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 long once or it might be a single word. And what was the word? Where was it to be found?

If at that period when he sought her three years ago he had been ten times further away from her, he would have spoken to her, now he was but a few paces from her and yet he did not open his lips. Now he was simultaneously moved to anger, to weeping, and to laughter, and he neither wept nor laughed nor stormed. Where then was he to find a word that should express both anger and weeping and laughter? And yet he found it. When the head had vanished from the window and all was silent for a long time, Venik called aloud from his hiding-place “Krista!” and in that word was both anger and weeping and laughter.

He had not long to wait before the head again appeared at the window and looked up and down the street in great surprise. It looked up and down and in all directions, but because Venik was in shadow it did not see him. And Venik did not stir any more. The head after a few moments again vanished from the window. Doubtless it thought that there was some trick in it all and that it was a voice without reality. After this complete silence reigned in the first floor, perhaps Krista was dozing, perhaps she had already gone to sleep.

Venik after this crept from his lair under cover of the shadow and only determined further that he would come pretty often to trick her with his voice unless he thought better of it.

And then he wandered about the streets of Prague and wandered in his own consciousness. He wandered even in his thoughts—he wandered even in his imagination. Yet unceasingly he heard voices, laughter, songs: he saw torches and a glowing face and in the midst of it all he himself seemed to shout out “Krista!” and when he had thus shouted all was over for ever.

Then it appeared to him that he again stood before Krista’s house, and there he stood. No living soul was stirring anywhere, the house and the street were plunged in sleep—not a voice was to be heard anywhere as though that day had never been at all.

All that to-day had been, already now spoke only in Venik, it was already only an echo, though this echo was very distinct indeed and sometimes wellnigh found a voice. The torches seemed to be aflame in his bosom and a cry seemed perforce to be wrung from it as if he had to shout for the whole troop.

The next time when Krista once more sang he was again first in the theatre. This time when the curtain was furled up, the wood was not on the stage: there was a garden and in it was a


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 kinds of internal trouble; but the prayer of faith by Sister Etter put everything right, and the Lord raised her up from the couch on which she lay. She ran up and down the tabernacle praising the Lord. In her testimony she said that previously she had been so ill that it was only with difficulty she could move from her bed: from a chair in her room. She stayed a little while longer in Dallas, during which she became strengthened in spirit; soul and body, and the Lord baptised her with the Holy Ghost. She writes from St. Paul telling how well she is.

Another sister came down with the worst case of goitre we have ever seen. She had been under many physicians and a specialist, and her case was pronounced incurable. When her mother decided to bring her to Dallas, the doctor said the train journey would probably kill her. On the first night she came Sister Etter called on the name of Jesus and the disease was cured. (We notice that in almost every case Sister Etter dealt with the disease as if she was dealing with the devil himself.) At once the sister was delivered, the pain left, and she was able to exercise her swollen neck. It seemed as though the swelling subsided considerably at once, although the swelling had not all gone before she left Dallas, she is able to give a very blessed testimony. For the first time in a long time she was able to sleep peacefully, she was able to walk 32 blocks to and from the meetings every day, whereas before she came she could not walk more than two blocks, and that with difficulty.

At another time a man who looked as though he was dying, suffering internally with appendicitis, came into the meeting, the Lord not only healed his body, but saved his soul. Salvation means the double cure, and really means WHOLENESS and you cannot limit it to the part of the being, as we have often done in past times.

Sister Etter has gone to San Antonio, starting meetings there the first of January. We hear the Lord is blessedly confirming His word with signs following. Her farewell service took place on the last Sunday of the old year, and was one of the most blessed services we have ever attended. Many times while giving her message, she was so overcome with emotion she had to stop. Especially pathetic was her farewell to Bros. Bosworth and Birdsall, “these two dear boys,” as this mother in Israel called them. She appealed to all to stand by them. The power of God seemed

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114

THE

OLD

STONE MANSION.

detected annoyance in Mr. Talbot’s face, at my uncle’s pompous gratitude; certainly his look brightened up wonderfully when the set speech was over.

The breakfast bell had now sounded, and the crowd was moving toward the dining-room, bearing Ae with it. Mr. Talbot and I were thrown together, for an instant, at tbe door. He held out his hand, as if he had known me for years, asking after Rosalie. I told him that she was as well as ever now, and added how much we all thanked him for what he had done. He smiled in reply, saying he had only performed a duty, and then we parted to go to our different seats; but there was something in the smile, which kept me, during all that meal, in a flutter of strange happiness.

I was in Georgiana’s room, just before dinner, assisting my cousin to complete her toilet, and my aunt was looking magisterially on, when there was a knock at the door, and my uncle entered, redder than ever in the face and puffing with the labor of coming up stairs. He plunged down on the frail bedstead, all the chairs being occupied, till it creaked under him, exclaiming, as he mopped his brow,

“I’ve got news for you, Georgy. Who do you think this Mr. Talbot is?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, papa. But he’s handsome; and a hero: how lovely he’d look in uniform.”

I bit my lip to conceal a smile. My uncle went on.

“Pooh! pooh! All stuff about hero and regimentals. He’s the Mr. Talbot, the famous Mr. Talbot, the ablest lawyer of his years in his city, as Senator Clare has just told me.” And the handkerchief was used, this time, to fan his face. “I thought I recognized him. When I was over there, two years ago, I heard him at a public meeting; it was about the Hungarians; Kossuth, you know, was expected then; and he actually made me cry.”

“Made you cry?” said Georgiana, opening her Juno-like eyes, and laughing a light laugh of incredulity.

“Yes! Nor was I the only one. You needn’t shake your head, you puss. Do you think we old fellows have no feelings?”

The only reply was a shrug of the pretty shoulders, which were unusually bare today. For some reason, indeed, my cousin had taken great pains with her toilet. My uncle paused, as if half ashamed of his confession, and then went on.

“But this gentleman is rich too, very rich; needn’t practice if he didn’t want to. I tell you what, Georgy,” and he looked at her seriously, “you’d better give up flirting and set your cap for him.”

“I intend to,” said my cousin, gayly, rising os she spoke, “and I’ll bet you, pa, that I succeed.” She tapped his cheek with her fan. “Is it done?”

“The day you are Mrs. Talbot,” was the reply, “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars in diamonds.”

“Will you, you precious old papa?” cried Georgiana, and she fairly took his head in her hands and kissed him, a feat I had not seen her perform, in full dress, for ye^rs.

CHAPTER VI.

Georgiana carried out her threat. It gave me a new idea of her intellect, if I may call it such, to see the tact with which she adapted herself to Mr. Talbot’s tastes. Their intimacy progressed rapidly. Though he was a hero in the eyes of all the yonng ladies, and, therefore, welcomed by each with smiles, she seemed, by some art known only to herself, to be able to while him away at will. I believe they began, at last, to hate her. I own to having, more than once, been secretly annoyed at the successful nonchalance with which she would approach, when Mr. Talbot was conversing with me, make some gay remark, and finally carry him off triumphantly. There is a manner acquired by persons who live much in society, which is often more serviceable than higher mental qualities. This Georgiana possessed in perfection. Her taste in dress also was exquisite, and her means of gratifying it unlimited.

“Your cousin always looks like a picture,” he said to me, one evening, as Georgiana floated into the drawing-room, her light., voluminous robes falling cloud-like about her. “She has the rare gift of knowing precisely what will become her; and in that respect is a true artist.”

At other times he would praise what he called her feminine nature. “She seems to love all things that are beautiful,” he once said. “It is, as developed in her, a purely feminine characteristic. I often think, that, to the extent to which a woman has it, is she truly womanly. Men, instinctively, seek turmoil and strife; they delight in something to conquer; and the best of them, I believe, prefer those women who are most entirely their opposites.”

One morning, Georgiana appeared with her hair brushed back from her face, and wearing a light colored robe, that opened in front, displaying a superbly embroidered skirt: the robe was


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 "No, fair Dian; but I can act Endymion."'

"I don"t know what you mean—go away."

"Aubrey Vere, welcome to shire. Have you seen Prima Donna?"

"No, is he here? How did you like his last song in the Age?"

"His last song! Pooh! he only supplies the scandal."

"Groves," said Sir Hanway Etherington, "have you seen the newspaper this morning? Baron Crupper has tried fifteen men for horse stealing at York, and acquitted every one."

"Well then. Sir Hanway, I think his Lordship's remarkable wrong; for when a man gets a horse to suit him, if he loses it, 'tis n't so easy to suit himself again. That's the ground I stand upon."

"Well, there's a good deal in what you say, Groves. By the bye, have you let that nice house which your father used to live in?"

"No, Sir Hanway, no! I keep it, in case any

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 hum of voices. One might suppose a fête represented in this garden, and Krista sang at it while the guests amused themselves. The action on the stage was concluded by the first violin playing a solo melody which the public clapped: but Krista on the stage had to feign herself conscience-stricken by the melody and finally to fall fainting on the ground whereupon the curtain fell.

When Krista fell fainting on the ground, Venik could scarcely refrain from calling out to her. But then the public kept on clapping, the curtain rose, Krista stepped before it, as if she had never in her life fallen on the ground in a fainting fit, thanked them, smiled blandly, and as often as the curtain furled up was ready with more smiles and with more thanks. When Venik saw all this thanking, he was no longer disposed to call out to her, disdain again played around his mouth and half to the neighbour who sat beside him he audibly exclaimed, “A theatrical princess!”

