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 written in Latin in eight books, between the years 1560 and 1570. In 1586 he sent it to their Bishops for publication; but fearing that it might seem to extol their Church above measure, they did not print it. One of their number, however, Bishop Turnovius, enriched it with marginal notes. In 1649, Amos Comenius issued the eighth book, the rest of the work was never published. Four manuscript copies of it are extant, namely: two in the Moraviau Archives of Herrnhut, Saxony; one in a Library of Prague; and one in the University Library of Goettingen.

2. Joachim Camerarius, the well known humanist and professor at Leipzig. At the request of the Brethren themselves he wrote their history, between 1570 and 1574, in which latter year he died. But it was not given to the world until thirty years after his decease, and then, not the Brethren, but his own grandson, Louis Camerarius, had it printed at Heidelberg (1605) with additions of his own. Camerarius never visited Bohemia and personally never consulted the archives of the Brethren. His principal authorities were Lasitius’ M. S. History, and Blahoslav’s Historic Treatises, of which latter we will speak more at length hereafter. These had been sent to him by the Bishops from Bohemia.

3. John Amos Comenius, that illustrious Bishop of the exiled Brethren who never ceased to hope that their Church would be resuscitated, and zealously labored for this consummation. He published at Lissa, in 1632, the Ratio Disciplinae Unitatis Fratrum which had been officially drawn up by the Bishops, and adopted by the General Synod held in 1616, at Zerawitz, in Moravia. It embraces a very complete account of the ministry, constitution and discipline of the Church, and Comenius added a concise but exceedingly important history. A second edition of this work appeared in 1660, at Amsterdam, with the eighth book of Lasitius prefixed. This edition Comenius intended as a legacy for posterity in the event of a renewal of the Church, and dedicated


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 it to the Church of England, to whose fraternal care he commended the Brethren of a future age.

4. Adrian Wengersky, an exiled minister of the Brethren. Under the assumed name of Regenvolscius he issued, in 1652, at Utrecht, an history of the Churches of Slavonic origin in Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. In 1679 a second edition came out at Amsterdam, with his real name.

After the renewal of the Moravian Church (1722), these four secondary sources—we omit several minor ones because they are mere compilations from those we have mentioned—constituted, for a period of one hundred and twenty years, the only sources open to writers on the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, whether they were friends or foes. By these Cranz, Loretz, Holmes and John Plitt were guided; on one of these Perceval mainly relied. Of the existence of original records they know nothing.

In 1842, however, a Moravian elergyman, on a visit to Lissa, accidentally discovered these in the vestry-room of one of its churches. Thirteen volumes of the ancient archives were there, intact, and in a state of excellent preservation. They were purchased by the Church, placed in the Library at Herrnhut, and are now technically known as the “Lissa Folios.”

These invaluable documents have thrown new light upon the early history of the Brethren. They have been examined with much care by Anton Gindely, a Roman Catholic Professor of Prague, and one of the most distinguished antiquaries of Bohemia, who has quite recently been appointed Archivist of that country; and by Franz Palacky, also a Roman Catholic, the great Bohemian historian,

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


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418

——— Three sketches of life in Iceland, translated by M. Fenton. 12°. London, B. Washbourne, 1877.

(Hans Christian). Pictures of Sweden. 12°. London, R: Bentley, 1851.

——— The same: Pictures of travel in Sweden [etc.] Author's ed. 12°. New York, Hurd & Houghton, 1871.

——— The true story of my life. Translated by M. Howitt. 16°. Boston, J. Munroe & co., 1847.

——— The same: Containing chapters additional to those published in the Danish edition, bringing the narrative down to the Odense festival of 1867. Author's ed. 1 port. 12° New York, Hurd & Houghton, 1871.

(Sir C: H: J:) An eight weeks' journal in Norway, &c. in 1852, with rough outlines. 33 pl. 12°. London, F. & J. Rivington, 1853.

(E: L.) Six weeks in Norway. 1 map. 16°. Cincinnati, B. Clarke & co., 1877.

(Joseph, translator). See (Ahmed). Description of the ceremony attending the incremation of the dead body of a Norse chief. 1873.

(Rasmus B.) Norse mythology; or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted. With an introduction, vocabulary and index. Front. 12°. Chicago, S. C. Griggs & co., 1875.

——— The Norway music album. 1881. See (A. Aubertine) and.

——— The Scandinavian languages; their historical, linguistic, literary and scientific value. Elucidated by quotations from eminent American, English, German and French scholars. Notices of these languages by H. W. Longfellow, George P. Marsh, Samuel Laing, Robert Buchanan, Schlegel, Mallet and others. Selected and edited with a few notes. 8°. Madison, Democrat co. print, 1873.

——— Translator. See. The Younger Edda. [1879.]

——— and (Jón), editors. Viking tales of the North. The sagas of Thorstein, Viking's son, and Fridthjof the Bold. Translated from the Icelandic. Also, Tegnér's Fridthjof's saga, translated into English by G: Stephens. 12° Chicago, S. C. Griggs & co., 1877.

(Christopher Columbus). Report from Mr. Andrews, minister resident of the United States at Stockholm, on pauper-


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 copyrightable because they fall below the threshold of originality.”). These elements are so commonplace in glass-in-glass sculpture and so typical of jellyfish physiology that to recognize copyright protection in their combination effectively would give Satava a monopoly on lifelike glass-in-glass sculptures of single jellyfish with vertical tentacles. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 363, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (noting that the selection, coordination, and arrangement of phone numbers in a directory “is not only unoriginal, it is practically inevitable”). Because the quantum of originality Satava added in combining these standard and stereotyped elements must be considered “trivial” under our case law, Satava cannot prevent other artists from combining them.

We do not mean to suggest that Satava has added nothing copyrightable to his jellyfish sculptures. He has made some copyrightable contributions: the distinctive curls of particular tendrils; the arrangement of certain hues; the unique shape of jellyfishes’ bells. To the extent that these and other artistic choices were not governed by jellyfish physiology or the glass-in-glass medium, they are original elements that Satava theoretically may protect through copyright law. Satava’s copyright on these original elements (or their combination) is “thin,” however, comprising no more than his original contribution to ideas already in the public domain. Stated another way, Satava may prevent others from copying the original features he contributed, but he may not prevent others from copying elements of expression that nature displays for all observers, or that the glass-in-glass medium suggests to all sculptors. Satava possesses a thin copyright that protects against only virtually identical copying. See Ets-Hokin v. Skyy Spirits, Inc., 323 F.3d at 766 (9th Cir.2003) (“When we apply the limiting doctrines, subtracting the unoriginal elements, Ets Hokin is left with … a ‘thin’ copyright, which protects against only virtually identical copying.”); Apple, 35 F.3d at 1439 (“When the range of protectable expression is narrow, the appropriate standard for illicit copying is virtual identity.”).

We do not hold that realistic depictions of live animals cannot be protected by copyright. In fact, we have held to the contrary. See Kamar Int’l, Inc. v. Russ Berrie and Co., 657 F.2d 1059, 1061 (9th Cir.1981). We recognize, however, that the scope of copyright protection in such works is narrow. See Herbert Rosenthal Jewelry Corp. v. Kalpakian, 446 F.2d 738, 741 (9th Cir.1971) (“Any inference of copying based upon similar appearance lost

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 much of its strength because both [works] were lifelike representations of a natural creature.”). Nature gives us ideas of animals in their natural surroundings: an eagle with talons extended to snatch a mouse; a grizzly bear clutching a salmon between its teeth; a butterfly emerging from its cocoon; a wolf howling at the full moon; a jellyfish swimming through tropical waters. These ideas, first expressed by nature, are the common heritage of humankind, and no artist may use copyright law to prevent others from depicting them.

An artist may, however, protect the original expression he or she contributes to these ideas. An artist may vary the pose, attitude, gesture, muscle structure, facial expression, coat, or texture of animal. An artist may vary the background, lighting, or perspective. Such variations, if original, may earn copyright protection. Because Satava’s jellyfish sculptures contain few variations of this type, the scope of his copyright is narrow.

We do not mean to short-change the legitimate need of creative artists to protect their original works. After all, copyright law achieves its high purpose of enriching our culture by giving artists a financial incentive to create. But we must be careful in copyright cases not to cheat the public domain. Only by vigorously policing the line between idea and expression can we ensure both that artists receive due reward for their original creations and that proper latitude is granted other artists to make use of ideas that properly belong to us all.

REVERSED.

Beezer, Circuit Judge, filed dissenting opinion.

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 whose “Geschichte von Boehmen” has now reached nine volumes, and forms the most learned and exhaustive work which has ever appeared upon that subject. Both these writers consider them of paramount importance for the history not only of the Brethren, but of Bohemia in general, and hence Gindely is now having them copied entire for the National Archives at Prague. Nor have they failed to make use of them. The seventh, eighth and ninth volumes of Palacky’s History contain frequent references to them; while Gindely, who has taken up the history of the Bohemian Brethren, in spite of his Romish views, with an enthusiasm which can be explained from the stand-point of a fellow-nationality only, says that his Geschichte der Boehmischen Bruder” (Prague, 1857) is based substantially upon these records. This work, of which two large octavo volumes have appeared and a third is expected, is the most complete history of the Brethren that has been published in ancient or modern times, although its Romish bias greatly mars its value. This is not the case, however, with its supplemental volume, entitled “Quellen zur Geschichte der Boehmischen Brueder vornehmlich ihren Zusammenhang mit Deutschland betreffend” (Sources of the History of the Bohemian Brethren particularly in relation to their correspondence with Germany): for it consists of a literal publication of many of the Latin, and of German versions of a number of the Bohemian manuscripts of the Lissa Folios. Dr. Gindely deserves the thanks of the whole Church for this magnificent contribution to her literature.


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ANNETTE LYLE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 427 wants. His stately, handsome wife had great regard for his wishes, and strove hard to fulfill them ; but she lacked the light hand and quick perception of her paid dependent. Often as the girl sprung up to do some silent office of charity, otherwise neglected, she saw the sick man's eyes fixed upon her with a strange gaze of pity and interest, and heard real kindness in the brief words with which he thanked her.

