity which arose for large sums of money to carry on works of charity, which were his only dissipation, and which it was his pride to sustain without impairing the patrimony which in the course of time he had inherited, and which he left intact to his relatives, Corot undoubtedly weakened his legacy to the future by over-production. In addition, his work became the prey of unscrupulous dealers (as there is nothing easier to imitate superficially than a Corot), and the mediocre pictures signed by his name are not always of his workmanship. Such works apart, his art has given us a message from the purest source of poetry and painting, couched in a language which is thoroughly of our time; and in this year, which is the centenary of his birth, it can be said that no other painter of the century, save the graver Millet, has held fast that which was good in the art of the past, and so enriched it by added truth and beauty as Corot. It was fitting that when he lay dying as cheerfully as he had lived, contented that he had "had good parents and good friends," beautiful landscapes flitted before his eyes, "more beautiful than painting." On the morning of February 22, 1875, his servant urged him to eat to sustain his strength; but he gently shook his head, saying: "Papa Corot will breakfast in heaven to-day."

THE EDGE OF THE FOREST (FONTAINEBLEAU). FROM A PAINTING BY THéODORE ROUSSEAU.

Eighteen years before, on December 22, 1867, there had died at Barbizon, Théodore Rousseau, who, born in Paris, July 15, 1812, had been the leader of the revolution in landscape painting, in which we to-day count Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Troyon, Diaz, Jacque, and others who, with our mania for classification, we call the "Barbizon school." The fact that these men, more than any painters before their time, had, by direct study from nature, developed strongly individual characteristics, makes this title, localized as it is by the name of a village with which a number of them had slight, if any, connection, a misnomer. The French name for the group, "the men of 1830," is more correct; for it was about that time that their influence in the Salon began to be felt, as a result of the pictorial invasion of Constable. Lacking the poetic feeling of Corot, and more realistic in his aims, though not always in result, Rousseau met with instant success when he exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1834. His picture, "Felled Trees, Forest of Compiègne," received a medal, and was purchased by the Due d'Orleans. The following year the jury, presided over by Watelet, a justly forgotten painter, refused Rousseau's pictures, and from that time until 1849, when the overthrow of Louis Philippe had opened the Salon doors to all comers, no picture by Rousseau was exhibited at the Salon.

ON THE RIVER OISE. FROM A PAINTING BY CHARLES FRAN?OIS DAUBIGNY.

A typical French river, with the familiar figures of peasant women washing linen in the stream. Probably painted during one of the voyages of his house-boat studio "Le Bottin," in which the painter passed many summers.

THE STORMY SEA. FROM A PAINTING BY JULES DUPRé.

This powerful picture gives an idea of the dramatic force of one who has been fitly termed a symphonic painter.

A SUNLIT GLADE. FROM A PAINTING BY LéON GERMAIN PELOUSE.

A remarkable rendering of intricate detail without sacrifice of general effect, this picture, nevertheless, gives somewhat the impression of a photograph from nature.

In the meantime, however, Rousseau's fame had grown, fostered by the more advanced critics of the time. He lived at Barbizon, on the border of the forest of Fontainebleau; and, basing his work on the most uncompromising study of nature, his pictures bore an impress of simple truth, which to our latter-day vision seems so obvious and easily understood that nothing could show more clearly the depth of error into which his opponents had fallen than the systematic rejection of his work for so many years. He was by nature a leader, and in his country home he was soon joined by Millet and Charles Jacque, while in Paris he had the hearty support of Delacroix and his followers of the Romantic school. While forced by circumstances to find allies in these men, Rousseau had, however, but little of the imaginative temperament. He was, above all, the close student of natural phenomena. He sat, an impartial recorder of the phases of nature's triumphal procession. Early and late, in the fields, among the rocks, or under the trees of the forest, his cunning hand noted an innumerable variety of facts which before him, through ignorance or disdain, the landscape painter had never seen. It is but fair to say that, like all pioneers in the untrodden fields of art, his means of expression at times failed to keep pace with his intention. His work is occasionally overburdened with detail, through the embarrassment of riches which nature poured at his feet. Then, heir to the processes of painting of former generations, it seemed to him necessary to endow nature with a warmth of coloring, an abuse of the richer tones of the palette, which we may presume he would have discarded but for the fact already noted, that a painter carries through his earthly pilgrimage a baggage of early-formed habits difficult to throw off en route. The belief that color to be beautiful must of necessity be warm, rich, and deep in tone was shared by all painters of Rousseau's time, and lingers still in the minds of many, despite the fact that nature has created the tea-rose as well as the orange. When, however, Rousseau was completely successful-as, for instance, in the "Hoar-frost," in the Walters gallery in Baltimore-the reward of his painstaking methods was measurably great. In such works as this the rendition of effect, the certainty of modelling, the sustained power throughout the work, lift it beyond mere transcription of fact into the realm of typical creations which appear more true than average reality.

A SHEPHERD AND HIS FLOCK. FROM A PAINTING BY CHARLES éMILE JACQUE.

A typical example of the master, solidly painted, though, as was often his habit, somewhat forced in effect.

