.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 54490
   :PG.Title: Sweet Clover
   :PG.Released: 2017-04-29
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Clara Louise Burnham
   :DC.Title: Sweet Clover
              A Romance of the White City
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1894
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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SWEET CLOVER
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      SWEET CLOVER

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      *A ROMANCE OF THE WHITE CITY*

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      BY

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      CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM

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      BOSTON AND NEW YORK
      HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
      The Riverside Press, Cambridge
      1894

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      Copyright, 1894,
      BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM.

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      *All rights reserved.*

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      *The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.*
      Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

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   By Clara Louise Burnham

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YOUNG MAIDS AND OLD.
DEARLY BOUGHT.
NO GENTLEMEN.
A SANE LUNATIC.
NEXT DOOR.
THE MISTRESS OF BEECH KNOLL.
MISS BAGG'S SECRETARY.
DR. LATIMER.
SWEET CLOVER. A Romance of the White City.

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HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.

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   CONTENTS.

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   CHAP.

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I.  `Fair Harvard`_
II.  `Uncle Adolph's Letter`_
III.  `A Morning Drive`_
IV.  `Clover's Announcement`_
V.  `Miss Berry's Visitors`_
VI.  `The Unexpected Guest`_
VII.  `On the Rail`_
VIII.  `The Telegram`_
IX.  `A Christmas Visitor`_
X.  `Aunt Love's Intercession`_
XI.  `The Dedication`_
XII.  `Gorham Page's Commission`_
XIII.  `May Day`_
XIV.  `Clover's Invitation`_
XV.  `The Court of Honor`_
XVI.  `A Massachusetts Celebration`_
XVII.  `The Bronze Baby`_
XVIII.  `Clover's Diplomacy`_
XIX.  `The Ferris Wheel`_
XX.  `The Midway Plaisance`_
XXI.  `Old Vienna`_
XXII.  `On the Lagoon`_
XXIII.  `The Hotel Dance`_
XXIV.  `Dress Parade`_
XXV.  `In the Peristyle`_
XXVI.  `The New Year`_





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.. _`FAIR HARVARD`:

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   SWEET CLOVER.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   FAIR HARVARD.

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"Well, Jack," said Mr. Van Tassel, entering
his son's room at Cambridge, "the deed is done.
Behold you a full-fledged alumnus of glorious old
Harvard!"  The speaker grasped the young fellow's
hand, his face expressing his pride and gratification.

"Yes, sir," answered the graduate, springing to
his feet as he cordially returned his father's
greeting, "full-fledged, but rather reluctant to try my
wings, I must confess.  It is hard to fly away
from all this."

As he spoke, he glanced around the room, one of
the most luxurious in historic Holworthy.  Each
familiar object seemed newly invested with
pleasurable association.  His eyes lingered upon a
silver chafing-dish, resting amid a lot of congenial
litter on a mantelpiece.  Jack was accustomed to
admit modestly that when it came to manoeuvring
with a chafing-dish, he could not deny his own
genius.

"You know it has been home to me for four
years," he added half-apologetically, as he pushed
forward the easiest chair for his father, who
dropped into it.

"I know, I know," returned the latter, nodding.
"I am glad college life has been such a satisfactory
experience to you.  I have felt the lack of it
myself often.  Well, yesterday was a glorious day,"
he continued, with a reminiscent smile.  "Fine
weather, fine people.  As good a climax as you
could have desired.  Those exercises around the
tree are very amusing," the smile broadening.  "I
give you my word I didn't know you in that
scramble.  I didn't know my own boy.  You were the
worst-looking tramp of them all to begin with, Jack,
and at the end you were the most demoralized
bundle of rags of the lot."

The speaker's hearty laugh rang out.  It was a
matter of course that Jack should have been
superlative in any college undertaking; but now a
pensive smile was the young man's only response to
his father's mirth.  To-day's reaction found him
in a rather thoughtful and sentimental mood.

The Van Tassels had always been well-looking
as a family.  Richard Van Tassel was a handsome
man of a florid thick-set type, and he admired
this sole remaining child the more that his
physique was so dissimilar to his own.  Tall, slender,
athletic, Jack stood unconscious of his father's
scrutiny, which took in every detail of his appearance,
from the wavy black hair scrupulously parted
in the middle, to the feet planted apart on the
thick rug.  It was a delicate-featured, refined face
that the young fellow had, a transparent face that
betrayed feeling; that flushed with annoyance or
radiated pleasure from brilliant brown eyes and
perfect teeth.  But now the eyes were shadowed;
and when they caught the father's gaze after a
half-minute's abstraction, Jack smiled with the gentle,
winning expression which was his birthright, and
had uncalculatingly won for him every favor he
had ever asked.

"Pardon me.  Did you speak?  My wits are
wool-gathering to-day."

Mr. Van Tassel ceased his silent satisfied survey,
and picked up a book from a neighboring table.
"I was about to ask you, what next?" he said.

"What next?"

"Yes; or perhaps I should say where next?
I have business in Washington, regarding the
World's Fair, which may detain me there some
time.  Are you with me?"

"No—a"—  Jack appeared to rouse himself
with an effort from his mental pictures.  "The
fact is, I've a lot of invitations that I should like
to accept before I go back to Chicago."

"Very well.  We will postpone talking plans,
then, until that time comes.  You are to go abroad
for a year if you like, you know."

"Yes, thank you.  I've a fancy that I would
rather put off that trip awhile."

"Why so?  A wedding journey in view later, perhaps?"

Jack did not appear to think this raillery
required a specific answer.  He smiled again, in the
thoughtful mood so foreign to him.

Mr. Van Tassel, however, had been glad of an
opening for the question.  He listened with veiled
eagerness for his son's reply, and was disappointed
that none came.

When he spoke again, it was with new seriousness
and a shade of embarrassment.

"You must have met many charming women,
during the past four years, who are strangers to
me," he said.

"Yes, I've met a lot of women," returned Jack
with a patient sigh at this irrelevance.  What
were charming women to a man who was saying
good-by to his crew!

"But old friends are best still?" persisted his
father.

"Yes, no doubt," responded the other, vaguely
courteous.

"You haven't forgotten the girls at home?"
said Mr. Van Tassel.

"No,—no indeed," replied his son, shaking
himself together with the realization that he was
playing poorly the part of host to this kindest of
fathers, for whom it was impossible in the nature of
things to enter into the subjects which were uppermost
in Jack's interest just now.  "How"—with
spasmodic eagerness—"how are they all?"

"Who?  Anybody in particular?"

The young man stirred restlessly.  This was
persecution.  "Oh no, my Hyde Park friends generally."

"There is no especial news, I believe.  Mrs. Bryant
fails very slowly, I think; but of course I
do not dare hint such a thing to her devoted
daughter."

"H'm.  Aren't they all devoted?" asked Jack
with waning vigor.

"Oh, Clover is the chief one.  She is son and
daughter both, in that family.  All responsibility
falls on her.  A fine girl," said Mr. Van Tassel
emphatically.

"A pretty one, too," returned his son, stifling
a yawn.  "Mildred is coming along, though.  I
thought she was after Clover pretty sharp, the last
time I was at home.  Growing to her hands and
feet, you know, and all that."

"You will be glad to see Clover again," said
Mr. Van Tassel tentatively.

"Yes, very glad to see them all," was the reply,
delivered with conscientious heartiness.

"Not especially glad to see Clover?" continued
Mr. Van Tassel; and now it was impossible even
for the preoccupied graduate not to see that his
father was, in his own words "driving at something."

He looked in surprise at the strong face thrown
out against the dark blue cushions of the chair,
and straight into the steady gaze of the gray eyes
that had never looked unkindly on him.  Before
he could speak, the older man continued:—

"I had an idea that there was a boy and girl
attachment between yourself and Clover Bryant,—a
preference on your part, perhaps on hers"—

Mr. Van Tassel's face had never looked more
attractive to his son than now.  Its expression was
so loving, so earnest, that Jack forebore to laugh,
as he at first felt inclined to do.

His father did not appear to think this a laughing
matter.  Moreover his attitude gave promise
of consent and sanction in case such compliance
was called for.

"No, sir.  You were mistaken," answered the
young man respectfully.  "There was never any
sentiment there."

It was further mystifying to him that a shade
of relief certainly passed over his father's face at
this reply, and yet it might be explicable on the
ground that although Mr. Van Tassel would not
refuse his son's wishes, he was glad to find that
there was no question of a union between his own
family and one so poor and obscure as the Bryants.

"There might well have been a preference," was
the grave answer.  "Clover, young as she is, is
a pearl among women.  The Breckinridges have
just gone abroad for a year, and Mrs. Breckinridge,
before she left, told me that she had invited Clover
to accompany them; but the girl refused to leave
her mother and the children.  Think of the way
the Breckinridges will travel, and what it cost her
to refuse!"

"Whew, that was rough!  Clover is a brick,"
declared Jack, his eyes bright enough now with
their accustomed interest in life.  "It ought not
to be allowed.  Can't we do something?  Get a
trained nurse for Mrs. Bryant, and invite her and
the children to our house for the year?"

Mr. Van Tassel smiled at this outburst.  "We
not only can't do anything," he returned, "but we
mustn't say anything.  Clover bound Mrs. Breckinridge
to secrecy, because it would be such a grief
to Mrs. Bryant to discover what her daughter had
renounced for her."

"She's strong, Clover is," said Jack, with an
admiring shake of the head.  "I shall be glad to
see her again."

Then he asked his father a question regarding
business, and the subject of the Bryants was
dropped.





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.. _`UNCLE ADOLPH'S LETTER`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   UNCLE ADOLPH'S LETTER.

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Several weeks later, in the long, narrow back
yard of one of a block of wooden houses in
Chicago, a girl was hanging out clothes on a line.
An occasional hot breeze blew the soft brown hair
in stray locks across her forehead, and the sun
beat down from the glowing sky on her
unprotected head.

"Clover, Clover darling," called a weak voice
from an open window, "you've been out there so
long!  Aren't you almost through?  You will get
a sunstroke.  Do, at least, put on a hat."

The girl brushed her flying hair back with one
hand.  "I'm all right, mother," she called, her
cheery tones contrasting pleasantly with the sad
voice.

"She is doing too much.  I know she is,"
murmured the feeble watcher within, keeping her
yearning gaze on the lithe young figure.  "Bless
her brave heart!"  The dim eyes filled.

The front door slamming broke in upon the
mother's meditations, and another girl entered the
shabby room where she sat.  She was a tall,
broad-shouldered young creature of seventeen, the
face under her heavy, half-falling brown hair
flushed with heat, health, and happiness.  She
seemed to fill the room as she skipped up to the
white-haired figure and pressed the infantile curve
of her peachy cheek against the pale face.

"Oh, I wish for the thousandth time that we
could live nearer the lake," she said in hearty
young tones.  "Every block one comes inland, one
feels the difference in heat.  Where is Clover?"

"In the back yard, hanging out clothes," was
the anxious response.  "I'm afraid for her,
Mildred.  I wish you would take her a shade hat."

"Hanging out clothes!" repeated Mildred,
amazed.  "What in the world"—She did not
wait to finish her sentence, but hastening into the
hall seized a broad-rimmed hat hanging there and
hurried to the back of the house.  Running down
the steps, the dancing light quite gone from her
clear eyes, she approached her sister.

"What does this mean, Clover?" she exclaimed accusingly.

The elder, already highly colored, now looked
uneasy.  "You know Mrs. O'Rourke couldn't
come to-day to do the washing," she answered.

"No, but she can come Wednesday," retorted
the younger, placing the hat upon the sunny
roughened hair of the head which was decidedly
below her own in height.

"Don't stick the hat-pin into me," cried Clover,
smiling up into the displeased eyes.

"I don't know but I will.  Just look at your
fingers, all white and parboiled!"

Clover clasped the offending hands behind her.

"What did you do it for?" asked the young
girl severely.  "Here I've been having the most
elegant jouncy sail,—it is deliciously rough,—sitting
at my ease on a cushion, while you've been
working like this.  It isn't a bit fair."

"All right.  Help me to hang up the rest of
these clothes, and I'll tell you why I did it."

Mildred snatched up a small blouse waist and a
couple of clothespins.  What was the use of
cooling off on Lake Michigan if one must return to
this?  How the sun did broil down!

"Was Elsie with you?" asked Clover, as she
pinioned the side of an apron to the line.

"Yes, and Frank too.  Harry Billings took us
all out."

"I'm afraid that the children will become
something of a nuisance down at the boat-house.
Of course with you it is different; but the others
hang around and look wishful, and of course the
young men are too good-natured not to ask them.
As for Frankie, he is such an amphibious little
animal, we can't help his living down there."

"I only wish we all did live on the shore,"
grumbled Mildred.  "I never shall be resigned to
being so far from the lake."

"Oh, it is something to live in the country,"
rejoined Clover comfortingly, "and Hyde Park is
pretty all through."

"Country!  Hyde Park!" said Mildred scornfully.
"You know it is all Chicago now."

"To be sure; but the annexation is a novelty
yet, so no wonder I had forgotten.  However,
what's in a name?"

"Not much, perhaps," said Mildred, tired of
reaching up in the hot sun, and inclined to be
pessimistic, "but since we have moved into the
middle of this dingy old block, we had better stop
talking about living in the country.  You haven't
told me yet why you took this last caprice.  We
can't afford to go away and have a change in
summer, I understand that; but surely there is a
difference between stark and staring mad.  There
are more sensible forms of recreation than to do a
family washing on an August day."