It was in this way that she and Charles Dean at last met. Though much more confined to business than usual, in consequence of his step-father's absence, he came down at regular intervals. He and his reports and memoranda were summoned, on such occasions, to the large chamber, in whose distant bay-window Annette sat at her work.

"We have received all the papers of Purcell & Du Page, assigned to us by the heirs of the late partners," the junior one day said, in explanation of the formidable bag of documents that accompanied him; "and I have brought down such of them as I fancied you would like to look over."

"Nothing of immediate interest, I suppose?"

"No, I fear most of them have been long neglected. Du Page's indolence, and Purcell's long absence and death abroad, with their great reputation, have accumulated a mass of cases, most of which have never been put in shape, and many more, I should fancy, had been abandoned by the clients in despair."

"And we are to sift this trash?"

"Much of the work is done, subject to your approval; but the remainder is worth examining. I should particularly like to call your attention to this suit, brought by Mary Lesley, or Lyle, against the heirs of the late Stephen P. Johnson, to recover her right of dower in his estate, and establish the claims of her child; alleging a secret marriage, which she offers testimony to prove."

"As what?"

"There is a marriage certificate, whether genuine or not I cannot say, as it was dated so long ago; and witnesses are offered who may have died in the interval, as no doubt the plaintiff has, or she would have pressed a claim involving so much property as is here indicated. Du Page has either been bribed by the opposite party, or has been criminally negligent in prosecuting this thing. It has slept, now, for seventeen years."

Mr. Johnson was lying back in his great chair, his stern features looking paler and more rigid than usual.

"You will see by these, sir, " he continued, "the exact nature of the claim. The case, I confess, has greatly interested me. I cannot see why it has not been tried long since, for even in the event of the mother's death, the child succeeds to her rights."

"You had better let the case alone. The woman was no doubt an impostor, and feared the exposure of her illegal claims; and so dropped it."

His voice sounded forced and harsh, and made an unnatural echo in the quiet room. The little seamstress suddenly rose from her seat, and hastily left the room as he spoke. But not so hastily but that Dean could see the flood of burning crimson that deluged face, and neck, and brow, as she was obliged to pass him in going out.

"I should like to undertake the examination, nevertheless," said the young man, after this partial interruption; "that is, if you do not  object."

"I do object," returned the other, thickly, and rising in his chair. "Your time, your trouble will be wasted in behalf of a person who is, I repeat, dead, or an impostor. Yes! dead, or an impostor, or she would have been heard of long ago."

"But she may not be an impostor," persisted the young man. "She may, indeed, be dead, but her child must now be grown up. He or she may be in such abject poverty as not to afford to press this suit. A rich inheritance, his or hers by right, may now actually be used to oppress or silence the true heir. Great God, sir! think of seventeen years of fraud and injustice on the one hand, and of want and pain on the other! The investigation may be difficult; the name of the husband is such a common one. Why, it was even your own father's— "

He ceased suddenly, for his mother was looking at him with warning and alarm. Mr. Johnson had sunk back in his chair. He was ghastly pale, and breathing with difficulty as he muttered indistinctly,

"My father died at sixty years-- a respectable man. How dare you!"

With a strange feeling he dared not analyze, the young man obeyed a sign from his mother, and left the room. As he passed the great hall-window, he saw the little seamstress in the ground, with the air and manner of one in deep trouble. Her face was half hidden by her thick hair, but her little fingers worked nervously together. Actuated by a sudden impulse, he followed her.

"I am very sorry," he began vaguely, as he approached, respecting her grief as if it had

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 Of Moravian works these Folios have called forth a manuscript volume of Addenda to Plitt’s MS. History; a concise account of the Brethren’s Church by Rev. Henry L. Reichel, formerly President of the Continental Theological Seminary; and Bishop Croeger’s latest “Geschichte der Alten Bruederkirche” (Gnadau, 1865).

And, last but not least, they have brought to light the Historic Treatises of John Blahoslav; the one written in Latin, in 1556, the other in Bohemian somewhat later, but more in detail. These Treatises are the oldest Histories of the Brethren, and the first was composed expressly in order to give the Reformers of Germany a correct account of the origin and ministry of the Church. Their importance cannot be over-estimated.

With such newly discovered original sources, then, to serve as a complement to the former secondary ones, we proceed to consider the Moravian Episcopacy.

During the first ten years of their existence (1457 to 1467) the Bohemian Brethren were a Society rather than a Church. Occupying an isolated retreat—the Barony of Lititz in the North Eastern part of Bohemia—they endeavored to carry out among themselves the reformatory principles of John Huss, and edified one another in the Lord. Their ministers were pious priests ordained in the Calixtine or National Church. Gradually, however, they felt the necessity of a total separation from the Establishment and of a regular ecclesiastical organization of their own; and yet


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title: Satava v. Lowry


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 they hesitated to take this step without unmistakable evidence that it would be in conformity with the will of God. On the occasion of a Synod, therefore, convened in 1467 at Lhota, in the Barony of Reichenau, the decision was left to the Lord by the lot, agreeably to the example of the apostles. Nine candidates were chosen and twelve lots put into a vase, nine being blank and three inscribed with the word Est. These lots were drawn singly by a lad, named Prokop, who presented one to each of the candidates. Three lots remained in the vase. It is evident that these three might have been the ones marked with Est, and that all the candidates might have received blanks, in which case the Synod would have accepted the result as a divine intimation that the time for instituting an independent ministry was not come. But the lots having been simultaneously opened, those with Est were found in the hands of Matthias of Kunwald, Thomas of Prelouc, and Elias of Chrenovic. Thus God both approved the creation of a separate ministry and designated its first candidates.

But how were they to be ordained? Should the priests present at the Synod proceed to do this and thus establish presbyterial ordination? It was a question which, even prior to the meeting at Lhota, had caused the Brethren no little anxiety. “Their minds,” says Comenius, “were agitated by the tear whether an ordination would be sufficiently legitimate if a presbyter and not truly a bishop were to create a presbyter; and in what manner, in case of controversies, such an ordination could be defended either among themselves or against others.” And now that the Synod was assembled, the subject was fully and earnestly discussed. The result of these deliberations is given by Adrian Wengersky (Regenvolscius Book I Chap. ): “That in the times of the apostles there had existed no difference between a presbyter and a bishop; that the distinctive prerogatives of a bishop did not rest upon explicit instructions of the Bible, but upon a provision of the ancient Church; but, that, in order, to prevent in future all doubts


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ENJI was now in a singularly fortunate position. The government of the country lay wholly in his hands; but though his power was supreme, he was now seldom troubled by the uninteresting details of public business; for he had some while ago delegated all such minor decisions to Tō no Chūjō, and the arrangement continued to work very successfully. In varying ways and degrees his dependants naturally benefited by his increased leisure and security. Not only was he able to devote far more time to looking after their affairs, but they could also feel that, such as it was, their position was now something permanent and dependable; whereas in the old days, when the powers arrayed against him were still unshaken, they knew quite well that he might at any moment find himself far more in need of patronage than able any longer to dispense it. Most of them, even those who received a very small share of his attentions, were nowadays fairly well content with their lot; but the Princess in the Western Wing continued to view with great apprehension the imprudent turn which her guardian had lately given to their relationship, and different as were his manners from those of her persecutor on the Island, she was now scarcely less alarmed than in the weeks which preceded her flight. She felt that in first insisting on their playing the part of father and daughter, and then suddenly

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Rh revealing himself in another character, he had taken advantage of her in a very mean way, and despite his protestations it seemed vain to suppose that, out of consideration for her at any rate, he would restrain himself sufficiently to avoid an open scandal. She had no one to whom she could turn, and now that she was face to face with the actual difficulties of life she realized far more acutely than she had even done as a child the irreparable loss which she had sustained in her mother’s death.

Genji, on his side, was exceedingly vexed with himself for having acted so imprudently. He had not breathed a word about the matter to any one, and being anxious to convince himself that his behaviour on that unlucky night had been altogether exceptional, he visited her frequently and, apart from a few rather ambiguous remarks (which however he was careful never to let fall in the presence of her gentlewomen and attendants) he behaved in a manner to which exception could not be taken. Each time that he began to venture on dangerous ground she felt her heart beat violently and, if he had been any one else, would have cut him short and sent him about his business. But as it was she merely pretended not to notice what he was saying.

She was naturally of a very cheerful and lively disposition, so that she made friends easily. Prince Sochi and her other suitors, though they themselves had obtained so little encouragement from her, continued to hear on all sides nothing but praises of her good looks and general charm. They therefore redoubled their efforts; but to their chagrin the rains of the fifth month had already set in without any sign that their industry was likely to be rewarded.

Among some letters which Tamakatsura was showing to him Genji found one from Prince Sochi: ‘If you could

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 on the part of the Brethren themselves and all objections on the part of their enemies, the anciently established principle and usage must be maintained.” From this point of view, therefore, the Synod resolved to introduce episcopal ordination by securing the apostolical succession. To apply for it to the Calixtines would have been useless. They were reconciled with Rome, and whatever they might have been willing to do ere they had agreed to the Compactata of Basle, they would have spurned such a request now that these were adopted. But, providentially, there lived on the Moravian frontier a colony of Waldenses with two Bishops who had received the legitimate consecration. Of these Bishops the senior was Stephen, the name of the other is not known. To them a deputation was accordingly sent, composed of Michael Bradacius, theretofore the principal minister of the Brethren, and two other of their priests.

That the object of this mission was to seek not fraternal encouragement, or ordinary communion with religionists of like mind, but absolutely episcopul ordination and such episcopal ordination as Romanists and Calixtines would have to acknowledge, is so clearly shown by the extracts we have given from Comenius and Regenvolscius that we need add nothing more upon this head. Hence we go on to inquire whether these Waldenses on the Moravian frontier possessed a valid episcopacy and could confer the succession.