Of the life of Rousseau as the head of the little colony of painters who for longer or shorter periods resided at Barbizon, much could be said if space permitted. It is pleasant to think that the more prosperous Rousseau helped with purse and influence his comrades, and that, by nature sad and irritable, he was always considerate of them in the many discussions which took place. Corot, ill at ease in the revolutionary atmosphere, made an occasional appearance. Diaz, he of meridional extraction, turbulent and emphatic, stamped his wooden leg, and was as illogical in debate as in painting. Charles Jacque, with the keen smile and the facility for absorbing ideas from the best of them; Ziem even, who painted Venice for some years in the shades of Fontainebleau; Dupré, whose nature expresses itself in deep sunsets gleaming through the oaks of the forest; Daubigny, the youngest of the group, and the more immediate forerunner of landscape as it is to-day, then winning his first success; Decamps, who later sometimes left the Imperial Court, domiciled for the moment at the palace of Fontainebleau, and brought his personality of a great painter who failed through lack of elementary instruction, among them; Daumier, the great caricaturist, and possibly greater painter, but for the engrossing character of the work which first fell in his way-all these and more made up the constantly shifting group. The first innkeeper of the place and his wife, whose hyphenated name, Luniot-Ganne, commemorated their union, kept for many years on the walls, the panels of the doors, and on odd cabinets and bits of furniture, souvenirs of the passage of all these men, in the shape of sketches made by their hands. This little museum, created in sportive mood, bore all these names and many more, those of men, often celebrated, who from sympathy or curiosity visited the place. Millet was in life, as in art, somewhat apart in the later years; but he was the consistent friend of Rousseau, whose life closed in the darkness of a disordered mind.

"THE MAN WITH THE LEATHERN BELT." PORTRAIT OF GUSTAVE COURBET AS A YOUNG MAN, BY HIMSELF.

From the original, in the Louvre.

Narcisco Virgilio Diaz de la Pe?a was the noble name of him who, born at Bordeaux in 1807, the son of a Spanish refugee, died at Mentone, November 18, 1876. Left an orphan when very young, he drifted to Paris, and found work, painting on china, in the manufactory at Sèvres. Here he met Dupré, employed like himself; and in their work in other fields it is not fanciful to feel the influence of the delight in rich translucent color, of the tones employed with over-emphasis on the surface of fa?ence. After a bitter acquaintance with poverty, Diaz produced work which brought him great popularity. The earlier pictures were studies in the forest of Fontainebleau, whose venerable tree-trunks, moss-grown; whose lichen-covered rocks, and gleaming pools reflecting the sky, he rendered with force of color and strength of effect. Gradually he began to attempt the figure, which in his hands never attained a higher plane than an assemblage of charming though artificial color; and these little bouquets, which superficially imitated Correggio, Da Vinci, or Prud'hon, as the fancy seized the painter, bathed in a color that is undeniably agreeable, were and are to this day loved by the collector. Of a whimsical temperament, Diaz was the life of artist gatherings; and his facility in work, and its popularity, gave him the means of doing many generous acts, the memory of which lives. But of the group of men of his time, he has exercised, perhaps, the least influence.

THE STONE-BREAKERS. FROM A PAINTING BY GUSTAVE COURBET.

One of Courbet's early pictures, which, when exhibited at the Salon, excited considerable discussion, certain adverse critics finding in it an appeal to the socialistic elements. It represents a scene common in France, where stones are piled by the roadsides, to be broken up for repairing the route.

Jules Dupré rises to a higher plane. But his work, freed from the colder academical bondage, is pitched in a key of color which takes us to a world where the sun shines through smoke; where the clouds float heavily, filled with inky vapors; and the light shoots from behind the trees explosively. It is a grave, rhythmic world, however; and if it lacks the dewy atmosphere of Corot, it has an intensity which the more sanely balanced painter seldom reached. Dupré, born at Nantes in 1812, and dying near Paris, at the village of L'Isle-Adam, in 1889, made his first important exhibit at the Salon in 1835, after a visit to England, where he met Constable. This picture, "Environs of Southampton," was typical of the work he was to do. A long waste of land near the sea, the middle distance in deepest shadow, and richly colored storm-clouds racing overhead; the foreground in sunlight, enhanced by the artificial contrast of the rest of the picture; a wooden dyke on which, together with two white horses near by, the gleam of sunlight falls almost with a sound, so intensified is all the effect, make up the picture. Dupré's work is generally keyed up to the highest possible pitch, and it is no little merit that, with the constant insistence on this note, it is seldom or never theatrical.

Constant Troyon, from sympathy of aim, is commonly included in this group, although it was gradually, and after success achieved in landscape, that his more powerful cattle pictures were produced, which alone entitle him to the place. Born at Sèvres in 1810, where his father was employed at the manufactory of porcelain, he was thrown in contact with Dupré and Diaz. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1832, and for nearly twenty years was known as a landscape painter. His work at that time was eclectic, sufficiently in touch with Rousseau, whose acquaintance he had made, to be of interest, but never revolutionary enough to alarm the academical juries of the Salon. In 1849, after a visit to Holland, he turned his attention to animal painting, and became in that field the first of his time. In common with his quondam comrades in the porcelain manufactory, Troyon delighted in warmth and richness of tone and color; but in the rendering of the texture and color of cattle the quality availed him greatly, and as objects in his foreground the landscape environment gained in depth by its judicious use. Troyon will be chiefly remembered by the pictures painted from 1846 to 1858. The later years of his life, until his death in 1865, were passed with a clouded intellect.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN. FROM A PAINTING BY THéODULE RIBOT.

From the Salon of 1870; now in the Luxembourg. The story of the man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves is here treated as a pretext for a forcible effect of light and shade, though it is also a novel and dramatic presentation of the scene.

The youngest of the group proper was Charles Fran?ois Daubigny, who was born in Paris in 1817, and died there in 1878. He was the son of a well-known miniature painter, and passed his youth in the country, where he imbibed the love for simple nature which he afterwards rendered with less of fervor than Rousseau, with less poetry than either Corot or Dupré; but, in his way, with as much or more of truth. His task was easier. In the progress which landscape painting had made, there were hosts of younger painters, each adding a particle of truth, each making an advance in technical skill and daring, and Daubigny profited by it all. Corot, it is true, had never been afflicted with the preoccupation of combining the freshness of nature with the patine with which ages had embrowned the old gallery pictures; but Daubigny, looking at nature with a more literal eye than Corot, ran a gamut of color greater than he. It was Daubigny who said of Corot, in envious admiration: "He puts nothing on the canvas, and everything is there." His own more prosaic nature took delight in enregistering a greater number of facts. Floating quietly down the rivers of France in a house-boat, he diligently reproduced the sedgy banks, the low-lying distances the poplars and clumps of trees lining the shore, and reflected in the waters. He painted the "Springtime," now in the Louvre, with lush grass growing thick around the apple trees in blossom; with tender greens, soft, fleecy clouds, and the moist, humid atmosphere of France; without preoccupation of rich color, of "brown sauce," of "low tone," of the thousand and one conventions which have enfeebled the work of men stronger than he. Thus he fills a middle place between the men who made an honest effort at painting nature as they saw and felt it, but could not altogether rid themselves of their early education, and the lawless band who, with the purple banner of impressionism, now riot joyously in the fields, with brave show of gleaming color, and fearless attempt to enlist science in their ranks.

