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 oppressive and tyrannical, and avowed the systematic design to wield the political power of the confederation with a view to a radical change in the fundamental principles on which it had been originally established. Hence, the fair presumption is, that if he had lived in our days, and had been a citizen of Louisiana, he would have been a Secessionist.

Be it as it may—on the 30th of April, 1803, the First Consul (Bonaparte), acting in the name of the French Republic, ceded forever to the United States, in full sovereignty, the territory of Louisiana, on which occasion he sententiously and prophetically said: “This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and I have just given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride.” What were the considerations of that treaty of cession, as expressed in the deed itself? Was it the payment of dollars and cents? No! The preamble says that it was “the desire to remove all cause of misunderstanding relative to objects of discussion in relation to the rights claimed by the United States in virtue of a treaty between Spain and the United States, concerning the navigation of the Mississippi,” and also that it was “the willingness to strengthen the union and the friendship which had been happily re-established between the two nations,” after a disagreement which had almost dragged them into a war.

What says Article 1 of the treaty? Does France cede Louisiana merely in consideration of the payment of a certain sum of money, as is done in all ordinary acts of sale and purchase? No; nothing of the kind is to be found in the body of the treaty of cession. Not one word of it! France expresses that she cedes Louisiana because “she desires to give to the United States a strong proof of her friendship.” The French text says: “une preuve remarquable,” and truly a “remarkable proof” it was!

The Article 7 stipulates for some commercial advantages, reciprocally beneficial to the commerce of France, Spain and the United States, and which are to last twelve years. That is all. Does all this sound like an ordinary act of sale?

After the treaty had been signed, and Louisiana ceded, France and the United States, “wishing to regulate definitely everything which had relation to said cession,” entered into stipulations by which the Government of the United States engaged to pay to the French Government the sum of sixty millions of francs, independent of the sum which was to be fixed by another Convention for certain payments due by France to citizens of the United States.

Is it possible to read what precedes without coming to the conclusion that, in parting regretfully with Louisiana, the intention of the ruler of France was to make the best use of what be could not keep—that it was to strengthen the bonds of union between France and the United States, and to give them, as he took care to insert it in the treaty, “a remarkable proof of his friendship;” and lastly, that it was his policy to increase the rising and growing power of the United States, so as to oppose a mighty rival, within a few years, to what he called “the colossal power of Great Britain.” As to the pecuniary part of the transaction, it seems to have been designedly postponed and kept out of sight. It became the object of a second and separate convention after the first had been completed. It was considered with reason, by Bonaparte at least, as a “mere indemnity”—as a reimbursement of expenses incurred for the preservation and improvements of Louisiana, and a repayment of the large sums expended for its colonization, but not as the value of the thing tranferredtransferred [sic]. “The price of all these things is justly due to us,” observed Bonaparte. Wishing to give to the United States “a remarkable proof of his friendship,” and to invigorate them into being a worthy and efficient adversary to Great Britain, he determined, as it were, to donate what he could not keep; and he did not ask for the value of Louisiana, because, to use his own words, “the indemnity would have had no limits.” Therefore, he insisted only on what he thought France was entitled to—a mere reimbursement of advances made—an indemnity for expenses incurred for improvements in the colony. Was Louisiana sold as a common farm? Was it not ceded on the express stipulation of its being a remarkable testimonial of friendship? Setting aside the “letter which killeth and looking to the spirit which vivifieth,” can this be regarded as a sale which was recorded as a testimonial of friendship, and for which no adequate equivalent was given? In the private transactions of life, when a thing is transferred for a price far inferior to its value, it may be called a sale, because it assumes that form; but it is in reality a disguised donation, particularly if it is stipulated in the deed that it is meant as an evidence of love, which is desired to be strengthened and perpetuated. Thus, in the case of the acquisition of Louisiana, the term “purchase,” according to its common significance, in commercial language, is misapplied. It is, to be sure a cession of the province; and if it is not strictly a donation, it must be conceded that it is not strictly a sale. Many would even think that it partakes more of the nature of the former than of the latter.

But in support of this view of the question, there is a stronger point to present to your consideration. It is worthy of remark that, mindful of the objection which had been made to him by his minister about the right of selling souls, and which, apparently, had been scornfully received, as I have already stated, Bonaparte, according to the historical declaration of that same minister, (Barbe Marbois,) “prepared himself,” the third article of the treaty of cession, which runs thus:

“The inhabitants of the said territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”

Was this selling Louisiana? Was this selling the Louisianians like cattle or other chattels? Were they becoming the property of the United States, to he disposed of as they pleased? Did the United States acquire an unqualified and unrestrained sovereignty over them? Could the United States resell Louisiana? No. It is evident that, by the treaty, France, through Bonaparte, made it imperative on the United States


text: Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 11

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 to invest the Louisianians with the same sovereignty, to its full extent, which was possessed by their own citizens. The Louisianians were to be “incorporated in the Union as soon as possible.” How could they be incorporated in a Union of sovereign States, except by becoming the citizens of a State or of States? Therefore the cession of Louisiana, which is commonly called a sale, was nothing else than the annexation of that province to the United States, either as a State or as divided into several States, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, among which stands prominently the principle of equality among the members of the Confederation. That this was the understanding of Bonaparte is evident from the words which he uttered immediately after he had signed the treaty. He said, to the minister who had negotiated for him, “Let the Louisianians know that we separate ourselves from them with regret; that we stipulate in their favor everything that they can desire; and let them, hereafter, happy in their independence, recollect that they have been Frenchmen, and that France, in ceding them, has secured for them advantages which they would not have obtained from an European power, however paternal it might have been. Let them retain for us, sentiments of affection; and may their common origin, descent, language and customs, perpetuate the friendship.”

Thus, he prided himself on having secured the independence of the Louisianians. How could that independence be obtained except by immediate annexation? We could not have been independent whilst the inhabitants of a Territory of the United States, and therefore dependent on them, no more than we could have been independent whilst remaining the inhabitants of a colony. Whilst the Louisianians were to remain in a transitory condition; whilst they were the inhabitants of a United States Territory; whilst they were incapable of protecting themselves—before their being invested with that sovereignty which became their birth-right by an express stipulation recognized as the supreme law of the land; whilst they were, to some extent, dependent on the United States—“en attendant”—(the words of the French text)—while they were waiting for their independence and their incorporation into the Union, France took special care to demand the guarantee that they should be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property and the religion which they professed. Were they sold, then, to the United States according to the common acceptation of the word and the popular impression? Was it because the United States agreed to pay to France a certain sum of money which was a mere reimbursement of all her expenses in her former colony? As well might it be said that Texas sold herself to the United States because she stipulated the payment of a certain sum of money as a condition of her incorporation into the Union.

As long as Louisiana remained a territory, if its inhabitants had been robbed of any of their existing rights, if they had been oppressed in their persons and attacked in their property and religion, France, who, in virtue of the treaty of cession, had retained a right of supervision over the destinies of her former colony, would undoubtedly have had the right to interfere. But as soon as Louisiana was incorporated in the Union as a sovereign State, the protective stipulation on the part of France ceased, because Louisiana was hereafter to look to herself for protection. The act of Congress authorizing the territory of Orleans, which had been carved out of the province of Louisiana, to form a State constitution, was not a voluntary, spontaneous and independent act, originating in the liberality or munificence of that body. It was no boon, no gift, no grant from the United States; it was simply the execution of the treaty of cession—the accomplishment of the generous will of France. It is therefore to the treaty of cession that Louisiana is to look back for her sovereignty, and not to the United States, who had merely bound themselves to accept that sovereignty, and to carry it into effect. If A cedes to B all his rights of property in a slave, and stipulates that B shall emancipate that slave as soon as possible, the act by which B emancipates that slave is really the act of A, and it is to A that the slave is indebted for emancipation, and not to B. Thus the act by which the United States incorporated Louisiana in the Union being prescribed by France, and being an unavoidable obligation on the part of the United States, was in reality the act of France. The United States were a mere ministerial agent chosen by France to secure that independence which she instructed her minister to inform the Louisianians that she had provided for them.