"I haven't done the biggest, hardest pieces, you
see," said Clover gently.  "There, this is the last.
Now let us go over under our tree and talk a bit
while we cool off."  She turned toward the house
and sent a reassuring kiss toward the figure seated
in the window, and made a dumb show of applauding
her own performance, smiling gayly as she
clapped her hands.

"Sit down, Milly," she said, when they had
reached the shade of the one tree their yard
boasted; but as soon as they were seated, the elder
girl fell silent, and clasping her hands behind her
head looked up through the foliage of the ragged
oak, slowly dying as all its brothers and sisters do
in this region, pining for the old prairie isolation.

Mildred fanned herself with her hat, and regarded
her sister half crossly, half curiously.

"I hate to talk over bothers with you, Milly,"
said the latter at last; "but I do have a lot of
bothers lately."

Mildred wondered if it were imagination that
she saw tears, gather in the other's eyes.  If they
were tears, they were well trained to obedience.
Clover sank still farther back and lay upon the
grass, and any moisture that had crept forth
retreated to its source.

"Is mother any worse?" Mildred asked in a
hushed voice.

"No; although she is no better, and any
suffering she may endure is the hardest trial we can
have to bear.  Other perplexities are trying in
proportion as they have relation to her, and all our
perplexities must, in the end, bear upon her.  How
to conceal them is the study."

"What have you to conceal?  What?" asked
Mildred quickly, her large, childlike eyes full of
wonder.  "Mother knows, she has to, that we
barely make both ends meet, and she thinks you
are a perfect wonder, the way you manage.  What
is it, Clover?  Is it Frank's education you are
worrying about again?  Goodness!  Don't tell me
you did the washing to save up money for that?"  The
speaker's eyes widened with surprise and
disapproval.

Clover shook her head and smiled faintly.

"I've noticed lately that you aren't half so
jolly as you used to be."

Clover sat up with such suddenness as to make
Mildred start.  "Has mother noticed it?" she demanded.

"No, not that I know of.  You needn't look so
tragical.  I only mean you are ever so much more
thoughtful and old-womanish just lately than you
used to be.  I'm sure I don't see why you should
let yourself be bothered if we're all willing to live
right down at the bottom of everything, and I
don't make any fuss about wearing the same dress
to school until the girls must think I've grown
into it."

"You have been good, Milly, just as good as
you can be"—

"Pshaw, I'm nothing to what you are for goodness.
We all have to feel the pinch of poverty
together," said Mildred with some grandiloquence;
"and in a place like Hyde Park it is easier to bear
than it might be in some other places.  All the old
settlers know what father was, and that his honor
wasn't lost when the money was.  Everybody we
really care for has been friendly to us since he
died.  Just think, it is nine years now, and we do
manage to have some good times," finished the girl,
quite heroically she thought, since there were such
a number of joys that she yearned for and had to
behold hopelessly in the possession of her more
fortunate companions.  "Come now," she added
insistently, "you are still guilty of that washing
and not a word said to excuse yourself."

"Milly,"—the older girl looked into her sister's
eyes with an expression full of loving
trouble,—"I hate to tell you, but Uncle Adolph's allowance
hasn't come this month."

"It is a little late, that is all," said Mildred, but
her face fell and her heart began to beat unpleasantly.

"No," very sadly, "he has written mother that
it will not come any more.  Fortunately I opened
the letter as usual, and I have not shown it to
mother.  She thinks it is only delayed."

"But he owed the money to father," said Mildred
vehemently.  "It was not charity to us, it
was a debt."

"Yes, but he simply says that on account of
losses he will not be able to let us have any more
money, and we cannot force him."

"Mr. Van Tassel could.  Have you told him?
He is so very kind to us."

"Yes, he is very kind; but there is nothing he
could do about this."

"What shall we do?" asked Mildred blankly.

"That is what I have been asking myself for
days past."

"That is why you did the washing!" said the
younger slowly and with awe, as though this thought
did indeed bring home a realizing sense of the
situation.  "We are awfully—miserably poor," she
added in a panic.

"Hush!  Not so loud," warned her sister.

"I shall have to leave school and help you do
the housework, and Frank can never have any
education at all," declared Mildred despairingly.

"He will have to get a position in some store as
a cash boy.  Mr. Van Tassel will probably help
him that much," she finished dismally.

"Hush!  Don't keep bringing Mr. Van Tassel
into it," said Clover nervously.  "I can't bear the
thought of begging anybody for anything, even
influence."

"Then you have thought of something," exclaimed
Mildred eagerly.

"No, I haven't, I haven't," rejoined the other
hastily.  "Oh, Milly, forgive me."  Her tone and
gesture as she put one hand to her face and
quickly extended the other to her sister touched
the latter with great surprise.  Mildred took the
hand and squeezed it between her own.

"Forgive you, you old darling," she said, tears
springing to her eyes.  "What for, I wonder?
Because you have three children to bring up and
work for when you are only twenty? or because
you, the prettiest girl in Hyde Park, have wizzled
up all your poor fingers washing for us?  What
is it?  Oh, Clover dear!"

For Clover was crying in a hasty, furtive
fashion, stifling her sobs, and drying her eyes with
light touches, fearing to make the lids redder.

"Because I couldn't keep it from you, Milly.
You see it doesn't do any good for me to bother
you except to relieve me a little."

"And isn't that something?" with anxious
affection.  "Why, you make me as vain as a peacock.
I didn't know I counted a bit.  I thought
you had to have somebody old, like mother or
Mr. Van Tassel, to get any comfort out of them."

"Now of course you feel as I do, Mildred,"
said the older sister, her quick self-control
regained.  "Nothing is any matter but to keep this
from mother."

"Well, I don't see how we're going to do it for
any length of time."

Clover bit her lip.  "But as long as we can, we
will."

"Of course.  Why, poor mother would be
crushed!"  Then with a change of tone, "Here
she comes this minute, Clover Bryant!"

"And my eyes are so red!"

"Better not come out here, mother dear," cried
Mildred, rising precipitately and advancing to
meet her.  "The—the clothes are so damp,
you'll—you'll take cold; and the sun is so hot, you'll
be—be"—

The mother, with her delicate face smiling
beneath the prematurely white hair, placed her arm
around the tall girl as she met her, and together
they advanced, Mildred most reluctantly, to where
Clover sat smiling and striving to look indifferent.

"Have you come out to hear the jays scold?"
asked the latter.  "There is one up there now.
Let me hang the hammock for you."  She sprang
to her feet.

Mrs. Bryant, without relinquishing her hold on
Mildred, put the other arm around her eldest
daughter.

Clover flushed violently.  There was a look in
her mother's loving eyes, the hint of a smile on
her lips, which the girl recognized.  It was a
certain exalted expression of the dear lined face
which her children had seen before, and it always
meant rising to an emergency.  The girl's heart
contracted painfully.

The wet clothing on the lines flapped spasmodically
behind the trio.  Unsteady board fences
enclosed the narrow heated area.  The poverty-stricken
tree stretched its gaunt, ill-clothed arms
aloft, and the blue-jay's harsh, jeering note added
one more petty discomfort to the surroundings.

"My dear little girls," said the gentle voice
with unusual tenderness.

The sisters only regarded their mother in an
apprehensive silence.

"I went to your room for something, Clover,
and I found my letter from Uncle Adolph.  I
have just been reading it.  Don't regret it.  I
had to know."





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.. _`A MORNING DRIVE`:

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   CHAPTER III.


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   A MORNING DRIVE.

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In a city like Chicago, where events occur with
phenomenal rapidity, two or three years make great
changes in a neighborhood.  Hyde Park, which
long hung back like a rebellious child loath to
yield its independence, had at last placed its
reluctant hand in that of the mother city; but
with the suburb's growing population there had
already come a new state of affairs.  It was no
longer the case that everybody in Hyde Park
knew everybody else.  Those families who made
homes there when but two trains ran daily to and
from town, felt, on the rare and rarer occasions
of meeting one another in a stranger crowd, the
drawing of a tie tender as that of kinship.

Mrs. Bryant belonged to this pioneer set, and
so did Mr. Van Tassel.  To those residents who
had danced with them "long before the fire" at
the parties in the old Hyde Park hotel, this was
reason sufficient why the wealthy widower should
manifest a continued interest in the friend of
his young manhood and her fatherless children.
Those long-finished polkas in the long-destroyed
hostelry on the lake shore, where scattered
neighbors once met with the unconventional jollity of
family reunion, had left behind them a green
memory in some hearts.

Florence Badger had been a fair little bud at
those gatherings, and of course Richard Van
Tassel, her gay young partner, was not likely to
forget either her or his chum, Lewis Bryant,
whom she afterward married.  The children of
the two families had gone to school together and
carried the intimacy on to the next generation;
and when Mr. Van Tassel's wife and daughter
had been taken from him, more potent to comfort
than any other soul had been the gentle invalid,
the friend of his youth, whose lines for many
years had fallen in hard places.

So, small wonder that the fine house on the lake
shore and the shabby home on the back street had
kept up an interchange of civilities.  These had
been chiefly carried on by the young people until
Jack had gone to college.  After that it was to
the Bryants that Richard Van Tassel liked best
to carry his boy's letters, and talk over his haps
and mishaps, secure of sympathy.

Of late he had not been blind to the fact that
the shabby home was growing shabbier, but it was
not an easy matter to bestow gifts here.  This very
spring he had remarked that Clover's eyes looked
too large, and that they rested with greater anxiety
on her feeble mother.  He had even hinted to
Mrs. Bryant a trip up into Wisconsin or across the lake;
but she had parried the potential offer with gentle
firmness.

Many a drive around the parks and boulevards
did the invalid take with her daughters in the
glistening Van Tassel equipage, greatly to the wonder
of certain Hyde Parkers whose experience did not
date back to "before the fire."

The owner of the horses was away, that they
knew.  Jack Van Tassel graduated from Harvard
this June, and his father had gone East for the
great occasion.  Now it was early August, and he
had not returned.  "It was so lovely of him," many
said, "to give poor people like the Bryants the use
of his carriage while he was away.  A real charity.
Not many men would be so thoughtful."

These neighbors wondered if the freedom of the
fine equipage extended to the freedom of the house;
but this they could not discover, for the Bryants
were not talkers unless surrounded by old friends.
Hard experience had taught even the young people
reserve.  Nevertheless it might have been a
gratification to these curious ones to know that the
Bryants had never taken liberties at the Van
Tassel mansion.  It had even been interdicted always
to the girls by their careful mother to accept a
general invitation to sit on the piazzas and rest, when
they came home from the sailing expeditions their
souls loved.

The house was fascinatingly near the water, and
the level lawns about it cool with a fine mossy
greenness.  The hammocks and rocking chairs on
the spacious piazzas gave alluring invitations to
recline and study the ever-changing coloring of the
illimitable fresh-water sea; and the elm-trees—not
even on the boulevards were there such respectable
elm-trees as had here been coaxed to endure the
harshness of bleak lake-winds.

This being the case, it was hard, Clover and
Mildred used to think, and their little sister thought
so still, that unless Jack happened to be on hand
to give them a specific invitation, they must pass
this unused luxury by, and trudge around the
corner up the sunny main street, and so on to the
sandy roughness of the unpaved avenue they called
home.  Still they never thought of rebelling.  The
rule was as fixed as those of the Medes and Persians,
and it must be a right one because mother made it.

On the very day that Clover, hard pressed by
thoughts that ran in a discouraging circle,
disfigured her pretty hands by doing the family
washing, Mr. Van Tassel returned to Chicago.

On the following morning the sun was reflected
brightly from the wheels of his buggy as he drove
a pair of well-groomed horses to the Bryant house.
Elsie Bryant, a girl of fourteen, saw him as he drew
up before the wooden walk.  With a little exclamation
of delight she ran down the flight of steps
to greet him.

Mr. Van Tassel gathered the reins into one hand
and reached the other down to the child.

"How are you all, Elsie?  Mother about the
same?  Oh, I'm sorry for the headache.  Is Clover
at home?  Will you tell her I have a business errand
to do this morning, and very much want her
company on my drive?  Tell her she must indulge me.
I can't let her off.  I'll come in later to see
Mrs. Bryant."

"Lucky Clover," thought Elsie as she ran obediently
up the steps.  "I just wish he had asked me."

And lucky Clover thought herself when she
received the message.  She was so tired of her own
depressing thoughts!  The fresh air and the sight
of the kind familiar face would do her good.

When Mr. Van Tassel saw her run down the
steps in her blue gown a few minutes later, he
descended from the buggy with middle-aged
deliberation.

"Welcome back," said Clover, trying to speak
cheerily.  It seemed to her that misfortune must
have set an ugly visible mark upon her.

"Thank you for that.  Thank you for coming,"
said Mr. Van Tassel, looking at her as their hands
met as though he saw nothing unlovely.  He assisted
her into the buggy, and following, started
the horses.

"Did Jack come with you?"

"No.  I thought that I might find him here.
He expected to arrive about now."

"Proud, happy Jack, I suppose," said the girl
smiling.

"Rather a homesick Jack I fear he will be for
a little while, unless he has recovered already.
You know the young man has a way of recovering
from depression."