In their native valleys of Piedmont, the Waldenses were never an episcopal but always a presbyterian Church. The best authorities prove this, and the most recent discoveries of Waldensian documents in the University Library of Cambridge and elsewhere serve to corroborate it. To teach, as has been frequently done, that the Italian Waldenses had a succession of bishops stretching back to the apostles’ times, and independent of that perpetuated through the Roman Catholic Church, is treading upon most unhistoric ground. In no way can such a position be established. As early as the first quarter of the fifteenth century, however, we find


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242 but find it in your heart to admit me for one single moment to your presence, you would earn my undying gratitude, even though I should never see you again. For I should thus enjoy a respite, the first for many months, from the tortures which I now endure….’ ‘I have never seen Prince Sochi making love,’ said Genji as he read the letter. ‘It would be a sight worth seeing. Please tell him he may come,’ and he began suggesting the terms in which she should reply. But the idea did not at all appeal to her, and alleging that she was feeling giddy and could not, at the moment, possibly handle a pen, she attempted to lead the conversation into other channels. ‘But there is no need that you should write yourself,’ said Genji, returning to his project; ‘we will dictate a letter between us.’

Among Tamakatsura’s gentlewomen there was none in whom she placed any great confidence. The only exception was a certain Saishō no Kimi, a daughter of her mother’s younger brother, who seemed to have far more sense than most young women. Hearing that this girl was in difficult circumstances Tamakatsura had sent for her to see what could be done; and finding that Saishō was not only the sort of person whom it would be useful in a general way to have about her, but was also an unusually good pen-woman, she retained this young cousin in her service. Genji, who knew that Tamakatsura often used the girl as her amanuensis, now sent for Saishō and proceeded to dictate a letter. For he was consumed by an overwhelming curiosity to see how his half-brother, with whose conduct in all other situations he was so familiar, would conduct himself at such an interview as this. As for Tamakatsura, she had, since the occasion of Genji’s unpardonable indiscretion, begun to pay a good deal more attention to the communications of her suitors. She had no reason to give any preference to Prince Sochi; but he, as much as any other

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Young People's Pride (Harper's Bazar serial)

{{bc|max-width=500px|{{border|{{border|{{larger|''We find that we are but one of a growing company who are tired of reading self-loading shockers that tell all about “...How the flappers flap, And why the whipper-snappers snap, What makes the women wild.” We find also that we are but one of a growing company who are interested in honest fiction that tells of the reactions of young men and women to this age of revelation, speed and garrulity. “Young People’s Pride” is that kind of a story.''}}}}}}

{{center|{{xxx-larger|{{sp|YOUNG PEOPLE'S PRIDE}}}}

{{larger|{{sp|By STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT}}}}

{{fine|{{sp|Illustrated by Henry Raleigh}}}}}}

{{block center|max-width=32em|style=font-size:smaller|“... For there groweth in great abundance in this land a small flower, much blown about by winds, named 'Young People's Pride'....”—Dycer's Herbal.}}

{{auxTOC|width=20em|{{plainlist|style=text-transform:uppercase; line-height:1.8| }}}}
 * Part I
 * Part II
 * Part III
 * Part IV

{{PD/US|1943}}


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Rh husband, represented a way of escape from the embarrassment in which she found herself. She was, however, far from having ever thought of him seriously in this connection.

Little knowing that his success was due to a whim of Prince Genji’s rather than to any favourable impression that his own suit had made, Sochi no Miya in great elation rushed round to the New Palace and presented himself at Tamakatsura’s door. He could not complain of his treatment; for he was at once accommodated with a divan which was only a few paces from her curtains-of-state. He looked about him. On every side he recognized such presents and appurtenances as far more commonly emanate from a lover than from a parent. The air was laden with costly perfumes. There were hangings, brocades, a thousand trifles any one of which would have been enough to arouse in Sochi’s heart the suspicion that Genji, from whom he was convinced that those bounties flowed, was not her father. And if he was not her father, then inevitably, as Sochi ruefully recognized, he must be reckoned with as a serious rival. Tamakatsura herself made no effort to converse with him or even answer his questions. Her maids seemed quite incapable of replying on her behalf, and when even Saishō, reputed to be so capable in every emergency, continued to sit in awkward silence, Genji whispered: ‘What is the matter with you all? Have you become rooted to your seats? Get up, do something…. Be civil!’ But all this had no effect. They merely stared helplessly in front of them.

The evening was now drawing in, and as the sky was very much overcast the room was almost dark. Beyond her curtains Tamakatsura could just discern the motionless form of her suitor, gracefully outlined against the gloom, while from her side a stirring of the evening air would occasionally carry towards him a fragrance enhanced by

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 Waldenses in Bohemia, and their ecclesiastical development was wholly different from that of their brethren in the valleys. Paul Stransky, a Bohemian historian of the seventeenth century, says that they were expelled from the South of France, came by way of Germany to Bohemia, and settled near Saatz and Laun. It was a period of extraordinary developments in church and state. [sic] By the execution of John Huss Rome had sown the wind and was reaping the whirlwind. The Hussite War raged with terrible fury. However incongruous the elements among the Bohemians, they were a unit in their national, although by no means doctrinal, opposition to the Hierarchy. These circumstances, on the one hand, rendered Bohemia a safe refuge for the Waldenses, on the other, laid a snare for them. The Hussites were divided into two factions: the Calixtines, who contended, mainly, for the privilege of the cup in the Lord’s Supper, and the Taborites, who desired a thorough reformation of the church. The former were the aristocratic, the latter the popular party. Learned Doctors of the University of Prague guided the one, enthusiasts of the tented city of Tabor the other. Coming into contact with both these factions, the Waldenses shaped their course so as to give offence to neither. They associated with the Taborites, they were on friendly terms with the Calixtines, and, in course of time, openly fraternized with them even at the mass. Men like Rokycana


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428 ANNETTE LYLE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. been a queen's, and feeling a necessity for apology.

“It is what must be expected,” she replied, turning toward him eyes blind with weeping. “I should have been prepared, but I could not! bear it.”

There was an enigma in her words and ac- tions which Dean could not understand. He tried, by a few vague but kind words, to soothe her distress. She listened for a moment, then glanced up at him with an indescribable louk, and rushed away.

He did not follow her again; but that look thrilled and haunted him. He moved away slowly in a delicious dream. The world grows wiser every day, but not the heart of two-and-twenty.

The little dress-maker found her tasks doubly hard for the next few days. The invalid, who, rendered feverish and irritable by advancing disease, seemed particularly harsh and hard with her. He would not dispense with her presence, notwithstanding his wife’s hints; and he often questioned her as to her past life and antecedents. The girl, at such times, wrung her hands secretly, in helpless anguish. Summer lapsed into autumn, and autumn was giving place to winter. All the gay butterflies of fashion were back from their summer haunts long ago, Mrs. Burlington amongst them, their chief and queen, who had recommended Annette to Mrs. Johnson, and who now came to inquire about her favorite.

“The girl is well-born, my dear,” she ex- plained to Mrs. Johnson, as they sat alone, and has a history. Her mother was my inti mate friend at school and abroad; an English officer’s daughter, who eloped with a lieutenant in her father’s regiment. The poor fellow sold his commission, and came to this country to seek his fortune, but died soon after landing, leaving her alone in poverty; and when next I heard of her, it was by finding this child in the Sisters’Asylum, where I had gone to inquire for an embroideress.

“It seems that my old school-mate, her mother, driven by sheer poverty, had applied for the situation of housekeeper, after her hus band’s death, in the household of a wealthy, elderly gentleman, with two single daughters. The old man fell in love with, and married her; but, influenced by his children, would have can celed the marriage. Discovering this, she in dignantly left his house, and sought refuge in the Asylum where her child was born. There; she died soon after. I have been told by those who knew her, that had she boldly asserted her daughter’s rights and her own, she would have won her suit; but she was crushed, hopeless, and gave up without a struggle.”

Mrs. Johnson listened to this story with a strangely contracted brow, and repeated it afterward to her husband, without comment or reservation. The sick man heard her in silence; the world was growing dimmer to his sight, but he still struggled to be true to the teachings he had obeyed all his life.

Again Charles Dean came down with his weekly report from the office; and this time there was a look of unusual care upon his face. Some anxiety pressed heavily upon him, which the senior partner did not share; nor would the  latter recognize the hints and allusions by which  the younger man strove to pave the way to an   unwelcome subject.

“I have, in my leisure hours,” he said, at last, very low and gently, “been occupied with   the case in which I told you I felt so much   interest.”

The invalid made a movement of impatience.

“I find,” he went on, “that the woman who strove to prosecute this claim, died very soon  after taking the preliminary steps, in great  seclusion and destitution; and that her child is  a girl still living, and always conscious of the  existence of the suit, but is without means to  carry it on. This child is now an inmate of your house. Her father, and the husband of Mary Lyle, was the late Stephen P. Johnson. This property is, therefore, undoubtedly hers And, since the death of your unmarried sisters  she is their and your legal heir to the rest.”

There was dead silence in the room. Mrs. Johnson, very pale, sat listening, but put in no disclaimer. Presently the sick man rose in his bed.

There were tears in his hard, gray eyes. Charles,” he said, ‘I love you. Ever since  I married your mother, I have looked upon you  as my son and heir. I acknowledge my father’s marriage, and have provided for the girl; she  has a sufficient legacy in my will. But if the property you claim as hers is given up, it will  leave you nothing. Do not press so Quixotic a demand. I will never consent to impoverish you.”

The young man bent and kissed the feverish, trembling hand. “Father,” he said, ‘let us do justice. I should not prosper if I took the bread of the widow and the fatherless. Give it to the rightful owner, and let me work, as is  my privilege; I cannot defraud a friendless and  helpless girl.”