His neighbour took these words for eulogy and to heighten their force, said, “Yes, a perfect queen of the theatre!” and asseverated it to himself, which was also a kind asseveration to Venik.

“Yes, a perfect queen of the theatre!” repeated Venik after him, as if he himself could heighten the force of his neighbour’s criticism by repeating it.

What then happened after this in the theatre Venik scarcely saw or heard. All that was stereotyped in his mind was that solo of the first violin from the orchestra, then how Krista sank in a fainting fit, how the curtain fell, how the curtain was raised, and how Krista had her fainting fit over in a twinkling, and was able to thank them all and to smile blandly.

When the theatre was over there was no watchword given to-night that they were to take out the horses from Krista’s carriage and drag her home.

But still Venik again posted himself by the exit from the theatre, and just where Krista had the other night stepped into her carriage: and there he waited.

There was the carriage again ready prepared, but Krista did not step into it, she told the coachman that she would go afoot, and the coach only drove home her wardrobe. She went afoot, and she did not go alone. There walked by her side a very stately young man. Krista hung on his arm and they conversed together very amicably. After them at a respectful distance followed more young men, doubtless some of those who the other day had drawn


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 thing should happen to Tom, for he's getting a very likely young man, and he'll be fittish to marry soon. That's the ground I stand upon."

All this time the Marquess of Carabas had wanted Vivian Grey twenty times, but that gentleman had not appeared. The important moment arrived, and his Lordship offered his arm to Mrs. Million, who, as the Gotha Almanack says, "takes precedence of all Archduchesses, Grand Duchesses, Duchesses, Princesses, Landgravines, Margravines, Palsgravines, &c. &c. &c."

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 her carriage in place of horses: to-day they only followed as a kind of escort or body-guard.

Along with these young fellows followed Venik and learned from their conversation both the name and rank of the person who accompanied Krista: but he did not much care about his name or his rank. Then he learnt that he escorted her almost always; that the barouche in which Krista drove was his and she drove in his barouche, even in the day-time, whenever and wherever she chose.

Now this was not a matter of indifference to Venik: when he heard it the red blood rushed to his face. But then, yet again, he affected indifference and said, half to himself half to his neighbour, “Ah! well; I knew it from the first.”

His neighbour doubtless paid scant attention to these words or to him who spoke them.

As soon as they had reached the house in which Krista dwelt, her cavalier bade her good night very heartily, kissed her hand, and made many polite bows. After this he departed, Krista entered the house and the rest dispersed to their several homes. Only Venik again was left standing just on the spot where he stood the other day.

He was again overshadowed by the shadow of the opposite houses, while the moon’s radiance fell in full lustre on Krista’s house and upon her window.

This time there was no din of voices in that house. Krista was seemingly alone. Now he could have spoken to her. But what was there to say?

While he looked thus at those windows of hers, behind which floated rich curtains, he felt as though he fain must again cry out “Krista!” Then perhaps the window would be opened and she would appear at it. But he did not call out to her, and yet the window was opened and Krista appeared at it. She looked into the sky and to a star. Then she went away from the window and Venik heard her hum to herself snatches of song, and amongst them he recognized many from the hill-side, and from the hollow tree. At this his flesh crept. Then she came to the window again, again for a moment looked toward the sky, and toward the star, and then Venik heard her humming to herself half aloud “The Orphaned Child”.

And here Venik shivered as if the cold of winter had come upon him. Was she yet orphaned, was she yet in sorrow? Did she remember? Did the gorgeous life which she now led fail


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 to satisfy her? Could he have spoken to her, could he have questioned her, could he have announced his presence, he would have learnt all and perhaps they would have found one another.

They might have found one another, they had all but found one another, and here Venik again said to himself, that he wanted her not. And once more his mind ran upon the solo of the first violin, her fainting, the curtain, her smiles, her bows, her thanks, then her escort home, their confidential conversation, the barouche, and at the end of it all, her humming melodies and the “Orphaned Child”—and out of the chaos again emerged the title “a theatrical princess”. If he had then wished to know and call her by name neatly and elegantly, he would not have shouted “Krista,” but “Oh! Theatrical Princess”, and there was humiliation to him in the expression.

So when Krista’s head once more vanished from the window and when the song and that day’s excitement was hushed for him, Venik hurried away from the spot not, however, stealthily to-day nor did he wander on the way. To-day he went direct to his temporary dwelling and on the road only “The Orphaned Child” kept buzzing in his head just as he had heard Krista hum it.

Next day he inquired for the manager of the orchestra, went to him and announced himself as a violinist and begged to be received into the orchestra. The manager gave Venik something to play over and was fully satisfied with him, and told him that he would take down his name and use his influence to have him accepted. On this Venik further begged that he might be allowed on the next performance, as if to approve himself to the public, to play that violin solo in the orchestra. The conductor gave Venik the solo to play through then and there to test him. As Venik played the conductor smiled and told him that he was satisfied with it.

And Venik also was quite satisfied.

HEN the appointed day arrived, the theatre did not differ from its ordinary appearance except perhaps that the public interest was somewhat less than heretofore. The public knew the opera, and it knew Krista’s song in it and was already accustomed to it as we accustom ourselves at last to all. Even


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 115

THB OLD STONE MANSION.

trimmed with cherry-colored ribbons, and be- < etme her magically. \

“8he looks like a French Marqoise of the last $ century,” said Mr. Talbot. “What a high-bred ^ sir! One would think she had walked ont of a $ picture by ‘Greuze.* I must go and talk to her, $ and fancy I am in the Little Trianon, in the first s years of Marie Antoinette. 1 * i

These conversations always left a pang be- 1 hind them. In vain I chided myself, in secret; > in vain I said I was envious: I could not prevent \ a feeling of pain whenever Mr. Talbot thus eulo- j gized Georgians. I, who knew her so well, could \ not understand the glamour which she seemed l to have cast over him. \

Yet there were occasions when I doubted if ! Mr. Talbot cared for her. I could not forget \ what I had overheard him say about myself, $ And his manner to me, though not the least like $ that of lovers I had read of, was such as often < to set my heart beating. It was different, at all $ times, from what it was to Georgiana. It had ^ a high and knightly bearing, an under-current $ of acknowledged sympathy, which I never ob- ^ served in his manner to her. To my cousin he $ talked of fashion, the topics of society, European $ travel, the opera, the Springs: with me his $ themes were of a loftier character; and I could ^ not but be flattered by the distinction. Art, $ literature, social progress, heroic souls, deeds $ that would live forever: these were the subjects s we discussed. Ah! how his eye kindled, how !> his voice deepened with enthusiasm, as he spoke \ of the great dead; men, who had lived, not for n their own selfish aggrandizement, but for the ^ good of mankind; martyrs and patriots, who, in ^ the cause of country or of God, had taken their s lives in their hands, and gone forth to do battle $ with the Appolyon of their age. It was at such ^ times, that, looking at the rigid mouth, and eye ij that challenged defiance, I felt that he also could $ die for what he thought the right, yes! could jl pluck his own heart out, if need be. )

But I was not foolish enough to think he loved \ me. Whenever an hour had been spent with j him peculiarly agreeable, or whenever he seemed 5 to prefer my society to Georgiana’s, I used to i •ay to myself, when I was alone in my room: ^ “Margaret Gray, don't be silly; gentlemen, even ^ the best of them, like to amuse themselves with ^ girls: you must not suppose, because Mr. Talbot $ talks to you, that he forgets you are poor. Yet, as soon as we met again, I ceased to re- \ member this. I learned to detect his footstep, $ before he was in sight; to know him, by his gait, $ when he was so far off that I could hardly dis- s tinguish him. Once or twice he had joined me, in the customary ramble, which I took, at sun¬ set, up the beach; and on these occasions he was always strangely eloquent. He seemed to give himself up to the hour and to his company, talking as if I and Nature were parts of himself. This was a silent recognition, I said to myself, that I was worthy to share his higher thoughts. And then I chided myself for saying so.

On another occasion, we sat watching the moonlight on the sea, till, in listening to his talk, I forgot the time, and was surprised and a little abashed, when Georgiana came in search of me at a late hour.

“Dear me, 11 she said, with an affectation of surprise, “you here, Maggy. I hadn’t the least notion of it, and ran down, tired out with the silly fops in the drawing-room, to look at the ocean. 11 But I knew better; I knew she had come to watch me.

Meantime a fortnight passed There were daily rides, or sailing excursions, or parties to go crabbing; mornings spent in the bowling alleys, evenings devoted to dances or charades. In one respect, our acquaintance with Mr. Tal¬ bot had been of advantage to me, it procured me a share in these pleasures. Before his arrival, everybody considered me a governess, and as my uncle never asked me to participate in the sports constantly going on, nobody else thought it worth while. But now the fact that Mr. Tal¬ bot often invited me, and the knowledge that I was not a hired dependent, procured me, almost always, a share in such amusements. I fre¬ quently heard, “Is not Miss Gray going? 11 or “We can’t do without Miss Gray,” or “Miss Gray must come on our side, or the game won’t be fair.” I was quite a different person from the plain, neglected automaten of the month before.

One day there was a crabbing party at Point Breeze, a shady promontory on the Cbincoree river, within a convenient drive of the hotel. It was a sultry morning, for a land breeze was blowing, and we had all repaired there, because, at such times it was hottest at the beach, but was comparatively cool at the Point, there being a long stretch of river and bay to the westward, which impregnated the wind with something of its own refreshing temperature.

Georgiana, too fine a lady to join in our sport, was sitting under an awning, fanning herBelf languidly, when Mr. Talbot looked up from his line.