SERVANT AT THE FOUNTAIN. FROM A PAINTING BY FRAN?OIS SAINT BONVIN.

From the Salon of 1863; now in the Luxembourg galleries. A quiet scene, essentially French from the type of the woman to the "fountain" of red copper so often seen in French kitchens, it recalls the work of the old Holland masters, and proves that, in our day, and with material near at hand, one can be thoroughly modern, and yet claim kinship with the great painters of the past.

It is to these latter that the future must look, and it can do so with confidence. In all the license which runs ahead of progress there is less danger than resides in stagnation. The men of 1830, who by ungrateful youths are now derided, had their turn at derision, and extravagances were committed in their name, according to the beliefs of their time. They carried their work, however, to its full completion, and it remains the greatest achievement of this century in painting, the greatest in landscape art of all time. What the next century may bring is undoubtedly foreshadowed in the work of impressionistic tendency. It has the merit of being a new direction, one as yet hardly opened before us, but more hopeful, despite certain excesses, than it would be to see the men of our time settle down to an imitation of the works, however great, of those men of 1830. The immediate effect of their example was and can still be seen in the works of men too numerous to be enregistered here.

AN UNHAPPY FAMILY. FROM A PAINTING BY NICOLAS FRAN?OIS OCTAVE TASSAERT.

In the Luxembourg catalogue, to which museum the picture came from the Salon of 1850, is printed a long quotation from Lamennais's "Les Paroles d'un Croyant" (The Words of a Believer), an emphatic work, of great popularity about the time that the picture was painted. The women represented, having fallen into poverty, are suffering from cold and hunger, the obvious end of the tragedy being explained by these words, "Shortly after there were seen two forms, luminous like souls, which took their flight towards Heaven." The picture, like much of Tassaert's work, affords an instance of misguided and morbid talent.

In Henri Harpignies, a living painter, though now aged, the influence is felt in the careful attention to form throughout the landscape. The delicate branching of trees is depicted in his work with accuracy tempered by a sense of the beauty of line, which prevents it from becoming photographic. Léon Germain Pelouse, who was born at Pierrelay in 1838, and died in Paris, 1891, carried somewhat the same qualities to excess. His pictures, though undeniably excellent, are marred by the dangerous facility which degenerates into mere virtuosity. Charles Jacque, who was born in 1813, and lived until 1894, was of the original group living for many years in Barbizon. He was, perhaps, of less original mind than any of the others, but was gifted with a power of assimilation which enabled him to form an eclectic style that is now recognized as his own. His pictures are many in number and varied in character, though his somewhat stereotyped pictures of sheep, done in the later years of his life, are best known.

The limits of space render it difficult to make even a summary enumeration of certain tendencies in figure painting which marked the years of the growth of this great landscape school. Gustave Courbet (born at Ornans in 1819, died in Switzerland, 1877), who might be classed both as a figure and a landscape painter, would demand by right a longer consideration than can be here given. Of his career as a champion of realism, as a past master in the peculiarly modern art of keeping one's self before the public, culminating in his connection with the Commune in Paris in 1871, and the destruction of the column in the Place Vend?me, there could be much to say. Courbet was, as a painter, a powerful individuality; of more force, however, as a painter of the superficial envelope than of the deeper qualities which nature makes pictorial at the bidding of one of finer fibre. His claim to be considered modern can be contested, inasmuch as it was only in subject that his work was novel. In manner of painting he was of a time long past, of a school of greater masters than he showed himself to be. With this reserve, however, as a vigorous painter, both of the figure and landscape, he is interesting; and as one of the first to look about him and find his subjects in our daily life, his work will live.

Curiously enough, the revival of the art of another epoch in the case of Saint Bonvin remained absolutely modern. By nature or by choice this painter (born at Vaugirard, near Paris, in 1817, and dying at St. Germain-en-Laye in 1887) is a modern Pieter de Hooghe; and as the Dutch masters addressed themselves to a painstaking and sincere representation of the life about them, in like manner Bonvin, bringing to his work much the same qualities, choosing as his subjects quiet interiors, with the life of the family pursuing its even tenor (or the still more placid progress of conventual life, like the "Ave Maria in the Convent of Aramont," in the Luxembourg), remains himself while resembling his prototypes. It is instructive to look at his "Servant at the Fountain," reproduced here, compare it with many of the pictures of familiar life like those of Wilkie, Webster, or Mulready, published last month, and note the unconsciousness of the work before us.

The work of a painter equally able, though suffering somewhat as representing an art with which we moderns have little sympathy, falls into comparison here, and undoubtedly loses by it. The unfortunate painter, Octave Tassaert, who was born in Paris in 1800, and lived there, undergoing constant privation, until he voluntarily ended his life in 1874, possibly found consolation for his hard lot in depicting scenes like that entitled "An Unhappy Family."