In support of the correctness of my views, I beg, dear sir, to refer you to the debates in Congress on the discussion of the bill providing for the carrying into effect of the treaty of cession. Mr. Pickering, of Massachusetts, opposed it in the Senate, on the ground of its unconstitutionality. Alluding to the third article of the treaty, he said, that it “stipulated the admission of a foreign country as an associate in the Union.” He added, “I have never doubted the right of the United States to acquire new territory, either by purchase or conquest, and to govern the territory so acquired as a dependent province.” But be denied that such was the case with Louisiana. He maintained, justly, that she was acquired as a State to which had been secured the right of independence and self-government, and not as a “dependent province.” He further said, “that if the United States failed to execute, within a reasonable time, the engagement assumed in the third article, the French Government would have the right to declare the whole treaty null and void.”

Mr. Tracy, of Connecticut, followed in the wake of Mr. Pickering. He considered that the United States had acquired a State and not a Territory. “If done at all,” he said, “it must be done by universal consent of all the States, or partners of our political association; and this universal consent, I am positive, can never be obtained to such a pernicious measure as the admission of Louisiana, of a world—and such a world!—into our Union. This would be absorbing the Northern States, and rendering them as insignificant in the Union aa they ought to be, if by their own consent the new measure should be adopted.” Northern insignificance! I avail myself of this opportunity to call your attention, by the way, to this apprehension of Northern insignificance, and Northern decline, compared with Southern


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40 that he considers real, he has a sort of bleak, unsatisfied admiration. He calls this chapter on Whitman The Precipitant, because "he precipitated the American character." "All those things which had been separate, self-sufficient, inco-ordinate—action, theory, idealism, business—he cast into a crucible; and they emerged, harmonious and molten, in a fresh democratic ideal, which is based upon the whole personality." He made fast what he himself called "The idea and fact of American Totality." Whitman, for Mr Brooks, fulfils what he calls the functions of a poet in the most primitive sense of the word—a man who gives to a nation a certain focal centre in the consciousness of its own character. Whitman is in fact for him what none of the other great American writers, except Emerson, approach to being—a leader. He fulfils in his own personality what is, for Mr Brooks, one of the conditions of the creation of a great American culture—the substitution of the ideal of self-fulfilment for the ideal of self-assertion. Whitman had no doubts about the necessity for the triumph of the creative mind: the terror which he must have caused still reverberates in sections of American society—sections for whom the creative mind represents the mind of a vagrant—something outcast from civilized life.

If Whitman's life was almost a complete success as far as self-fulfilment is concerned, Mark Twain's was, as he shows, almost a complete failure. I can think of no other biographical study of a literary man written in our time which is such a masterpiece as Mr Brooks' book on Mark Twain. One remembers Chesterton's beautiful book on Browning, but the writing of that must have been child's play in comparison with the writing of The Ordeal of Mark Twain a work in which the author evolves a new method, by grafting on the methods of Taine and Sainte Beuve the discoveries of psychoanalysis. The result is a study the thoroughness of which has never been surpassed. The man, and through the man, the writer is laid bare to us in every corner of his soul, in every cell of his brain, almost in every pulse of his heart. Mr Brooks shows us Mark Twain as a great unfulfilled satirist. "He was intended by nature to be a sort of American Rabelais, who would have done as regards the financial commercialism of The Gilded Age, very much what the author of Pantagruel did as regards the obsolescent medi- aevalism of the sixteenth century. But instead Mark Twain became involved in the 'popular complex of the Gilded Age' in which one was required not merely to forgo one's individual tastes

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98 "I am looking for my wife, the Princess Vera the Wise."

"I am very sorry for you, my prince," replied the good old dame, shaking her aged head, and looking as grave as her merry old face would let her. "Methinks that Princess Vera has forgotten you, for when last I saw her she talked of marrying; but I may be mistaken. She is now staying with my eldest sister, so make haste and go there, lose not a moment's time. You will find my sister spinning gold thread, and winding it on a golden spindle. This spindle is your wife. Don't laugh, but listen. Take the spindle, break it into three parts, and throw the two ends behind you and the middle in front of you, and—well, you will see for yourself what will happen. And now go."

Prince Akem left her, much amused at the idea of his wife being a spindle. On he went after the ball, until they again stopped in front of another chicken-legged hut that turned round and round like the two former.

"Stand still, little hut, with your front to me and your back to the forest!" said the prince.

The hut did so, and the prince walked in. Here he found an old, old woman—in fact, she was so very, very old that there was nothing left of her but bones! She sat spinning away at some gold thread, and then began winding it on a golden spindle. She did not notice the prince, nor did she make any sign when he took hold of the spindle and broke it into three parts, throwing the two ends behind him; but he had hardly thrown the middle part down when who should


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Memorandum of agreement between Mormons and Jackson County citizen committee

It is understood that the undersigned, members of the society, do give their solemn pledges, each for himself, as follows, to wit:

That Oliver Cowdery, W. W. Phelps, William McLellin, Edward Partridge, Lyman Wight, Simeon Carter, Peter and John Whitmer, and Harvey Whitlock shall remove with their families out of this county, on or before the first day of January next, and that they as well as the two hereinafter named, use all their influence to induce all the brethren now here to remove as soon as possible: one half, say, by the first of January next, and all by the first day of April next; to advise and try all means in their power, to stop any more of their sect from moving to this county; and as to those now on the road, they will use their influence to prevent their settling permanently in the county, but that they shall only make arrangements for temporary shelter, till a new location is agreed on for the society. John Corrill and Algernon Sidney Gilbert, are allowed to remain as general agents to wind up the business of the society, so long as necessity shall require; and said Gilbert may sell out his merchandise now on hand, but is to make no new importation.

The Star is not again to be published, nor a press set up by any of the society in this county.

If the said Edward Partridge and W. W. Phelps move their families by the first day of January, as aforesaid, that they themselves will be allowed to go and come, in order to transact and wind up their business.

The committee pledge themselves to use all their influence to prevent any violence being used so long as a compliance with the foregoing terms is observed by the parties concerned, to which agreement is subscribed the names of the above named committee, as also those of the Mormon brethren named in the report as having been present.

Which report of the committee was unanimously adopted by the meeting, and thereupon, the meeting adjourned, sine die. RICHARD SIMPSON, Chairman. S. D. Lucas,    } J. H. Flournoy, } Secretaries.


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 importance and Southern prosperity, as one of the secret springs of that deadly hostility and jealousy entertained by one section of the country against the other.

The whole drift of Mr. Adams’s argument on the subject shows that he also thought that Louisiana was not acquired as a dependent province. Mr. Griswold, of Connecticut, said in the House: “It is clear that it was intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the ceded Territory in the Union by the treaty itself, or to pledge the faith of the nation that such an incorporation should take place within a reasonable time.” He complained that it was the admission of a new partner in a firm without the consent of all the parties. “It was the incorporation of a foreign nation into the Union; it destroyed the perfect Union contemplated between the original parties, by interposing an alien and a stranger to share the powers of government with them.” He lamented that “a new world was to be thrown into the scale to weigh down the influence which the Northern States might otherwise possess in the national councils.” The other speakers on this side of the question, traveling over the same ground and paraphrasing the same arguments, asserted that if the United States could acquire territory, it was not to make it a part of the Confederacy as a State, but to hold it as a colony forever, or as a sort of subordinate dependency.

“It has been said,” observed one of the speakers, “that the treaty does not in fact incorporate the people of the ceded territory into the Union, but stipulates that they shall be incorporated and admitted according to the principles of the Federal Constitution; or, in other words, the treaty only pledges the faith of the nation that such an incorporation shall take place. On this point I will observe that there is no difference in principle between a direct incorporation by the words of a treaty, and a stipulation that an incorporation shall take place, because if the faith of the nation is pledged in the latter case, the incorporation must take place, and it is of no consequence whether the treaty gives the incorporation, or produces the law which gives it.”

Those on the other side, who thought that the United States had the Constitutional power to acquire Louisiana according to the stipulations of the treaty, did not differ, at least most of them, with their adversaries as to the interpretation put on the 3d Article. The paradoxical John Randolph, of Roanoke, was the only one who, as far as I am aware, interpreted the treaty with his characteristic eccentricity. He maintained that by the 3d Article, the Louisianians had only become entitled to the blessings of jury trial, liberty of conscience and a few other rights and immunities. But this construction of the treaty is evidently so erroneous that it scarcely deserves refutation, notwithstanding the respect due to the memory of its distinguished author.