But Mr. Johnson was firm, and opposition

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Author talk:Maurice Ravel

Copyright
Where does the 85 year number come from please? 73.183.238.150 16:02, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The author died in 1937, the current year is 2023, so 2023 minus 1 (because copyright counts until the end of the previous year) minus 1937 gives 85. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Author talk:Maurice Ravel


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244 a strange perfume which, though it was familiar to him, he could not then identify. The room seemed full of diverse and exquisite scents that inflamed his imagination, and though he had previously pictured her to himself as handsome, he now (as these perfumes floated round him) thought of her as a hundred times more beautiful than he had ever done before. Her curtains were thick and it was now quite dark. He could not see her and could only guess that she was still near him; but so vividly did she now appear before his mind’s eye that it was as though no barrier were between them, and he began to address her in the most passionate terms. There was now in his style no longer anything of the professional courtier or hardened man-of-the-world. The long outpouring to which Genji, ensconced in his corner of her curtained dais, now listened with considerable emotion, was natural, direct—almost boyish. When it was over, Prince Sochi was rewarded by a note from Saishō, informing him that her mistress had some time ago retired to the inner room! ‘This is too bad!’ whispered Genji, creeping to the door of her refuge (he had himself been so intent upon his brother’s eloquence that he had not seen her slip away). ‘You cannot simply disappear while people are talking to you. You are governed by absurd pre-conceived notions, and never stop to consider the merits of the case in question. To treat any visitor, and above all a person of Prince Sochi’s standing, in the manner I have just witnessed would not be tolerated in a child; and in your case, seeing that you are a grown woman not without some experience of Court life, such behaviour is insufferable. Even if you are too shy to converse with him, you might at least sit within reasonable distance….’

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Rh Genji had never yet pursued her into the inner room; but she had no doubt that on the present occasion, in his eagerness to reform her manners, he would have no scruple in doing so; and reluctantly she left her place of retreat and once more seated herself near the edge of her curtained daïs. Sochi now attempted to begin a more general conversation, but no topic seemed to arouse her interest. Suddenly her attention was distracted by a light which had begun to glimmer quite close to where she sat. It seemed to move when Genji moved. She now saw him go to her curtains-of-state and, at a certain point, hook back the inner curtain, leaving only a single thickness of light transparent stuff. Here he suspended something bright, that looked like a paper candle…. What was he doing? She was dumbfounded.

The fact was that on his way to her apartments earlier in the evening Genji had encountered an unusual number of glow-worms. Collecting them in a thin paper bag he had concealed this improvised lantern under the folds of his cloak and, on his arrival, disposed of it in a safe corner. Startled by the sudden glow of light, Tamakatsura snatched up her fan and buried her face behind it, not before Sochi had caught an enchanting glimpse of her beauty. This was just what Genji had intended. The attentions which his brother had hitherto paid to Tamakatsura were, he suspected, due solely to the fact that Sochi had accepted the current story and imagined her indeed to be Genji’s daughter. He knew that, despite her fame as a delightful accession to the Court, Prince Sochi could have but a vague conception of her charm; and in order that he might the sooner escape from his own dilemma he was determined that Sochi should no longer merely pay formal court to the girl, but should really lose his head about her. He imagined that he was now at any rate indisputably playing

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246 the part of a fond and disinterested parent. A strange delusion! For had he reflected for a moment he would have seen that nothing would ever have induced him so crudely to thrust his own daughter, the Princess of Akashi, upon a suitor’s notice. He now stole away by a back door and returned to his own apartments.

Sochi was feeling much encouraged. He now discredited Saishō’s note and imagined that the lady had been sitting during the whole time of his discourse in the position where the light of the glow-worms revealed her. ‘After all,’ he thought to himself, ‘I have interested her. She listens patiently and apparently even likes to be near me.’ And with that he pulled back the light gauze flap at the part of her curtains where Genji had removed the thick inner hanging. She was now but a few feet away from him, and though a bag of glow-worms makes no very famous illumination, he saw enough by this fitful and glimmering light to confirm his impression that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. In another moment Tamakatsura’s maids, summoned hastily to the scene, had detached the strange lantern and carried it somewhere out of sight.

Genji’s stratagem was indeed abundantly successful. This momentary vision of Tamakatsura huddled disconsolately upon her couch had profoundly disturbed him. ‘Does the harsh world decree that even the flickering glow-worm, too shy for common speech, must quench the timid torchlight of its love!’ So he now recited; and she, thinking that if she appeared to be taking much trouble about her reply, he would suppose she attached more importance to the matter than was actually the case, answered instantly: ‘Far deeper is the glow-worm’s love that speaks in silent points of flame, than all the passions idle courtiers prate

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 and Martin Lupac, leading Calixtine divines, the one afterward elected Archbishop of Prague and the other his Suffragan, were well disposed toward them, and esteemed Stephen especially as an excellent man. Nor did such relations cease when the unprecedented route of the papal and imperial crusaders at Tauss, in 1431, which filled all Europe with amazement, forced Sigismund to confess that the Bohemians were invincible, and that the Council of Basle, then in session, must immediately open negotiations with them. On the contrary, the intimacy grew so close that the Waldenses turned it to their own advantage. It so happened that their priests had nearly all died, and that a renewal of their ministry was desirable. This the Calixtines could not only effect, but could thereby also give them a far more influential position than they had as yet enjoyed. The Calixtines lent a wiling hand, and upon their recommendation two Waldenses, Frederick Nemez and John Wlach, were ordained priests, on the 14th of September, 1433, in the Slavonian Convent of Prague, by Bishop Nicholas (Philibert), a Legate of the Council of Basle. In the summer of the following year (1434), these two priests were sent to Basle, where the Council was at open variance with the Pope, and in a full convocation of clergy consecrated Bishops by Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. It was done again at the instance of the Calixtines and out of regard for them, the Council being anxious by all possible means to gain their confidence. Thus the Bohemian Waldenses obtained the apostolical succession, and Bishop Stephen and his colleague, who had been consecrated by Bishops Nemez and Wlach, could legitimately transfer it to the Brethren.

For this account of the origin and validity of the Bohemian Waldensian episcopate the following are the direct authorities:

1. A “Narrative of the origin of the Unitas of the Brethren,” in the Lissa Folios, written in the year 1605, and probably by Bishop Jaffet. It gives facts and dates as we have presented them above, and that under circumstances forming a most indisputable guarantee of their correctness. For, as clearly appears from internal evidences, this Narrative was one of the controversial writings with which the Bishops of the Brethren were, at that time, officially meeting the assaults of Wenzel Sturm, a learned and


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The Red Book Magazine/Volume 9/Number 6/Elvira's Boys

IKE and I found that they had always been called “Elvira's boys” in Seriph Four Corners ever since, at sixteen, Elvira came home from boarding-school to take the reins of household government out of their hands and bring order out of what had been an amiable, amateur, domestic chaos. There were four of them all told, and they were about all that one girl could handle. First, there was her handsome father: elderly at thirty-seven, the best behaved of them all, for he was only absent minded, dreamy, and heedless. Her Grandfather Edmunds, perfectly unwrinkled and merely iron-gray at sixty, was a fairly decent lad, well trained and obedient. But her great-grand-uncles, Tom and Dick—mere infants of eighty-four—were as mischievous a pair of twins as a great-grand-niece was ever cursed with.

Elvira herself was as different from all the men of the family as you can possibly imagine. She was long and thin and silent, with parted hair, prim mouth, a copper-plate profile and appalling spectacles—the whole outfit, in fact, of the typical New England old maid. But the strangest thing about her was that, in a family like that, she had no more sense of humor than a fly. The rest of them were a shriek from dawn to dewy eve. They simply could not do anything that was natural, normal, obvious, or expected. They lived, in short, in that perilous debatable ground between hypo-sulphitism and actual insanity. And the things that happened in that house in a week would fill a book.

Her father was just a plain, bats-in-the-belfry dreamer. It lent a kind of excitement, when calling at the Edmunds place, to find he had lately transferred his interest in “soul-vibration” and “compound concentric curves” to chemistry. He had a laboratory leading right out of the living room, and he was always shutting himself in there to make experiments. Dynamite was his lay, at the time we made his acquaintance. I listened to talk that summer about “actual vacuum,” “feathered radius,” and “detonation,” until I thought I would explode, and in that household I did'nt [sic] know but what I would literally some day.

Grandfather Edmunds didn't bother her especially. He'd have tantrums sometimes and, in these peevish spells, he was likely to disappear, apparently right off the face of the globe, for a week or more. But his avocations were all harmless. His particular hobby was saving pennies. He loved a penny as if it was made out of priceless Crown Darby—can you understand it—nasty, dirty, smelly little things. He'd swap a bright nickel for three pennies any time. Of course all the children in Seriph Four Corners soon got on to that, and there was a constant procession of them calling on him—he was a source of regular income to many of them. And he actually had a trunk full of pennies, in his room—he showed it to me once.

No, Grandpa Edmunds wasn't such a trial but her great-grand-uncles. Well, if anybody ever went away from Seriph Four Corners, the first thing he said when he got off the train, on his return, was, “What have the Edmunds twins been up to lately?” And they had always been up to something—that was one tip on the village gossip that you could everlastingly depend upon to come out straight.

You see, they were the ones that had the money, and they took up with every kind of mechanical invention that came out, from safety razors—through all kinds of serve-while-you-wait phonographs, graphophones, and æolians—to automobiles. The auto had held them for quite a while but Elvira—poor, impracticable dear—was in mortal terror for fear they'd buy a flying-machine. They were always being brought home from places black and blue and sometimes all battered in. But there was no killing them—the least thing anybody expected was a fatality of any kind—they just seemed to lead a charmed life.

One summer, for instance, they had electric-fans put in the house, and one day Elvira came into the library just as Dick was stumping Tom to engage in a fistic encounter with a fan that had just gone into action. You can fancy the life that girl led—they said at the apothecary shop that she bought arnica by the hogshead, absorbent cotton by the bale, and court-plaster by the acre. And it is true that Mike and I never called there once that whole summer long that one of them wasn't hauled up for repairs.