"Jack and depression!  What an impossible
connection of ideas," laughed Clover.  It seemed
wonderful to herself that she could laugh.  It was
so long since she had.  Three days is an
interminable term of misery when one is twenty.  They
were bowling swiftly along Drexel Boulevard,
beside the rich foliage and flower-beds of the
landscape gardener; the air was clear and cool, and
driving was quite a different thing when Mr. Van
Tassel held the reins in this light vehicle, from the
same exercise by favor of his solemn coachman, in
the heavy and gorgeous carriage driven at a rate
suited to Mrs. Bryant's sensitive condition.

Up Oakwood to Michigan Boulevard they sped,
and soon the buggy stopped before one of the
splendid stone mansions on that avenue.

"I shall be but one minute," said Mr. Van Tassel
as he dismounted, and he kept his word.  When
Clover saw the brevity of the message given to the
servant who answered his ring at the door, a faint
wonder passed through her mind that Mr. Van
Tassel had thought fit to bring it in person.

She was not inclined to quarrel with the fact,
however, and when her escort returned and the
heads of the spirited horses were turned back to
the south, she inhaled a long breath of satisfaction.

"You have not found pleasanter weather than
this where you have been, I am sure," she said.

"No," he answered, "nor pleasanter circumstances.
I have thought of you a good many
times though, Clover, and wished you might be
with me."

He turned and looked into her eyes as he spoke,
the innocent blue eyes that returned his gaze fully.
Her pretty lips parted in her interest.  "That
was very good of you," she said sincerely.  "I
would like to go to every interesting place, so I
am sure I should have echoed your wish.  Where
was it?  At the seashore?"

"A part of the time,—yes."

"I wonder if I shall ever go East," exclaimed
the girl with a sigh.  "New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, I should like them to be something beside
names to me,—but what an idea!"  She broke
off with a short laugh.  Her thoughts had indeed,
like unruly steeds, kicked over the traces by which
they had been harnessed to carry her by a safe
road out of a perplexing labyrinth.

"Not an absurd idea at all," said her companion
quietly.

"Our lake looks very like the ocean, I suppose,"
she continued, after an involuntary sigh.

"Not very much.  I don't say it is not as
beautiful," replied Mr. Van Tassel loyally, "but the
electric blues and translucent greens of Lake
Michigan have little in common with the deep,
strong indigo, or bottle-green, of old Ocean.
There is as much variance in their complexions
as in their voices; as much difference between the
sweep of the fresh-water surf and the boom of the
ocean's tide, as between the tones of a tenor and a
bass voice."

"But, Mr. Van Tassel, think of the lake
storms!" returned Clover, her Chicago spirit
piqued.  "I've stood on the lake shore many a
time when I could lean my full weight against the
wind and be supported; and how does the boom of
the breakers, hammering the piers on those nights,
sound at your house?"

Mr. Van Tassel smiled.  "Well," he answered,
"we will say like a *tenore robusto* in full force.
But there again comes in the difference in
disposition.  When Lake Michigan becomes angry, it
flies into a white rage in a few minutes, and as
soon as the spell is over calms down into comparative
placidity; while the ocean, slow to wrath,
relaxes but gradually, storming on with splendid
fury under a dazzling sun."

"A difference greatly in favor of the lake, I
should say," returned Clover.

"Ah, but think of the terrors of Michigan's
caprices.  Smiling, even seeming to dream in a
happy reverie one minute, rocking its little sailboats
softly on its breast like a gentle mother, all
at once with appalling suddenness it flies into a
passion, and while the fit is on works havoc that
inflicts long years of misery, though the very next
hour may find it dimpling again in gay carelessness
of calamity.  Not so with the ocean.  The
sailor relies on its steady winds, and the honest
signs it hangs in the heavens for all to read,
giving fair warning of approaching danger."

"Why, Mr. Van Tassel!  As if you didn't
know that our sky hangs out signs too, only, as
Jack says, one must be brought up right on the
lake to understand them.  I had no idea you were
such a poet, and so disloyal."

As the girl made her warm protest, her companion
threw back his head and gave the hearty
laugh that his friends liked to hear.

They had sped down Grand Boulevard, through
Washington Park, and now entered the Midway
Plaisance.

What that name suggested to Chicagoans up
to a short time ago was the loneliest, most rural
drive of their park system.  It even wound
through the woods at one point, making the
refreshing variety of a curve in the city of straight
lines.

On this morning of the summer of '89, when
Mr. Van Tassel's horses turned into the broad
avenue, their hoofs rang out in unbroken stillness.
Not another vehicle or human being was in sight.
Birds glided noiselessly among the trees that lined
each side of the driveway.  Grassy fields stretched
away in level, tranquil monotony in all directions.
It was the Midway Plaisance: but with no dull
rhythmic beat of drum to be the first greeting of
each new arrival, no shadowing forth of the scenes
in the near future, when this unknown plot of
ground should become the rendezvous and rallying
place of the civilized, half-civilized, and savage
nations of the earth.

It was the Midway Plaisance.  What's in a
name?  The words now signify to millions a
babel of tongues, a baffling concatenation of noises
and odors, a dizzying throng of sensations and
emotions, a wondrous collection of novel sights.
Yet, a little while ago it was the Midway
Plaisance, and Richard Van Tassel chose to drive
through it with this young girl because he wished
for solitude, and he could find no more secluded
and unfrequented spot.

"You must be introduced to the charms of the
sea before you decide on the question of my
loyalty," he said.

"That will never be, I fear," she answered
soberly.

"Never is a long time.  Hope for the best,"
said her companion cheerily.

"I do try to, but I haven't Jack's cork-like
disposition."  A sadness had crept into the girl's
tone in spite of herself.

"She is thinking of Mrs. Breckinridge's invitation,"
decided Van Tassel.

"Your day will come.  Every man and woman
has his opportunity," he suggested.

"I hope you are right," answered Clover rather
dispiritedly.

Her companion looked around at her tenderly,
but her large eyes were gazing between the horses'
heads.  "My poor little girl," he said, and at his
tone Clover glanced at him in surprise.  "Is the
mother not so well?" he asked.  "Something
depresses you."

"I do not think she is worse," answered the
girl slowly, but her eyes moistened, and she looked
away.

"I understand.  It is hard for you to be the
head of the family.  You will grow old before
your time."

Clover became afraid that she should cry.  She
looked resolutely at the antics of a gopher on the
fence.

"I have been growing young ever since we
started," she answered lightly at last.  "I did
feel haggard with age early this morning."

She might have added, and at every hour of the
night; for her novel problems would not let her
sleep.

"I hope you mean to tell me your troubles
always," said Mr. Van Tassel.

"That is very good of you," returned the girl,
turning her head and giving her companion a
faint April smile, "and very tempting too.  Even
though I am nearly certain that you cannot help
me, I am weak enough to wish to talk to you of
what I must repress at home."

"I am glad to hear that," returned the other
gravely, "gladder than I can express."

So Clover told him of her uncle's debt to Mr. Bryant,
of the small allowance he had consequently
made her mother, and of the fact of its cessation;
and while she still talked, their swift horses left the
Midway Plaisance and entered Jackson Park, quiet
and refreshing at this hour of the morning.  The
broad green field in its centre was studded with
haystacks whose perfume filled the air.  Robins,
thrushes, and catbirds lurked in the quiet groves,
and swans sailed majestically on the lakelets where
soon the Eskimo canoes would be equally at home.

Adjoining the field of new-mown hay, ducks paddled
along the still green banks of another sheet
of water, as contentedly as later in the same spot
their brothers would swim in the shadow of the
white columns of a treasure-house of painting and
sculpture.

Mr. Van Tassel drove his horses through the
site of future State buildings, down past the pavilion
which afterward the people of Iowa beautified
with their ingenious decorations.  Here, close to
its gray stones, he drew rein, and watched with his
companion the gentle waves break upon the sea
wall.

Clover's recital had drawn to a close, and now
that it was over she became for the first time
embarrassed in the silence that followed, and doubtful
of her own wisdom in having accepted the relief
of speech.  Her companion was her mother's best
and oldest friend.  He had urged her to confide
in him.  His present silence was doubtless owing
to a deep consideration as to how he might be
helpful to her; but he was a rich man.  Clover had
not thought of that till now.  Her only hope, so far
as her vague thoughts were formulated, had been
that he might communicate with Uncle Adolph
more effectively than she herself.  Her cheeks grew
slowly, richly crimson.  He turned, and she dreaded
what he might be going to say.  When her timid
eyes found his kind gaze, he extended his hand to
her.

"Do you trust me entirely, Clover?" he asked.

She was mystified, but as he evidently wished
for her hand she placed it in his.

"Yes, I—I"—she began incoherently, possessed
by the suspicion that she had been indelicate,
and torn between the keen feeling of her
mother's needs and her repugnance to receiving a
gift she might seem to have requested.

"Don't be afraid, dear," he continued very kindly
and quietly.  "If we are both honest, we shall not
hurt each other.  You have been frank.  Now it
is my turn."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CLOVER'S ANNOUNCEMENT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CLOVER'S ANNOUNCEMENT.

.. vspace:: 2

The next day Jack Van Tassel came home.  The
first warning the Bryants had of his arrival was in
hearing the familiar whistle of a scrap from
Carmen, which was Jack's particular call.

Only Clover and her mother were at home, Mildred
having chaperoned the younger children to a
lawn party in the neighborhood.

"It is Jack!" cried Clover before the footstep
had reached the steps.  She looked hopefully at
her mother, who returned the significant gaze.

"He wouldn't whistle," continued the girl with
soft eagerness, "if he weren't—if he weren't the
same old Jack."

"I hardly feel equal to seeing him to-day," said
Mrs. Bryant tremulously.

"You shall not, dear," was the hurried response,
as Clover ran downstairs from her mother's room
where they had been sitting.  She threw open the
house door.

"Clover herself," exclaimed the visitor, laughing
with pleasure, and wringing her offered hand with
painful cordiality.

"I'm glad you've come at last," she answered;
"and you don't look sorry."

"Not a bit of it," was the breezy answer.
"Where are Mrs. Bryant and Mildred, and the
small fry?  I want to see everybody."

"The girls and Frank will be inconsolable to
miss your first call, but they've gone to a children's
party; and mother, I am sorry to say, isn't able
to see any one to-day."  While the girl spoke, her
eyes alternately met Jack's with a sort of wistful
gladness, and then fell away.  Her face expressed
the relief she felt to be thus standing and talking
in friendly, easy fashion with her old schoolmate.

"But come in and sit down," she added.  "You
did not come home at Christmas, so we have a
whole year's talking to do."

"Let us talk in the boat, Clover.  Sorry Mrs. Bryant
isn't well.  I'll call again when she can
see me.  It is just right for a sail.  Don't you
want to come?"

"Yes, indeed," returned the girl heartily.  "I
have had only one sail this summer.  Let me go
and get my hat, and say good-by to mother."

She ran upstairs and presently returned.  Not
a trace of yesterday's care appeared in her
countenance as the two started out gayly on the road
they had often traveled together.

Hyde Park still bore traces of being a country
village.  The young people walked through fields
of sweet clover and goldenrod, where now massive
hotels and blocks of granite and glass uprear.
Chatting and laughing, they hastened on toward
the boat-house.

"It is pleasant to be back, I declare," said Jack
heartily, looking with affection over the billowy
water, striped with greens and blues, which had
been his boyhood's playground.  "Father says old
friends are best, and I believe he is right."

"Is he coming with us, this afternoon?" asked
Clover half shyly.

"Why no," replied her companion, looking at
her with undisguised astonishment.  "You don't
mean to say father has developed a taste for sailing
while I have been off at the seat of learning?"

"He always liked it very well, didn't he?"

"Why, I believe he always preferred driving.
I told Michael to put the Flirt in the water.  Yes,
there she is.  Now for an old timer, Clover; the
wind is superb."

The girl followed the speaker out upon the pier,
and, resting her hand lightly in the one he offered,
stepped into the boat.  Jack followed, and they
moved slowly along the little harbor and out
through the narrow opening between pier and
breakwater, which has ushered so many boating
parties into the joys of a brisk voyage, and will do
so no more forever.

Jack set the sail, and they began to move swiftly
southward.  The breeze was strong, and had
already raised waves over which the boat sprang,
striking a billow before she cut it, with a splash
which echoed in the heart with a thousand
invigorating memories.  It was going to be what
Mildred called a "jouncy" sail, and Clover,
leaning back amid the boat's cushions, would have been
supremely content could her mind have been set
at rest upon one point.

Jack, unconscious of her reservation, bared his
head and, holding the tiller with one hand, waved
the other toward his companion.  "Now I am at
home," he declared.

Clover smiled and nodded in silence.  She
regarded him with less complacence than she had
felt half an hour before.  It was passing strange
to feel a little shy and uncomfortable as she looked
at Jack,—not to be able to chaff him concerning
the little mustache that was a new acquisition,
and which scarcely shaded his mouth.

The Flirt's white wings bore them past the dark
pines on the shore, past the sea-wall of the
pleasant park, and the canal which fed its little
lakelets.  Then on, past sandy beach and wild wood
where the children picked flowers in early
summer, past sloughs where adventurous boys skated
in winter,—a deserted, unpromising, monotonously
level bit of country, surely, to be chosen
as a cynosure for the eyes of all nations; to be
destined to become "the dazzling focus of a world's
activity."