From what precedes, it seems demonstrated that the treaty of cession had crested the State of Louisiana, and opened to her the doors of admission into the Union. The United States had no discretionary power left them to reject their new associate, and to do aught beyond the arrangement of those formalities which were to attend her introduction into the bosom of their great sisterhood of sovereignties. It wag nota dependent territory which they acquired, it was a State, or States. France had created the sovereignty of Louisiana, with the assent of the United States, who had assumed the merely ceremonial part of giving away the emblematic sceptre and the crown. But the pontiff who annoints the brows of royalty, only consecrates what already exists. Thus the act of Congress passed in 1811, to authorize the Territory of Orleans to form a Constitution and a State Government, and to enable it to be admitted into the Union on “an equal footing with the original States,” was merely the discharge of an obligation, and only the evidence, the recognition, the consecration of the sovereignty already secured to Louisiana. That colony, I say, became a sovereign and independent State by the fiat of France, with the assent of the United States, as completely as the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain had acquired their independence by their own achievements, backed by the assistance of that noble ally: and on the day of the admission of Louisiana into the Union, it was necessarily assumed that she also delegated, like the original States, those powers which the Federal Government was to exercise for the benefit of the whole Confederacy, and it necessarily followed that she could not have received from that Federal Government those which she retained. In that respect, she must accept no inferiority to the original States. She was not created by them, but incorporated into them, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, in virtue of the stipulation of a benignant parent who emancipated her, and set her free forever from any human vassalage.

Now, it seems evident to my mind that the Constitution which became binding upon Louisiana on the day of her adoption, no more and no less than upon the original States, having been set aside by some of the contracting parties, in the name of a higher law invoked by them; that the equality of Louisiana in the Union having been disregarded; that her rights as one of its members having been trampled upon; that the property and lives of her citizens being put in peril by the action of a majority of her partners in the confederacy; that the Union itself being dissolved by systematic violations of the Constitution, and by the secession of one or more States, the sovereignty possessed by France in Louisiana, and transferred to the Unites States and to Louisiana herself on her incorporation into them, reverts in full to Louisiana and to the other States which were formed out of her territory, as soon as the United States no longer exist according to the principles of the Federal Constitution and the stipulations, the sense and spirit of the original compact. The sovereignty which emanated from the treaty of 1803, and which has been exercised since 1812, with the exception of certain delegated powers, can not perish, and must sit forever enthroned in Louisiana, whether the Union survives the present crisis, or is torn into premature destruction. Sovereignty once acquired can not be lost, except by complete and permanent subjugation, or by voluntary abdication.

Hoping that these crude remarks may be suggestive to your enlightened mind of thoughts more worthy of the subject, and more conducive to the facilitation of your labors in the Convention, I remain, with much respect, &c.,


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Rh stand before him, in all her great beauty and grace, but the lovely Princess Vera the Wise!

"Ah! my beloved prince, if you had been a little later I might have forgotten you, and married some one else, for in this country one's memory fails one sometimes!"

So saying, Princess Vera embraced the happy prince, and they left the hut together. After walking a short distance, Princess Vera waved her right hand, and immediately a beautiful flying carpet of gold, worked with silver and diamonds, appeared, and on this carpet the happy pair seated themselves, and flew to the kingdom of Prince Akem's father.

The king was delighted at the sight of his beloved son and his charming daughter-in-law. Princess Vera's father came to stay at the palace for a few days, to make the acquaintance of his son-in-law and all his relations. Before he left a grand ball was given, to which everybody was invited. After that, Princess Vera, her father, and Prince Akem returned to the tenth kingdom at the World's End.

Princess Vera's father made Prince Akem his heir, for the good king had no son of his own.


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100

upon a time there lived a rich countess, who had two beautiful children, a boy and a little girl. The boy was called Daniel Nathaniel, and the girl was named Tania.

Well, one day there came to the noble mansion an old fairy, who asked to see the countess. The countess, being very fond of fairies, received the old witch warmly, and asked her what she wanted.

"Dear countess," began the fairy, "I have come from a distance on purpose to bring you a diamond ring, which I want you, before you die, to give to your son; as long as he wears this ring on his finger he will be wealthy and happy all the days of his life. But this is not all. I have something of greater importance to say about the ring, which is that he must on no account marry any one unless he can find a girl whose finger the ring will fit; if he should disobey me, then, bad luck attend him!"

So saying, the fairy disappeared without leaving the room.

The countess was so delighted that she became ill and soon died of joy, not forgetting, however, to give her son the ring and to tell him all the fairy had told her.

Years passed on, and the son grew up to be a wonder-


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 That is the very reason why I thirst so much, if not for an explanation, at least for an expression which would be comprehensible. If it is entirely incomprehensible, there can be no answer.

“We saw a number of incomprehensible things when we expounded the doctrine about God one in essence and about his essential attributes, especially about his self-existence, eternity, omnipresence.” (p. 167.)

There was nothing incomprehensible about that. All those were expressions from various sides of the first concept about the existence of God,—a concept which is familiar to every believer in God. These expressions were for the most part incorrectly used, but there was nothing incomprehensible in them.

“Many incomprehensible things shall we also see later on, in disclosing the dogma of the incarnation and person of our Saviour, about his death on the cross, about the ever-virginity of the Mother of God, about the action of grace upon us, and so on. But the mystery of Christian mysteries is indisputably the dogma about the Most Holy Trinity just as there are three persons in one God, so the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, however not three Gods, but one God,—all this surpasses all understanding.” (p. 157.)

That is precisely what I want to know. A father of the church says:

“What manner of reasoning, what power and might of the intellect, what vivacity of the mind and perspicacity of imagination will show me—‘How does the Trinity exist?’ And in another place: ‘However, what it is, is unspeakable; no tongue of the angels, much less of men, can explain it.’” (p. 157.)

The Trinity is God. What is God and how does he exist? that surpasses my imagination. But if the essence of God surpasses my understanding, I can know nothing about the essence of God. But if we know that


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 he is the Trinity, it is necessary to say what we understand by this appellation. What do these words mean in relation to God? So far there have been no explanations of these words, and the exposition is continued:

“So this is the reason why the heretics who have tried to explain the truths of religion with their own intellect have stumbled over the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity more than over any other dogma. So, if at all anywhere, we must here more especially stick closely to the positive doctrine of the church, which has guarded and defended this dogma against all heretical opinions, and which has expounded it for the guidance of the Orthodox with the greatest possible precision.” (pp. 157 and 158.)

It is precisely this exposition that I am in search of, that is, I want to know what is meant by God one and three. For, if I say that I believe, without understanding, and if any one else says that he believes that God is one and three, we are lying, for it is impossible to believe what we do not understand. It is possible to repeat with the tongue, but it is not possible to believe words which not merely have no meaning, but directly violate sound reason. Here is the way the Orthodox Church expounds this doctrine with precision:

“(1) In the symbol of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Bishop of Neocæsaria: There is one God, Father of the living Word, of wisdom and self-existing force, and of the eternal form: the perfect progenitor of the perfect, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one God, one from one, God from God, form and expression of the Deity, active word, wisdom, containing the composition of all, and force building the whole creation; true Son of the true Father, the unseen of the unseen, the incorruptible of the incorruptible, the immortal of the immortal, the eternal of the eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, issuing from God, having appeared through the Son, that is, to men; life, in which is the cause of the living; holy


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Rh fully handsome, rich young count, and began to look round for a wife. One took his fancy, but the ring was too big for her finger; another took his fancy but in this case the ring was too small. At last he determined to go in search of some other fair damsel in another kingdom. He rode, and rode through many kingdoms, towns, and countries, but all in vain; nowhere could he find a wife whose finger would fit the ring, so he returned home sad and low-spirited.

"What is the matter, brother?" asked his beautiful sister Tania. "Why are you so sad?"

He told her his troubles.

"What a strange thing," laughed Tania, looking at the ring on her brother's finger.

"I wonder whether it will fit you, Tania?"

And the young count took the ring off his own finger and tried it on his sister's. What was their surprise to find that the ring fitted Tania to perfection.

"Tania! Tania;" exclaimed the brother, "I shall marry you, and none but you, so go and get ready."

Tania at first lauglied at her brother, thinking that he was only joking; but when she saw he was in earnest, she was very angry. She was a sweet, gentle girl as a rule, but this sudden outbreak on her brother's part was rather too much for her.

"Who ever heard of a brother marrying his sister?" she exclaimed. "No, that shall never be!"

And throwing the ring on to the floor she left the room, and was about to leave the house also, but on reaching the street-door her strength gave way, and she sank down on the door-step and began to cry.


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102 At that moment two old women passed by; but on seeing so fair a maiden in tears, they stopped and asked her what was the matter.