“What do you say to a sail, Miss Elliott?” he said. “You seem dreadfully bored. Come, I will be your cavalier; a modern Cavendish, if you will; and we’ll go in search of new El Dorados.’


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 especially on this dear sister that night, and as she laid hands on sick ones and seekers, they one and all seemed to come mightly under the power of God, becoming prostrated before the Lord.

Yours in the boundless love of Jesus.

Note.—Bro. Frodsham was an editor from Bournemouth, England, visiting the meeting in Dallas—Author.

(By Carrie Judd Montgomery, Editor Triumphs of Faith, Oakland, California.)

My husband and myself are just leaving Dallas, Texas, after a most interesting time at the meetings which are being held here in this city at the large Tabernacle (recently built to take place of the tent). Mrs. Etter has been there five months holding meetings, and will remain until the first of the year, when she goes to San Antonio, Texas, for a series of meetings.

Mrs. Etter is an old-time friend of ours. When we first knew her she was in the midst of a very remarkable revival work on the Pacific coast, where many thousands were saved, and many were healed. We were delighted to meet each other again, after the lapse of many years. She extended to us a most loving welcome, and gave us seats on the platform by her side.

We have already published reports of these Dallas meetings, which we knew were reliable, but it has been a joy to attend them for ourselves, and to witness the mighty power of God convicting and converting sinners, healing sick bodies, and baptising saints with the Holy Ghost. We could only make it possible to remain for a few days, but in that length of time we saw much that we shall never forget. As we entered the Tabernacle on Saturday evening, we saw a crowd of rejoicing ones at the front, and we learned later that a deaf and dumb man, about sixty years of age, had just been saved and instantly healed by the power of God through Mrs. Etter’s command of faith, as she bade the deaf and dumb demons to depart in Jesus’ name. Another man who had been healed of deafness was pointed out to us, and as he was singing a hymn in unison with the others. with eyes closed, it was evident how well he could hear. We

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 saw one lady who had been stone deaf, but after prayer was offered, the ears which had seemed dead began to have life in. them, and she could hear loud sounds near her. Some people are healed at once, and others gradually, but Mrs. Etter feels that if they have been receptive as she has prayed “the prayer of faith” for them, that they have only to hold on in faith and continue to praise God on the authority of His Word, and the symptoms will surely pass away. There really are so many healings day by day, that only the more remarkable ones attract attention.

Mrs. Etter’s greatest concern is to have people “get right with God” in their souls, and then she tells them they will be healed. When they come to her with more desire for physical healing than for the spiritual healing, she refuses to pray for the healing of their bodies until their souls come into right relations with God. This undoubtedly is one great reason of her success, and another reason is that she believes in working for the unifying of all the members of the body of Christ, and therefore she does not preach mere theories, but holds up a living Christ, receiving all who are honest in their hearts and purposes towards Him, even if they do not yet see the truth just as she teaches it. She also avoids laying’ stress upon certain words or expressions, with which the enemy is trying to cause divisions in the body of Christ. Therefore there is no contention or strife in these meetings, but love and unity.

It is interesting to note that Mrs. Etter teaches healing in the Atonement (in the same way that we are taught by the Holy Spirit Himself many years ago). She also encourages all the saints to press on for more power from God to do the miraculous works which Jesus said believers should do in His name.

Mrs. Etter is one that speaks with no uncertain sound, and we have never seen any one else rebuke disease and demons with such Heaven-sent authority, and power. It brought a new wave of spiritual joy to our heart to hear the way in which these “cruel demons” were ordered to depart. Perhaps it is needless to say here that when people get their eyes on the instrument that God uses, instead of upon Himself, they do not receive healing. While on the other hand, those whose gaze of faith is upon the Saviour alone often receive healing, through the application in faith of the anointed handkerchiefs or tracts sent out from these meetings.

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 That one should hear of it? I make a music

That you can hear all up and down Broadway.

Glory to God! Mine are the drums of life—

After those other drums. I had it—once.

They knew I had it, and they hated me

For knowing just what they had. I had it—once!”

At that his eyes glowed and his body shook,

And it was time to go. Fernando Nash,

I saw, would not be long in going farther.

The rough resentful egoist I had known

Was now a shell. The giant had been reduced;

And the old scorn that once had been his faith

Was now a sacrificial desperation.

A year before I found him in the street

Pounding a drum and shouting for the lost,


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 He had for a long time, from his account,

Inhabited the Valley of the Shadow—

A region where so many become so few

To know, that each man there believes himself

In his peculiar darkness more alone

Than any other. However that may have been,

Fernando Nash’s darkness we may grant

Was dark enough and as peculiar, surely,

As all those who had bitten him would have had it.

I was not one of them, though I fear now

That acquiescence was a larger part

Than he conceived in me of kindliness;

And I should not have thought him outwardly

Much given to soliciting, in those days,

Attention any softer than respect—

Which was not always, or by those who feared him,


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 Conferred without a sure and small alloy

Of hate, that made the giver and gift alike

A negligible mildew to Fernando,

In whose equipment of infirmities

A place that might have held a little envy

Was overfilled with scorn. Out of his realm,

And only with a tinkler’s apprehension

Of what those unproved opuses of his

Were like to do when they began to sing,

There was no reason in eternity

For me to be distressed at his assurance

That they were all immortal. Who was I,

A hewer of wood, to say that they were not,

Or to be disaffected if they should be?

Today I cannot tell you what was in them,

Nor shall tomorrow know; for they are now,

As ashes, mute as ashes. Whether he found


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 Their early glory to be going out,

Or whether in one last fury against fate

He made an end of them, as afterwards

He would have made an end of other relics,

I do not know. The most he ever told me

Later about them was that they were dead.

And how they died, and how much better it was

For them to be where dead things ought to be—

Adding at once, that I be not mistaken,

That he had known himself to be no liar

The while he praised them. It was not for them

That he fed scorn to envy in those days,

Nor out of them so much as out of him

That envy grew. “They knew I had it—once,”

He said; and with a scowl said it again,

Like a child trying twice the bitter taste

Of an unpalatable panacea:


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 “They knew I had it—once! Do you remember

What an upstanding Ajax I was then?

And what an eye I had? I scorched ’em with it.

I scared ’em; and they knew I was a giant.

I knew it, also; and if I had known

One other thing, I should have gone down then

Upon my knees for strength—I who believed

Myself to be secure. They knew a little,

But they knew nothing of what I know now.

A year before you found what’s left of me,

That evening in the street, I should have said

My way was blank and ruinous to the end,

But there was more to be, Glory to God!

There was to be a more revealing end

Than that—an end that once had been for me

The bitterest end of all—and is not so.

For in the music I have heard since then


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 There are the drums of life. Glory to God!

I had it—once.”

So much of him was gone,

That I would hear no more. All the way home,

The restive exultation in his eyes

And in his bearing, altered and subdued,

Was like that of a dead friend out of hell,

Humbled, and hardly more than half assured

Of even his respite. There may have been a giant,

If he must have it so, but where was now

The man whom I remembered and was once

Fernando Nash? So much of him was gone,

That I should never learn, from what remained,

The story of the rest—or so I thought,

All the way home. But there was more concealed


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 Within the shell of him than I supposed—

More than I know today; though many a time

Thereafter I went back to him again,

Till I had heard enough to make me doubt

The use of doubting, for he had it—once.

I had known that, and then for years had lost him—

For all those years while he had crushed unripe

The grapes of heaven to make a wilder wine

Than earth gives even to giants who are to live

And still be giants. It may be well for men

That only few shall have the grapes of heaven

To crush. The grapes of heaven are golden grapes,

And golden dregs are the worst dregs of all—

Or so Fernando surely would have said

A year before.


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64 plant and man power run at full capacity even for a limited time.

It is, of course, impossible to say how large the net aggregate product over cost would be — counting the product in percentages of the necessary cost — in case this industrial system were allowed to work at full capacity and with free use of all the available technological knowledge. There is no safe ground for an estimate, for such a thing has never been tried, and no near approach to such a state of things is to be looked for under the existing circumstances of ownership and control. Even under the most favorable conditions of brisk times the business situation will not permit it. There will at least always be an indefinitely large allowance to be reckoned for work and substance expended on salesmanship, advertising, and competitive management designed to increase sales. This line of expenditures is a necessary part of businesslike management, although it contributes nothing to the output of goods, and in that sense it is to be counted as a necessary deduction from the net productive capacity of the industrial system as it runs. It would also be extremely difficult to make allowance for this deduction, since much of it is not recognised as such by the men in charge and does not appear on their books under any special descriptive heading. In one way and another, and for divers and various reasons, the net production of goods serviceable for human use falls considerably short of the gross output, and the gross output is always short of the productive capacity of the available plant and man power.


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 A year before I found him,

Pounding a drum and shouting to the street,

Fernando Nash heard clocks across the town

One midnight, and was forty-five years old;

And he was too far sundered from his faith

And his ambition, buried somewhere together

Behind him, to go stumbling back for them,

Only to find a shadowy grave that held

So little and so much. The barren room—

The same in which I sought him a year later—

Was not much larger than the iron bed

On which he sat; and all there was of music

About the place was in a dusty box

Of orchestrations for the janitor,

And in the competent plain face of Bach,

Calm in achievement, looking down at him

Like an incurious Titan at a worm,


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16 in the last analysis and with due allowance for a margin of tolerance it is the frame of mind of the common man that makes the foundation of society in the modern world; even though the elder statesmen continue to direct its motions from day to day by the light of those principles that were found good some time before yesterday. And the fortunes of the civilised world, for good or ill, have come to turn on the deeds of commission and of omission of these advanced peoples among whom the frame of mind of the common man is the finally conditioning circumstance in what may safely be done or left undone. The advice and consent of the common run has latterly come to be indispensable to the conduct of affairs among civilised men, somewhat in the same degree in which the community is to be accounted a civilised people. It is indispensable at least in a permissive way, at least to the extent that no line of policy can long be pursued successfully without the permissive tolerance of the common run; and the margin of tolerance in the case appears to be narrower the more alert and the more matter-of-fact the frame of mind of the common man.