The lesson of the art of the men considered here is that of direct inspiration of nature, of reliance on native qualities rather than those acquired; and the impulse given by them has continued in force until to day. We have before us, as a consequence, two strongly defined tendencies which will control the future of painting. The first and strongest, for the moment, is the impressionistic tendency, with its negation of any pictorial qualities other than those based on direct study from objects actually existing. This would, if carried to a logical conclusion, eliminate the imaginative quality, and render the painter a human photographic camera. The other tendency is that which has existed since art was born, and which, though temporarily and justly ignored in periods when it is necessary to recreate a technical standard, always comes to the surface when men have learned their trade as painters. It is the desire to create; the instinct which impels one to use the language given him to express thought. The two tendencies are not incompatible; and in the end the artist will arise who, with certainty of expression, will express thought.

* * *

"SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO."

By Rudyard Kipling,

Author of "Barrack-Room Ballads," "The Jungle Book," etc.

As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the "Crocodile,"

I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style.

'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, an' I sez to 'im: "Oo are you?"

Sez 'e: "I'm a Jolly-'er Majesty's Jolly-soldier an' sailor too!"

Now 'is work begins by Gawd knows when, and 'is work is never through-

'E isn't one o' the Regular line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew-

'E's a kind of a giddy herumfrodite-soldier an' sailor too!

An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds o' things,

Like landin' 'isself with a Gatling-gun to talk to them 'eathen kings;

'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an' 'e drills with the deck on a slue,

An' 'e sweats like a Jolly-'er Majesty's Jolly-soldier an' sailor too!

For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't know-nor do!

You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead to paddle 'is own canoe;

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolot-soldier an' sailor too.

We've fought 'em on trooper, we've fought em in dock, an' drunk with 'em in betweens,

When they called us the sea-sick scull'ry maids, an' we called 'em the Ass Marines;

But when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo,

We sent for the Jollies-'er Majesty's Jollies-soldier an' sailor too!

They think for 'emselves, an they steal for 'emselves, an' they never ask what's to do,

But they're camped an fed an' they're up an' fed before our bugle's blew.

Ho! they ain't no limpin procrastitutes-soldier an' sailor too!

You may say we are fond of an 'arness cut or 'ootin' in barrick-yards,

Or startin' a Board School mutiny along o' the Onion Guards;

But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to view,

The same as the Jollies-'er Majesty's Jollies-soldier an' sailor too.

They come of our lot, they was brothers to us, they was beggars we'd met and knew;

Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arms, they was doubles o' me and you,

For they weren't no special chrysanthemums-soldier an' sailor too.

To take your chance in the thick of a rush with firing all about

Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, and leave an' likin' to shout;

But to stand an' be still to the "Birken'ead" drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,

And they done it, the Jollies-'er Majesty's Jollies-soldier an' sailor too.

Their work was done when it 'adn't begun, they was younger nor me an you;

Their choice it was plain between drownin in 'eaps an bein mashed by the screw,

An' they stood an' was still to the "Birken'ead" drill, soldier an sailor too!

We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest are as rank as can be,

But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me);

But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends an' the work you may 'ave to do

When you think o' the sinkin' "Victorier's" Jollies-soldier an' sailor too.

Now there isn't no room for to say you don't know-they 'ave settled it plain and true-

That whether it's Widow or whether it's ship, Victorier's work is to do,

As they done it, the Jollies-'er Majesty's Jollies-soldier an sailor too!

* * *

RACHEL.

By Mrs. E. V. Wilson,

Author of "Barbary," "A Blizzard," and other stories.

IT was the middle of a short December afternoon. From the scholars in the little log school-house in the Stillman district rose a buzzing sound as they bent over their desks, intent on books or mischief, as the case might be. The teacher, a good-looking young man of twenty or thereabouts, was busy with a class in arithmetic when a shrill voice called out:

"Teacher, Rachel Stillman's readin' a story-book."

"Bring the book to me," said the teacher quietly; and the delinquent, a girl of about fourteen, slowly rose and, walking to him, placed a much-worn volume in his hands.

"Why," he said, glancing at the open page, "it is 'The Pilgrim's Progress.' No wonder you are interested. But you must not read it during school hours."

The child lifted to his face a pair of large blue eyes, beautiful with timid wistfulness, as she replied:

"I know I oughtn't, sir, but I wanted to see how they got out of Doubting Castle so bad."

He smiled. "I will give you the book after school; then you can read it at home."

"Oh, no," she whispered; "father won't let me read story-books."

"He surely would not object to this," answered the young teacher; "but I will keep it until recess to-morrow, and, never fear, Christian and Hopeful will outwit the giant yet."

The wistful eyes brightened, and, with a grateful smile, Rachel returned to her desk.

"First class in spelling, take your places," called the teacher.

Rachel belonged to this class, as did all the larger scholars, among whom was her brother, Thomas, two years her elder. The teacher had promised a prize at the end of the term to the member of the class obtaining the greatest number of head marks, and consequently a good deal of interest was taken in the lessons.

Rachel had been at the head of the class the evening before; therefore she now took her station at its foot. Tom, her brother, now was head, and for some time no change in position was made. But finally "somebody blundered," and Rachel, who was one of the good spellers, went up in the long line. Presently another word was missed, and now Rachel walked to the head. Tom pushed her spitefully.

"Another mark, Rachel," said the teacher, "for that is the end of the lesson."

The class resumed their seats, and, a few minutes after, school was dismissed for the day.

"Good-evening," said the teacher, as Rachel and a younger sister, a pretty, delicate child, passed him at the door. "Now, no worrying about Christian, Rachel."

"I won't," she laughed. "I guess he'll get out. Didn't he stand up to old Apollyon?"

"Like a good fellow," was the reply. "Hope I'll come off as well."

She looked at him inquiringly, but he had turned toward his desk, and the sisters set out on their half-mile walk home.

Let us precede them and see what manner of home it is to which these children belong.