The young countess, after a great deal of hesitation, told them her story.

"Do not cry, dear child," said they, "but go into your own room and put these four dolls in it, one in each corner. The count, your brother, will then knock at your door and call you. Now, you must put yourself right in the middle of the room; and when he comes, you must answer, 'I shall come in a moment!' but do not move while you speak, or woe betide you!"

So saying, the old women went away, and the countess went up to her own room and did what she was told. Meanwhile, the brother dressed himself up in his wedding garments and called for his sister, who stood in the middle of her room and answered,—

"I shall come in a moment."

While the dolls in the corners sang,—

Tania felt the earth beneath her soften, and she sank lower and lower; but she was not afraid, nor did she cry for help, her only wish being to get away from her brother.

Count Daniel still called her, and louder than


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I, Signore!"

The gondola stirred gently, as with a long, quiet breath, and a moment later it had pushed its way out from among the thronging craft at the steps of the railway quay, and was gliding with its own leisurely motion across the sunlit expanse of the broad Canal. As the prow of the slender black bark entered a narrow side-canal and pursued its way between frown-

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Rh ever, but he always received the same answer, while the dolls sang as before,—

Again the count called, and again received the same answer, while the dolls sang their song. By this time nothing but the young countess's head was visible.

Count Daniel grew very impatient, and called louder to his sister. But this time, getting no answer, he flew into a rage, and breaking open the door, rushed into the room; but no sister could he find! He looked round, but saw nothing except the dolls, who kept on singing their wonderful song, until the count, in a still greater rage, took an axe, cut off their heads, and threw them into the fire.

But to return to the Countess Tania. She sank and sank, until she reached an underground kingdom. She walked on and on along a pretty country road, when she suddenly beheld a funny little wooden hut, at the door of which sat a beautiful girl reading. She was so exactly like Tania, that the young countess might easily have thought that it was a reflection of herself in a looking-glass. When this lovely girl saw Tania coming she jumped up, and running up to her, embraced her warmly, just as if she had known her all her life.


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 ing walls and under low arched bridges,—as the deep resonant cry of the gondolier rang out, and an answer came like an echo from the hidden recesses of a mysterious watery crossway, the spirit of Venice drew near to the three travellers, in whose minds its strange and exquisite suggestion was received with varying susceptibility.

To Pauline Beverly, sitting enthroned among the gondola cushions, this was the fulfilment of a dream, and she accepted it with unquestioning delight; her sister May, at the bar of whose youthful judgment each wonder of Europe was in turn a petitioner for approval, bestowed a far more critical attention upon the time-worn palaces and the darkly doubtful water at their base; while to Uncle Dan, sitting stiffly upright upon the little one-armed chair in front of them, Venice, though a regularly recurrent experience, was also a memory,—a memory fraught with some sort of emotion, if one might judge by the severe indifference which

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 the old soldier brought to bear upon the situation.

Colonel Steele was never effusive, yet a careful observer might have detected in his voice and manner, as he gave his orders to the gondolier, the peculiar cut-and-dried quality which he affected when he was afraid of being found out. Careful observers are, however, rare, and we may be sure that on their first day in Venice his two companions had other things to think of than the unobtrusive moods of a life-long uncle.

Suddenly the gondola swung out again upon the Grand Canal, a little below the Rialto bridge, and again all was light and life and movement. Steamboats plied up and down with a great puffing and snorting and a swashing about of the water, gondolas and smaller craft rising and falling upon their heaving wake; heavily laden barges, propelled by long poles whose wielders walked with bare brown feet up and down the gunwale in the performance of their labor, progressed

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 slowly and stolidly, never yielding an inch in their course to the importunities of shouting gondolier or shrieking steam-whistle. Here the light shell of a yellow sandolo shot by, there a black-hooded gondola crept in and out among the more impetuous water-folk. Over yonder the stars-and-stripes floated from a slim black prow, a frank, outspoken note of color that had its own part to play among the quieter yet richer hues of the scene. It was like an instantaneous transition from twilight to broad day, from the remote past to the busy present, whose children, even in Venice, must be fed and clothed and transported from place to place.

"Yes, that is the Rialto," said Uncle Dan, rousing to the contemplation of a good substantial fact. "It's everywhere in Venice. You're always coming out upon it, especially when you have been rowing straight away from it."

"What a pity it should be all built over on top!" said May, knitting her

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 smooth young brow, as if, forsooth, wrinkles did not come fast enough without the aid of any gratuitous concern for the taste of a bygone century.

"But just look at the glorious arch of it underneath!" cried Pauline. "Who cares what is on top? And besides," she declared, after a moment's reflection, "I like it all!"

"Has Venice changed much, Uncle Dan?" asked May.

"Venice?" Uncle Dan replied. "Venice doesn't change. It's the rest of us that do that!"—and just at that moment the gondola turned out of the Grand Canal into another narrow, shadowy water-way. Here and there, above the dark current, a bit of color caught the eye; a pot of geranium on a window-ledge; a pair of wooden shutters painted pink; a blue apron hung out to dry. On a stone bridge, leaning against the iron railing, stood a woman in a sulphur shawl, gazing idly at the approaching gondola. Scarlet, pink, blue, sulphur;—how these

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 unrelated bits of color were blended and absorbed in the pure poetry of the picture!

"How wonderful it is, when things come true!" Pauline exclaimed. "Things you have dreamed of all your life, till they have come to seem less real than the things you never dreamed of at all! I think I must have known that that woman in the sulphur shawl would be standing on that bridge, gazing upon us with her great tragic eyes; so that somehow it seems as if she might have been a mere apparition."

"I think it very likely, for I am sure she has always been there when I have passed," said Uncle Dan, with conviction.

"I didn't see anything tragic about her eyes," May objected. "I thought she looked rather stupid, as if she had forgotten what she came out for."

"Which was probably the case," Uncle Dan admitted. Whence it will be seen that Uncle Dan, gallant officer in the past and practical man of affairs to

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 day, was as wax in the hands of his nieces, equally ready to agree with each.

Yet Colonel Steele had not the appearance of a man of wax. On the contrary, his spare, wiry figure was full of vigor, his glance was as keen and his speech as imperative as that of the veriest martinet. He had commanded men in his day; he had fought the stern persistent fight of a good soldier, and if, when the great cause was won, he had hung up his sword and sash and laid aside his uniform, he had yet never succeeded in looking the civilian, and his military title had clung to him through thirty years of practical life. Furthermore, if it must be admitted that he looked somewhat older than his sixty years, that fact was not to be accounted for by any acknowledged infirmity, unless, indeed, the stiff leg he had brought with him from his four years' service should be reckoned as such.

"But you like it, May?"

It was Pauline who asked, and she put

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 the question as if she valued her sister's opinion.

"Yes," May answered, in her most judicial manner; "I like it. As you say, it is very much what one expected. But of course it is rather early to judge yet."

As if to refute this cautious statement, the gondola quietly glided out again upon the Grand Canal, in full face of a great white dome, rising superbly from a sculptured marble octagon against a radiant sky. Sky and dome and sculptured figure, each cast its image deep down in the tranquil waters at its base, where, as it chanced, no passing barge or steamboat was shivering it to fragments.

"Ah!" said Pauline, with inarticulate eloquence.

"That is the Salute," Uncle Dan remarked; while May wondered how she liked it.

Half-a-dozen strokes of the oar brought them in among the tall, shielding posts, close alongside the steps of the Venezia.

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 As the hotel porter handed the young ladies from the gondola, the Colonel paused to have a word with the gondolier. The man was standing, hat in hand, keeping the oar in gentle motion to counteract the force of the tide, which was setting strongly seaward.

"Si, Signore!" he answered.

"Why!" May exclaimed, "I had forgotten all about the man!"

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O the bankers', Vittorio."

"Si, Signore. Will the Signore go by the Grand Canal?"

"By all means. And don't hurry. There is plenty of time."

"Si, Signore! The bank will wait!"

The little jest fell as soothingly familiar upon the ear of Vittorio's one passenger as the dip of the oar or the bell of San Giorgio Maggiore sounding across the harmonizing water spaces. And yet the

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 Colonel was only half aware that every word, every inflection of the little dialogue had passed between them on just such an afternoon in May five years ago, and again five years before that, if the truth must be told.