In the middle of the summer it looked as if things might be a little easier for Elvira, for a distant relative in New Hampshire offered to come and help with the work for her board and keep. We all felt awfully glad for, with a nice, brisk, New England widow about—everybody said—Elvira would expand and irradiate snd come at last into her belated girlhood. Mike said he wanted to be Johnny-on-the-spot when the first natural smile bloomed in Elvira's set features. Well, it didn't bloom—far from it.

Mrs. Humphreys turned out to be the most gray-colored, fatuous, futile, heavily-wadded sack of humanity that we ever saw. Her figure had never known a stay on its development—it just bubbled, rippled, cascaded. She had the shape of a jelly-roll and the energy of a bran-mash And she had one of those flabby, plaintive voices—in short, she was a damp widow—just one more burden for poor Elvira.

There was one good came of her coming—Elvira's father took to reading the poems he composed, when he wasn't busy exploding himself, to her instead of to Elvira, who had as much feeling for poetry as Tom or Dick had for the fourth dimension. That must have been a relief for, though I never heard but one of Mr. Edmunds' poems, it took a whole hour and all the patience I had to see it through. You see, he wrote chemical poetry—odes to unknown, undiscovered gases and the eighteen-carat Golden Age they were going to bring about. He wrote out all the gases in chemical formulæ and Mike said he'd give up half his practice to see one published in “The Chemist's Fireside Exploder” verbatim from the manuscript. Well, just as we had all given Elvira up as a poor, pathetic, New England Andromeda, hopelessly imprisoned among a gang of sulphites, who should come on to the scene but Simeon Fullerton.

Simeon was the son of the minister in Melcher—a town about thirty miles away—and he came to Seriph Four Corner for a summer's rest. If you ever saw a man and a woman who were exact counterparts—Elvira Edmunds and Simeon Fullerton were those two. Just the same Rocky Mountain slope forehead—all knobby under parted hair—the same prominent eyes, thin nose, and a jaw like the arm of fate. And as for their mental affinity—well, the life-force made those two from the same mould and then broke it. It was a case of love at first sight, all right—can't you just see how Elvira must have longed for somebody like her—and a hurricane wooing—that is if you know what I mean. Of course you must remember that this happened in a prim New England town-and so you've got to reduce those words to their lowest terms. What I mean to say is that he started to woo right off the moment the revolver sounded, and got busy at once about the state of Elvira's soul. Soul! I should have thought it would have been exploded out of her long before this. But it really went swift for New England. He called at night twice a week and every afternoon they went out for a long walk, on which they took a bird-book and a pair of opera glasses.

Well, you never saw a wooing conducted under such difficulties. Elvira's father was no especial trouble—that is he didn't plague her intentionally—the only thing he did was to hand Simeon a stick of dynamite to hold one day. Simeon got quite gay with it, tossing it up and catching it for a few minutes before Mr. Edmunds came out of his state of congenial trance to tell him, mildly, that it was dynamite. Simeon turned green and then, in a manner that savored less of grace than careful precision, dropped it on a sofa cushion. Then he fell to the floor in silent prayer. It was after that that they took to conducting their wooing outdoors.

Grandpa Edmunds didn't bother her at all—he seemed really happy and contented, nowadays, and hadn't got peevish fora month. And Simeon won his heart by having his father send him all the pennies they took up on the contribution plate Sundays—oh! hundreds of them. But the twins simply made Elvira's and Simeon's life one long nightmare.

They played real Peck's-bad-boy tricks—cut the hammock-strings half through so that Simeon came sprawling over into fat Mrs. Humphreys' lap one day, just as she was drinking a scalding cup of tea. They put fly-paper round in the hall so that one night, when they came home late—the whole family had to get up and peel the nasty stuff off them. They peppered the front room so heavily with cayenne that Simeon had to go out of the courting business at a quarter past eight while poor Elvira simply sneezed her head off all night long. As for alarm clocks, Simeon couldn't be in the house a minute before one went off—once one “detonated” in his pocket on his way home. They invited Elvira and Simeon to go autoing with them constantly and one day they accepted. I wish you could have seen what they looked like when they came home—but, after all, they'd only run over a dog, two hens, and empty baby carriage.

But Simeon was just as nice and patient about it as it was possible for a man to be—that proved that he really was in love with Elvira, didn't it? I don't think he ever reached that point of magnanimity that he thought it was funny—but then it was impossible for him to think anything was funny—from Jonah to Lawson. I never saw him smile—he was just as blind on his humor side as Elvira, and nobody had ever heard Elvira laugh at anything. Of course Elvira liked him,as I have already intimated, because he presented such a contrast to that awful family of hers—he was exactly the kind of a bromide that she was.

She told me once that Simeon had never done a wrong or a foolish thing in his life. I believed it. She had never known what to expect from the boys, but she could always prophesy to a hair's breadth just what Simeon would say and how he would say it. I was inclined to laugh about it until she caught me off my guard once and got me to come and spend a day with her. After that I could see just how good Simeon looked to her. For when the twins weren't egging Dick's parrot to a little mill with Tom's rooster, they were feeding the æolian with Elvira's dress patterns to see what it would play. (Tom winked at me and said he expected a polonaise.) Oh, I understood then. Can you imagine how good the cyclone-cellar looks when the cyclone turns loose? Anyway, the wooing went on apace. In two months the engagement was out and in three they were married. Elvira was going to live in Melcher with Simeon's parents who were just dying to have “young company” in the house, while Mrs. Humphreys kept house for the boys.

The wedding was a home-wedding. It was the first thing that had been held in the house since Elvira's mother died. I don't know how everybody else felt but I quaked in my slippers. In the first place, Elvira's father kept looking towards the laboratory with a sort of puzzled, harassed look on his face, as if he were trying to remember whether he'd taken the dynamite out of the oven or not? Grandpa Edmunds kept chinking a handful of pennies that one of the children had slipped into his hand on arrival. And Tom and Dick—such lovely-looking old dears they were in their dress-up clothes—faces red as Baldwin apples coming out from under a shock of tousled silver hair that simply would stay tousled no matter what they did to it—and they had been known to try glue.

But they had such a look of potential mischief that I knew they had it in for Elvira. Of course they'd bought barrels of rice and tons of confetti—anybody would have forseen [sic] that—but who would have thought of fire-crackers, torpedoes, sky-rockets, fire-balloons—all going off and up and down in deafening confusion as soon as Elvira came down the stairs in her mission-furniture, going-away clothes? When the carriage drove up for them it was found that a flag pole just strung up and down with flags had been rigged on the top of it, bearing a lighted transparency. Simeon and Elvira drove three miles to the station in that thing—the twins, behind and in front and all over the road, in the automobile, tooting horns something scandalous.

I guess she didn't find it hard to forgive them—that was the strangest thing about Elvira, a part of her lack of sense of humor—she never seemed to hold up anything they did against them. Her attitude was exactly that of a keeper of a madhouse towards the inmates. And then, besides, they'd all been pretty nice to her in the matter of wedding presents—all money—it amounted to the pretty sum of fifteen hundred dollars, Elvira told Mike and me. She said that she and Simeon had decided to put it in the bank and not touch it until they just had to. You see there was no reason why they should buy furniture or anything, as they were going to live with Simeon's parents

Well, later, Elvira told Mike and me all about the month that followed and how everything that did happen came to happen. For the first week or two she had the loveliest time that a woman could possibly have. She said that the peace and quiet and order of that household was something heavenly—she just reveled in it, poor dear, bathed in it, breathed it, and drank it down. Mrs. Fullerton was a wonderful housekeeper. There was a place for everything and everything so inevitably in it that you got into the way of not using things, it caused such a disturbance. Then the days of the week were laid out like a Cook's excursion—there was a time for everything as well as a place. Life went like clockwork there and the machinery was all oiled.

Elvira said that it wasn't until about the third week that she began to miss something, and then she didn't know what the matter was and “doctored” on the sly. Then she found that she needed in her system something more than pills—something that she couldn't ever get in that house. She was simply deadly homesick for some noise and disorder. When she realized that the well-ordered calm and decency of that pious household got on her nerves to such an extent that it seemed sometimes when she went to bed as if she must open the window and yell out into the night. There never was an unexpected or unaccountable sound in that place, and as for worrying over anybody's welfare, it would have been inviting calamity. The plain truth of it was that Elvira was smothered in bromidism—just dying for one breath of the sulphitic atmosphere in which she'd been raised. She was too ashamed to tell Simeon anything about it, and as for his father and mother, she'd have suffered martyrdom before she'd put them next.

Well, one day after she'd been married three or four weeks, Simeon decided to go to Boston for a few days to attend a remarkable book-sale. No sooner had he got out of the house than it popped into Elvira's head that this would be a good time for her to make a flying visit home. She flew up to her room and dressed like a whirlwind—she was so afraid Simeon's mother would come back before she got off—wrote a note explaining her absence and dashed out of the house. She could only get a train, at that hour, that took her as far as Seriph Center, where the annual county fair was being held. But she knew she could get a carriage or a barge or something, easy enough, from there to Seriph Four Corners.

When she got out of the train she noticed a big crowd outside the grounds, very much engaged in watching the performances of a party going round on the roller-coaster. They'd just built the roller-coaster that year and Elvira had never seen one, so she stopped to watch it a moment. The car that was creating all the commotion had disappeared round a curve, but it came back again in a moment, and who should the occupants be but the Edmunds twins—of course you've guessed that. Elvira said it did her heart good to see the silvery heads of those two old sinners—although of course she was scared within an inch of her life. And well she might be, for Dick was standing up in the car, cracking a whip and Tom, who was nearly blind, was clinging to him like the proverbial drowning man to a straw.