Clover, as she gazed, saw only her old playground.
No vision came to her of a white city, lovely and
unsubstantial as though fashioned from the clouds
of heaven, and holy because the offering of the
best of men's hearts and brains.  No such
foreshadowing came to blot out and lift her above
her personal hopes and fears.  She was recalled
from absently viewing the landscape by Jack's
cheery voice.

"Shall we put about?" he asked.

"Yes, we might as well," she replied, and as
she lowered her head the boom swung over.

"I hope you won't get wet," he continued
apologetically, for the spray was flying high and higher.
"This wind is growing to be too much of a good
thing.  You must excuse my preoccupation, but
I'm trying not to let you be drenched."

"Oh, never mind me," replied Clover.  "You
know you always said I was almost as good as a
boy.  I'm not going to lose my reputation on
account of a few pints of water, I assure you."

"If I had only put in a reef," said Jack
regretfully, "and you had your waterproof."

But the lake was growing boisterous and the
facts remained that they had neither reef nor
waterproof.

"I suppose we shall have to go in, but this is
fine, Clover."

"Indeed it is; and does it really bring you to
the conclusion that there is no place like home?
I am interested, for you see I don't know any
place but home."

"Is that a fact?"  Van Tassel glanced at his
companion with a recollection of what his father
had told him of her relinquished European trip.

"Yes, I am narrow to the last degree.  I have
never been out of my native State."

Jack eyed the girl with admiring compassion.

"You've never even seen a hill, Clover."

"Never,—excepting the one in Lincoln Park."

Jack laughed.  "Which was carted there in
wagons," he added.

"The things I've never done, and never seen,
would fill a large volume," went on the girl, her
soft hair, golden in the sunlight, blowing into a
halo around her forehead, as she leaned on her
elbow among the cushions; "but then I'm not
sure I shouldn't be as homesick, if I went away,
as May Frisbie was last summer.  Do you remember,
while she was in Switzerland, she wrote home:
'For real scenery give me Illinois!'  Ah, here is
some Lake Michigan!" for a dancing noisy wave
had leaped above the gunwale, a few spoonfuls
vaulting saucily into the girl's lap.

"Pardon me, Clover.  It is too bad; but we
will be inside in a minute.  Sorry we had to be
cut short in our career."

"Never mind, we've sailed while we sailed,—not
dawdled along."

"And you will come with me again soon, I hope."

White-crested billows pursued them to the narrow
opening in the breakwater, as, wind-buffeted,
the little craft entered the harbor.

When they landed, Jack left the boat-house
janitor to take down his sails, Clover put on her
hat, and they walked up to the road together.

"All this time and not a word of congratulation,"
began Jack gayly, as they started toward home.

Clover met his eyes with a quick, glad turn of
her head, relieved from the suspicion that had
been filling her with apprehension; and
impulsively she put out her hand.

Her companion clasped it.  "Well, better late
than never," he said.

"I am so glad!" she returned, low and excitedly,
"I was afraid you didn't know it,—that
perhaps your father hadn't told you of our
engagement."

"What!  You engaged, Clover?" returned
Jack in great astonishment, pausing in his walk.
"Why, of course I didn't know it."  He shook
her passive hand again, and started on.  "I
haven't had a chance for any talk with father yet,
for when I dropped in at the office, this morning,
he had some old duffer with him.  I only meant
just now to fish for congratulations for myself,
that my grind is over.  I've been receiving a lot
of them lately, you know.  Excuse the egotism.
Now I understand why you have seemed to have
something on your mind this afternoon.  I do
congratulate him most heartily, whoever he is.
He's a happy man.  Do I know him?"

Jack saw his companion turn pale to her lips, as
he asked the question, and her eyes amazed him
by their piteous wistfulness as she raised them to
his.

"I have made a great—a great mistake to
speak," she returned faintly, "but I thought from
what you said—and I hoped so you would not
object!  He is," eagerly, "oh, he is happy, Jack.
It is your father."

The young man stared blankly into the white
face, then his own turned red.  Through all the
tan of seashore sun she could see the color rise,
and as the affectionate interest that had shone
from his expressive eyes gave place to a violent
revulsion of feeling, it seemed to her that a
physical coldness crept around her heart.

"This is news to me," he said in a voice she did
not know.  "I—I wouldn't have believed it of
you, Clover."

The girl winced.  The contempt of her old
playfellow was the severest blow she had ever had
to bear.  She walked fast under the stress of
feeling, and her companion kept pace with her.

"This is why she refused the Breckinridge
invitation," thought Van Tassel hotly.  "My poor,
generous, blind father."

They kept silence for half a block, then Clover
spoke again, recovered calmness in her pale face.

"Your father said that if we were honest with
each other, we should not do wrong," she said
clearly, "and we have been very honest.  He
loves me.  He wants to take all my cares upon
himself.  Nearly all our means of subsistence has
recently been taken from us, and I was bewildered
and helpless when Mr. Van Tassel came to me
with his love and generosity."

"An irresistible temptation, no doubt," replied
Jack dryly.

"It *was* a great temptation.  I have the future
of three children in my care, with all my inexperience;
but the keenest pang in my helplessness was
mother's condition."

"You are honest; if you were equally so with
my father, I do not wonder it occurred to his great
heart to do as he has done."

The hot blood flew to Clover's cheeks.  "You
are wrong to insult me," she said, controlling
herself with heroic effort, for her hurt youth longed
to seek relief in flight instead of waiting to
parley.  "You will soon know that Mr. Van Tassel
loves me; and—and"—suddenly turning
suppliant, "when he told me so, and represented all
that he could do for me if I would consent to
marry him, why should I have refused?  I did
not know it would make you so angry, Jack,
and," with eager explanation, "I do not care for
anybody."

Her companion gave a short laugh.  "A nice
lookout for my father," he said curtly.

"You will not understand—you will not approve!"
she said passionately, in a low voice that
began to tremble.  They were nearing her home
now.  "It is hard for you; perhaps it is wrong to
you.  So far as my own happiness goes, I could
give it all up for your sake, for your rights are
to be considered.  Ah, there is mother in the
window.  She sees you, Jack!"

The white head behind the window-pane inclined,
and Van Tassel mechanically lifted his hat.

"Do you see the peaceful look in her face?"
went on the girl's unsteady voice.  "She has only
looked like that since yesterday.  No," with new
strength, and no supplication in her manner as she
unconsciously drew herself up, "I will not waver.
Say what you please to me.  Think what you will
of me; I can have but one thought, I must have
but one, and that is—mother!"

Van Tassel lifted his hat once more, as to a
stranger.

"Not one friendly word?" she asked desperately,
her breath coming fast.

"What do you want?" asked the other.  "That
I should wish you prosperity?"

"You surely do not wish me ill, Jack?"

"You have just declared your intention not to
consider me.  What can my wishes be to you?
My only course is to efface myself," and without
another word of farewell Van Tassel bowed, and,
turning on his heel, hurried away up the street.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MISS BERRY'S VISITORS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MISS BERRY'S VISITORS.

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Lovina Berry stood on the stone doorstep
of her square, white house early one evening soon
after the scene narrated in the last chapter.  The
elm growing in her yard would have put to shame
those so carefully tended in front of the Van
Tassel mansion a thousand miles away, and more of
the noble trees stood outside the white picket
fence and shaded the country road.

The flowers in her carefully weeded garden
were homely and wholesome, like her own placid
face, as she stood, elbows in her hands, regarding
the neighbor who was in the act of departing from
her hospitable roof.

"You're sure 't won't inconvenience you a mite,
Loviny?" asked the latter, folding a brown paper
parcel beneath her shawl as her anxious upturned
face met Miss Berry's benevolent gaze.  "You
won't need the pattern this week?"

"No, I sha'n't need it this week," answered
Lovina pleasantly; then, as the other started off
contentedly toward the little white gate, she added
in an equable, unvexed undertone: "but if I want
it any time within two months I shall have to come
after it, that I know.  There ain't anybody
slacker 'n you be, Ann Getchell, from one end o'
Pearfield to the other."  Miss Berry continued to watch
contemplatively the woman whom she had characterized
with such passionless severity, and suddenly
she saw her stoop.

"Your posies do smell so good, Loviny," Miss
Getchell called back.  "I s'pose you don't care
if I take some old man?"

Miss Berry smiled, and stepping deliberately off
the stone advanced toward her guest.  "Take any
old man you can get, Ann.  I wouldn't lay a straw
in your way."

"That's an old joke, Loviny," returned the
other with a sniff, breaking a piece of the feathery
stuff with its pungent sweet odor, while her hostess
with generous hand gathered the best the garden
afforded, and tying the nosegay with a bit of striped
grass, bestowed it upon the visitor, who buried her
nose in its depths.

"You're just as much of an old maid as I be,
you know," added Miss Getchell with an upward look.

"Just exactly, Ann.  I don't know but more;
more set in that direction, as it were."

Miss Lovina's lips twitched a little as she rested
her arms on the gate after her guest had gone out,
but all her neighbors had reason to know that the
milk of human kindness became cream in her
case, and Ann Getchell had too often benefited
by its richness to feel less than content now.
Indeed, as she turned a curve in the country road
and hugged closer her brown paper parcel, she
soliloquized with much satisfaction:—

"I wasn't sure she'd let me have it.  Loviny
always does set so much store by what Mis' Page
sends her, and that dollman has got a style to it
that I hain't seen anywhere else.  I can get it out
o' my old gray poplin, I'm next to certain.  Them
spots don't show hardly at all on the other
side—Why, Mr. Gorham!"  The spinster started back
with a short, shrill screech.  "What a turn you
did give me!  Why," clutching the left side of
her dress waist, "I'm all of a tremble.  You riz
up so unexpected from behind that rock that
I—law!  I can't hardly stand up."

The young man who had thus rudely interrupted
an absorbing sunset dream looked upon
the ostentatiously perturbed speaker with some
trouble in his absent gaze.

"Pardon me, Miss Getchell.  The evening is
so beautiful, I had thrown myself down in the
grass there to listen to the thrushes, and that
moment happened to decide I must be moving.  I
did not hear your soft tread approaching."

Over Miss Ann's agitated countenance there
stole a gratified expression.  This reference to
her soft tread had a pleasing sound.  It was
characteristic of this young man to appear to
compliment when no proceeding was further from
his thoughts.  More worldly-wise and charming
women than Miss Getchell had been similarly
misled by him.  Nature in mischievous mood
had added to his muscular physique the features
of a hero of romance, and launched him, a
practical joke, upon society.

The little woman tilted her thin head to one
side with an arch air, and lifted her sharp-nosed
face toward his pensive eyes.

"Ain't it a coincidence I should 'a' met up with
you just now?  I've got a pattern under my arm
this minute that your sister'n law sent Loviny
Berry.  I didn't know as you was in town."

Her companion was anxious to pass on; but
sense of duty forbade.  He had startled Miss
Ann.  It would be uncivil to leave her abruptly.

"I have but just arrived.  I've come down for
a flying visit to Miss Berry."

"Jus' so.  I've jus' come from there, as I said.
You hain't been down in years, have you?"

"It is a long time for me to stay away from
Pearfield.  Good"—

"Loviny didn't say a word about expectin'
you," said Miss Ann curiously.  "Do you still
like lawyerin'?"

"Yes, I like it.  Good evening, Miss Getchell."  He
lifted his hat; then as though compunction
prompted the act, he advanced a step and shook
Miss Ann's limp hand.  He was recalling that
she had been kind to him in a past when the quality
of apples was not material, and the fruit on her
gnarly little trees had seemed desirable.

"Good evenin'," she answered.  "Come and
see me if you're stayin' long enough."

"Thank you.  I return to Boston almost immediately."

The young man pursued his way, relieved to
be free again to give all his attention to the soft
summer sky where the light was fading; to the
bird-notes which were becoming disconnected and
dreamy; to the scents which rose gratefully from
willows, and the thorny luxuriance of vines that
rioted over the stone wall at the roadside.

Miss Berry was still lingering at her gate
when he approached the house.  She dropped her
hands from her elbows and grasped the pickets of
the fence at sight of the face under the lifted hat.

"Why, Mr. Gorham!" she exclaimed, and
opened the gate, her countenance alight with
pleased surprise.  "I was just thinkin' about you
this minute, as I was standin' here."

"Naturally.  I was a coming event, and I cast
my shadow before."

The visitor shook the plump offered hand with
no abstraction now in his eyes, and his teeth
gleamed beneath his mustache.  "I've no doubt
I can tell what you were thinking about, too."

"Like enough.  I s'pose lawyers know everything.
Come into the house," said Miss Lovina
hospitably.

"Not yet.  It is far too pleasant here.  Where
is that old settee that used to be under the oriole
elm?  Why, there it is, of course, only pushed
to the other side," and the speaker started for the
desired haven.

"Come back, come back, Gorham Page.  Don't
you wade through the wet grass!" exclaimed Miss
Berry imperatively.

Her visitor turned around, laughing.  "That
sounds natural, Aunt Love," he said.

"Well, perhaps it does," replied the other in
half-laughing apology; "but haven't you learned
good sense yet?  The dew's a-fallin', and that
grass ought to been mowed last week."

"Do you remember when I used to mow it for you?"

"I remember when you used to promise to,"
rejoined Miss Berry, the corners of her mouth
still twitching.  "Look here.  I ain't goin' under
that elm to set with my feet in the water."