They were passing the charming little Gothic palace known as the House of Desdemona, and we may be pretty sure that the two little stone girls that keep watch there upon the corners of the balcony railing, were reminded by these words that another lustre had slipped by since last they heard them. If they were as observant as they should have been, considering that they had nothing to occupy them but the use of their eyes and ears, they must have noted the fact that while the soldierly figure of the old gentleman had not grown a whit less erect, the many wrinkles upon his clean-cut countenance were perceptibly deepened in the interval. A curious effect of years, those hard-headed little images must have thought. They could perceive no

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 such change in one another's countenances, though they had witnessed the passage of several centuries. But then, the little stone girls had one marked advantage over people of flesh and blood, for they stopped short off at the shoulders. Their creator having made no provision for a heart in their constitutions, they could never grow old,—any more than they could ever have been truly young.

The tide was still going out, and the gondola moved very slowly up stream. The Colonel was silent, as he had been silent during the passage of this particular part of the Canal once in five years since ever so long ago. Presently the gondola, in its leisurely progress, came opposite a pretty old palace with charming rose windows to give it distinction. There were flower-boxes in the balcony, and other signs of habitation, and the Colonel, quite as if he were rousing from a reverie, and casting about for something to say, turned half-way toward the gondolier and asked: "The Signora Daymond, is she here this season?"

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 "Si, Signore; and her Signor son is also in Venice."

This last statement formed a new departure, the "Signor son" having been absent on the occasion of the Colonel's more recent visits. The announcement excited in him a curious and quite unfounded resentment. Indeed, so disturbing was it, not because of any inherent objectionableness, but because of its implication of a change, that the Colonel found himself quite thrown out of his accustomed line of procedure. That this was the case was made manifest by the fact that he did not adhere so far to established precedent as to wait until after they had passed under the iron bridge before looking quite round into Vittorio's face and asking: "All is well at the little red house? The wife and the children?"

"All well, Signore; only the mother died last winter."

"Your wife's mother, I think it was?"

"Si, Signore; she died in February."

One less mouth to feed, the Colonel

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 thought to himself; and perhaps the thought was apparent to the quick perception of the gondolier, although the padrone only remarked: "An old woman she must have been."

For Vittorio's face grew wistful, and there was a tone of gentle reproach in his voice, as he said: "We should like well to have the mother with us again."

"Of course, of course!" the Colonel assented, eager to disclaim his unspoken disloyalty. "And Nanni? What do you hear from him?"

"He is paying us a visit, the first in three years. He does not forget the old life, and when the Milan doctors told him he must take a long rest, that he needed a change, he said: 'I know it; I need to feel an oar in my hand and the leap of the gondola under my feet.

"And does he row?"

"Si, Signore. He has an old tub of a gondola and he paddles about in it all day long and is content as the king. More content, for he is doing what he

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 pleases, and the king,—it is said that he cannot always do as he pleases. If he could we should be better governed."

A puzzled scowl contracted the fine open brow of the gondolier. That a king should not do as he pleased was as puzzling as it was grievous.

"He is doing well, Nanni?"

"Si, Signore, benissimo; and yet he loves the gondola and the old life."

The Colonel drew his brows together as if the statement had not given him unmixed pleasure. "Do you think he is ever sorry for the education and the change?" he asked.

"Sorry? Oh, no! His profession is his life. Even here when he ought to rest, he goes again and again to the Scuola di San Marco, the great hospital, to see the sick people and talk with the doctors. Signore," and Vittorio's voice sank to a stage whisper: "Nanni is writing a book. It is about the sanitation of the houses."

The gondolier had stepped forward

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 close behind the cushioned seat, and was stooping, with bended knee, his head almost on a level with the padrone's. Keeping the oar constantly in motion, and with an occasional deft turn of the wrist to avoid a collision,—for the Grand Canal was a crowded thoroughfare at this hour,—he nevertheless seemed to have eyes only for the erect figure and the grizzled head of his old friend.

"Our benefactor does not permit us to speak to him of what is in our hearts," he said, in his stately Italian; and again his voice dropped, and this time to a wonderfully melodious tone: "But the Madonna listens to us every morning and every evening. We all remember the padrone, even the piccolo Giovanni, whom he has never seen."

A look of comical deprecation crossed the face of the passenger, and he said, rather abruptly: "I hope Nanni is good to the rest of you."

"Si, Signore; Nanni is a good brother; but we are many and he is not rich.

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 Ecco! The gondola of the Signora Daymond. Will the Signore speak with her?"

"Not to-day," the Colonel answered, hastily; and in another instant, before the occupants of the other boat had looked in their direction, Vittorio had stepped back to his post at the stern, and had given a twist of the oar that sent the gondola straight across the prow of a steamboat coming down-stream.

"Lungo!" he shouted, as peremptorily as if the great puffing interloper had been a tiny sandolo, and the big boat actually did slow up a bit, while Vittorio swiftly rounded it, thus placing its great hull between his own and the Signora's gondola.

"You're a good oarsman, Vittorio," the padrone remarked. "I always said that I should like to cross the ocean with you."

"I would rather the Signore stayed here," Vittorio exclaimed, while a flashing smile lit up his handsome face; "I

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 would rather the Signore took a little palace and stayed here in Venice!"

Before the Signore had had time to give this time-honored proposition the consideration which it merited, the gondola was lying alongside the steps at the bankers' door, and his attention was distracted by a very ragged, but seraphically beautiful urchin, who was excitedly wriggling his body through the railing of the adjoining ferry-landing, with a view to pressing his services upon the foreign gentleman. His efforts were finally successful, and when, a few minutes later, the Colonel emerged from the doorway, he found his entry into the gondola relieved of all supposititious perils by the application of five very brown bare toes to the gunwale. As he placed his penny in the tattered hat of his small preserver, he bestowed upon him a smile so benignant that all the rival ragamuffins assembled upon the ferry-landing took heart of hope and shouted, as one boy: "Un soldino, Signor! Un soldino!"

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 source; holiness offering sanctification. To him appears God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. Trinity, perfect in glory and eternity, indivisible and inseparable in dominion. And so there is in the Trinity neither created, nor ancillary, nor additive, which has not been before, or which will come later. The Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Holy Ghost; but the Trinity is invariable, unchangeable, and always one and the same.’

“(2) In the Nicæo-Constantinopolitan symbol: ‘I believe in one God the Father—and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, born from the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true. God, born, uncreated, of one substance with the Father—and in the Holy Ghost, the life-creating Lord, who proceedeth from the Father; who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.’

“(3) In the symbol which is known under the name. of that of St. Athanasius of Alexandria: This is the Catholic creed: Let us worship the one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in the One, neither blending. the hypostases, nor separating the essence. For different. is the hypostasis of the Father, different that of the Son, and different that of the Holy Ghost. But that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is one Deity, an equal glory, a coeval grandeur. As the Father, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Ghost— Thus: God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Ghost; and yet not three Gods, but one God— God is not created by any one, nor born. The Son was not created by the Father himself, nor made, nor born, nor issued from him— And in this Trinity nothing is first or last; nothing more or less; but the three hypostases are complete, coeval with each other and equal.” (PP. 158 and 159.)


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 Vittorio, with a look of superb scorn, calculated to convince the uninitiated that he himself had never been a Venetian ragamuffin, gave three long strokes of the oar, which sent the gondola far out upon the Canal, well beyond the reach of such importunities.

"To the hotel, Signore?"

"Yes; the young ladies will be ready to go out by this time. They are my nieces, Vittorio."

"And is it their first visit in Venice?"

"Yes; we have spent the winter in Italy, and we left the best for the last."

"The Signore still loves Venice?"

"Better than any spot in the world. We will take the short cut home, Vittorio."

Then Vittorio, with the deep joy which may hide in the hearts of other men, but never shines in full radiance upon any but an Italian face, turned the gondola into the same narrow rio through which he had rowed his passengers from the station earlier in the day.

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 The Colonel had caught the flash in the dark face, and his own countenance had assumed an answering mobility. The tension of his first hours in Venice was apt to yield, though not usually as early as this. But then, he had never before had the pleasure of his two precious Pollys in anticipation. As the gondola drew near a certain stone bridge guarded by an iron railing, the sight of a woman in a sulphur shawl, lingering there to speak with a neighbor, gave him a reminiscent sense of amused gratification.

Presently they came round in front of the Venezia, and Uncle Dan looked up to a certain high balcony, whence his coming was hailed by a lively flutter of handkerchiefs.

"Ecco, my nieces!" he remarked to Vittorio, with ill-suppressed pride of ownership; a claim, be it observed, which the two Pollys would have been inclined to dispute; since, according to their own faith and practice, it was they who owned Uncle Dan!