The farm is a large one, the buildings substantial, and everything has a prosperous, well-to-do look. Mr. Stillman, the owner of these broad acres and the father of these three, Tom, Rachel, and Susy, as well as of three more girls and another stalwart son, is a stout, comfortable-looking man of forty-five or fifty. A glance at his close, thin lips and keen gray eyes would convince an observant person that he would make it very uncomfortable for any one in his power who might differ from him in opinion or dispute his authority. Just now he is chatting pleasantly with his hired man, and pays no attention to the children, who pass him on the way to the house.

Indoors Mrs. Stillman, a slender, fair-haired woman, who looks as if she felt she owed the world an apology for living in it, is preparing supper, assisted by her two daughters, Elizabeth, a sad-faced woman of twenty-four, and Margaret, a girl of eighteen, with her father's determined mouth and chin and her mother's large blue eyes and fair hair. The clock struck five as the school-girls entered the kitchen, a large room which in winter did duty as dining-room as well as cooking-room.

"Run in the sitting-room, girls, and get warm," said the mother. "Supper is almost ready."

"Oh, we're not cold; are we, Susy? I got another head mark, mother," said Rachel.

The mother smiled. "I hope you or Tom will get the prize. Where is he?" She was interrupted by a stamping of feet as the door was thrown open and Mr. Stillman, followed by the hired man and Tom, entered the room.

"Supper is ready," said Mrs. Stillman. "We were just going to call you."

"Well, I guess it will keep till we're ready," answered her husband, roughly. "Rachel, get some water; the bucket's empty, of course. Margaret, where's the wash-basin? Nothing in its place, as usual. Pity there wasn't two or three more girls lazyin' around!"

Nobody replied to this tirade. The hired man picked up the basin, Margaret handed a towel, Rachel brought the water, and soon the family were gathered around the well-spread table.

"I tell you," said Mr. Stillman, after a few mouthfuls of the savory food had apparently put him in a better humor, "I think we'll have fine weather for hog-killin' next week, and I never did have a finer lot of hogs."

"Oh, father," said Margaret, "don't butcher next week. Friday is Christmas day and-"

"Christmas!" interrupted her father. "Well, we always butcher Christmas week, don't we?"

"Yes, I know," she said, her lips trembling in spite of her effort to control herself. "But we never have enjoyed the holidays, and I thought maybe this year you-"

"We will do this year as we always have," broke in the father, angrily. "I suppose", with a look at his wife from which she shrank as from a blow, "this is one of your plans to have your girls gadding over the country."

"Mother never said anything about it," said Margaret, her temper getting the better of her; "but nobody else takes Christmas times to do their hardest and dirtiest work."

"Will you hush?" thundered the father. "What do I care what anybody else does? I am master here."

No one spoke again. The assertion could not be denied. He was master, and well his wife and daughters knew it.

Poor Mrs. Stillman! Two fortunate baby girls had died a few weeks after their birth, and the tears that fell over the little coffins were not half so bitter as those she shed when first she held their innocent faces to her heart. When on this evening the father had shown his authority, the two elder daughters rose from the table, and taking a couple of large buckets, went quietly out to the barnyard, and proceeded to milk the half dozen cows awaiting them.

It was nearly dark and very cold; but no word was spoken except to the animals, as the girls hurried through the work and hastened back to the kitchen, where Rachel and the mother were clearing away the supper-table and making the needful preparations for the early breakfast.

When all was finished the mother and daughters entered the large room adjoining the kitchen, which served as sitting-room for the family and bed-room for the parents, Mr. Stillman not permitting a fire kept in any other room in the house. Mrs. Stillman sat down with her knitting-work as close in the corner as possible; Elizabeth brought in a large basket of rags, and she and Margaret were soon busy sewing strips and winding balls for a carpet. The younger children were absorbed in their lessons at the table, where the father sat reading his newspaper.

All were silent, for to have spoken while father was reading would have been an unforgivable offence. At last, however, Mr. Stillman lifted his eyes from the paper, and addressing Tom, said: "Well, how did you get along at school to-day?"

"Oh, first rate," said the boy; but that lost head mark rankled in his mind, and he added, "Rachel was called up by the teacher."

"How was that, Rachel?" said her father sharply. Poor girl!-deep in the mysteries of long division, she did not hear him.

"Rachel," he repeated, "what were you called up in school for to-day?"

She glanced reproachfully at Tom. "I read a little in 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' father. It's not a story-book-"

"Never mind what it is. I send you to school to study, and you're not to touch any but your school-books."

"May I bring it home?" she faltered.

"Bring it home, indeed! No, miss. I guess you can find enough to do at home. Not another word more, or you will stay at home for good."

The child bent over her slate; but tears would come, and at last a sob burst forth.

"Clear out to bed, Rachel," said her father angrily. "I want no snivelling here."

Upstairs, in the cold, dark room, what bitter thoughts surged through the childish brain!

Mr. Stillman loved his wife and children. He wanted them to be happy, but in his way. He must choose their pleasures. If they could not be satisfied with what he chose for them, it was not his fault; it was their perversity. And as no two souls are alike, the attempt to fit a number of them by the same pattern necessarily caused suffering to the souls undergoing the operation.

Mrs. Stillman's sensitive organization was completely crushed; her eldest daughter's nearly so. Martha, the second daughter, had escaped by marrying a clever young man, who first pitied, then loved the daughter of his employer, and persuaded her to elope with him, assuring her of a happier home than she had with her father.

The marriage angered Mr. Stillman greatly, and all intercourse with the disobedient daughter was forbidden.

Margaret, the third daughter, also rebelled at the fitting process; and having a goodly portion of her father's determination, many were the sharp words that passed between them.

So far Rachel and Susan had given no trouble. He ordered them about as he did his dumb animals, and with no more regard to their feelings. With his sons it was different. They would be men some day. They must be treated with some consideration. At an early age, John, two years older than Elizabeth, was given a share in the stock and land to cultivate; so that when, at the age of twenty-four, he married, he had a "right good start in the world."