"All right," replied Page, succumbing with a
sigh, and casting a glance toward the graceful
branches of the tallest elm, behind which the new
moon glimmered in a primrose sky.  "What an
evening!" he ejaculated.

"'M; dewy though," returned Miss Berry.

"I do like those old trees," said her guest
slowly, continuing to gaze.

"So do the mosquitoes," replied Miss Berry
inflexibly.  "Come up on to the stoop."

Page, with a smile of amusement, followed his
hostess to the piazza, where she ensconced him in
one rocking chair, and herself in another.

"Do the orioles still hold possession of that elm?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad of that.  The rest of the world may
change, and must; but I'm jealous of a hair's
breadth of change in Pearfield."

"Well, I don't know.  The hang-birds squabble
a good deal," remarked Miss Lovina impartially.

Her guest laughed again.  The fact being that
very few things in life moved him to laughter, he
was enjoying himself hugely.

"You are too practical; too unsentimental,
Aunt Love," he asserted argumentatively.

"Too unsentimental, hey?" responded Miss
Berry, folding her hands over the white apron
that protected her striped gingham gown.  "That's
pretty good from you.  What does it mean?  Have
you repented o' your singular ways, and been
fallin' in love?"

"Oh, yes," responded the other, more seriously;
then added simply, as though stating an undeniable
fact, "I am always falling in love."

"Then why don't you get married?" asked
Miss Lovina bluntly.  "I haven't heard a thing
about you in so long, I didn't know but what you
was married, only I hadn't received any cake.  I
didn't believe you'd forget me."

"No," said Page.  "If I could be as loyal to
any girl as I am to you, Aunt Love, I should
certainly ask her if she would have me."

"But if you fall in love?" asked Miss Berry,
perplexed.

"The trouble is I don't stay in love," explained
Page with simple sincerity.  "I can't help
forgetting about the young lady in a little while.  It
really makes me blue sometimes.  Now this
summer at Bar Harbor I met a girl who was remarkably
pleasant.  Pretty, clever, a good talker.  Her
tastes and mine coincided.  My mind was full of
her when I left the place."

"Have you heard from her since?" asked Miss
Berry with interest.  This certainly sounded
encouraging.

"Oh yes.  I have sent her candy and flowers
and books from time to time," responded Page,
beginning to look serious and abstracted.

"Then you write to each other?"

"Yes, oh yes, we do—yes.  Come to think of
it, though," Page gave a short uncomfortable laugh,
"I believe I never answered her last letter.  I've
forgotten.  I must look it up when I get back to
town, if I can remember it.  Aunt Love," brightening,
"are those scalloped cookies still in the tin
box?"

"Child!  You haven't had any supper!" Miss
Berry sprang to her feet with astonishing celerity,
her plumpness considered.

The guest also rose.  "Yes I have, but I want
a cookie."

"Then I'll get it for you."

"No, no; that would spoil everything."  Page
took his hostess by her plump, comfortable arms
and forced her back into her seat.

"There ain't a bit o' light in there," remarked
Miss Berry resignedly.

"That was the condition of things when my aim
for the cookies used to be most unerring," returned
the visitor, disappearing into the house.

He returned shortly, carrying in one hand a
cookie which already had lost from its side a
generous semicircle, and in the other a round, deep
tin box which he placed at an impartial distance
between his own chair and Miss Lovina's.

"Those are not my usual cookies," stated the
latter, meditatively regarding the box as her guest
settled himself with a sigh of content.

Page smiled.  "That's all right," he answered.
"You know they never were."

"Now I deny it, Gorham Page," rejoined Miss
Berry warmly.  "I was never one to make excuses
all the time, and you can't say I was; not
truthfully you can't."

"These are exactly right, anyway," returned the
other calmly.  "There never was a cookie outside
this house that tasted as good."

"Oh now, that's silly, Mr. Gorham," returned
Miss Berry with a pleased smile.

"No, it is sound sense.  I feel old, and tired of
things very often.  If I could only get hold of one
of these at such moments, I should be young again
in a minute, with an appetite for everything.  If
you should some day receive a telegram asking
for a cookie, you may know that I need to be
rejuvenated, and mail me one at once."

"Have you forgotten my currant wine?" asked
Miss Berry radiantly.

"Well, I guess not!  But you never let me
know where you kept that."

His hostess laughed.  "No sir, indeed I didn't.
You set where you are, and I'll fetch it out."

She was as good as her word, and in a short
time a little table stood at Page's elbow, and upon
it a bottle and two glasses.

"I am sure I'm a big boy now," he laughed, as
he poured the wine, "since you trust me with this.
I well remember the half glasses you used to give
me as a treat.  How many summers did we come
here, Aunt Love?"

"Pretty near every year after you was ten years
old till you went to college."

A little silence fell between them, for it was that
summer before Page's collegiate life began that his
mother bade him a last good-by upstairs in this
very house, in the low-ceiled chamber where the
branches of the oriole elm cast their shadow.

"How's your cousin Jack?  I wonder if he
remembers Pearfield too," continued Miss Berry.

"Indeed he does.  He graduated from Harvard
this year, and of course I attended the Commencement.
He asked for you, and I told him I didn't
know half as much about you as I ought to; so
when your business letter reached me last week, I
determined to answer it in person, and I hope you
will pardon what was unbusinesslike delay, for I
could not arrange to come at once."

"I feel as though I"—Miss Berry was beginning
diffidently, when a small dark whirlwind
rattled the tin cake box, jostled the table, and
leaped frantically against Miss Lovina's arm,
upsetting some drops of wine upon the clean white
apron.

"Get out! get down!  Your paws are dirty!"
she exclaimed, emphasizing her unflattering
protests with slaps at the panting, bounding, shaggy
terrier, who at last seated himself for an instant on
his stump of a tail, before rising to take a minute
survey of the visitor's pantaloons.

"Oh, you nuisance!" apostrophized Miss Lovina,
wiping up the wine drops with her handkerchief.
"He's been to get the cow with Obed.  He
goes every night, and he always races home like
a mad thing, just as though it had come over him
up in the pastur' that p'raps I'd give him the
slip and go off somewheres without him.  No sir,
don't you touch that cookie box!" for the
terrier's eyes were gleaming through the mat of hair,
and his mobile nose worked hungrily, first
toward Page's hand, and then toward the base of
supplies.

"H'm!  He evidently knows those cookies, and
agrees with my estimate of them," said the young
man, breaking a piece and offering it to the dog
as he returned alertly from Miss Berry's vigorous
push.  The creature swallowed the morsel, and at
each mouthful Page took thereafter, became
convulsed throughout his rough body, then planted
his four feet firmly and expectantly, and emitted
a little bark.  "This is an innovation," continued
the guest.  "Pearfield does move, it seems, after
all."

"Oh, well," sighed Miss Lovina, lifting the
cookie box to a safe perch on the table, "it's none
o' my doin'.  Since the last season you spent here
I haven't made it any reg'lar thing to keep
summer boarders; but last year a lady was here with
her children, and nurse, and this dog.  They had
him new for a plaything for the children, and they
was too little to like him.  He's the livest thing,
Blitzen is, that ever walked, anyway.  No, I ain't
talkin' to you.  Keep down!  And he scared the
children with his wild ways.  The upshot of it was,
they all went off and left him on my hands.
Mrs. Siddall said it was so much trouble to travel with
him that if he bothered me I might give him away
to somebody in the village.  Humph!  That was
all very well to say.  I've given him to four folks
already."

Page smiled and gave the dog another mouthful.
"Wise Blitzen.  He knows which side his bread is
buttered on," was his comment.

"He wouldn't stay tied up, nor shut up, no
more 'n a witch," continued Miss Berry, "and
every time he'd come back, he looked rougher
than the last time; and when he'd catch sight o'
me, he'd act foolish and actually laugh.  It's a
fact.  He'd grin till he showed every tooth in his
head.  Of course I gave in at last.  I had to.
He's a knowin' critter," sighed Miss Lovina; "he
knows everything on earth only just that I don't
want him.  He's set out to deny that, and he'll
stick to it."

"He seems to be a fine dog of his kind," said Page.

"Yes.  They said he cost a lot o' money," returned
Miss Berry, regarding the terrier dubiously.
"I did think though, first off, that I should never
get to tell quick which was which end of him.  He
hasn't got tail enough to wag, and he's so rough
and queer he's given me a start many a time
barkin' in the direction I didn't expect.  What
were we talkin' about when Blitzen broke in?"

"I was asking pardon for my delay in responding
about your business matter.  I told you when
I met you at the gate that I knew you were thinking,
as you stood there, that it was strange that I
should be neglectful of you."

"Well, I wasn't.  I was wonderin' if I'd done
the right thing to bother you about the matter anyway."

"Decidedly you did.  It is a problem I can
solve for you with very little trouble, I'm sure, if
you will show me the papers you spoke of.  I have
robbed the tin box shamefully and the light has
gone; supposing we go into the house and talk the
matter over.  My time in Pearfield is limited.  I
sail for Germany next Saturday, and I have
considerable to do between now and then."

"Well, if you ain't clever to me," said Miss
Berry gratefully, as she rose and led the way into
the house, while Page followed with the
impedimenta of box and bottle, and the further
embarrassment of Blitzen, who writhed ingeniously about
his legs, evidently intending to make clear his
adherence to one who could command cake at such
an astonishing time and place.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE UNEXPECTED GUEST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE UNEXPECTED GUEST.

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Berry's legal question was at last
disposed of.  Page carefully mapped out a plan of
action for her, and explained each detail with
painstaking kindness.

"You are clever to me, Mr. Gorham," she repeated
gratefully, when all was made clear.  "Now
I want to pay you exactly as any of your clients
would," she added, in a business-like tone.

"You can't," he answered, throwing himself
back in his chair, "for they don't any of them
make such cookies as you do."

"Now please don't joke," she begged,
half-laughing.  "You've had the cookies already."

"Of course, just a retaining fee as it were.
Blitzen and I want some more before I go to bed."

"But such an obligation," pleaded Miss Berry.

"Such a pleasure, Aunt Love," rejoined her
lawyer.  "Now, to change the subject, what is
Pearfield's opinion about the World's Fair?  Where
do you think it ought to be held?"

"I don't know enough about the different cities
to say," returned Miss Berry.  "I see by the
papers some o' the Western cities think they have
as good a right as anybody.  Chicago is after it.
Such an idea!  As though folks want to have to
traipse way across the country to see the Fair.  I
don't know much about public questions,"
continued Miss Lovina, complacently smoothing her
apron, "but I know enough to see that there ain't
any sense in that notion, and reasonable folks won't
listen to it; not but what Chicago's a good deal
of a city, I s'pose."

"Chicagoans have that idea," answered Page,
smiling.  "I have a friend who recently returned
from Europe; and he says that one day in the
boat's music-room he found on the table a book
purporting to portray only Chicago and its suburbs.
There were pictures in it of Niagara Falls
and the Yellowstone Park."

"Do tell!" exclaimed Miss Berry, laughing.
"Well, where do you want the Fair to be,
Mr. Gorham?"

"Oh, I feel as though New York were the
proper place.  I think it is the general feeling
that it would be a risk to trust a matter like that
to Chicago.  There has been a very clever cartoon
published recently in New York, showing our
principal cities represented as pretty women standing
in a semicircle around Uncle Sam waiting to see
which shall receive a bouquet which he holds in
his hands labeled 'World's Fair,'—that is, they
are all pretty women except Chicago, who is a
half-grown, scrawny girl, arrayed in an evening
gown covered with a pattern of little pigs.  She
has huge diamonds blazing in her breast and ears,
her thin arms are bare, and the hands she wildly
stretches out to Uncle Sam wear white kid gloves
with one button at the wrist.  Her mouth is wide
open, and she is evidently vociferously demanding
the prize, while New York, a beautiful society girl,
gazes at her with well-bred scorn.  For my own
part, I think New York may overdo the nonchalant
business, and if she does, the energetic maiden
stands a good chance to gain her end."

"How do you suppose your cousin Jack likes to
have his city made such game of?" asked Miss
Lovina.

"Oh, I fancy Jack has learned by this time to
view the Garden City from a Bostonian standpoint.
I don't know what his views are on the subject of
the Fair.  I have seen very little of him the last
years."

"You are liable to make up for it in the year to
come," said a new voice suddenly.

Blitzen had already run growling toward a
window, and now barked furiously as Jack Van Tassel
walked into the room and Miss Lovina and her
guest sprang to their feet.

"Forgive the intrusion," added the new-comer,
in the handshaking that ensued.  "I looked
through the window and saw you sitting here so
comfortably, I thought it a pity to make you the
trouble of coming to the door.  Aunt Love, how
are you?  You didn't expect to see me here,
Gorham?"

"Where have you dropped from?  You were
in Chicago day before yesterday," rejoined his
cousin.

"I don't deny it.  Thank you, Aunt Love.  I
used to like this rocking chair when my feet
wouldn't touch the floor as I sat in it.  What do
I see?  If there isn't the cookie box!"

"Yes, and you're in great luck to come as soon
as you have, for I was just meditating another
onslaught upon it."

"Well, if you two great boys ain't as bad as
you ever were!" exclaimed Miss Berry in high
delight, as she hastened to bring forth the currant
wine again for the delectation of her new guest.