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OLD

s'rous

MANSION.

117

hands, or glanced up fearfully at the clouds, and then at the long stretch of water which still separated us from the pier. I watched the approaching tempest.

I wish I could describe the spectacle. Never before had I seen such a deep purple-black in the sky, or such inky water. An ominous twilight

was all around. The birds, after skimming low down, had ﬂed frightened to their hiding-places. The wind had ﬁnally died out. Above, wild, dusky-brown clouds, rolling over and over, sped before the tempest. A foreboding hush was on everything. Suddenly, far to the west, I saw the water begin to glisten; the black sky lifted just enough to show a narrow streak of light along the horizon; and a strange, unearthly sound pervaded space, as of Nature sobbing at her approaching dissolution.

“Miss Gray," said Mr. Talbot, in quick, almost stern tones. “Here.”

I was at his side in a moment.

“The squall,” he said, rapidly, “will strikes us directly: you can see and hear it coming. Take this tiller. I mast get in the mainsail, or we shall capsize,” he continued, running forward. There was a little shriek from Georgians, but he took no notice of it “Listen to what I  say. When I cry ‘luff,' put your helm over to  the left; that is the way. Perhaps there’ll be  no necessity, but if the squall comes before I   get back, it’s the only thing that will save us. If I say, afterward, ‘down, hard down,’ jam the tiller down with all your might.”

He stood at the foot of the mast, as he spoke, and was already untying the ropes, which held the huge sail up. I could, at that moment, have  braved anything.

Down came the mainsail, clattering, Mr. Talbot pulling it in, hand over hand. A few quick, decisive knots tied it fast to the boom. The squall was now close to us, whitening the wide bay before it, roaring like the surf at high-tide in a north-easter. Mr. Talbot did not hesitate an instant, bot springing to the bow of the boat, began to let down the triangular sail, which ran from the bowsprit to the top of the mast. The canvas had half descended, and he was stooping to fasten it, when he thundered, rather than shouted, “luff, luff,” and then “down, hard down, harder.” The boat heeled over till I   thought it had upset: described a quick curve in the water; and then danced up into the very teeth of the hurricane, her bow, as it plunged into the waves, throwing the spray almost over the mast-head, and completely drenching me. For a second, and while I thought we were going over, I saw the sail nearly dragged, as I thought, out of Mr. Talbot’s hands; but he pulled it down, with the strength of a Hercules, and by a rapid, dexterous turn fastened the rope to the side of the mast: all this time his eyes never leaving me and Georgiana.

“Thank God!” he said, almost under his breath, and unconsciously, I believe. His face, lately so troubled, cleared up magically, and glancing for a moment ahead, he came back to where we sat, saying cheerfully, “Now it may blow great guns, Miss Elliott, it can’t harm us: what prodigies we shall be in the eyes of every¬ body ; we have really had an adventure. Keep the tiller a little while longer, Miss Margaret, while I improvise a shelter from the storm for your cousin.”

It was quite time, for the rain, at first descending in. a few huge drops, was now pouring in a torrent, almost beating me down. Geor¬ gians, in a minute, was housed under the sail; but by that time I was drenched through. Mr. Talbot, though in no better condition, shook his head as he saw it, and taking the tiller from me, whispered,

“You’re a brave girl, Miss Gray. But go now and get under the sail too, for you’re not used to this sort of work. Oh! never mind me,” he added, interpreting my glance. “Such an old water-dog as I am Is all the better for a drenching occasionally. The squall is past, and I’ll soon carry you into port.”

CHAPTER VII.

From that day, there was a perceptible change in Mr. Talbot’s manner toward me. I did not go to the dinner table, but obeyed his parting injunction, to take a hot drink he said he would send up, and to lie down till evening. He came up, at supper, extending both hands, in a frank, unconventional way he had when pleased.

“How glad I am to see you. What a color you have. I hope you’ve taken no cold.”

“None at all,” I said, gayly. “Nor has Georgiana either."

You relieve me,” he replied. “I was almost afraid to ask, Do you know'" he added, offering me his arm, “that, for a moment, I thought it was all over. It‘it hadn‘t been for your ready apprehension of my orders, and your quick obedience, the boat would have been upset."

"And one, or all of us, been drowned,” I replied: and I shuddered slightly. "You have never been so near death before?” he asked. Did you realize it?" “Yes! I saw from your face how it was!"

"And wasn’t you afraid?” -


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 popular enthusiasm in the end smoothes out its waves. Krista was an apparition above all dear to them but they were already habituated to it. To-day they went to the theatre pretty much from habit, not from any inward necessity, not because something drew them to it with irresistible force. Nothing that they could see and hear to-day could be any more either novel or striking. They saw and heard it already in their recollection, to-day those recollections had only to be sprinkled with a few drops of dew and then they would be tolerably revived, and ever recollection is but pale and wan beside the full-blown roses of novelty.

The theatre then had a more ordinary appearance. Among the public there was no expectation—only certainty, comfortable certainty. Just as, when we travel through a country for the second or third time we know where we ought to look out of the window and where we may spare ourselves the pains.

True, one new violinist sat yonder in the orchestra, but does that change the aspect of a theatre? Is the aspect of a country changed because there is one tree there more or one tree there less? In the orchestra! The orchestra is not the stage. On the stage we mark at once every change—but in the orchestra! Who gives so much as a passing look to that? If a young drummer is seated by the drum instead of the old one whom they buried yesterday—what of that? If a bald pate stands by the bass-fiddle who a few years before had not yet grown bald—what of that? Not a single person paid the slightest attention to his head while it was hairy, why should he pay attention to it any more, now that it is smooth and polished?

A new violinist! Plenty of them are seated in the orchestra; whether there is one more or one less concerns only the members of the orchestra, and among these perhaps only the violinists, it does not change the aspect of the theatre. True there were in the orchestra artists as good as those on the stage, but it is the fashion with the public to look only at the stage—let us piously adhere then to the fashion.

And now the curtain was furled up. When the violin solo came, Venik settled himself to his violin and played. In this solo the violinist was allowed some liberty and was not obliged to confine himself rigidly to the written score, he might improvise and he did improvise.

When Venik began to play, something thrilled the audience and caused it to cast a languid look at the orchestra and it was observed that some one different was performing to-day. Even those


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 dwlmwlwﬂllwnml

122

EARTH.—THE

WIFE.

My fears were realized. I instinctively avoided him, even turned my back, and looked away, to save my pride. So, except a stately, but studiously polite bow, when he ﬁrst caught my eye, he gave no sign of his being aware of my presence. He was the life of the party, meantime; aﬂ'able to all; but to Georgiana he was abso-

How miserably unhappy I was! But I no longer thought, with regret, of my vehement manner. A sense of injustice and cruel neglect possessed me. “Let him scorn me,” I said, bitterly. “What do I care? I told him nothing but the truth. We women are unjustly treated in all things;

lutely devoted. Once or twice, in waltzing, he and from the cradle to the grave. If I had de and she nearly ran against me; but except a ferred humbly to his opinion I might—” hasty, indifferent, “pardon me,”

there was

I stopped, with a haughty gesture. I would not.

nothing said.

suﬂ'er myself to think that I had ever dreamed

I did not want for partners; but I was abstracted in spite of myself, and was glad to

so foolish a dream. But I lay awake neverthe— less for hours; andIhad never been so unhappy,

escape early to my room.

even when a child.

(To B! conrmusn.)

EARTH. BY

08, Earth!

ANNE

0h, Earth

L. MUZZEY.  How fair, how beautiful, how grand Thou art, oh, Earth! Thou star-eyed pilgrim in that tireless band, That sails forever, with bright, shiny wings, Around the light of lights! Beloved land Of sweet and holy things! Garden of dreams! Wherein the ’prisoned soul delights to roam, Believing all that good, and lovely seems—

In the drear shadows of sin’s starless night. I‘hen the world mocks us, and we turn and ties, Tired, sick, and tempest-beaten, back to theel Oh, mother, mother Earth! After life’s feverish battle there is rest, Rest for the worn, and weary, calm and deep

In the cool hollows of thy quiet breast, Thy soul-sick children may lie down and sleep, Until the light Of Resurrection's golden morning gleams

Mountains, and rules, and woods, and crystal streams—

Holy, and bright,

Over corruption‘s darkness, and we rise, Gloriﬁed, from our dreams, 0n ﬂaming wings upborne to fairer skies.

Dim pictures of that far-off, angel home, Whose glory breaks through stars and sunset gleams: Realms of undying flow'rs, and nightless skies, Love-lighted Paradise!

Oh, blessed, blessed Earth! Lo! let us walk with soft and reverent tread Among thy thrilling beauties, sweetest Earth; IIoly and stainless Barth, Land of the spit-it’s birth, Rest of the salnted dead!