But his sister toiled early and late, washing, ironing, milking, churning, baking, nursing the younger children, sharing her mother's labors, and paid as her mother was-with her board and a scanty, grudgingly given wardrobe. She was now twenty-four, and had never had a five-dollar bill to spend as she pleased in her life-for that matter, neither had the mother. There are many Mr. Stillmans, "Are they honest men?" If father and son have the right to be paid for their labor, have not the mother and daughter? I leave the question with you.

Rachel carried a heavy heart to school next morning. The tinker's wonderful allegory to her was very real, and to leave her hero in that awful dungeon was almost more than she could bear. When at recess the teacher offered her the book, she did not take it.

"Father said," she began-then sobs choked her utterance. He understood, and after a moment's silence said: "I am interested in Christian as well as you, Rachel, and if you will sit here I will read to you." In all her after life Rachel never forgot these readings at intermission, which were continued not only until Christian reached the Celestial city, but until Christiana and the children completed their wonderful journey to the same place. Her gratitude to her young teacher would certainly have become love had she been a few years older. As it was, when in March the term closed, not even the prize as the best speller-a beautiful copy of "Pilgrim's Progress"-consoled her for the cessation of school.

As for the teacher, he was glad the winter's work-which had been undertaken and conscientiously carried through solely for the purpose of obtaining means to pursue the study of his profession-was over. He liked some of his scholars very much, Rachel especially; she was so interested in her studies, so intelligent and grateful, that when, with eyes swimming in tears, she bade him good-by, he felt a moment's sorrow at leaving her, and comforted her by telling her what a good girl she had been and that he would not forget her.

"You ought to have seen Rache an' Suse cry when old Gray bid us good-by," said Tom that evening at home.

"Did you cry?" asked Margaret.

"Guess not! Glad school's out; an' I'm never goin' any more."

"I wouldn't if I were you, bub," said Margaret; "you know enough now." She always called him "bub" when she wanted to vex him, "But old Gray, as you call him, will be somebody yet, see if he don't."

The entrance of Mr. Stillman closed the conversation, and Tom went out, banging the door after him. No wonder Margaret was getting ill-natured.

The winter was a long, dull season at Stillman's. Even her enjoyment at the few social gatherings she was permitted to attend in the neighborhood was marred by the knowledge that she could not entertain her young friends in return. She had attempted once to fix up the "spare room" and have a fire for some company, but her father had peremptorily forbidden it. "I'd like to know," he said, "why the settin'-room ain't good enough! If your company is too nice to be with the rest of the family they can stay away, miss."

And "they" generally did stay away after one visit. Mr. Stillman was not a success as a host, young people thought; and a young minister who came home from meeting one Sunday with Elizabeth was so completely abashed by the cool reception he met that not even the daughter's pleading eyes could persuade him to remain in her father's presence. A few weeks after, he went to a distant appointment; and Elizabeth's sad face grew sadder than ever.

Jim Lansing, the son of a widow who managed a farm and two grown sons with equal skill, was more successful. He usually brought his mother with him; and, while she entertained Mr. and Mrs. Stillman, Jim, the girls, and the carpet rags escaped to the kitchen.

But spring was near, and Margaret thought: "He can't keep us out of the spare room in summer; and, besides, we can be out-of-doors."

June came, with her blue skies, her singing birds, her wealth of beauty. But there was no time at Stillman's to enjoy it. A larger crop than usual had been put in, and extra hands employed, but not in the house. Why, there were five women, counting frail little ten-year-old Susy as one, and poor, delicate Mrs. Stillman as another! What extra help could they need, although washing and cooking must be done for all the men? You see, "hands" could be got much cheaper if they were boarded-and what else had the women to do?

It was true, mother was not as strong as she used to be; but she did not complain. She was only more shadowy and quiet; and Mr. Stillman told his daughters to "stir around" themselves, and not let their mother do all the work.

"Oh, dear," said Margaret one morning, as she and Rachel were bending over the wash-tubs, while Susy labored at the heavy churning and the mother and Elizabeth were preparing dinner. "I wish we could go to the picnic on the Fourth; everybody's going."

"Maybe we can," said Rachel, hopefully. "I heard father say the wheat was late this year, and he did not believe it would do to cut before the sixth. And oh, Margaret, I heard him say your calf would bring at least ten dollars; and if he gives you the money, you can get a new white dress and give me your old one. It is lots too small for you."

Margaret laughed. "Yes," she said; "father said if I could raise the calf I might have it. Didn't I have a time with it, though, it was so near dead! Of course I will fix my old dress up for you-that is, if I get the money. Sometimes I think father's queer; he did not give Elizabeth the money when he sold that colt he had given her." And both girls were silent.

Out in the barnyard, as the girls worked, Mr. Stillman and Tom were putting the pretty calf in the wagon preparatory to taking it to the butcher in the town a few miles distant. When the girls went in to dinner the men had finished theirs, and were lounging in the shady yard enjoying their nooning.

As they were about to sit down at the table, Mr. Stillman handed Margaret a package, saying, "There's your share of that spotted calf, Margaret."

"My share!" she exclaimed. "Why, you gave me the calf; you had no right to it."

As she spoke she opened the package and unrolled a piece of cheap lawn-yellow ground dotted with blue. She flung it angrily on the floor, and ran out of the room.

Mr. Stillman turned to Rachel after a moment of dumb amazement, and said: "You can have the dress, Rachel. I'll teach Margaret a lesson."

"I don't want it," she said. "You had no right to take Margaret's money. You did give her the calf, and when you sold Tom's pig you gave him his money."

"Nice girls you're raising, mother," said Mr. Stillman to his frightened wife. "They'll be turning us out of doors next. You pick up that lawn, miss."

Rachel did so. As she folded it, he went on: "That calf was mine. I only meant to pay her for caring for it."

"You should have told her so, then," said his daughter, facing him with eyes keen as his own; "but you told her if she could raise it she might have it, and, of course, she believed you."