"Perhaps you will explain yourself," remarked
Page curiously, hospitably reaching out the tin box
and meanwhile making attempts to hold Blitzen
off with his foot; an effort which met the success
attendant on similar treatment of quicksilver.

"Why, I've come to see Aunt Love," responded
Jack.  "Why shouldn't I?"

Miss Berry looked at his brilliant, graceful face
and figure admiringly.  "Why not, indeed?" she
said, laughing.  "I was always good to you, wasn't
I, Mr. Jack?"

"Too good.  Far too good.  I remember everything."

"That is all very well; but why did you bid me
a long farewell a week ago, and then turn around
and come back again?" persisted Page.

Jack tossed off a glass of wine.  "Better than
ever!" he exclaimed, sending Miss Berry one of
the caressing, admiring looks which warmed any
feminine heart toward which they were directed.
Then he turned to his cousin.  "Because, my dear
Gorham, I have repented of my rejection of your
offer, and after I've talked over old times
sufficiently with Aunt Love, it is my intention to
accompany you to Germany.  Do you accept my
apology?"

"Good enough," commented Page briefly, but
with evident satisfaction.  "Your decision must
have been sudden, though.  What was the matter?
Did Chicago grate upon your æsthetic sense in her
scramble for the Fair?"

"She isn't scrambling, that I know of.  She
doesn't need to.  She'll get the Fair all right.
Any one can see with half an eye that Chicago is
the only place for it,—the foreordained place."

Page laughed quietly and skeptically, and there
followed one of the arguments of which every
American citizen knows the pros and cons.

That night Miss Berry put her unexpected guests
into two bedrooms which communicated.  When
her last good wishes for their comfort had been
expressed and good-nights said, the two men looked
at each other as they listened to her retreating
footsteps.

"Of course," said Page, "if the explanation you
gave me downstairs is all you care to say, I'm
satisfied."

The brightness had faded from Van Tassel's face.
He looked moody and worn.

"No, I meant to tell you, of course," he answered,
seating himself on the side of the bed.  "I found
when I reached home that father had assumed
charge of an orphan asylum, and I thought I should
be better off out of the way."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say.  He is going to marry the
eldest member, in order to facilitate matters."

"Uncle Richard is going to marry again, and
you have quarreled with him?"

Jack shook his head quickly.  "I don't quarrel
with father," he replied briefly.

Page sat down in a blue chintz armchair by the
window and pushed open the blind; then recollecting
that one of Aunt Love's last warnings had been
not to do so on account of mosquitoes, he closed it
again.

"Uncle Richard has been a widower for fifteen
years," he said.  "He is scarcely over fifty years
old.  Aren't you unreasonable to resent his marrying?"

Van Tassel, his sombre eyes fixed on the palm-leaves
in the ingrain carpet, emitted an inarticulate
sound.

"What more appropriate," continued his cousin,
"than that he should select a widow, even supposing
she has children.  He has plenty of money.  I can
see how it would make you feel sore and change
your home feeling at first; but Uncle Richard has
such a level head, you may be certain that the lady
is such a one as you will like after a time."

Jack gave a short, unmirthful laugh.  "The lady
hasn't any children.  What a pity you can't see
her!  She is a little girl who went to school with
me at home; and she has an invalid mother, some
younger sisters, and a brother on her hands."

Page raised his heavy eyebrows and gave a soft
whistle.

"As they have nothing in the world, they have
roped father in."

"That's bad!" admitted the older man with
some sympathetic disgust.  "Then you have
quarreled with Uncle Richard, for of course you
attempted to dissuade him."

"Not at all.  I arrived home to find the engagement
a fixed fact and all the parties satisfied.
What was there to be done?"

"You didn't come away without saying anything?"

"No, no.  I wouldn't do that, and I believe that
in place of anything else to be proud of, I shall
always be proud of having had some self-control
in that last interview with father.  I knew all the
time, hot and angry as I was, that if I said to him
what I felt, I should repent of hurting him all
my life.  He is the noblest man, the best father,
that ever lived."  The speaker's eyes grew bright,
and Page believed it was with moisture.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," he rejoined
heartily.  "You are right, I know.  Uncle
Richard is one man in a thousand, and it would be
easy enough to believe that even a young girl
might feel a deep and romantic attachment for
him."

Van Tassel shook his head.  "You are all off
again.  Say all you like in praise of father,
but"—

"But why be prejudiced?" suggested Page
hopefully.  "This Miss—Miss"—

"Bryant."

"Why should you, on the circumstantial evidence
of her family's need, decide that she is only
mercenary?  Perhaps she loves"—

"And perhaps she doesn't," interrupted Jack
impatiently.  "She says she doesn't."

"What?"

"Yes, Clover is a very honest girl, and she was
good enough to inform me of the neutral state of
her affections."

"Well, well!  I must say Uncle Richard is
beginning to puzzle me.  He has seen this girl
grow up.  Is she so irresistibly beautiful?"

"What an idea!  No.  My father puzzles me
too, I assure you, but I must believe he loves her,
and in the face of that, Gorham," Van Tassel
looked up with strong feeling in face and voice,
"that dear old fellow made sure that he wouldn't
be interfering with me before he spoke to her.
He came to me just before leaving Cambridge,
and asked me if I cared for her.  Of course I
didn't suspect anything.  It seemed only a consistent
carrying out of the desire he has always had
to anticipate my every wish.  He urged nothing,
but persisted gently till he discovered what he was
after; and I tell you it touches me—in the light
of present circumstances it touches me to think
about it.  He would have given up his wishes; no
one would ever have been allowed to suspect them,
had they conflicted with mine."  The speaker
rose, crossed the room, and stood with his back
to his cousin, while he regarded the antlered cows
in a framed sampler executed by Miss Lovina's
mother.

"No wonder you are glad that you said nothing
offensive at parting," remarked Page.

"Yes," replied Jack, turning back.  "I have
been in twenty different minds since taking the
train for Boston, as to whether I do right or wrong
to go to Europe now.  Very few words passed
between father and me about it.  I had some
hours to think before meeting him, after learning
what he had done, and I merely told him that
Clover had told me of their engagement.  He
looked right at me and he understands me pretty
well.  'Does it displease you, Jack?' he asked.
'It surprises me, sir,' I answered, 'and it makes
me feel that while matters are in the transition
state which is coming, I might perhaps as well put
in that year abroad you spoke of.'  He was silent
for a minute, and I knew that, try as I might, I
couldn't mislead him much as to my feelings, so I
braced up and spoke as naturally as I could, about
how deeply I desired his happiness, and said that
if my staying at home would conduce to it, I
would stay.  He thought a minute more, and then
he said as quietly as he always says everything,
'You had better go, Jack.'"

The speaker paid one more visit to the sampler
with its angular green trees.

After a minute Page broke the silence: "I
believe you have decided wisely.  I believe you
had better come with me."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ON THE RAIL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   ON THE RAIL.

.. vspace:: 2

The following week the two sailed for
Germany; but when home-coming time for Page
arrived, his cousin did not accompany him.
Mr. Van Tassel had married the month after his son
left, and although his affectionate letters held out
an invariable welcome, they made it easy for Jack
to stay amid the novel scenes which allured him.
Gorham Page, therefore, was alone when he
reëntered Boston, one day in the following August.
The sister-in-law with whom he made his home
was, he knew, at the seashore, and after a brief
visit to her deserted flat, and a hasty repacking,
he took a cab for the Boston and Maine depot.

He was rather late for his train, and he boarded
it to find it crowded.  Passing from one car to
another in vain search for a seat, he descried,
standing in an aisle, a tall young girl, who
attracted his attention at once, by reason of her
superb figure fashionably clothed in plainest
black, and the annoyance on her fresh face.  She
held a satchel in her hand, and was vainly endeavoring
to appear indifferent, after a heated appeal
to a badgered conductor who had apparently
sought relief from a suffering public in deafness.

When Page, who was slightly short-sighted,
approached near enough to discern the impatient
golden lights in her hazel eyes, and the underlip
caught beneath her teeth, he took in the situation,
and gave one more searching glance around the
crowded day-car; the parlor car he had already
discovered to be hopeless.

"This is very uncomfortable," he said, addressing
the girl and raising his hat.  "I have not
quite despaired of finding a seat.  Won't you
follow me?"

"I have been all through," she answered, but
she followed him.

The next car was packed with equal solidity;
but Page moved forward, and on the platform was
motioned away by a brakeman.

"Back, please.  Next car's a sleeper.  Takin'
it to Portland.  No passengers."

"Is it locked?" asked Page, pushing by.

"No, 't ain't locked, but"—

Page interrupted the slow drawl decidedly, and
put aside the detaining hand.  "Oh, well, people
can't stand, you know," and with an encouraging
look around at the damsel in distress, who followed
him with alacrity, he opened the door of the
Pullman, and ushered her into the luxurious
empty car.

"Thank you so much," said the girl gratefully,
as she took possession of one section and her
benefactor seated himself across the way.

One by one a dozen other passengers came in
and availed themselves of this unexpected privilege,
and the pessimistic conductor contented himself by
collecting fifty cents from each individual.

Page had an eye for beauty, and as his position
made it possible to do so undetected, he regarded
his neighbor appreciatively.  The world is full of
pretty girls, thank heaven, but this one was
unusual inasmuch as she was built on such large lines
as to make approval a matter of taste.  Page did
approve.  He mentally called her a young Juno
as he regarded her flat back and fine shoulders,
her clear healthy skin and the Cupid's bow of her
upper lip.  Her thick brown hair was uncrimped
and smoothly brushed toward the coil at the back
of her head.  She was what is called in the parlance
of the day a tailor-made girl, and her physique
suggested rowing and tennis.

Page thought this, and wished he had an excuse
to speak with her.  The fact that he had happened
to do her a slight favor made this more than usually
impossible, so after a while he abandoned his
regard of her piquant profile, in favor of the
landscape from his own window.

About now the conversation between two men in
the section behind this *fin de siècle* maiden became
loud enough to take half the car into their
confidence.  They were discussing the incongruous
situation of the World's Fair; for in the previous
April Uncle Sam had yielded, and thrown his
bouquet to that one of his daughters which, according
to the cartoonist, had clamored and importuned
the loudest.  The crude, unformed, ill-bred
creature now had this treasure in her keeping, and the
righteous indignation and despair of those two New
Hampshire men filled the car.  What could be
expected but national disgrace?  What was the
matter with the powers at Washington that they
had not in some way averted such a disaster?  A
good many people thought it a joke; these
gentlemen could see nothing amusing in having our
country held up to ridicule.

As the discussion waxed and waned, Page listened
to it perforce, at first indifferently, then with more
interest as he discovered that it was affecting his
fair neighbor.  He could see her cheek grow hot,
could see that she held herself with greater rigidity.
She bit her lip from time to time, and once she
moved her head slowly around as if inclined to
glance at the noisy talkers; but half way her deep
luminous eyes shot their golden lightning straight
into Page's, and recovering herself she turned back
and looked ahead again.

The sunshine had begun to pour in at her window,
and she suddenly seized the blind to pull it
down.  It fitted tightly after the manner of its
kind, and her first effort was not successful.  It
was probably not a case for assistance, as the young
woman looked as though her muscle would be equal
to considerable strain, but Page spontaneously left
his seat.

"Allow me," he said, and drew the blind down.

The girl thanked him rather severely.  Page's
shipboard experience of comparative informality
with strangers was fresh upon him.  He spoke on
the impulse of the moment, feeling sure that the
severity was not intended for him.

"Wouldn't you prefer to change seats with me?
Perhaps you would be less annoyed there by
conversation as well as sunlight."

"You heard something of it, then," the girl
exclaimed; "but I think they have said all the
ignorant, stupid things they can think of."

"I saw that the remarks were troubling you,"
said Page, seating himself opposite in her section.
"The Garden City has one champion, I'm sure."

"Dear, generous Chicago!" ejaculated the girl,
and her youthful wrath was very entertaining to her
neighbor.  "It is the best thing that ever happened
to the country that we are to have the Fair.
Perhaps," with interest, "you are a Chicagoan?"

Page was obliged to deny this with a novel
reluctance which amused him.

The girl gave the slightest toss of her head.  "I
suppose the Eastern people think we enjoy the
prospect of being jostled, and crowded, and having
our streets torn up and our city extended, and all
our comfort taken away for two years while we live
in a perfect Pandemonium.  No.  We do not
enjoy it, but we do it as our duty because we know
that we can and shall do it well.  It is not best to
trust such an enterprise to an old, slow town."

Page regarded the speaker with curiosity and
interest.  She spoke softly but emphatically in a
contralto voice, and did not look at him, but beyond
him.  It occurred to her companion that with her
superb vitality and unconscious audacity she might
be a truer type of the triumphant young city than
that shown in the cleverly insulting picture which
had so tickled his imagination.

"I see you take a strong interest in the matter,"
he remarked.

"Yes.  My sister's husband has been busy about
it from the first; so I have heard much concerning
the subject; but then all Chicagoans are interested.
It is their way."

The evident pride with which the girl referred to
this "way" caused Page to declare meekly, as a
means of raising himself in her estimation, that he
had relatives in Chicago.

"That will be very pleasant for you in '93,"
she returned, with a slight smile which made her
face bewitching.

"I have been spending the last year with a
Chicago cousin in Germany," continued Page.
"He has taken a warm interest in every phase of
the discussion."