Oh, Earth! Oh, Earth! Down through thy years, like falling leaves we stray, Bceking the path that leads to truth and light, But evil things have dimmed our spirit sight, And oft we lose our way

.IIM‘I'NJ MNMMNJNIIMMIII"/I- -/--/Mr/r.////r,

THE

FISHER’S BY

Rosana the wild swelling billows Out on the lonesome sea, Up sprang the foamy white-caps Chasing the winds in glee] While the grey skies melancholy Low in their mockery bent, Like the dismal drapery of funerals, 0r coffin cercment. Light gleamed in the ﬁsher’s cottage, Streamed thro' the heavy night, Crimsoned the weary woman Waiting there sad and white— Listening the loud winds” roaring, Praying the vengeful waves To guide him in thro' the darkness, In from the sea‘s black graves.

OLABA

WIFE.

AUGUSTA.

Over the mountain of waters Struggled the ﬁsher boat, With never a hand to guide her, Never an oar to ﬂoat! Down in the soft paved temples, Naiads the vigil to keep, Sleepeth the bold ﬁsher sailor, Low in the halls of the deep. Woman! extinguish the watch-tire! Give thy strained ear rest; One there is up in Heaven Doeth all for the best. Lie down on thy lonely pillow, Ask for the dream-calm‘s spell— For down in the sea thy husband Sleepeth soundly and well!


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 tones were different. And scarcely had people listened a moment longer when they held their breath.

That violin was all at once in tears and lamentation. The hill-side and the woodland sobbed out in it, and man bewailed. And he bewailed with anguish and with wrath.

The theatre was thrilled anew, it was thrilled again and again. Its aspect was completely changed by the mere swaying of a hand. Venik had brought the public to their senses, and now he played “The Orphaned Child”.

It was a horrible outpouring of grief, and beneath it all lay a hidden tempest of emotion. People wiped away their tears, and their flesh crept.

And that violin seemed to wish to speak as follows: “Like two flower-cups, we grew together on one stalk, and thou, rapacious hand of society, hast torn away the one and I, the other, am orphaned.”

And that violin seemed to say, “Like two birds we fluttered together over the hill-side when they take counsel together of what they shall weave their nest; and thou, insatiable maw of society, didst devise a cunning springe. Thou need’st must catch my mate and I am orphaned.”

And further it seemed to say, “Two hearts we grew together side by side, and one struck root in the other, ’twas I who cherished those hearts till they were like as one, but ye have rent away the one, the roots which ye have torn out with it have left but wounds, and those which ye have not torn out anguish yet more—ye have that heart and I—I am orphaned of it.”

And then it said, “We were that sportive, laughter-loving Nature which maketh music in itself: but ye had a craving for mere craftmanship; ye outraged Nature, and Nature thus outraged has found her way hither, and calls aloud in me because I am orphaned.”

And yet again it said, “Faith have ye expunged out of my life, and what exotics have ye planted there instead? Who of you dares still to submit his prayers to Heaven, when ye have plucked the heart out of my breast for life? But I indeed have a right to tears and bitter accusations and wrath and cursing, and I fling my curse upon you—I hate you and I curse you—I, only an orphaned child.”

And much more in the like strain did that violin say to them, and the public heard it and understood it, trembled, and wept salt tears. It was like a trumpet-call to judgment; an invisible


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 hand wrote the words of fate, and the words were comprehensible to all. The audience half rose from their places, to see who it was that could thus speak with his strings, and their hearts heaved with one common emotion. He who but a little moment before was last in the theatre was now first. He singly had changed the whole aspect of the theatre—changed, nay, revolutionized it. They were but simple tones, but they crashed and sawed. The public swayed the head in one common movement, it seethed in one common turmoil of feeling, but it was silent. That silence was ominous.

And how passed it on the stage? On the stage was a garden and in it a gay company.

When Krista heard that melody, she left her gay companions, ran across the stage even to the footlights, ran even to the orchestra, and staggered back amongst her gay company. But it was not given her to rest there. She sprang to her feet once more, wrung both her hands, raised them clasped to heaven, then pressed them to her heart, then tore over the stage like one distraught, then seemed to shrink cowering into herself, then again raised herself to her feet with an effort as if she wished to retain her self-command, but in that over-tension of the nerves her strength seemed shattered at a single blow, she uttered a shriek which cleft every heart in twain and sank on the ground all at once, crushed and broken—sunk in a last and deadly faint.

If it was the mimic art, it was past all conception perfect; if it was the mimic art it seemed as though her every gesture had been fashioned by the Creator of the world himself.

So she remained lying and Venik still played on, and the public was carried away by the perfect acting of Krista, and was wrought almost beside itself by the perfect playing of Venik.

Thus they played together once again. The curtain remained for a moment still lifted, and when Venik concluded, it fell. And here arose such a clamour in the theatre, such a tempest of excitement, as was never before seen or heard in any theatre.

The public was by a single touch driven beside itself.

The curtain rose but Krista lay there still, she did not thank them, she did not smile upon them.

The curtain fell, but the public stormed on. And, hereupon, those in the orchestra told Venik that the applause belonged to him, and that he ought to turn toward the public and express his thanks. Venik turned, thanked them and smiled, thanked them and smiled also in the name of Krista.


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 Still the public wished to see Krista again, and here those in the orchestra told Venik that he must hie on to the stage that he and Krista might express their thanks together. They lifted him quite on to the stage, and when the curtain rose, the public could perceive that Venik knelt beside Krista, he cried “Krista! Krista!” but that was inaudible to the public because of its own tremendous clamour.

Then the curtain fell and all at once it seemed as though a knife had stabbed the public, and as though each man felt that knife in his own breast.

Then some one stepped forward before the curtain and announced that Krista had fallen in an actual fainting fit, and in the public silence succeeded to the storm.

Then no one stepped forward again before the curtain, but something like a flash of lightning ran through the public and with that lightning a hoarse thunder-peal: “Krista is dead!”

After this lightning-stroke the public was stupefied.

Meanwhile on the stage Venik had started back from Krista and now wandered over the stage just as Krista had done a little while before. Then he again knelt beside her and thus remained kneeling. They brought Krista round, physicians hastened to her and vaguely stated that there might yet be hope of her recovery. Krista raised her eyes, seemed to whisper something, seemed to seek some one’s hand and no one understood it all.

Venik cried out “Krista! Krista!” and Krista seemed to collect her ebbing strength into one ray of light, fixed both her eyes on Venik, fixed them on him with a smile and said, “We have found each other at last!”

Venik knelt as if in a dreadful ecstasy and said, “Krista! Krista! we have found each other.”

Then they carried her away from the stage, out into the open air, to the carriage, and Venik accompanied her. He was seated in the carriage before they placed her in it, and when they laid her there he took her in his arms, and he held her softly and warmly so that she might have been upon a bed of roses; he held her to his heart, his breath mingled itself with hers, his eyes intercepted the rays of light which fell from hers, and at intervals as if from the very depths of his soul, re-echoed the words, “Krista, we have found one another.” But now it was as though Krista could speak no more in words, her spirit spoke only by a glance and by a smile, and in that glance was a smile.


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 And yet once again she forced herself to speak, “I knew that thou wouldst come but I did not expect thee thus.”

The carriage drove along at a slow pace. It was in solemn pomp that Krista drove home to-day and yet she smiled. Her smile this time belonged to one alone, it was genuine and came from the heart, it was the reflection of her whole being, of her whole life, but of a life which already flickered in the socket. Krista knew it. Venik guessed it too well, and cried out, “Krista, Krista, we shall yet tell one another all.”

“Salute the hollow tree,” said Krista, “I wished to have found thee there, thou hast been beforehand with me—’tis better thus.” The carriage stopped before Krista’s door, Venik lifted her in his arms, bore her to her chamber, there laid her on her bed and Krista still sought his face with her hand. And her own face was smiling, though now her eyes grew cold, and fixed; her whole being already ceased to speak, and she moved no more. Venik again knelt by her side, but she was already speechless.

The public dispersed from the theatre, many walked up and down before Krista’s dwelling and spoke about her and about the violin-player, and over Prague the news flew like wild-fire that Krista was dead.

The storm now emptied itself out of the theatre into the town and as it enlarged its area, diminished somewhat of its tragic force and vehemence.

“It was a stroke”, some whispered. “She fell unfortunately”, said others. But it never occurred to any one that there was any connection between Krista’s death and Venik’s playing, or indeed between Krista and Venik. When they asked him Venik assented, “It was an unfortunate fall”, he said.

Then Venik was alone in the chamber of death. At Krista’s head the waxen tapers were burning, and they and Venik were the only watchers. And here Venik looked musingly at those well-loved features. Ah! how like they were to their living self—how fair they were and the lips scarce cold, as though they might yet move in speech. It was not like the sleep of death, it was not like sleep at all. But just as though she had closed her eyes in sportive jest and pursued her lips together to simulate an easy slumber, and could throw away the mask and thaw the wells of speech whenever she choose.

Venik seemed to see her once again on her couch of leaves and moss within the hollow tree. His hand had strewn the couch of leaves and moss in the old days—the couch from which she fled


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, the son of Mendel, was born in Dessau in 1728, and died in Berlin in 1786. His father was poor, and he himself was of a weak constitution. But his stunted form was animated by a strenuous spirit. After a boyhood passed under conditions which did little to stimulate his dawning aspirations, Mendelssohn resolved to follow his teacher Fränkel to Berlin. He trudged the whole way on foot, and was all but refused admission into the Prussian capital, where he was destined to produce so profound an impression. In Berlin his struggle with poverty continued, but his condition was


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 so faithlessly. And his hand also had strewn the couch on which she lay to-day, but she was not truant now.