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IVE minutes later Uncle Dan and his two Pollys were once more afloat, a beatific company. Their graceful craft dipped and courtesied to the stroke of the oar as it glided swiftly with the out-going tide, past the gilt ball of the custom-house, past the royal gardens and the Piazzetta and the Doge's Palace, past the red tower of San Giorgio, on and on, far out upon the wide lagoons. Pauline, sitting beside her uncle among the cushions of state, was so absorbed in the mere joy of this gliding, rhythmic motion, that she scarcely paid due deference to the wonders of the Piazzetta, past which they fared so swiftly. Yes; there were

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 the famous pillars of Saint and Lion, and there, beyond the Ducal Palace, was a passing glimpse of San Marco. It was as it should be, this delightful verification of travellers' tales; she could afford to hold all that in reserve. But just to-day, just at this moment, she only wanted to watch the slender prow, skimming the wonderful opaline waters, drawing ever nearer to those mystic islands floating over yonder like a dream within a dream. She wondered vaguely at May's vivid alertness; for her sister, claiming the privilege of youth, was enjoying the freedom of the gondola, perching here and there as her fancy prompted, in the ample forward space, that nothing might escape her eager, critical attention.

"How queer of them to have put those two windows out of line!" May exclaimed, fixing upon the water-front of the Ducal Palace a glance of disapproval beneath which the stately old pile blushed rosy red. At least it was at that moment that she first observed the pinkness of its

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 complexion. "But it's a lovely color," she hastened to admit; "and those columns in the second story are perfectly dear."

"They have been a good deal admired," Uncle Dan observed dryly, yet with a friendly twinkle that flickered over into the crow's-feet which were such an important feature of his equipment as uncle. And May, nothing daunted, pursued her own train of thought with unflagging spirit.

"Vittorio, which way is the Lido?" she asked presently, in her crispest Italian. She was sitting on the carpeted steps at the prow, whence she had been regarding, with a quite impersonal interest, the swaying motion of the supple, picturesque figure at the oar. She was not sure that she altogether approved of the broad white straw hat, with fluttering ends of blue ribbon, nor of the blue woollen sash with its white fringe which waved back and forth as its wearer trod the deck; but these were minor details, and the total effect was undeniably good.

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 Vittorio, accustomed to that particular kind of attention which the tourist bestows impartially upon man or gondola, the briccoli whose clustering posts mark the channels in the lagoon, or the towers of the mad-house rising from yonder island,—had continued his unswerving gaze straight over the head of the Signorina. At the sound of his name his bearing changed. Lifting his hat, he took a step forward, and, still plying the oar with his right hand, he said: "Over yonder is Sant' Elisabetta del Lido, where the tourists go. But the Lido reaches for miles between us and the sea,—as the Signore will tell you," he added, with the careful deference that the Colonel knew so well.

The familiar voice of the gondolier, striking across his meditations, had a singular effect upon the Colonel. It made him aware that this was a different Venice from the one which Vittorio had been wont to show him. What had become of the pensive quality of the at-

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 mosphere, the brooding melancholy of its impression upon him? Where, he wondered, half-resentfully, was the dim oppression, the subtle pain he had heretofore associated with these tranquil water spaces? What witch-work were those girls playing with the traditions of twenty-five years? He glanced from one to the other of their unconscious faces, each absorbed after its own fashion. After all, it was pleasant to look upon the world through young eyes. No fear but the old preoccupation would reassert itself in due time. But somehow his mind declined to concern itself with that just now, and with a half-humorous deprecation, he resumed his contemplation of his two Pollys.

His claim to such a unique possession formed in itself an achievement upon which the Colonel prided himself not a little. He often recalled his chagrin when his sister Mary,—Polly as he, and he alone had called her,—failed to give her eldest daughter her own name. How

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 could he, a totally inexperienced uncle, enter into satisfactory relations with a young person encumbered with the stately cognomen of Pauline? She was sure to be haughty and unapproachable. No wonder that she puckered up her face in hostile protest as often as he offered her a perfunctory salutation. He was becoming fairly afraid of the little month-old personage, when one day, he hit upon the reassuring device of turning Pauline, with all its conservative dignity, into Polly. If the testimony of a gentleman and an officer was to be relied upon, their good understanding dated from that hour. For Uncle Dan was willing to take his oath that the very day on which the two soft, ingratiating syllables fell upon the small pink ear, the small pink face relaxed into an expression of kindly tolerance, blossoming out a few days later into that ecstatic first smile which had sealed his subjugation.

Uncle Dan was perhaps not thinking of this circumstance, as he glanced to

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 day at the serenely blissful young face beside him, a face which had never in all these years begrudged him a smile. Yet such reminiscences were not wholly foreign to his thoughts, and they doubtless lent their own agreeable though unrecognized flavor to his meditations, as he looked upon the Venetian lagoons through the eyes of his Pollys.

In the course of time two other little maids had come upon the scene,—Susan and Isabella were their unsuggestive names. Married now, both of them, Uncle Dan was wont to state, parenthetically; and indeed, if the truth be known, he had always taken a parenthetical view of these unexceptionable little nieces. But when his Polly had remained for seven years without a rival in his affections, a fourth small damsel had presented herself, and had been regarded by her parents as the logical candidate for her mother's name. From that time forth the Colonel was the happy possessor of two Pollys, and it would have been diffi-

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104 "My darling Countess Tania!" she cried, "whatever made you come here? You are in great danger, for this hut does not belong to me, but to a wicked old witch, who, however, is not at home just now; but when she does come, oh! beware, dear countess!"

Tania was rather startled at this, especially when she heard the word witch, for she had no very great love for the creatures, and certainly not for wicked ones. However, as she was very sleepy and hungry, she said that if she could only have something to eat and drink, and get a nice hiding-place, she would not mind. This was soon granted her.

When she was safely hidden the old witch came in.

"I smell the blood of a Russian!" was her first greeting.

"Nonsense, little mother!" laughed the young girl, whose name was Varia. "It was only an old man who came to have a drink."

"Why did you not keep him?"

"Because he was too old for your teeth."

"I don't believe you! But, at any rate, in future mind you keep all who dare come to my hut, and don't let them out again!"

When morning came the witch went out, while Tania and Varia sat down and talked to each other; but when evening came Tania had to hide herself again.

"I smell the blood of a Russian!" cried the witch, when she returned.

"Nay, mother, it was only an old woman who


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 cult to say which had the more complete ascendency over him. Big Polly and little Polly he called them, and before the little one was well out of long clothes he had formed the project of showing his Pollys the world.

The death of his sister having occurred some years since, his brother-in-law's second marriage, which took place after a due interval, left Uncle Dan with a free hand to carry out his project. He could not but feel indebted to Beverly for taking a step which rendered him independent of daughterly ministrations, though such a proceeding ran counter to one of the Colonel's most perverse and therefore most valued theories. That a woman should take a second husband had long seemed to him both natural and proper, but the reasons were obvious, to his mind at least, why a man should be more constant. Be that as it may, however, here they were, Uncle Dan and his Pollys, and to-day, of all days, the Colonel was little disposed to cavil at anything.

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 "What good manners this man has!" Pauline remarked, as Vittorio made his answer to the Signorina.

"Yes;" Uncle Dan replied. "He never slips up on that."

"Where does he get it?"

"A family trait. His father had it when he used to row me twenty-five years ago, and I've no doubt his forbears were all like that. It's a matter of race."

"A matter of race!" cried May. "Why, Uncle Dan, when that Italian in the train the other day stared us out of countenance and we asked you to do something about it, you told us it was the custom of the country!"

"That's only Uncle Dan's way of shirking his responsibilities," Pauline explained. "It's lucky for you, May, that I'm getting on in life. I don't know what you would do if you hadn't any better chaperon than Uncle Dan."

"And yet, you don't seem so very old," May remarked, rather doubtfully, tilting her golden head at a critical angle.

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 "I don't believe anybody would suspect you of being twenty-seven."

"That's a comfort," laughed Pauline, with a humorous appreciation that was like Uncle Dan's.

Pauline Beverly had not, like her sister, a reputation for beauty, yet she possessed undeniable charm. Her hair was of a sunny brown, and softly undulating; her eyes were of the same shade as her hair, and capable of a changing light, and, when she smiled, her face, soft and pure, but not brilliant in coloring, had somehow the look of a brook rippling over brown pebbles in a shady place, where the sunshine comes in threads and hints, rather than in an obliterating flood of light. The years, whose sum seemed to May so considerable, had performed their modelling very gently, conferring upon the countenance that winning quality which is the gift of those who habitually think more of others than of themselves.