"Naturally," returned the girl; then having
relieved her surcharged heart she apparently
recollected that she was prolonging an interview
with a strange man, and leaning back in her seat
she took a copy of "Life" from her satchel.  Fine
streaks of sunshine sifted across the sheet.

"Won't you accept that shady seat?" asked Page.

"Thank you, no.  I am only going as far as R——-."

"That is my destination, too.  You might as
well be comfortable."

The girl looked up again with some interest.

"Are you going to R——-?  Then I shall ask you to
be kind enough to direct me to the Ocean House.
I am afraid that there has been a misunderstanding,
and that Mrs. Page—that the friend whom I am
going to visit does not expect me this morning."

The young man regarded her with a new expectancy.
"I am going to the Ocean House also, and,
by another coincidence, to see a Mrs. Page.  She
is my sister."

His neighbor returned his gaze at first with
surprise, then a demure spirit of mischief danced in
her eyes.  It had a brief struggle with cautious
propriety, but it conquered.  Caution usually did
make a losing fight in the case of this young lady.

"I wonder if you can be Gorham," she said
slowly, and Page flushed to his temples under the
fascination of his own name.

"I am," he laughed.

"I know a lot about you," declared the girl
quietly, and her companion thought the dip in her
upper lip when she smiled the prettiest thing he
had ever seen.

"That is unfair," he returned, "for I know
absolutely nothing about you."

"Very likely.  Your sister only came to
Pearfield three weeks ago."

"Pearfield?  Have you been at Pearfield?
How strange!"

"Oh, it is very simple.  My sister's husband
was not well,—he was all tired out with the Fair
business, and one thing and another, and the
doctor frightened him into thinking he must have
absolute rest; so he bethought him of this little
village and Aunt Love.  Of course you know Aunt
Love?  She is one of your stanchest admirers.
I am not at all sure that when you take your
hat off I shan't see a little halo clinging to your
locks."

"Oh, come now.  That is too bad."

"Well, we went there the middle of June, and
we have been there ever since.  Three weeks ago,
as I said, your sister came up—or your
sister-in-law, isn't she?"

"Yes, but all the sister I have, so I claim her."

"I should think you would.  She is lovely.
She and Blitzen have been the bright spots in my
summer."

"Oh, of course, Blitzen.  I had forgotten him."

"He is delightful.  So sympathetic!  Our
temperaments are just alike."

Page listened with interest.  He could imagine
the small dog and this young woman in a romp.
He could picture her, and he liked to, in a light
cambric gown, going at evening with Blitzen up
into the pasture to get the cow.

"Aunt Love has given him to me," continued
the girl complacently.

Her companion smiled reminiscently.

"What does Blitzen say to the transfer?" he
asked.

"I sometimes suspect he doesn't know it," she
returned seriously.  "I mention it to him every
day, though.  Mr. Van Tassel laughs at me, and
says that I needn't expect to take the dog,—that
Blitzen thinks I'm a humbug."

Page was not listening.  "Mr. Van Tassel?" he
repeated in blank surprise.

"Yes.  Didn't I say?  Excuse me.  He is my
sister's husband—and your uncle.  I forgot that.
The dearest man that ever lived."

Page felt staggered, and confusedly afraid that
he should show the shock he felt.  His eyes fell.
This was one of that obscure family who had
"roped Uncle Richard in."  Like lightning there
flashed across his mind the consideration that
beauty had made his uncle weak.

"Yes—ahem"—he stammered, for he feared
it might have been long that he had sat there
dazed.  "I'm sorry to hear that my uncle is
ailing.  Jack—his son knows nothing of it."

"No; it is Mr. Van Tassel's wish that his son
should not be informed of his indisposition."  The
girl's reply sounded curiously stilted in contrast to
her previous ease of manner.  Page blamed
himself for the new coldness.

"Just like his unselfishness, isn't it?" he
returned cordially.  "I can't help thinking how
surprised Hilda will be to see me appear with you.
She does not know when to expect me."

Mrs. Page was indeed surprised when the train
stopped at R——, and she stood on the platform
and beheld her brother and her guest leave the car
together.  She was a vivacious little woman with
a trim figure, and keen blue eyes that looked out
beneath her sailor hat, full of lively interest in
everything and everybody.  She pounced upon
the pair, and kissed them both with enthusiasm.

"How perfectly delightful!" she exclaimed.
"I couldn't help worrying a little about you,
Miss Bryant."  ("Oh yes, Bryant was the name,"
thought Page.)  "I knew you were not familiar
with Boston, and although I had given you such
detailed directions, I should have been frantic if
you hadn't come out of the car just when you
did.  Gorham, how did you happen to find her?
Did you go out to Pearfield?  How is Uncle
Richard, Miss Bryant?  There, Gorham, don't let
that stage go without us.  Not the white one, the
yellow.  Is there room for three?"

When they were in the stage that was to take
them to the hotel, these queries and many more
were answered before the long extent of surf came
in sight, vividly blue beyond the firm white shore
on which a foamy lacework melted.

Mrs. Page ensconced her guest in a pleasant
room near her own, and then returned to her own
quarters with an impatient hope that her brother
would seek her there.  She had not long to wait,
and she welcomed him eagerly.

"What do you think of my new acquisition?"
she asked, as she gave him a seat that commanded
the ocean, and took one near by.

"I was greatly surprised."

"I thought you would be," said Hilda triumphantly;
"but what do you think of her?  Isn't she
handsome?"

"Very," answered Page, looking dreamily out
upon the water.

"Haven't you fallen in love with her, you
wooden man?"

"Hardly, yet.  I suppose I shall, though," he
added resignedly.

Mrs. Page laughed so gleefully that he smiled.
"It is all the queerest thing," she said with
sudden serious zest.  "I was belated in every sort of
way about getting down here this year, and when
I was finally ready it suddenly came over me that
Uncle Richard was with Aunt Love in the character
of a semi-invalid, and that it would be civil
in me to call on him once, as he had come to see
me on his way through the city."

"It is odd that Jack hasn't mentioned his
father's being at Pearfield, or his not being well.
To be sure, I haven't seen Jack since last March,
still he would naturally have mentioned it in the
few letters I've had from him."

Mrs. Page lifted her finger impressively.  "Jack
doesn't know one word about his father's illness.
Be sure you don't mention it to him."

"Call it fatigue.  It isn't illness, is it?"

"Why, Gorham Page, he had a stroke early
this spring."

"No!  Why, that is too bad.  Surely it is
wrong to keep it from Jack," said Page with a
strong mental uprising of resentment against
unknown scheming Bryants.  Of course that
innocent, inexperienced young creature of the train
would have no word in the matter.

"Well, I don't know," returned his sister dubiously.
"It was only a warning, the doctors said,
and I suppose Uncle Richard thinks he is all right
now with care; and there's a wheel within a
wheel there, Gorham.  Didn't you notice to-day,"
lowering her voice dramatically, "that I didn't
say a word about Jack?  Jack is a sore subject."  She
nodded her head several times by way of
emphasis.

"I dare say," returned the other.  "The Bryants
must have known that he was very much cut
up by his father's marriage."

"Oh, they did; or the girls did.  The mother
never was allowed to know.  I became very well
acquainted with this child Mildred in the few
days I stayed at Pearfield, but she told me
nothing.  Aunt Love told me the whole story, for
Mrs. Van Tassel had confided in her.  Aunt Love
is perfectly devoted to Uncle Richard's wife."

"Humph!"

"They have been through a great deal in a
year.  I suppose you heard through Jack, though
I knew nothing about it, that Mrs. Van Tassel's
little brother and sister took scarlet fever and
died in the same week."

"Yes, I knew that.  Jack felt it deeply.  I am
sure he must have written home very kindly about
it.  It occurred only about a month after the
wedding."

"Very likely he did.  I don't know.  Then
Mrs. Bryant grew weaker and weaker through the
winter.  They took her South, and surrounded
her with every luxury, but in April she died."

"No.  I didn't know that."

"Yes, she died very peacefully and happily;
but she had not been gone a fortnight when Uncle
Richard had that stroke."

"What a procession of calamities!"

"I should think so.  Well, Aunt Love says the
worst part of it is, that Mrs. Van Tassel seems to
connect all this misfortune with Jack's anger at
her.  Something on the old idea of a curse, I suppose."

Page's lip curled slightly under his mustache.

"I saw very little of Mrs. Van Tassel myself,"
continued his voluble sister.  "Uncle Richard's
head was very easily tired.  He had to keep very
quiet, and she was with him constantly.  You
never saw such devotion."

"No doubt," said Page ambiguously.  "I can
easily believe that she will not allow him out of
her sight.  It looks to me as if it were our duty
to inform Jack of his father's condition."

"No, no.  I saw enough of Uncle Richard to
discover his wishes about that.  He does not want
to have Jack hurried.  He does not consider his
condition in the least alarming."

Page's face indicated his disapproval.  "So
Mrs. Van Tassel is to succeed in keeping Jack at
a distance," he remarked.

"I don't think it is her doing."

"Of course it is," said Page without heat.
"Uncle Richard must know the circumstances."

"He may suspect something, of course," replied
Hilda, "but Aunt Love tells me they do not avoid
the subject of Jack at all.  Mrs. Van Tassel
speaks of him with perfect naturalness, whenever
necessity demands, and she has never told Uncle
Richard of the angry parting that worried her so.
He never asked her about it."

"Wise Uncle Richard!  He knew better."  Page
shook his head.  "It is a bad business."

His sister demurred.  "I do not know that it
is such a bad business for Uncle Richard to have
gained such a devoted nurse.  He needs it now.
As for Miss Bryant, I pitied the girl, cooped up
there in that lonely, monotonous village, and
begged Mrs. Van Tassel to allow her to stay with
me a week or two.  She consented very willingly,
even gladly.  I wanted to give people a chance to
look at her.  I'm a philanthropist.  The sight of
her will do a weakly person as much good as the
sea air; and she was"—

A knock at the door interrupted.  Mrs. Page
gave her brother a knowing little nod, and when
she answered the call, it was her guest who
entered.  The girl had exchanged her black dress
for one all white.

"You told me to come as soon as I was ready,"
she said, looking from one to the other.

"Yes, I was in haste to have you see my view.
Isn't it a fine one?"

Mildred moved to the window, followed by
Page's unconscious, openly admiring gaze.  He
had risen at once upon her entrance and stood, his
hands resting on a chair-back, forgiving Mrs. Van
Tassel's arts for the moment, in entire approval
of her sister's appearance.

Hilda, to whom her brother-in-law's potential
love affairs were a constant entertainment, kept
his ingenuous face in view, even while her tongue
rattled on.

"For a conscientious, well-intentioned man,"
she had once said to her husband, "Gorham Page
can be the most dangerous creature.  Any girl
receiving such a look as his would believe him
deeply smitten.  Then he will go on, getting
acquainted with her in his way, inquiring into her
thoughts and opinions, even probing her hidden
feelings, getting at the real woman, as he calls it,
and having exchanged theories with her for a
while, his mind will go mooning off, perhaps in
the test of some new thought she has suggested,
while the girl, gradually neglected, is soon as
entirely forgotten as last year's fashions.  It amounts
to unprincipled flirting, and yet he doesn't suspect
it in the least.  He is too modest, really.  A queer
paradox."

Hilda suddenly finished the description of a
distant lighthouse, and turning, walked straight
up to her brother, who was still lost in critical
approval of the noble lines and curves of her
guest's tall figure.

"But come," she said, smiling with significant
sauciness into his face.  "We cannot live entirely
on the beautiful things we can take in through
our eyes.  I fancy there is some dinner
downstairs somewhere."

"Yes," agreed Page, stirring.  He had finished
his soup before he realized that there had been
any personal intention in her speech.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE TELEGRAM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE TELEGRAM.

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Page promised herself to keep a sharp
lookout in behalf of the young girl of whom she
had assumed temporary charge.  At the very first
of those exclusive walks and sails which she
foresaw, she meant to reason with her brother, and
indirectly to warn Mildred of his idiosyncrasy.
Her guest seemed wonderfully well-poised and
self-possessed for a girl of her age.  Doubtless
she had already become accustomed to admiration;
but Gorham's attentions would be of an unusual
sort.  Mrs. Page meant to keep an eye on him.

She was disappointed, however.  The very day
following, he mentioned his intention of returning
to the city.

"You must have known that I only came down
to call on you," he replied to Hilda's expressions
of surprise and dismay.  "After such a
prolonged holiday as I have had, you surely didn't
suppose I was going to idle away more time here."

"I think it is very shabby of you," pouted
Mrs. Page, with no thought of her own inconsistency.
"Miss Bryant and I need you to entertain us
while Robert is away.  Don't we, Miss Bryant?"

Mildred assented.  "It is hard to be deprived
of both Blitzen and Mr. Page," she said feelingly,
and her hostess wished she had not appealed to
her.

Page regarded his sister thoughtfully.  "Shall
I send you some books?" he asked.  "Miss Bryant
said last night that she had not brought any
books with her."

"You needn't trouble yourself," returned Hilda
quickly.  "His first symptom of interest," she
noted mentally.  "I know you," she added aloud.
"The lightest entertainment we could hope for
would be Buckle's 'History of Civilization.'  No.
Leave us if you must; but don't send us any literature!"