Then Venik questioned the shade of her—the lost one. “Krista, why didst thou desert me in the old days?” But Krista’s lips were mute and her shadow answered not, and on her face she smiled the same cold smile. And Venik’s tongue faltered his reproaches—“Only once in the old days thou didst desert me.” But the dead Krista treated both his questions and his repinings with the same icy calm and smiled the same cold smile which froze the life-blood within him.

And he gazed at the fair corpse again and sighed and wondered. “Was it to sleep in fruitless beauty on a gilded couch and silken cushions that thou didst leave so recklessly my couch of moss and leaves?”

And then Venik whispered to himself that he would carry her away by stealth and lay her on the couch of moss and leaves and then perhaps she would awaken—perhaps she would rise once more. And then he thought that it would be easier to go to the hollow tree, bring away the leaves and moss, and strew it here, and then perhaps she might awaken. But, however he planned and plotted, Krista treated all his day-dreams with the same icy calm and smiled the same cold smile as though she wished to say, “I am contented with everything thou dost”, or again just as though she said, “Fool, fool, all is over, I am well-cared-for now.”

Then Krista in that calm unnatural repose was such a riddle to him that he turned away and vowed that he would strive to unriddle it no more. He turned away and taking his violin in his hand examined it all over inch by inch to see where lay that secret source whence had issued words so shrewdly tempered that they had smitten Krista to the death, and then as if to solve the secret his fingers closed idly round the bow and he swept it gently across the strings. But only as though he coaxed and stroked them lest they should utter their words of death anew, only just as Krista had done that night when stepping to the window and gazing at the evening star, she had sung half whispering, half aloud “The Orphaned Child”.

And Venik, too, stepped to that open window and looked toward the heaven, looked wellnigh in the same direction as did Krista ere death had robbed her of the light for ever. And his strings sighed out in whispers “The Orphaned Child”. Did Krista listen as she used to listen in the old days? He turned to look at her once more and she smiled as smoothly as before and seemed to


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 say, “I know all, but what of that?” She took all his questionings and all his musings so lightly that his questions died away upon his lips.

Then he stroked her hair just as in the old days he had stroked it by the streamlet under the willows when the cuckoo cuckooed to them, and Krista smiled placidly even at this and seemed to say, “How soft your hand is.” And he kissed her eyeballs but now no salt tears oozed from under the heavy eyelids, and he kissed her on the mouth but now, alas! it chilled all kissing that fell upon it. And do what he would Krista repulsed him not, at everything she only smiled, to everything she made but one response, “I am contented with everything thou dost.”

She smiled the same cold smile whatever Venik did or thought. Be it subtle questioning, be it doubting, be it the outpouring of affliction—for it all she had but one cold smile.

Then he took his violin into his hands again and turning towards Krista with it he said, “A little while ago these strings breathed life, now only the icy wind of death streams from them. Oh! Krista, a little while ago they charmed thee to my side, now they have murdered thee and driven thee away for ever.” And Krista ever smiled the same cold smile.

And she still smiled when they brought her coffin and when they laid her to rest in it on a bed of flowers. And when the singers came with whom in times gone by she had wrought her audience to a frenzy of delight, and when above her pealed the funeral dirge its last farewell she smiled the same cold smile. And she smiled when priests came and above her coffin pattered prayers which sounded already like the rattling of the clods of earth upon its lid. And still she smiled when the lid was laid upon the coffin, even when that lid had all but closed upon her, even when in one last lingering gleam the light of this world died away into eternal darkness. The lid concealed her face and concealed her smile. And Venik in spirit saw her still smile on, even in the coffin, even in the carriage in which they laid her.

Now when he saw the horses gird to and move away with her he would gladly have unyoked them and himself drawn Krista to her burial. Now it seemed a shameful thing to leave it to horses to draw her to her last resting-place, just as in her hour of triumph it had seemed a shameful thing that the people should yoke themselves to her car. The people paced behind her coffin. There was a countless multitude and Venik was but one of them, and felt the oppressive presence of that crowd. Oh! that he could


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to a large extent replaced Hebrew as the literary language of the Jews, but Hebrew continued the language of prayer. As a mere literary form, Rabbinic Hebrew retained a strong hold on the Jews; as a vehicle of devotional feeling, Hebrew reigned supreme. The earliest additions to the fixed liturgy of the Synagogue were prose-poems. They were “Occasional Prayers” composed by the precentor for a special occasion. An appropriate melody or chant accompanied the new hymn, and if the poem and melody met the popular taste, both won a permanent place in the local liturgy. The hymns were unrhymed and unmetrical, but they may have been written in the form of alpha-


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Sir Willie of the Valley

HE Freud craze has passed its apogee—it may even be possible soon to tell one's dreams in mixed company without a nervous blush. While it lasted, I must admit that it was rather wearing. Between Œdipus and the toddle-top we hardly knew where we were. I, for one, shall never forget the nasty shock I got on discovering that a perfectly ingenuous dream, the clou of which was my purchase of an oversize Jersey heifer, revealed me, past possibility of error, the prey of a furious suppressed desire to elope with my great-great-aunt. But now it is all blowing over and our nicest people are going back to mental cruelty as the smarter ground for divorce. Those of us who still have complexes are doing their best to tuck the short ends under. In spite of the resolutions passed by the National Convention of Psychoanalysts, the ego-line is dropping steadily toward the ankles.

All the same, there is no use denying that the movement did a lot of us a whole lot of good. I hate going around denying things; anyway—I haven't a firm enough voice and it merely makes people who don't know me well think I'm spiteful. If the Freud wave didn't get us all out into the healthy open air like croquet, or foster the study of Chinese like this new Mah-Jong game you play with illustrated laundry checks, it provided enough conversation for the more serious among our hostesses, so that if you laid, side by side, every one of them who liked to serve sparkling white grape juice at dinner parties from a full-topped bottle with a napkin wound around its tummy to hide the label and then tittered after one's first eager sip, “Oh, Mr. Whippet, I'm so sorry it isn't champagne!”—if you boiled each one of these worthy ladies in oil, I say, and then laid them out, permanent wave by permanent wave, they would probably describe a curve that might go three and a half times around the space of ground the Woolworth Building would cover if it fell down. I think this is saying a good deal for psychoanalysis.

Besides, hasn't my ex-roommate, William McKinley Keeler, had his copy of Professor Freud's Dream Book bound in royal green ooze leather with one of those white parchment slip-covers over it that progressive publishers favor as a sort of hyperbolical wound-stripe in free literature's present battle with Mr. Sumner? If a fellow like Willie has enough respect for the interpretation of dreams, it ought to prove something, shouldn't it? It shouldn't? Well, wait and see!

ILLIAM McKINLEY KEELER—here, by a clever transition, we slip into the real story—William McKinley Keeler, I repeat, has, naturally, never been known as anything but “Willie” since he broke away from his teether. And, almost as much of course, he never was much at baseball. Football was another article—the minute the special wires began clicking off all the wrong plays to the various graduates' clubs of our mutual Alma Mater in late November, the amateur strategy boards around the ticker began to take vicious bites at their cigars and murmur prayerfully, “If only Keeler breaks loose!” He was little and light, but fast as a prairie rabbit and tricky as a roulette wheel—the mildest looking little quarterback that ever gave a tackler a foot and then took it away from him before he could really grab it.

S a quarterback he functioned, there was no denying it, but as soon as he took off his funny clothes his impressiveness vanished. Flappers who retired to the dressing-room for one last conference with powder-puff, hip-flask, and a pocket copy of “Racy Yarns” before meeting Willie were guilty of serious miscueage. At a dance Willie was about as spectacular as a mechanical mouse. His most sophisticated bon mot was an “Oh, yes, yes!”

In habits simple, in disposition retiring, in outlook upon existence serious—such was Willie. Not lumpish at all, but almost obtrusively quiet. The only queer taste I ever knew him to have was an enthusiasm for history. In other courses his marks were merely respectable, but in history he soared. Our room was simply filthy with books on his pet subject. He ran to the ones that are all dressed up in purple and gold, like boxes of drug-store candy, for his lighter moments—“Six Sirens of Fontainebleau,” “Napoleon, World-Famous Lover, in Camp and Court,” these things. I believe he actually wanted to become a professor when friends rescued him and started him out with the Universal Emulsifying Company after the war.

He settled down soon enough, though, and started to make good right away. The emulsifying business recovered from the war depression quicker than most of the others and by the middle of 1920 Willie was able to afford a set of medieval source books in half-morocco. In April, 1921, he met Sheila Winslow; in October he got a little glass office all to himself and his name on the sign-board down-stairs, and on December 27, 1921, he was proposing marriage to Sheila for the fifteenth time.

Of Sheila it is only necessary to remark that her hair and skirts are exactly the right length now—and that two years ago they were just the right length for then. She is and was very personable and she was historic. Each débutante year produces a new crop of Sheilas—about three in the hundred—and they are the ones who introduce monkey-fur, pogo-sticks, and the Chicago to the rest of the world.

Now that they say the Prince of Wales is matching pearls for his little engagement necklace, I don't really know of anybody extant, marriage to whom would give Sheila a genuine thrill. Willie Keeler had about as much chance with her, to the casual observer, as a Plymouth Rock would have of capturing a flamingo by uttering plaintive cries at it from the chicken-house roof.