They were coming in past the red sen-

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 tinel-tower of San Giorgio, May still sitting on the low steps facing the stern of the gondola. As the young girl looked past her companions, across the silvery spaces of the lagoon, her eyes grew dreamy and far-away. So marked was the phenomenon, that Uncle Dan was moved to exclaim: "A penny for your thoughts, Polly."

May started, for she was not often caught sentimentalizing. Then, with the directness which characterized her, she said: "I was wondering whether one might not perhaps find a soul here in Venice."

"A soul? What kind of a soul?"

"Oh, any sort would do, I suppose. You know Signor Firenzo told me my voice was bellissima, but that I hadn't any soul."

"Perhaps Signor Firenzo is a better judge of voices than of souls," Pauline suggested, with a confident little smile.

"A young girl like you hasn't any business with a soul," Uncle Dan de-

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 clared. "If you think you see one coming over the lagoon you had better turn round and look at the Lion of St. Mark's. He hasn't the sign of a soul, yet he's the best of good fellows, as anybody can see."

May promptly turned, and fixed her eyes upon the classic beast in question.

"I didn't know that lions had such long, straight tails," she remarked.

"The wings strike me as being more out of the common," Uncle Dan chuckled, much reassured by Polly's ready return to the judicial attitude.

"I should almost think," said Pauline, musingly, "that a lion that had wings and a taste for literature might perhaps have a soul after all!"

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HEN Vittorio was told to come for them in the evening, he had cast a significant glance at a certain radiant white cloud, billowing in the West, and said: "Speriamo"; which, in the vocabulary of the gondolier means: "Let us hope for the best and prepare for the worst." Upon which the cloud had gradually taken on more formidable proportions, until, just at dusk, it burst in a torrent of rain, which swept the Grand Canal clear of sight-seers, and sent the nightly serenaders, who usually act as magnets to the wandering gondolas, into the hotels for refuge. A band of them were established in the long, wide corridor of the Venezia, where their strong,

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 crude voices and their twanging strings reverberated rather noisily.

Wondering how it must seem to have nerves young enough to sustain such rough treatment, the Colonel abandoned his nieces to their self-inflicted ordeal, and mounted the stairs to his own familiar quarters. And there, as he closed the door behind him, he ceased to speculate upon such ephemeral matters.

He had come up, ostensibly to write some letters, but instead of doing so, he lighted a cigar, and seated himself at the window, watching the swoop of the rain along the hurrying waters of the Canal. The tide was coming in and the wind was with it. One gondola at the ferry was struggling across the current, with difficulty held to its course by the efforts of its straining oarsman. The passengers had taken refuge under the felze, or gondola hood. Impatient of the slow progress of the boat, the Colonel looked down into the hotel-garden directly beneath his windows, which

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 was drowned in a moist blur, that only seemed intensified where it focused about the electric lights. Over there again, across the Canal, stood the great Salute, showing ghostly and unreal in its massive whiteness, half obliterated by the driving rain. It would have seemed that the most perfunctory letter-writing might have been an improvement upon such a prospect as that. Yet the Colonel sat on, puffing in a desultory manner at his excellent cigar, and reflecting that another five years had gone by.

A curious thing, he was thinking to himself, how inevitably he found himself in Venice once in five years. It was not in his plan to do so. He would have been just as ready to return after an interval of two years, or of three; but, for one reason or another, he never seemed able to arrange his affairs to that end until the fifth year had come round. Somebody was sure to die and leave him executor of his will; or this or that charity of which he was treasurer

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 made a point of getting into a tight place. To-morrow was the twenty-ninth of the month;—to-morrow always was the twenty-ninth on his first arrival in Venice. Yet that, too, was the merest accident, as he assured himself with some heat. None of these things was premeditated.

He should call upon her to-morrow,—certainly. It would be a downright discourtesy to wait until they had met by chance. He wondered if she were expecting him. Probably not; she had other things to think of, especially now that her son was with her.

It would be a pleasure to see her,—her beautiful, friendly eyes, that enchanting smile, that wonderful turn of the head. As though she could ever have cared for a battered old wreck like him! And yet he knew, with an indubitable knowledge, that he should ask her again. And the answer would be the same as it had been twenty-five years ago, when she was but a three-years' widow.

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 He had been hasty, he had not sufficiently respected her past. He should have waited. And yet, when he came again, after five years, perhaps that, too, was an error of judgment. Perhaps his coming, after so long an interval, caused the revival of old memories, caused a shock which might have been avoided if he had ventured sooner. And then, when another five years had passed, he had begun to age. A man who has seen field service has not the staying powers of other men. That London doctor knew all about it in a moment. Yes, he had already begun to age, fifteen years ago. And now!

The Colonel relighted his cigar, which had gone out. How the rain kept at it! He could hear the swish of it on the wall of the house across the garden. Even Venice could be dreary.

He had never seen her anywhere else. He did not ask himself why he had refrained from seeking her out in her own home, not five hundred miles from his

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 own,—why he had always come to her here in Venice, where all her married life had been spent. After all, a man does what he must. And to-morrow he should ask her again! He did not wish to, he did not even intend to. He could resolve not to, here, in cold blood, with the disheartening rain blotting out the rose-bushes down below, and a disheartening conviction of failure blotting out his nerve and courage. But to-morrow she would rise to meet him, in her own gracious way; he should touch her beautiful, firm hand, where a single jewel shone. He thought if he could ever see another ring upon that hand, one which, having no significance of its own, might weaken the significance of that diamond, now grown old-fashioned in its low setting, there might be a chance for him. But, no; there would be but the one ring, and there would be no chance for him;—and yet he should ask her!

There was another gondola struggling across the Canal. Why should anyone

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 be out in such weather? It must be a lover, or some such sanguine person, bent, as like as not, upon a fruitless errand. The Colonel had but scant sympathy with lovers; they so rarely had any discrimination.

Yes, she would come forward, with extended hand, to meet him. He wondered whether the streak of gray on the right temple would have widened appreciably. Perhaps it would have spread itself, like a fine white film of lace, over the abundant hair. It would probably be very becoming. That was another curious thing; every time he saw her she had grown more beautiful. The years that had dealt so harshly with him had touched her only to an added grace and tenderness; experience had drawn only noble lines upon her face, and there was an ever-increasing warmth and graciousness of countenance which was infinitely finer than the bloom of youth. People made a great deal of youth, but really, when you came to think of it, what a

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Rh came, but she was so very tough that she would have made your teeth quite blunt."

"That matters not. I told you that you should always keep any one who ventured into my hut, be they tough or tender!"

"Very well, mother; the next time any one comes I shall be sure to keep them."

Early on the following morning the witch flew away, while the two girls sat laughing and talking with each other, quite forgetting all about the old witch this time. They did not notice the hours go by, but talked on, when suddenly, to their great horror, the witch stood before them.

Tania nearly fainted at the sight of the old hag, with a skeleton leg, and goodness knows what kind of a nose, it was such a very long one! But Varia was not in the least frightened; she recovered from the sudden shock which she received when she first beheld her in a moment. She rose, and taking Tania by the hand introduced her to the witch, saying,—

"You told me that if any person should come while you were out I was to keep them. I have done as you wished; this is Countess Tania, sister of Count Daniel Nathaniel."

"Very well," replied the witch. "I am glad to know you, countess. But why are you two girls sitting here with your hands folded? Get some wood and light the fire, and look alive."

They obeyed; and when all was done, the witch turned to Tania and said,—

"Get into the stove and sit on this iron tray, so that I can push you in without any trouble."


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 meagre, paltry thing it was! A man hardly began to live before he was thirty-five!

"Uncle Dan, may we come in?"

The door flew open, and two young persons, with all the disabilities of youth upon their heads, came rustling in upon the old bachelor's misanthropic reverie. Instantly the atmosphere had changed.

"It was very good fun," May remarked, as she perched upon the arm of her uncle's chair. "They shrieked  ' Margherita '  and  ' Santa Lucia '  and a lot of opera airs, till we thought we should lose our tympanums, and so we came away."