I don't know what they did—Elvira doesn't know what they did—they don't know what they did—nobody knows what they did but they did something. Anyway, if you'll believe it, while Elvira stood there lamping, that car just flew off the coaster altogether. Get that picture? Then fancy yourself Elvira. Well, of course, it turned out they weren't killed—you simply can't kill them, even the law couldn't. And, with their usual luck, they landed on a heap of straw. But the car came down on top of them—knocked Tom senseless and opened Dick's scalp so generously that in about a moment he looked like a massacre. Well, of course, Elvira came to in an instant. She got to them through the crowd some way—Heaven only knows how—and took command of the situation at once. She revived Tom, who only said, as he opened his eyes, “Lucky you were here, Elvira,” in the most matter-of-fact voice. She always had been there—I suppose she always will be. She glued up the fissure in Dick's scalp with an ambidexterity that made the mere professional M.D. who evolved from the crowd, stand in useless, abject admiration. Then she got a carriage and started on the five-mile drive home.

The twins soon cheered up and told how it all happened. It seems that the roller-coaster stunt was all Tom's idea—a little joke that he had played on his brother, leading the poor half-blind thing to what he supposed was a permanent seat, and then enjoying his terror as they shot round through space. They were interrupted when they were nearly home by a long dull roar in the distance, but after a threefold, futile conjecture, they gave up trying to account for it and Elvira prodded the boys to an explicit account of their experiences since her wedding. Much of that narrative, I may add, is still classic in Seriph Four Corners

But the mysterious dull boom that they had just heard explained itself when they came in sight of the house and found the corner that had been her father's laboratory represented by a huge hole, the center of a circle of broken timber and glass and a few faint spirals of smoke. For a moment Elvira's heart stood still, but, before she could speak, the door opened and her father came limping down the path. His hair was burned and his mustache and eyebrows had disappeared utterly—he was torn, singed, black and blue, and bleeding—but he had his proper complement of limbs.

Well, Elvira got out and began hustling happily about in just her old way. In a jiffy she had water on to boil, medicine, plaster, absorbent cotton, arnica out in no time, and in less than half-an-hour, the three disabled creatures were sitting about on comfortable chairs, listening breathlessly to Mr. Edmunds' account of the explosion.

She had just started to get tea when a carriage drove up and Grandpa Edmunds and Mrs. Humphreys got out. Grandpa Edmunds looked sheepish and Mrs. Humphreys looked coquettish—that is about as coquettish as a bale of cotton. Well, the explanation of that juxtaposition was that they had just got married and had stopped to say good-by before going to Saugus, Mass., where Mrs. Humphreys had cousins, on their honeymoon. Nor was that the last.

In the morning—Mike and I had rushed over to see Elvira, interrupting them at breakfast—suddenly Simeon came walking in on them white as a ghost.

Elvira stood right up on her feet. “Simeon,” she said, “I can't go back with you to live in Melcher—I've got to stay here as long as I live and take care of these boys—I declare they're not fit to take care of themselves.”

“Elvira,” Simeon said, “you can live anywhere on God's foot-stool that you choose so long as you let me live with you. Elvira, I have come to ask your forgiveness—Elvira, I've got a confession to make. Elvira—I—I—Elvira, I took every cent of the fifteen hundred dollars we had in the bank and spent it all on an edition of the “Vinegar” Bible. He looked at her pleadingly.

And what do you think Elvira did? Why she ran straight into his arms and she burst into the longest, loudest, jolliest shriek of laughter I ever heard in my life.


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Rh with facile tongue.’ She spoke coldly; moreover she had now withdrawn to the far side of her dais. For some while he pleaded in vain against this inhospitable treatment. But he soon saw that he would gain nothing, even should he stay where he was till dawn; and though he could hear by the water dripping from the eaves that it was a most disagreeable night, he rose and took his leave. Despite the rain the nightingales were singing lustily; but he was in no mood to enjoy their song and did not pause an instant to hear them.

On the fifth day of the fifth month, business at the Stables brought Genji in the direction of her apartments, and he availed himself of this opportunity to discover what had happened on the night of Sochi’s visit. ‘Did the prince stay very late?’ he asked. ‘I hope you did not let him go too far. He is the sort of man who might very easily lose control of himself … not that he is worse than others. It is really very unusual indeed to meet with any one who is capable of acting with self-restraint under such circumstances.’ And this was the match-maker who on the very occasion to which he was now referring, had driven her into Prince Sochi’s arms! She could not help being amused at his unblushing inconsistency. But all the while he was warning her against the very man for whose visit he had himself been responsible. Tamakatsura scanning him in his holiday clothes thought that he could not, by any imaginable touch of art or nature, have looked more beautiful. That thin cloak—what a marvellous blend of colours! Did fairies preside over his dyeing-vats? Even the familiar and traditional patterns, she thought, on such days as this take on a new significance and beauty. And then looking again at Genji: ‘If only we were not on this tiresome footing,’ she said to herself, ‘I believe I should long ago have fallen very much in love with him.’

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The Red Book Magazine/Volume 10/Number 1/Those who Sit Up-stairs

HE theater was cheerless. The asbestos curtain was still down. The big central chandelier showed the pin-pricks of a furtive economical glimmer. But the spawn of lesser ones that, with it, made a geometric dazzle of the roof, were not even lighted. The first balcony disclosed neither color nor movement, neither light nor sound. The boxes were pits of murky gloom. The orchestra gaped, untenanted. The floor was still vacant, desolate, dumb as any ruined amphitheater. But upstairs in the gallery all was different.

The doors had just been thrown open. The crowd had rushed frantically up the corkscrewing, narrowing stairs. From the door the gallery inclined at a dizzy angle. But with no perceptible lessening of their speed, they deployed and made for the first row.

Miss Carr and Mr. Embler, among the first to enter the theater, managed to secure their favorite places—the first row and a little around to the left.

“Isn't it something awful,” Miss Carr said indignantly. “There'll be an accident some day, and then I guess the management will have to number the tickets. I'm getting pretty sick of running up those stairs.

“Thank Heaven!”she thought inwardly, “I wont [sic] have to do it again in one while.”

This statement had been made to Mr. Embler in the same form every time they had “rushed” together. He received it with the words, grimly prophetic, with which, invariably, he had answered it in the past. “They'll have to come to numbering the tickets sometime; public feeling will make them.”

He helped Miss Carr off with her coat. He held it while she removed her gloves, put them in the little sack from which she had previously extracted her opera glasses, removed and rolled up her veil, removed her hat and stabbed it, by the four hatpins, into the cushioned rail in front. The she held his hat while he took off his heavy coat, folded it over the back of his seat and placed his hat in the rack under the seat. They did not hurry because it was now half an hour before the play would begin and fifteen minutes before the orchestra would appear.

In the meantime, the crowd that had flooded at their heels were beginning to get seated. The laughter and screaming was now accented by staccato cries and comments. From all over the gallery came the calls of the swift to the halt.

“Here I am, Mame, over here.”

“Sade, Sade, these are better seats than you've got—come over, wont you?”

“Julia, Julia—look—I got seats in the second row.”

Through this confusion, the snapping of seats sounded like explosions. Gradually the noise died down to a steady murmur. There was a flutter of programs and occasional exclamations of delight as enthusiasts identified favorites in the cast. Candy-boxes appeared. The crowd settled down to an amicable wait.

Miss Carr surveyed the gallery.

“That crowd from Mellen & Black's here,” she informed Mr. Embler, “over to the right—third row from the end.”

Mr. Embler glanced back interestedly. “They've got a new girl with them to-night, haven't they?”

“No—that's that Miss Murphy's sister—she comes with them once in a while—she's a bright one—I like her. She looks like her sister—don't she?”

Mr. Embler admitted that she did.

“They have an awful nice time together—those girls—they always lunch in a crowd like that. Whenever I get in the same place they always invite me to their table. I tell you, they're up and a-coming. You have to keep your wits sharpened to keep up with them.”

Mr. Embler made an inarticulate exclamation of assent.

“There's Miss Morrow over by the post—she didn't get a very good seat to night, did she?”

Time was, Miss Carr reflected, that she herself had been compelled occasionally to take a seat behind a post. But that was before the eventful night when, forced to stand throughout a crowded performance, she had suddenly keeled over into the arms of the man beside her. That man was Mr. Embler. It was he also, who, with the help of a pair of ushers, bore her outside. After she recovered, he had hovered with her on the outskirts of the crowd, dismayed by her intention to see the play out. He had accompanied her to the car; he had offered to see her home. She had refused to permit that—although she let him find out that she always “rushed” the last night of every production at that theater.

After that they got into the habit of sitting together. This was the extent of their intimacy, for she never saw him outside. Before she met Mr. Embler she always made it a point to get near the head of the line. To accomplish that, she sometimes had to wait an hour in freezing weather, in the little alley through which the less-favored financially were admitted to the theater. This was no longer necessary. Mr. Embler was sure to be among the first ten. She could depend on him to hold a seat in the front row if there were a hundred in the line ahead of her. It had made her theater-going a good deal easier.

She did not know much about Mr. Embler except that he was a bookkeeper, a single man, and apparently friendless. Like her, the theater was his one passion and only extravagance. Miss Carr had a scrap-book in which she pasted her programs. Mr. Embler always made a point of picking up, in the foyer, one of the downstairs programs so that her book could have as splendid an appearance as possible. She also had a collection of pictures of actresses in which she was inordinately interested. Most of them were cut from magazines—Mr. Embler kept on the look-out for them and he had contributed scores. He always had a pocket full of theatrical clippings for her to devour at her leisure and, occasionally, he brought her a theatrical magazine.

It was Miss Carr who, initially, laid down these dicta; Mr. Embler listened to her with a great deal of respect. He treated her always with a delicate mixture of awe and admiration. It was the tribute that those whose life has been a dead-level of hard work is apt to accord to the heroine of “better days.” It soothed Miss Carr to pour into the ears of sympathy high-colored reminiscences of the epoch before she had had to learn typewriting. His social humility flattered her. If his attitude had been that of the suitor, she often told herself, she would have to break the friendship off.