She liked him, of course—he was far too much the faithful Fido for her not to. He could fetch and carry admirably and she could make him play dead as dead. But his nose was the wrong shape and his eyes that ordinary sort of brown, and as for romance and excitement—to her, William was just about as exciting as a chocolate malted milk. All of which things Willie, who was not stupid, perceived. But it was too late for him to change his nose or his eyes, and as for being exciting—he wanted to be most desperately, but she always got him so excited first whenever he saw her that he never had a chance.

She had listened to his proposal rather abstractedly, only paying attention when the time came for the usual sisterly replies. Internally she was wondering just where she was going from there. She made her début as a baby vampire and graduated swiftly into the expert class of catch-as-catch-can Prom favorites. For two years she had been as prominent in this rôle as a saxophone in a modern jazz band. Now the same part of her mind that told her when to wear English sport stockings informed her that it was time to revamp. Flapperism was punctured. She would have to look out for a new incarnation and make it snappy, at that, before the rest of the world caught up with her.

“Well, anyhow,” the pitiful Willie pleaded, “anyhow, Sheila, tell me there isn't anybody else!”

“Why, Willie, of course not! I just don't want to get married.” She let her voice be kind.

A trusted tooth that had been bothering Willie at intervals for the last three days jumped unexpectedly as if under a red-hot poker.

“Well—there's that big George Follett—he's around here all the time—” Willie persisted, his voice unusually peevish.

Sheila frowned. That was tactless of Willie. Not that she thought she intended to marry George Follett—but he was a person who might fit in well with her new rôle. A big, soft, handsome thirty-year-old, with a too pleasant voice and too pinky nails, who always managed to bring the conversation daringly around to semi-medical topics—Freud—birth-control—faith healing; a man who would say, “Dear lady,” who had Lived, who so frequently informed you that he had Lived, and yet—a change—a different flavor—a certain attraction. She considered him, he Faced Facts so firmly. An enemy might have said that those facts lay always somehow on the fringes of sex and that he not only Faced them continually but even dragged them out when nobody else would have found them there to Face—a slick, blond collie never weary of exhuming the same disreputable bone. Still—she saw herself in her new phase, a Free Soul, with a tired, wise smile, Facing Facts.

Again Willie interrupted. “I'm always seeing him around here,” he continued. The tooth hurt again. “And I don't like his looks, not a little bit!” he ended with a mouselike growl.

Sheila bounced up from beside him at once. This was sheer rebellion.

“You must really allow me to choose my own friends, Willie, in spite of your approval or disapproval—” she began. She continued at length and things came to their usual conclusion. Willie apologetic, Sheila graciously forgiving. But when he had gone, after being informed that, as a mark of special favor, he might be allowed to take her out to tea the following Saturday, Sheila found herself a little disturbed. There was no doubt about it—Willie's apologies had been much less abject than usual. He had even been almost noisy a couple of times. Not knowing about his tooth, the cause of it all, she couldn't quite decide whether she were pleased or annoyed. She dressed for dinner and the theater with George Follett with less care than usual, still wondering.

Willie, on the contrary, was quite sure of his mental state. He was annoyed. He was tremendously annoyed. He was raging. The tooth, now definitely painful, accentuated his rage. He bit on it, growling.

“Nice way for a girl to treat you—thinks I'll stand it forever—play messenger boy—that bum, 'Duke' Follett, ouch!” A little devil was jumping up and down on his tooth with hot spiked shoes. He informed a lamp-post that he wouldn't stand it any longer. He informed a plate-glass window that this time was the last time, that she'd marry him or he'd quit, break off, make it final. Then the devil in his tooth was joined by companions and he spent the rest of the evening devising medieval torments for big blond men who slicked their hair, till at last he fell into an uneasy sleep.

ELL, well,” said the dentist. “This will have to come out, Mr. Keeler,” and he rattled a couple of his little steel jackstraws together in gay anticipation.

“Come out?” said Willie, rather faintly, “come out right now?”

“Oh, yes—just open, if you please—that's it, yes. We'll have it out in a jiffy, it won't take long or hurt—very much.” The dentist's voice punctuated the sentence with a long and ominous dash before the last two words.

Willie gargled, waving his hands. The dentist bent an attentive ear.

“You have an important appointment late in the afternoon, Mr. Keeler? Oh, that will be quite all right. I shall give you gas.” He offered the last suggestion to Willie like a pair of new rompers. Then his face grew sterner.

“Oh, Miss Smith!” he called, politely.

A spectacled, ineffably aseptic young woman in white appeared.

“You see?” the dentist muttered, flashing his little mirror around and around Willie's mouth. “A fine specimen—really a typical case—far advanced—”

Miss Smith made approving sounds. Willie's nervousness increased. He had not been able to sleep much the night before and a combination of reading “Mace and Lance in Early Aquitaine” through the small hours to the orchestral accompaniment of his toothache and a hard morning at the office had left his mind rather blurred. Odd scraps of reading went jigging through his heaad—Fulkes Plantagenet—basnets—arms varied with a fesse—no, that wasn't right—Sheila—tea—meet her at 4:30, no matter what happened—what on earth was going to happen?—gas—he had never had gas.

Miss Smith was fitting something funny over his face. “Now, just take it easy, Mr. Keeler!” the dentist said and smiled. Willie fixed his eyes on that smile. As he breathed it grew larger, larger, blotted out the world.

HE rain had been falling for hours and seemed prepared to continue falling for hours more. He cursed it anew in a soft and deadly whisper, wriggling his muscles as best he could in the odd, metallic garments that covered him like a suit of iron scales, for the comfort of feeling that they were still alive. He lay in a dismal puddle and wet drops trickled continually down his back from the bush above that concealed him. And yet he was not unhappy. Night had long fallen—there was only a little while left to wait.

He reviewed his plans in his mind—they were impeccable. The wedding feast must be at its drunken height by now—if a dozen of the castle garrison were even half sober it would be a marvel. His robber-comrades, he knew, lay hidden within three steps of the great gate—the guards of that very gate he had bought and paid for. There remained but for him, Guillaume de la Vallée, to give the signal.

They had thought to take the girl away from him by the strong hand—that old white ferret, her father, these cubs, her brothers, had thought to marry her to the duke in his very teeth. He stretched his arms out wide with an enormous arrogance. They had not known him. To-night they should know him indeed.

She was beautiful as a golden picture before altar candles. She was tender and gentle as an apple-tree in its first blossoming. Her voice had a proud and gallant accent. They would love each other so.

No other man under heaven should take her from him while he had hands!

It was time, now. He raised himself cautiously from his lurking place, flattened himself against the castle wall, peered up. It was huge above him, a tall, enormous blackness. He smiled. That impregnable castle! And, far up, the little window to which he would climb, spiderwise, up and up, dagger in teeth, then in at last, triumphant, like a bee with a long sharp sting in the heart of a violated flower.

He tested all his muscles—they were ready and strong. He began to climb.

Before he would have thought it possible, he was at the window-ledge. He swung himself up upon it, rested. His hand went out to the bars. Yes, they had been sawn through—he could bend them aside quite easily. He smiled again—his plans been well considered—they would not fail.

Noiselessly he squeezed through the space left by pushing the bars aside and let himself down into the room. Now he was behind a tapestry. Chinks of light came through it, and a murmur of voices. He crept to a little hole in the hanging about the height of his eye. He peered through it, listening, not breathing.

A fine sight on the other side of the tapestry! A long oak table lit by two branched silver candlesticks and on it three bags of gold, one so crammed that it slumped on its side and spilled a bright heap of coins. At the end of the table three people. A shrinking girl in bride's white, her eyes full of terror. A gross, red-faced man in rich clothing, white-haired, his nostrils distended like the nostrils of a hungry fox, as his puffy hand lay cherishingly on one of the bags, her father. Lounging in a chair at the girl's side, his pink face flushed with love and liquor, his hand paddling the girl's wrist with desirous fingers, magnificent in half-armor, the big blond duke.

Guillaume de la Vallée made a sucking sound with his lips. He crouched away a little from where he had been standing and with his dagger quietly slit the tapestry from top to bottom.

The three at the table were too absorbed in their own affairs to notice the little sound. The duke was speaking.

“Well, there is the coin, good father-in-law!” he said with his roaring laugh. The old man whimpered with pleasure; his other hand stretched out to the other bags.

“I thank you, my lord, I thank you!” he whined, unpleasingly.

“Oh, 'tis little!” The duke waved his hand in the air. His eyes burned at his bride. Behind the tapestry Guillaume de la Vallée drew his sword. His left hand went down to his side for his hunting-horn.

“'Tis nothing,” the duke repeated. “Oh, a price, a good price—but the article pleases me!” His hand clamped down on the girl's wrist.

“And now I shall take seizin!” he said, crushing her to him.

“Guillaume!” sobbed the girl. “Guillaume!”

The duke shook with laughter. “Guillaume is biting his nails in his valley!” he boomed.

ROM behind the tapestry, sudden as the trumpet of Judgment, came the long and shaking blast of a hunting-horn.

“I am here, my lord duke!” said Guillaume de la Vallée in a snarling cry, and stepped through the slit in the tapestry.

The duke had time to draw his sword, but that was all. It did not avail him greatly.

When the battle-fit passed from Guillaume, he was standing beside the table, wiping his sword. The duke lay slack on the floor, his dead mouth grinning. From the lower parts of the castle shouts came, disorderly, victorious, “''La Vallée! Bon Dieu pour la Vallée!'' Guillaume! Guillaume!”