He raised his hand as if to strike her; then, as she did not move or drop her eyes, he turned and left the room.

July came, but the Stillman girls did not go to the picnic. Tom and the "hands" did; and Mrs. Lansing and her boys stopped at Stillman's on their way and offered the girls seats in their wagon. But Mr. Stillman said his women had to get ready for the harvest hands who were coming next day, and Margaret said to Rachel bitterly: "We have no decent clothes to go in anyhow." And there was much washing, ironing, cooking, and churning done as the days went on. No wonder Mrs. Stillman grew paler and weaker, until even her husband noticed it, and brought her a bottle of bitters, and told the girls to "keep mother out of the kitchen," which they indeed tried to do. But how could the mother rest when there was so much to do? The girls could not manage as she could, and Elizabeth seemed "so poorly;" for the patient elder daughter, as the summer dragged along, had a pitifully hopeless look on her pale face, and went about listlessly, as if life had lost all interest for her.

At last there came a morning when the mother did not rise for breakfast.

"Hadn't we better send for Dr. Lewis, father?" said Elizabeth.

"Oh, no; your mother did not sleep much, it was so hot last night. She'll be up directly. You keep her out of the kitchen, and see you have dinner on time. We want to finish to-day, for I expect we'll have a storm, from the feel of the air."

Noon came. Dinner for a dozen hungry men was on the table, and still Mrs. Stillman was in bed. While the men were eating, Rachel slipped in to her mother. She was awake, but her flushed face and wild, bright eyes startled the girl.

"Oh, mother!" she cried, "you are very sick; you must have the doctor."

"No, dear," the mother answered; "father is too busy now. I'll be better after awhile. You go help wait on the table."

Rachel returned to the dining-room. "Take that fly-brush, Rachel," said her father. "Susy's no account; she's too lazy to keep it going."

Poor, tired little Susy, who had done a large churning that morning, crimsoned to the roots of her hair as she handed Rachel the brush and hurried out of the room.

When dinner was over Mr. Stillman glared into the room where his wife lay. "She is asleep," he said. "I guess she's all right."

"She hasn't eaten a thing to-day," said Rachel. "Hadn't she better have the doctor?"

"Well," said her father, impatiently, "if she's no better in the morning, I'll send for him;" and he went back to the field.

Rachel went for Mrs. Lansing, for she and her sisters grew frightened as the mother's fever increased. When that good woman came she saw at once the serious condition of her friend.

"I saw Dr. Lewis coming down the road in his buggy as I came," she said. "One of you hurry out and stop him."

When, about five o'clock, the rain began to fall in torrents, Mr. Stillman had the satisfaction of seeing the last load of grain driven inside the barn door; and, taking off his hat, he wiped the moisture from his face, saying: "Well, boys, we beat the rain; and I don't care if it pours down now."

He walked toward the house, and, to his surprise, saw the well-known figure of Dr. Lewis on the front porch. "Driven in by the rain," he thought. "I'll get him to give mother a little medicine."

"How are you, doctor?" he said, as he stepped upon the porch. "Lucky getting my wheat in, wasn't I?"

"Very," said the doctor, gravely; "but I am sorry to say I find Mrs. Stillman a very sick woman. You should have sent for me long ago." The husband was startled.

"Why," he said, "she has been going about until to-day. I guess it's this weather has made her so weak. She can't be very sick."

The physician was silent for a moment; then he said: "If there is not a change for the better soon, I fear she will live but a few days. I cannot understand how she has kept up;" and he turned and went into the sick-room.

For once the men at Stillman's ate a cold supper and did the milking. Mrs. Lansing took things into her own capable hands. John and his wife were sent for and came, and Jim Lansing quietly hitched up a team and went for Martha and her husband-poor Martha, who had not seen her mother for more than a year!

All night Mr. Stillman watched by the bedside or walked up and down the long back porch. It could not be she would die-his wife. It was the hot weather; she was just weak and tired. That was it, Mr. Stillman-worn out, tired; and rest was coming. When Martha came, the mother who had so longed for her did not recognize her.

"Mother, only speak to me!" cried the daughter in anguish; but the mother looked at her with dimming eyes that saw no more of earth, and muttered as she turned upon her couch, "Hurry, girls, it's nearly noon. Hurry! Father will be angry if he has to wait."

Then she grew quiet; only her restless hands, which her daughters vainly strove to hold, kept reaching out as if to grasp that unknown land she was so soon to enter; and before the sun was high in the morning Mrs. Stillman had found rest.

Her husband was stunned. With haggard face he bent over his dead. "If I had known," he said. "Oh, my wife, if I had known, I would have taken better care of you."

Ah, Mr. Stillman, you are not the only one who with remorseful heart cries, "If I had only known, if I had only known!"

Life went on as usual at Stillman's after the mother had left them. For a while the father was kinder, but as time went on the old habit was resumed. Elizabeth went mechanically about her work, and her father did not notice her evidently failing health. Her quietness was a relief to him; for Margaret was growing more defiant toward him, and quarrelled constantly with Tom, who, now that his mother's influence was withdrawn, became more and more meddlesome and overbearing in his conduct toward his sisters. The summer following Mrs. Stillman's death Mrs. Lansing's eldest son, Frank, took unto himself a wife; and late in the fall the neighborhood was electrified by the unexpected marriage of Mrs. Lansing and Mr. Stillman. Her boys, on learning her intention, had remonstrated; but she said: "You boys do not need me, and these girls do. Think of a young girl like Rachel saying, 'God had nothing to do with my mother's death. It was hard work killed her!' And when I tried to tell her of His goodness to His creatures, she said: 'Yes; He is good enough to men. All He cares for women is to create them for men's convenience,' And then there's little Susy, with a face like her mother's. Why, it just haunts me!"