Mr. Embler was short and stout. His legs were so fat and stiff that they looked as if they had exploded from his thick body. He was not middle-aged but he was soon going to be. He had solemn dark eyes, a mustache, black and uneven, that drooped walrus-like. He wore his hair “roached” on one side and a good deal of enigmatic,masonic-jewelry hanging from a substantial gold watchchain.

Miss Carr was no longer young, and she never could have been pretty. Her features were a little sharp, and her uplifted nose seemed to pull a short upper lip away from a full lower one. There were two spots of flaring color on her high cheek-bones. But she had fine dark eyes, a remarkable head of hair, and her figure made quite the most of her clothes.

She was a cheerful person, with none of the having-seen-better-days attitude, once that fact had been revealed and paid tribute. In fact, she was so free from snobbishness, that a certain prideful announcement that she had presently to make came more diffidently from her lips than she expected.

“Oh, I sha'n't be here next Saturday night.”

She put her glass to her eyes and surveyed the house with an appearance of carelessness.

“You're not going to miss, 'The Other Way,'” Mr. Embler protested in alarm.

“Mercy, I should say I wasn't. Grace Grimshaw is my favorite actress, you know, now that Rosina Vokes is dead. I guess I wouldn't miss her for forty red apples. But, you see, the nicest thing has just happened. My cousin Ellen has—remember hearing me speak of her?”

It would have been strange if Mr. Embler had forgotten. Descriptions of the splendors of Cousin Ellen's existence were star features of Miss Carr's conversational exhibit

“Yes.”

“Well, she wrote me the other day that she hated to think of me rushing up these stairs every week or so—she knows 1ow crazy I am about the theater—and she said that her Christmas gift this year was going to be money and she hoped I'd spend it in buying good seats although she wouldn't bind me to anything. And so for the rest of the year I'm going to sit in the orchestra

“Isn't it lovely? I've always hated to rush. I hate everything about it—the cheap people and the programs and the noise and—and—everything. I don't feel at home here. I wasn't brought up that way. I don't know what my parents would think if they could see me here. Isn't it lovely that I haven't got to do it any more?”

“Great!” said Mr. Embler. But he spoke without enthusiasm. “Why, I suppose you wont ever come up here again.”

This was what Miss Carr dreaded. “I suppose not,” she said vaguely

There was a long pause. Miss Carr had been, as she put it to herself, “in mortal terror” for fear he would propose to call on her. For, of course, she couldn't allow that. But she soon saw that he was going to suggest nothing of the sort. He knew his place, evidently. She was much relieved—there was almost a suggestion of pique in her feeling.

“Don't forget your friends in the peanut gallery,” he said jocosely, after a while

“Of course I wont,” Miss Carr declared.

She wanted to turn the subject but, suddenly, she was shy. It was Mr. Embler who did it, at last.

“Pretty girl—that one in the blue cape,” he said in a detached way.

“Lovely!” Miss Carr was enthusiastic. unnecessarily so, perhaps. “Why, that's the one that sat in the box with the two men—don't you remember—the night Mansfield made that funny sarcastic speech. Don't you recall. She was flirting with both of them; we couldn't decide which one she liked best

“Sure, she's the one,” Mr. Embler responded uninterestedly. “Well, she's got a new one to-night.”

Miss Carr surveyed the party. “Yes, that's a new man. But she's real pretty, isn't she. She's got those same pearl sidecombs in. I wonder where she gets her hair marcelled. Most probably though she's got a lady's maid of her own.”

The house was beginning to wake up. The big central chandelier leaping into a ball of white fire, noiselessly exploded the darkness. Its satellites sparkled like diamond sunbursts; electric-flora pricked into brilliant life along the side-walls; the boxes snapped into rosy bloom; the house became a blooming marvel of red and blue and gold. Nymphs smiled, sup porting the curtain-frame. Satyrs grinned in corners. Cupids played, in inextricable groups, along the edge of the boxes. Masks gazed eyelessly from cornices. People began to stream down the aisles—beautiful carriage-people, the women with bare heads, with trailing gowns, with wonderful wraps,the men in sleeved capes and collapsible hats. Pretty groups arranged and re-arranged themselves in the boxes. The ushers were skimming noiselessly down the aisles, snapping down seats, receiving and handing back the ragged squares of paper that meant admittance to all these splendors, flying with velvet footsteps back up the aisle deftly dodging the avalanches of femininity.

A member of the orchestra poked a tentative head out from under the stage. He withdrew it. In an instant he re-appeared. His confrères, bent like gnomes under the weight of unwieldly [sic] instruments, followed through the slit, took their seats, turned on to their music the cylinders of white light that topped the stands and began re-arranging the sheets. The leader appeared. Leisurely, dégagé, he climbed to his perch. He surveyed his music. He examined the house. He gave a preliminary tug to a scornful mustache. Producing baton, he cast an oblique glance to left, another to the right. He scowled at the printed page, tapped on the iron-stand, and raised a preëmptory left hand. At the magic of his signal the music poured out. Simultaneously the asbestos curtain was drawn with swiftness upwards

A glowing scene—not less beautiful to Miss Carr because she could see every detail of it with her eyes shut—unrolled the splendors of a court-dance in mediæval Italy. And all the time the steady stream of beautiful women in the four aisles. From the gallery all this was færy.

Miss Carr and Mr. Embler were respectfully silent during the overture and through the breathless pause that brought up its close. Then there was the tinkle of a bell, the intoxicating flare of the footlights, the retreat of the house-lights until everything back of the orchestra was phantasm; then another pause, more tingling, the slow rise and stately disappearance of the Italian dance—an—and—and —

There they were, the old familiar pair—Maggie the housemaid and James the butler—discussing intimate household affairs in the sunny, lawn-encircled breakfast-room.

It was a fine act. On that Miss Carr and Mr. Embler were unanimous. And the play grew even finer as it developed. But, somehow, the evening was not so pleasant as many Miss Carr had known. She was sorry for that, for it was likely to be their last. For one thing, Mr. Embler seemed to make fewer than usual of his droll remarks about the people down-stairs. Her quick eye picked out several who, from a gallery point of view, they knew very well. But he was not especially interested in them. He said good-by to her in abrupt, matter-of-fact words, still making no allusion to possible future meetings.

She dressed with careful precision the night she went to the closing performance of “The Other Way.” She put on a gown so important that it would never have occurred to her to jeopard its freshness by wearing it to the “rush.” It was of a foulard silk, brown with little white figures in it, a yoke of white chiffon and bows of brown velvet ribbon. And for the occasion, she had bought a pair of white gloves, a new veil, and a modest bunch of violets. She had no evening wrap, but her loose brown coat did not look like a rain-coat; she felt well dressed when she started for the theater.

It was a windy night and the walk from the car ruffled her hair. Before going to her seat, she went into a room portièred off from the foyer and marked “Ladies Parlor.” It seemed a very beautiful place to her with its puffy, upholstered furniture, its little dressing-tables, making a brilliant display of silver toilet articles, its smart black-gowned and white-capped maids. There were several mirrors, but it was not so easy to get close to them. A crowd of women was before them removing wraps, re-adjusting hair ornaments, drawing on long-gloves. They peacocked before the glass, taking all the time they wanted, elbowing and shoving in so unconscious a way that it actually seemed as if they did not see each other. Miss Carr could not bring herself to join the maelstrom and push with the rest. She stood a moment contemplating the scene in perplexity. The music warned her presently that the curtain would soon go up. Without waiting longer, she checked her coat and hat and was conducted down the aisle to the fifth row. With a sigh of rapture, she sank down on a soft cushiony seat that mysteriously adjusted itself to her weight. She looked about her.

There was a good deal of confusion. People were crowding down the aisles laughing, talking, bowing, and chatting with acquaintances, picking out friends in the boxes, adjusting glasses, wielding beautiful fans.

Presently the bell tinkled and the curtain went up. Again the pair, to whom tradition has deputed the effort to hold the plot back until the audience gets seated, were discovered working vigorously. The play, being English, this time they were Miggs and Horrocks.

It seemed to Mary Carr that the audience never would settle down. And they kept coming. In her ears was a surge of sound made up of the rustling of fabrics, the snapping of programs, the whispered directions of ushers. Not that alone! The people already seated in comfort, lazily continued their conversation after a perfunctory glance at the setting. Until the appearance of the star, a pair just back of her briskly exchanged opinions in regard to a dance they had both attended. In vain Miss Carr, to whom the utterances of Miggs and Horrocks were as sacred as the peroration of the star, strained her ears. They were merely a gesticulating, mumbling pair of manikins until Grace Grimshaw's entrance compelled consideration.

It promised to be a beautiful play. In the first intermission her enthusiasm demanded an outlet. She wished lonesomely that she had a somebody with whom to talk it over. For one thing, she had jumped to a certain astute conclusion in regard to the heroine's past life. But it would not have occurred to her to address either of the women who sat near her. One, though gray-haired, was magnificent. She was chaperoning a party of buds. The other, in a sequined gown that made her flexible figure positively contortionistic, was red-haired and languishingly inaccessible.

She tried to entertain herself with the little entr'acte episodes, with the boys selling Miss Grimshaw's pictures, the little groups that gathered in the aisles, the animation in the boxes. She couldn't find the courage to signal to an usher flying by with glasses of water, held in an enormous castor. It meant that the glass would have to travel through five pairs of white-gloved hands to hers—it seemed too much to ask.

She studied the women about her. They were all exquisitely dressed and some of them were charming to watch. Their jewelry and hair-ornaments, in particular, fascinated her. A careful survey of her vicinity proved to her that she was the only unescorted woman in sight.

She kept turning her glass towards the gallery where she found Mr. Embler in their regular seat. He had apparently not found her. At any rate, whenever she looked up, he seemed to be examining some other part of the house. There was a woman, who appeared to be alone, sitting on one side of him. She wondered inconsequently if they would get acquainted before the evening was over

The second act unveiled a thrilling climax but the applause of the orchestra was polite rather than enthusiastic. Miss Carr continued to clap after everybody in her vicinity had stopped. The gallery took it up and threw it against the curtain with such spirit and vigor that Miss Grimshaw had to come out and bow and bow and bow again.