“This castle is mine, it seems,” said Guillaume, half to himself.

The old man at the table made no reply. He sat there stupefied, whimpering, his arms embracing the bags of gold.

“And you are mine,” said Guillaume and smiled at her. And now she, too, was smiling.

Avoiding the blood on the floor with a considerate daintiness, Guillaume de la Vallée stepped over his foe's body and took his lady into his arms.

ILLIAM McKINLEY KEELER was laughing as he had never laughed before. “Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho!” he laughed. “What a funny dream! What a funny dream! What a fu—”

Then he stopped short, abashed by his dentist's serious gaze

“All over, Mr. Keeler!” said the latter with professional heartiness. “Feel happy?” and he achieved a painful smile.

The sentence struck Willie as the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. He laughed till his sides ached. When the fit had passed,

“Now rinse!” said the dentist, sternly.

Willie rinsed, sputtering. “Can I—can I see it?” he managed to ejaculate at last.

The dentist held up an unpleasant object severely between his prongs.

“Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho! As little as that and the place in my mouth feels as big as the subway!” giggled Willie and shook.

Miss Smith came in. “Mrs. Winkle, Doctor,” she murmured, and Willie perceived that it was time for him to go.

He had never been much of a drinker and so found it hard to understand the condition that overtook him as soon as he was out on the street again. It was not so much light-headedness as light-leggedness. His legs felt as light as balloons and extremely brittle. His feet seemed rather uncertain of just where they meant to go and he was still oppressed by an aching realization of the utter absurdity of the cosmos. A traffic policeman's gesture in halting traffic struck him as being so intensely humorous that he had to lean up against the side of a building to recover himself, to the profound disapproval of an earnest old lady who sniffed for the taint of rum as she passed by.

Fantastic thoughts came to his well-ordered mind—he was going to take Sheila to tea, and he tittered as he thought of it. He was very, very sensible—the most sensible man in the world.

He arrived at Sheila's door in a taxi with one of those dissipated-looking, pajamaed French dolls that had just then begun to come into favor dandled in his arms. The laughter had begun to wear off somewhat and his jaw hurt confoundedly, but the lightness in his legs persisted

The maid at the door looked dubious, but he brushed her aside as he had always wanted to brush people aside and never been able except on the football field and in that funny dream of his in the dentist's chair. “Going take her to tea!” he explained with unnecessary vigor and heard a muffled giggle as the maid disappeared. He mounted the stairs very firmly—if he did not put his feet down heavily he was not quite sure where they would go.

E stumbled into the living-room. Sheila was there, hatted and ready to go out, and so was George Follett. They seemed surprised to see him, but the obviousness of their surprise did not at first annoy him—it was all just part of the humor of the world.

“H'lo, Sheila!” he almost whooped, then, condescendingly, “H'lo, Follett! How's all the little psycheses psyching?” Then, turning back to Sheila, “Christmas Gift!” he cried and chucked the disreputable doll into her arms as neatly as he had ever thrown a forward pass.

“Why, thank you, Willie! For me? How lovely!” said Sheila automatically, but her eyes were very puzzled.

“But, really—” she began.

“Really and truly?” said Willie, imbecilically, “Really and truly, Sheila?” He emitted a long and whistling laugh.

“Why, Willie Keeler!” said Sheila, dropping the doll, her voice wavering between anger, shame and a growing interest.

“Had tooth out,” Willie explained. The recollection devoured him with merriment. Besides, he was amusing Sheila. He exaggerated what needed no exaggeration. “Dentist in nice white coat—gay me laughing gas—Oh! Ho! Ho!”

“Laughing gas! said Sheila tartly, “Laughing water, you mean! Why, Willie, you're as boiled as—”

But here George Follett did his best to take charge of the situation. He snapped his teeth together with a capable click. “Leave him to me—I've handled men when they were like that before,” he commanded the astonished Sheila in a brisk undertone, then took three paces forward with military precision and confronted Willie.

“Look here, Keeler!” he began, sticking out his jaw.

“Well, Follett?” said Willie, giggling, and this time Sheila giggled too.

Then Follett lost his smooth, bland temper completely. “Don't get funny with me, my man!” he barked like a terrier. “You're insulting—that's what you are—insulting and gauche! To come to a lady's house in this condition—uninvited. She doesn't want to see you—she's going out with me! Go home and sleep it off!”

“George Follett!” Sheila began in a raging whisper and then stopped suddenly, silenced by what was happening to Willie's face. All the color drained out of it and left it white and pinched. The mild fury of laughter that had shaken him was gone as suddenly. When he spoke again it was in a harsh thick voice she did not recognize.

“See here!” he said slowly, breathing. “What do you mean? I am taking Miss Winslow to tea this afternoon, I believe.”

Follett laughed in his face, looking down at him.

“Not this afternoon,' he condescended to explain. “Though I must say I can't blame you for mixing your dates—the state you're in! This afternoon Miss Winslow has promised to come with me to attend a little study group some of us are forming to dig into the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams. Come, Sheila.” He made as if to brush Willie aside. But Willie was very much in the way.

“Dreams,” said Willie, reflectively. He stared at Follett, measuring him as he had often measured a charging end. “I had a funny dream a little while ago,” he said, as if to himself. His fists balled up.

“Oh, go home!” said Follett, exasperated, and put his hand on Willie's shoulder.

“Leggo of me, you big bum!” yelped Willie at the touch, and his voice was the strained fierce voice of a quarterback calling a signal.

“Get out! You don't belong here!” said Follett, breathing through his nose.

“I am here, my lord duke—and I stay here!” said Willie, rather dreamily. The big man pushed him.

“Wuff!” said George Follett, wholeheartedly, and crashed to the floor, his breath shaken out of him by Willie's sudden tackle. He rolled over twice and started to stumble to his feet. “Come on!” yipped Willie. “Come on!” and danced in front of him like a wasp. “Come on, my lord duke—ah, my lord—” and his small hard fist connected with Follett's chin and the latter fell over a chair and went down for the second time.

“Nuff?” said Willie, dangerously, a little later, his fists waving over the flabby bulk of his fallen foe.

“Yeah,” said Follett, briefly, feeling his mouth with his hand. “Lemme up, you little devil!” There were tears in his soulful eyes.

“All right,” said Willie, magnanimously, and Follett scrambled to his feet. He left without another word or a backward glance.

ILLIE trod behind him to the door, strutting like a game-cock. Then he turned back to Sheila. She was crumpled on the couch. The sight stirred little pity in Sir Willie of the Valley.

“Sorry I had to—um—chastise that—er—big bum in your living-room,” he remarked with grandeur. “Apologize. G'by!”

“Willie!” moaned Sheila, unbelievingly, but Willie's heart was of marble. “No use. All over,” he proceeded dejectedly. “You're through with me. I know. All right—you're through. Maybe better that way. Break a date with me to go to psycho-psychopathic séance with your friend, the stuffed shirt. Think I'm drunk when I come in here—with toothache—after operation—” His voice was nobly pathetic, nobly renunciatory. “G'by!” He marched to the door.

“Willie!” said Sheila piteously, a very hurt child.

“Too late, g'by!” Willie flung over his shoulder

“Wil-lie! Willie dear! Oh, Willie, come back!” said Sheila with a gulping sob, her arms stretched out to him.

He came back.

Some half an hour later he roused sufficiently from bliss to apologize once more for his treatment of Mr. Follett.

“Can't think what got into me, darling,” he began. “But his voice—and the way he acted—just as if you belonged to him—made me so mad.”

“Oh, Willie, you were splendid!” crooned Sheila, trustingly.

“So damn mad,” said Willie reflectively.

“I know.” She soothed him. “Why, I was afraid of you, Willie. If you ever looked at me that way—” and her voice was awed and delighted.

“Can't tell,” said Willie, briefly. “Got a nasty temper—nasty. From a child. Done my best to keep it under but—”

“Oooh, Willie!” said Sheila, the once imperious, with delicious respect. He reverted to more serious matters.

“Tell your family to-night, huh, darling?”

“Why, Willie, I thought—” she hesitated, “we might wait—just a little, a day or so—”

“Tell your family to-night!” His voice was suddenly rasping.

“All right, dear.” She was exquisitely docile. “Just as you say.”

Still later she ventured a question, timidly.

“Willie?”

“Yes, sweetness.”

“I just wondered—about George Follett—oh, no, no, nothing important—only—before you licked him—remember?—you called him 'duke'—'my lord duke' and—”

“Oh, that,” Willie chuckled. “Just nickname. People used to call him that at college,” he deigned to elucidate. Then his mind seemed to shoot off at a tangent.

“Sweetness?”

“Yes.

Again Willie chuckled.

“Talk about dreams,” he confided. “Know things about dreams myself. Psychoanalyst,” he gulped, and gave way to laughter. “Dreams, great things.”

When he had recovered, “Know first thing I'm going to buy for our sectional bookcase?”

Dutifully. “No, dear. What?”

He was laughing.

“Professor Sigmund Freud's Interpretative Dreambook—best binding I can find in New York. My mascot, sweetness. Our mascot.” The laughter shook him. “Send wedding invitation to good old dentist, too!” he wheezed.

She thought him a little mad, but that only made him more interesting. Besides, he was looking straight at her—and his eyes had the battle look.

“Of course, dear,” she assented meekly.

And since he had so commanded, it was so.

title: Sir Willie of the Valley


text: Talk:Sir Willie of the Valley

title: Talk:Sir Willie of the Valley


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