"We were in quite as much danger of losing our manners," Pauline interposed. "We sat next a delicious English girl, pretty as a picture and unresponsive as a statue, and we simply dragged her into conversation. She took us for English and was terribly shocked to find we were Americans, and not even Canadians at that. 'You don't mean to say that you

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 come from the States!' she cried, quite forgetting that she was a statue. And then May got wicked, as she always does when her patriotism is touched."

"Nonsense!" May broke in; "it isn't patriotism; it's self-respect."

"And how did you work off your self-respect?" asked Uncle Dan, deeply interested.

"I told her I thought it was very strange that English people should mistake us. That we never mistook them; we knew at a glance a person from the Isles. She rose to it like a tennis-ball, and asked what isles I referred to. 'Why, the British Isles,' I answered, innocently. And then she looked mystified, and Pauline discovered that the noise was very fatiguing, and we came away."

For half-an-hour Uncle Dan listened, highly diverted, to the chatter of the girls, and it never once occurred to him to remember the meagreness and paltriness of their condition. After they had left him, he turned to the window, feeling

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 that the dreariness without and within was a very transitory and inconsequent thing. And lo! a change had come. The influx of youth would appear to have put to flight other clouds than those of a morbid mind. The rain had altogether ceased. He could see the roses gleaming moistly in the circles of electric light. The serenaders were just pushing away in their big barge, with colored lanterns swaying in the breeze. They were beginning to sing, and their voices sounded sweet and melodious in the open air. Above the Salute the clouds were breaking away, and there were stars gleaming in the deep blue clearing.

"Have you seen the stars, Uncle Dan?" came Pauline's voice through the key-hole. "We're going to have a glorious day to-morrow!"

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HEY had been spending an hour among the wonderful glooms and gleams of St. Mark's, and now they had mounted to the high gallery that spans the space between pillar and pillar. The Colonel had looked twice at his watch, for he had an appointment with himself, so to speak, and he proposed to leave the girls to the study of the gold mosaics which they seemed inclined to take seriously. For the moment they were leaning upon the stone balustrade, looking down into the great dim spaces of the church.

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 "I wish I knew whether it was really good," said May, lifting her golden head in deprecation of a possibly misguided admiration. "It is so beautiful that I'm dreadfully afraid it is meretricious."

"It is really good," said a voice close at hand. "I think we may set our minds at rest about that."

The voice was its own passport and no one thought of taking the remark amiss. Uncle Dan who had been consulting his watch for the third time, looked up with a twinkle of good understanding, which the appearance of the speaker justified. The young man was possessed of a good figure and a good face, as well as of a good voice.

Somewhat startled, the girls turned and discovered that they had been obstructing the narrow passage.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" they both cried, as they retreated into an angle of the gallery. "You couldn't pass us by."

"I didn't particularly want to," the stranger replied, quite at his ease. "This

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 is one of the best points of view," and it was much to his credit that he did not give the obvious turn to his remark by looking at the two girls as he made it, for neither the beauty of the youthful sceptic nor the quiet distinction of her sister was likely to have been lost upon a man of his stamp. That they were sisters, unlike as they were, could not have escaped the most casual observer.

"Then you know what is good," May remarked, in perfect good faith.

"I know this is good," he answered; "and I am sure it is much too good to be interrupted."

He was at the disadvantage of holding his hat in his hand, in deference to place, so that he was unable to indicate a deference to persons by lifting it. Yet he took his leave with so good a manner that the Colonel was moved to detain him. As the stranger made his way past him, the elder man remarked: "It must be worth while to be up on architecture in this part of the world."

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 "It's worth while to be up on architecture in any part of the world," the young man replied. "Where there is nothing to see there is all the more to do."

He paused a moment, as if St. Mark's were really more interesting than his own opinions. Then: "Have you travelled much in our own West?" he asked.

"No," was the Colonel's unblushing admission; for he was a New Englander of the New Englanders and valued his own limitations.

"There's good work going on out there; it's a great field."

"But surely you are not a Westerner!" the Colonel protested.

"No; but I sometimes wish I were. It's the thing to be."

There was no challenge in his voice, yet Colonel Steele was half inclined to take umbrage at the unprejudiced statement of fact. The ease, however, with which the young man again indicated a courteous leave-taking without the aid of

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 a hat disarmed criticism, and as the Colonel watched the slowly retreating figure, he willingly accorded to the heresy the indulgence due to youthful vagaries. To be sure, he could not remember that an exaggerated estimate of the Great West had ever been a vagary of his own youth. But then, he supposed that the West had made advances since his day!

A glance at his watch changed the direction of his thoughts, and a few minutes later Vittorio was rowing him swiftly, with the tide, up the Grand Canal. Just as the noon gun roared out from the base of San Giorgio, the Colonel rang the bell of the Palazzo Darino.

She was sitting, the lady of his evening reverie, the lady of a life-long reverie, one might as truly say, just as he had hoped to find her, alone and disengaged. Two or three open letters lay upon the table beside her, but they lay there meekly, as if they knew that they must bide their time.

"Ah! Colonel Steele!"

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 She spoke his name as no one else had ever done, somehow as if it were a title of nobility, and as she came forward to meet him, the soft rustle of her garments filled him with content. He took the extended hand, and, bending above it, he noted the diamond, in its low, old-fashioned setting, gleaming there alone.

"I am glad you are faithful to Venice," she said. "I hoped you might come this year."

"And you still come every year?"

"Yes."

The white film had spread just as he had anticipated. He could see how complete it was, as she seated herself in the full light of the open window. The Colonel had sometimes been startled to find how his premonitions in regard to her had come true. One year he had said to himself: she will be paler than usual; I wonder if she has been ill. And he had found that she had been ill, and there was a fragility and pallor about her that seemed to him quite heart-breaking.

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 Again he had said to himself: she will be wearing crape as in the old times; I wonder why. And when he had come to her she had told him of her mother's death a few months previous. So to-day he had known of that lace-like whiteness of the beautiful head, and of a certain deepening of the depression of the cheek and chin, which had not been there five years ago.

"Yes," she was saying. "I don't find Venice anywhere else, and so I come over every year. Happily, I like the voyage."

The Colonel did not like the voyage but that was a painful fact which he had never felt called upon to admit.

"This year I have my boy with me," she added. "That is a great pleasure."

"And I have my nieces," he replied, deterred by a curious jealousy from pursuing the subject of the boy.

"How delightful! That is, I suppose you find it so, since you have brought them."

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 "Oh, yes; it makes quite a different thing of travelling. We came over in October. We have been wintering in Rome."

He wondered how he should put it this time. Five words usually sufficed,—five words that meant so much to him, and so little, so intolerably little to her.

"I am glad you have young people with you," she said. "We need them more and more as we grow older."

"Well, that depends," the Colonel demurred, too loyal to his Pollys, even here and now, to allow them to be regarded generically. "There are not many girls I should want to have on my hands. I think the Pollys are rather exceptional."

"What did you say the name was?"

"Polly—Polly Beverly."

"And what is the other one's name?"

"Same name. They are both Pollys. I named them myself," he added, with a quite unforeseen revival of that agreeable self-satisfaction which he never could conceal in this connection.

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 And then, to his own surprise, he found himself entering with much gusto upon the story of their christening. By the time he had finished, he felt quite toned up and invigorated.

"Tell me some more about them," she begged.

She was leaning back in her seat, serenely receptive. The Colonel, sitting opposite to her in the straight-backed chair such as he always chose, noted, with a curiously disengaged pleasure, the wonderful opaline quality of the impression she made. The soft gray folds of her dress, the still more softened gray of the hair, and the deep gray of the beautiful eyes,—none of these quiet shades was dull and fixed. A delicate play of light and shadow made them vital, as the gray of the lagoons is vital, when there are clouds before the sun, and a strange, mystic luminousness traverses their tranquil spaces. She had always reminded him of the lagoons. The association only seemed to make each more

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 exquisite and apart. And now, as he told her about his Pollys, it was with very much the same sense of perfect gratification with which he had taken them out upon the water the day before. There was also the same singular absence of the old, familiar pain and oppression.

"What are they interested in?" she asked, and there could be no doubt in the Colonel's mind that she really cared to know.

"Well; they are interested in pretty much everything, though in a different way. For instance, they are making short work of Italian. They speak better than I do, after all these years," he declared with delighted self-depreciation, "though perhaps that's not much to brag of. One of them has got the accent and the other the grammar, so they pull very well together. Then the younger one can sing like a bird."

The Colonel was warming to his subject, and the Signora, as he liked to call her, did not interrupt.

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