In the intermission she was compelled to listen to comments on her beloved Miss Grimshaw that were cruelly sarcastic. She did look old—Miss Carr who would have hated to acknowledge that to anybody else, had to acknowledge it to herself. In the half-light of the first act she had seemed to vibrate with girlishness, but in the glaring sunshine of the second act, her forty-odd years were painfully apparent in her thin, muscle-drawn throat and in the crows-feet about her eyes. Miss Carr had never seen these blemishes from her seat in the gallery; she regretted to have to see them now. In addition, she had to undergo the painful disillusion of finding that Maynadier, the leading-man, although young enough, was not handsome at all, as she had always supposed. He was not only ugly but mean and unpleasant-looking. The talk all about her irritated her. One man referred to the play as “a beastly bore.” She devoted herself finally to the opulent program with which the management favored the orchestra. There were many pleasing jokes in it. She examined the advertisements with interest.

She tried to catch Mr. Embler's eye at the close of the last act, but he left the theater at once. She wondered if he had been looking for her and had missed her because of her different gown. She recalled with amused feminine tolerance that she had never been able to locate any girl to his vision by a mere description of her clothes. It always had to be something as definite as “third-row from the front, left, second seat in.”

When she came out, her desire to unburden herself about the play impelled her to stand several minutes in front of the theater. She was hoping she would see Mr. Embler. She knew that his judgment would agree with hers. But he was nowhere in sight. As she walked to the car, her head dispiritedly down, she felt somebody give her a quick glance, then hurry on. She turned. It was Mr. Embler making off through the crowd.

Miss Carr felt queer when she went to bed that night—so queer that she kept wondering if she were coming down with an illness.

The next two weeks were restless ones. Everything went wrong: things mixed themselves unaccountably at the office, the weather was bad, and she was conscious all the time of a nervous, dissatisfied feeling. Again and again it occurred to her that she needed a tonic. She found herself fretting and fuming over the slow passage of time. It seemed as if the closing night of “Mistress Dorothy,” the new colonial play, never would come. She did not, however, buy her ticket several days in advance as she had planned. She could get quite as good a seat, she kept assuring herself, the night of the performance.

She dressed in her foulard gown and with a great many anxious glances into the glass. But when she reached the theater, she bought a rush seat, as if she had been intending it all the time, and joined the mob packed in the alley. Through the crowd she could catch an occasional glimpse of Mr. Embler standing close to the door. He did not glance back and she could not signal her presence to him. This was a matter of regret at first. At last she alternately hoped that he would and would not see her. Presently the door opened.

The rush upstairs left her unexpectedly dizzy: it was true, she concluded, she was not well. For a moment's rest she went into the room, curtly marked “.” It was a small, faded, smelly place, as crowded as the grander one downstairs. She sat on the very humpy, red-plush lounge to which Mr. Embler had borne her the night she fainted in his arms. She watched the women coming and going. There was only one meager mirror, but the girls reflected in its green depths, busy re-pompadouring blond or brune heads and re-forming in them, unbroken tiers of sidecombs, moved over to give each other a chance.

One of their number—it was Miss Murphy's little sister—stopped to tell her that she had missed her two weeks ago. “Your steady aint [sic] saved a seat for you to-night—I guess he dont [sic] know you're coming,” she concluded.

“I didn't expect to come,” said Miss Carr forlornly.

She took a seat in the unfilled back row. Mr. Embler was in his usual place, raking the orchestra with his glass. She suddenly felt homesick; she hated to spend the evening alone. But in another moment she saw the little girl with whom she had just spoken catch Mr. Embler's eye and signal in her direction.

Mr. Embler turned and caught her glance. His eye lighted up. Seizing his coat and hat he came bounding up the steep incline, two steps at a time.

“I'm real glad to see you,” he said as he seated himself, “I missed you an awful lot. I didn't suppose you'd ever come up here again.

Miss Carr looked down in her lap. “I guess I'm never going to sit anywhere else if I want a good time,” she faltered.

“Is that so?” Mr. Embler asked. “Is that so?” He fixed her hard with his steady eyes.

“I guess it is,” Miss Carr said.

She looked up into his face. There were tears shining under her lashes. But she smiled.

The lights went down. The music came up.

Under the coat in her lap his hand suddenly reached over and seized hers in a clasp that said a great deal. But the pressure with which she returned it revealed perhaps as much.

“I never felt so lonesome in my life,” he said soberly, “when I looked down into the orchestra that night and saw—”

But just then the bell tinkled. The music drifted away toward silence. The curtain disappeared. And there was Delia the housemaid dusting the drawing-room while she slanged John the butler.

The hush of a happy anticipation fell upon those who sit up-stairs.


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ANNETTE LYLE’S OHRISTMAS GIFT. 429 only increased his determination, while agitating him to a degree too great for his frail strength to bear. So, after further useless argument, his step-son relinquished the attempt, and sadly retired, unshaken in his resolve, but obliged to postpone the discussion of it.

In the hall he met the little seamstress. He bowed gravely, with a dignity and distance he had never used before.

Her sweet face flushed up at the change in his manner. His coming had been a ray of} sunshine in her dull existence; and utterly ignorant of life and herself, she could not help showing how it had warmed and cheered her, and now how the sudden change in his manner pained her. But, preoccupied as he was, he did not notice this, He went on his way with- out further notice of her, depriving Annette of half her happiness. He had been so king, and her life was so lonely, her tasks were so hard—what had she done to offend him? The tears came into her eyes as she thought of it all.

The white tempests of December came, and Mr. Johnson was dying. It was Christmas-eve, but there was no feasting or gayety in the house, usually so full of ijight and mirth at such a time. The little seamstress cowered over the grate in her own chamber, to which she had retreated, and with her head buried in her hands, strove to shut out the groans of mortal agony, heard even above the sighing of the wind, from the distant sick-room.

It was not the first sad Christmas she had known; but she had never felt so wholly forlorn, so utterly alone before. Her one friend, whose voice had been so gentle, whose eyes had been so true, was strangely changed and distant; the coming death seemed almost to have cast its fatal chill over them all.

When morning dawned, the sufferer lay at last released from pain, but feeble, and sinking fast. All the household were summoned to his pillow. Mrs. Johnson herself, with strange consideration, came for Annette, and led her thither.

The dying man turned his eyes upon them as they entered, and seemed, by a gesture, to desire them to come nearer. Charles Dean, who was bending above the bed, rose and came over to them.

“My father wishes to bid you farewell,” he said to Annette.

The child put out a trembling hand.

“He desires to say,” he went on, ‘that he acknowledges you as the daughter of his late father, and the heiress and rightful owner of this property; and he beseeches your pardon, if he has unjustly withheld it, and your prayers that he may die in charity with all men.”

She fell on her knees and burst into tears. She tried tospeak. It was only inarticulately, however, that she uttered the desired words. The sick man heard her voice, a smile passed over his face—he was dead.

Charles Dean led her from the room to another, ‘where she sat alone and distressed, till, after awhile, the servants came to know her wishes. She was their young lady now, and the mistress of the mansion. How strange it all seemed!

The old housekeeper was most garrulous in explaining the restitution. It was a grand “Christmas gift,” she said.

“A Christmas gift!” The words rang in the girl’s shrinking ears through all the week that followed. She had her place among the chief mourners at the great funeral, for her relationshij, and all the claims of her position were conceded at once. But she felt herself a usurper and an outcast through it all. Her Christmas gift was ruin to the man she held first and best on earth. It was the downfall of his mother’s hopes and pride; it was destruction to the happiness of others dearer than herself. No wonder she pined and drooped beneath the burden of her new possessions; no wonder she would gladly have resigned them.

This was in her mind, when Charles Dean, after the funeral, asked an interview, to ex- plain to her all that pertained to her new in- heritance, and to take his own and his mother’s leave.

The thought was horrible to her. She had never dreamed of such a change, but had hope- fully thought of being able to return to them, by gradual means, all of which she had robbed them—of becoming at least their trusted friend and companion—of yielding her own claims, and so purchasing the right to enjoy the sweet shelter of their kindness and protection.

When she found how irresistible was the manly will opposed to hers, she went weeping and despairing to his mother. Mrs. Johnson would have been more than human to be able to conceal how much her abdication cost her. But she, also, was inexorable. She was too just and right-minded to desire to enjoy another’s wealth.

That night the little heiress was gone.

In a very simple and touching letter she bade adieu to the place she had loved so well, and in which she had still been so forlorn and alone; to the people once so kind, yet now cruel to

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248 A letter arrived. It was from Prince Sochi, written on thin white paper in a competent hand, and couched in terms which at the time seemed very spirited and apposite. I fear, however, that were I to reproduce it here, this admired letter would seem in no way remarkable, and I will only record the poem which accompanied it: ‘Shall I, like the flower that grows unnoticed by the stream though holiday-makers in their dozens pass that way, find myself still, when this day closes, unwanted and passed-by?’ The letter was attached to the tallest and handsomest flag-iris she had ever seen. ‘He is quite right,’ said Genji; ‘to-day there is no escape for you.’ And when one after another of her gentlewomen had pleaded with her that this once at any rate she should answer him with her own hand, she produced the following reply, which had, however, very little to do with what was going on in her mind: ‘Better had the flower remained amid the waters, content to be ignored, than prove, thus swiftly plucked, how feeble were the roots on which it stood.’

It was an idle repartee, and even the handwriting seemed to Prince Sochi’s expectant eye somewhat vague and purposeless. He was, indeed, not at all sure, when he saw it, that he had not made a great mistake…. Tamakatsura, on the other hand, was disposed to be in rather a good humour with herself. She had this morning received Magic Balls of the utmost variety and splendour from an unprecedented number of admirers. A more complete contrast than that between her poverty-stricken years on the island and her present pampered existence could hardly be imagined. Her ideas on a variety of subjects were becoming far less rigid than when she first arrived

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