"Well," said Jim, "things are in a bad fix over there; but it isn't Susy's face that haunts me, by any means."

His mother laughed. "I shall take care of Margaret," she said; "she and Elizabeth need some one to look after them. They are being worked to death."

Four years have slipped over the heads of the Stillmans-years well improved by Rachel and Susy at the academy in the town near their father's farm; years which gave Margaret's happiness into Jim Lansing's keeping, and made Jim a young man of whom his sisters were extremely proud. Even Elizabeth's sad face looks as if life might be worth living; for, under the second wife, life at Stillman's had taken on a different color. The spare room is a pretty sitting-room for the young folks.

"We don't want them always with us," says Mrs. Stillman, as she shows her husband the change she has made; for one of her peculiarities is that she manages her household affairs as she thinks best, taking it for granted that her husband will approve. As for Rachel, she enjoyed the change for the better; but now, to the bitter feeling which she cherished toward her father, was added a touch of contempt "See," she thought, "how he can be flattered into doing things; if my mother could have managed him so, she might have lived."

Rachel was mistaken; the new wife did not manoeuvre or flatter, she simply took her proper place as mistress of the house-not as a sort of upper servant, to be snubbed or praised at the master's humor.

Another summer had been added to Rachel's years when, one evening, Tom came home from town, and entering the dining-room, where she was preparing the table for supper, exclaimed: "Rachel, do you remember old Gray, as I used to call him, who taught our school the winter before mother died?"

"Yes," she said, "I remember him. Mother liked him."

"Well, I met him in town to-day. He's on that Sanders case. He knew me right off, and he's coming out here this evening; so fix up nice and be looking your sweetest. They say he's smart. I heard some of the old lawyers talking about him." And Tom caught his sister about the waist and waltzed her out on the porch.

"Rachel," said Susy, as in their own room the girls were dressing after supper, "you are very hard to please to-night and you seem nervous. What ails you?"

Rachel smiled. "I am thinking of old days, that is all," she said. But she entered the little parlor, where Tom and the guest were seated, in a perfectly self-possessed manner, saying, as she held out her hand:

"Good-evening, teacher. How goes the battle with Apollyon?"

And the young lawyer sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "Rachel! is it possible?" and he retained her hand and looked into her eyes so long that Susy, who had followed her into the room, and Tom declared that he fell in love then and there. However that may be, it is certain Mr. Gray showed a wonderful interest in Stillman's district. The trial in progress at Meywood was tedious, but his patience did not give out; and when some of the lawyers proposed to hold night sessions of court he objected earnestly, saying: "It would be too hard on the old judge."

But all things must end, and the case was at last decided in favor of Mr. Gray's client. As Rachel congratulated him on his victory, he said, with a look that brought the color to her face:

"How long must I stay in Doubting Castle, Rachel?"

"Why, dear me," she answered, saucily, "I did not think a promising young lawyer, as father calls you, ever got into such a dismal place!"

Then Susy came in, and the young man bade her good-by, but he whispered promise of speedy return to Rachel, and as he travelled homeward those wonderful eyes of hers seemed to haunt him.

"Who would have thought," he said to himself, "she could have become such a woman? No wonder I could not find a girl to suit me when she has been my ideal."

You see, he was trying to persuade himself he had thought of her ever since that term of school; and it may be, unknown to himself, those eyes had held him. At any rate, he says they did; and when, time after time, they drew him back to Stillman's, he at last made Rachel believe it, and with the little key of promise she delivered him from Doubting Castle.

Let us take one more look, two years later, at the Stillman homestead. There is a family gathering, and all the girls are present-Martha and Margaret, with their sturdy boys and rosy girls; Rachel, with her baby; and Susy, a gay young aunt, flits to and fro, playing with and teasing the little ones. Elizabeth, with unwonted brightness in her eyes, looks on, enjoying the merriment.

"Doesn't it seem odd," whispers Margaret, "that Lizzie's minister should come back after all these years."

"Yes," answers Rachel, in the same low tone. "I am so glad. She seems so happy."

The husbands are all present in the evening, and the old house is full of light and gayety. Rachel slips upstairs to put baby to bed; and as she sits in the room where so many miserable hours of her childhood were spent, her tears fall, thinking of herself and the dear, patient mother, who had suffered and died; and the old bitterness rises in her heart. Baby stirs and she hushes him, then lays him gently in the old cradle, and goes downstairs. Some impulse prompts her to enter the sitting-room instead of the parlor, where she thinks the family are all gathered.

As she opens the door she sees her father sitting, as of old, by the table on which the lamp is burning, and she half turns to go out; but something in his attitude touches her. He is not reading, for the newspaper lies untouched-he is looking at something in his hand.

She notices how gray his hair is, and how age is tracing lines on his face. "Are you feeling sick, father?" she asks.

"Oh, no," he says. "Look here, Rachel;" and he hands her a faded daguerreotype of her mother taken when she was a fair young bride. "I was thinking about her."

"How much like Susy," she said, with tears falling on the lovely face.

"Yes, only she was prettier," he answers. "I have been thinking of her so much lately, Rachel. I am going to do something that would please her. I have bought that pretty little place of Perry's, and I will put Martha and her husband on it. Dick's a good industrious fellow; but it's hard to make anything on a rented farm, and Martha's worried too much. You don't think any of the children will object?" and he looked anxiously in her face.

"Object? Why, they will be glad, father!" And dropping her head on his shoulder, she puts her arm around him for the first time in her life; and as she slips the little daguerreotype in his hand a sweet peace fills her heart and she thinks: "The bitterness is gone, and love fills its place." After awhile she joins the group in the parlor. They are singing to Susy's accompaniment on the organ.

"Sing 'Coronation,' Susy," she says, as she sits down beside her husband and glances lovingly in his face.

"What is it?" he whispers. "You are unusually happy."

"Yes," she answers. "I have had a vision of the land of Beulah, where Love is king."

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