So he departed, and Mrs. Page was left to sound
his praises instead of his defects, to her friend.
After Mildred's saucy speech, she was determined
that the girl should appreciate how far above the
common run of men this *rara avis* of a brother
was; and she rang the changes upon his high
principle, his conscientiousness, his unselfishness,
until the faint light of ironical amusement in her
guest's eyes arrested her.

"I wouldn't have you think Gorham a prig,"
she added hastily.  "He is the furthest from it."

Mildred's week at the beach slipped quickly
and pleasantly away, and then she was recalled to
Pearfield by her sister, who wrote that Mr. Van
Tassel felt so much stronger that he wished to
return home at once.

Mrs. Page received one letter from the girl,
after they reached Chicago, descriptive of the
journey, and the parting from Pearfield.  Blitzen,
she said, they were obliged to leave behind, as on
the day of departure he was nowhere to be found.
Humiliating as it was to confess it, they all
believed he had heard the plans for his removal,
and had gone into hiding.

September passed and October was nearly gone,
when one morning as he opened his mail in his
office, Gorham Page found a letter from his cousin
Jack.

It began by responding to some theories and
warnings, which Page had recently written him,
relative to the unwholesomeness of beer-drinking.

.. vspace:: 2

DEAR GORHAM,—Your interesting and instructive
letter just received.  It has been an unusual
length of time on the road, and it was an ill
fate that delayed your temperance lecture, and
deprived me of that aid to sobriety any longer
than was necessary, in view of the rapidity with
which I am traveling the downward road.  It
arrived, however, at a critical period.  A friend in
the pension, whose besotted fancy could not rise
from the miry slough in which intemperance has
sunk her, has just made me a philopena present.
Instead of bestowing upon me some airy and
diverting German philosophy, or fascinating
English tract, or an elevating necktie,—instead
of finding something which, in the guise of a
trifling gift, should have brought to a debauched
young man blessed suggestions of a reformed life
and renewed respectability, she presented me a
beer mug with a painting of Lohengrin, Swan and
Co. on the outside, and a line or two of German
words around the rim, having some reference to
Parsifal and the Holy Grail!

That of course drives the last nail into my
coffin!  That puts me beyond the pale of—water!
In vain do you exclaim, "Be a man!
Have some backbone about you!  Be content to
look at your new beer mug, without making other
use of it.  Keep it as bric-a-brac, dry, and always
perpendicular!  Let its rigid uprightness be also
that of your moral character.  Resist the dreadful
power of this unrighteous alliance of a refined
taste for æsthetic pottery with a depraved taste
for strong drink!"

Alas, I cannot.  How appalling and yet how
interesting it is to observe how Fate inclines to
kick a fellow when he's down.  Everything
conspires against the reform of one who has fallen.

As to my own case, even if I could overcome
my craving for liquor, I should still be obliged to
go right on drinking my pint of beer at dinner
every day, for it seems that the German words
around the rim of my mug are not "fast colors;"
they come off gradually as I drink; and after
long-drawn-out attempts by the other process, I
conclude that this is the only way in which I can
ever get any German into me, so I must go on to
the bitter end.  *Bitte sehr!*

I have decided to come home before the New
Year.  I dread it, as you know, but the plunge
into the new family circle must be taken some
time, and I want to see my father.  I am sure he
wants to see me, too, though he doesn't say much
about it.  In a recent letter, he admitted that he
had not been very well during the summer.  Bless
him!  I suppose *her* griefs have shaken him very
much.  Of course I'm sorry for her, but I can't
be resigned to father's having had to shoulder the
Bryants' affairs.  I tell you I am glad to know he
is himself again.  His letter made me feel an
intolerable distance away.  Yes, I shall see him
by the New Year, whatever happens.

.. vspace:: 2

Page was folding this letter into its envelope,
when a telegraph boy entered the office.

"Want an answer?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

So while his clerk signed, the lawyer tore open
the message.  He started as he read it, and a slow
color rose over his face.

Taking a blank he scribbled an address, then
added:—

.. vspace:: 2

Will be with you to-morrow evening.

.. vspace:: 1

GORHAM PAGE.

.. vspace:: 2

Making hasty preparations at the office and at
home, he barely succeeded in catching the
limited train for Chicago.  When he was seated in
his section, he drew forth from his pocket the
telegram that had startled him, and read it again.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Van Tassel died suddenly at nine last
night.  Can you come to us?

.. vspace:: 1

MILDRED BRYANT.

.. vspace:: 2

"Poor Jack!" thought Page; and the wheels
seemed to repeat the words like a refrain.  He
disliked his own task, but it did not seem strange
to him that he had been summoned.  Mr. Van
Tassel had no near relatives in Chicago.  Page
had had charge of his legal affairs in Boston.
Doubtless his address had been among the dead
man's papers, and Mrs. Van Tassel's advisers had
suggested that he be sent for.

Page shrank repugnantly from encountering
this woman, whom disaster followed so relentlessly.
He tried not to think of her.  Perhaps it
would not be necessary that they should meet at
all; yet try as he might, he could not prevent his
imagination from picturing the siren, who had
succeeded in capturing the honest, cordial,
fine-natured man, whose death it was difficult to
realize.  How would Jack bear it?  How would his
highly strung affectionate nature stand the strain?
This woman who had brazenly told him that she
did not love his father had been the one to stand
near the latter's deathbed; while the loving heart
of the son had been kept at a distance by her
machinations.

For Page was now fully convinced that Jack
had been deliberately deceived as to his father's
condition, and he blamed himself hotly for obeying
his sister and refraining from intermeddling.

He said to himself that he ought to have talked
with Miss Bryant about the matter at R——.
The thought of Mildred gave him no pleasure.
She was sister to the woman who had robbed
Jack, and broken his heart.  He felt a sudden
conviction of Mrs. Van Tassel's appearance.  She
was an Amazon; tall, commanding, bold-faced,
loud-voiced, with a coarser repetition of her
sister's beauty; and involuntarily he shuddered
with anticipatory disgust, and wished the next few
days well over.

But this was being extraordinarily imaginative
for Page, and he realized it all at once, and
opened the paper which he had bought, with the
newsboy shuffling along beside him as he
hastened through the depot in Boston.  But his
thoughts would not concentrate upon the printed
page; rather they flew to Jack's brilliant face,—the
face which always said that life was good,—and
saw it suddenly stamped with white despair,
alone in a strange land.

The next day, arrived in Chicago, Page left the
train at Hyde Park and went to a hotel.  Half an
hour afterward, he emerged and walked toward
the lake.  It was a dreary day, such as seldom
comes in Chicago's October.  The lake was gray
from recent rain, and an east wind was whipping
dead leaves from the elms, across the green lawn
around the Van Tassel house.

Page looked at the drawn curtains, walked up
the steps to the crape-hung door, and an
unexpected lump rose in his throat, for he thought of
Jack.  In that moment, there came to him a new
loyal satisfaction in the fact that he had come;
that some one beside aliens would stand near
Uncle Richard.  It was with a strange mixture of
grief and resentment that he met the servant, and
asked for Miss Bryant.

He looked around the well-remembered parlor,
where the maid left him, and noted that it was
newly and fashionably furnished; but scarcely
five minutes had passed before Mildred entered
the room, and walked straight up to him with
outstretched hand.

He returned the greeting with cold formality,
and even in the shaded room he could see that
the girl's eyes were swelled from weeping.

"I am so glad you could come," she said
tremulously.  "Was it very inconvenient?  We
thought you would probably wish to attend the
funeral any way.  Mr. Van Tassel had so few"—she
could go no further, but broke down and wept
into her handkerchief.

"Crocodile tears!" thought Page.  "It is
more than likely that they have everything
between them.—Certainly, I should have wished
to come," he said aloud.

"Then—then," began Mildred, making an
effort, "my sister wanted your advice—she
thought you would know best—Mr. Van Tassel
trusted you—Forgive me, but we have had such a
shock"—she tried vainly to go on, once, twice,
then with a gesture turned and left the room.

The visitor moved to a window, and looked out
through a crack of the blind.

"I'm sorry they think it necessary to go
through this sort of thing," he thought cynically.
"Now I suppose she will send the other one;
and if that was a preface!"  A sound behind him
caused him to set his teeth, and turn about with
the coldest, blankest expression he could assume.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light
now, and he saw a straight slight girl in black,
standing and regarding him with the saddest,
loveliest countenance he had ever looked upon.
Her large eyes had shed all their tears, and her
delicate lips had never smiled.  Her rippled
brown hair framed a colorless face, and her effect
was less pathetic than awe-inspiring in its pure
unconscious dignity.

"This is Mr. Page?" she said, advancing and
offering a hand which the young man took
mechanically.  "It was kind of you to come promptly.  I
felt that I must see you and you only, about—about
Mr. Van Tassel's son."

She spoke in an even, emotionless voice, but
Page noted a faint trembling of her lips at the
mention of Jack.

"You are the nearest relative, and you can best
decide what should be done."

Page was in all the confusion incident upon
intense revulsion of feeling.  He felt that he had not
yet full command of his ideas; but the spontaneous
desire to help this exquisite young creature, to let
neither himself nor any one else wound her further,
constituted his ruling passion for the moment.

"You have sent no word to Jack as yet?"

"No.  As soon as your telegram came I decided
to wait for you."

She had been waiting for him and he had filled
the moments of his coming with brutal contempt
and criticism of her.

The tearless sadness of her voice went on: "It
is better for the word to go from you than from
me."  Her eyelids fell.  "It will hurt Jack less.
I would"—she lifted her eyes again and gave
Page a look that his heart received as a pang.  "I
would gladly give my life if it could procure Jack
one hour with his father, alive."

"I believe it sincerely," he answered.

The respect and sympathy of Page's tone seemed
to impel her to further explanation.  "It was
terribly sudden and unexpected," she said.  "No
one—the doctor himself did not believe in the
possibility of such a catastrophe.  He was feeling
so well for him.  He was in the act of speaking of
it when he sank back.  His last word was 'happy.'"

She stood a moment, her eyelids dropped, in
statuesque silence.  Page watched her steady her
tottering self-control.

"I had thought," she went on finally, "of a
succession of cablegrams.  Could it be broken to your
cousin a little more gently, so?"

"Yes, that will be best."

"And may I ask you to send them, without
regard to cost?"

"Certainly.  What else can I do?  I beg you
to let me be useful to you in all ways that I can for
Uncle Richard's sake."

"Thank you.  I will give you the address of a
neighbor, an old and dear friend of Mr. Van
Tassel, who has been most kind.  Perhaps he would
be glad to consult with you."

Page soon took his leave, and until the day after
the funeral did not again have opportunity to speak
with the young widow.  Then she sent for him
and he went upstairs to the gay and delicate
boudoir which Richard Van Tassel had furnished for
his young wife, whose black gown to-day made the
one dark spot amid its luxury.

She looked precisely the same as on the occasion
of their first meeting except that now, by daylight,
Page could see more distinctly her patient, marble
beauty.

"I could not let you go East without thanking
you," she said, greeting him gravely.  "You have
been very kind, and a great help to us."

The young man bowed, and murmured a polite
platitude.  He could think of nothing to say to her.

"Do you—I suppose you do expect your cousin
to return home immediately."

"Yes.  I think he will come."

"One thing which I wanted to say to you this
morning is that my sister and I are going immediately
to California to spend the winter.  You will
meet your cousin, very likely, upon his arrival?"

Page bowed.

"Will you kindly tell him that the house here
is ready for him, that we shall not return to
it"—Mrs. Van Tassel's even, formal utterance broke,
and she suddenly averted her head.  "Poor
Jack!" she exclaimed.  "It will make him suffer
afresh to come back here, and who can comfort
him?  It is the best I can do, though," she added
suddenly, turning again toward Page.  "You
know there is not one person save Mildred to
whom I can speak of all this, and it is wrong to
dwell upon sad and humiliating subjects with a
bright young girl."

She looked scarcely older than Mildred herself,
Page thought, but he eagerly offered himself as a
confidant.

"I am glad Jack has you," she continued.  "I
wish, oh, so deeply, that I might do or say anything
to alleviate his sorrow; but you see," appealingly,
"the only thing I can do is to keep away.  Jack
and I were good friends once, but that is all over."

As Page a little later came downstairs to leave
the house, Mildred Bryant rose from a seat near
the fireplace in the hall.  Her face looked a little
paler than was its wont, and faint shadows about
her eyes told of grief; but she was once more the
self-possessed girl he had first seen on the train.

"You are returning at once to Boston?" she asked.

"Yes.  I leave to-night."

"I saw by your face as you came downstairs
that you think my sister looks badly; but of course
you do.  Well, I believe there is nothing more,
there are no more shocks that she can suffer—unless
she should lose me, and I fancy I am long
for this world;" a shade of the girl's pretty
ironical smile flitted over her lips; "but I could lose
her," the hazel eyes suddenly became bright with
unshed tears; "and," with vehemence, "I will
not.  I am going, we are going away to search for
Clover's girlhood.  It must come back.  She has
been cheated out of it too soon."

"Mrs. Van Tassel told me that you intend going
West.  Southern California will surely do her good."

"I hope so.  I am glad you have been here
these last days.  It has been a comfort to my
sister."

"Do you really think so?" eagerly.

"Without doubt.  I observed that she seemed
less anxious about—everything, from the moment
of your coming."

"The matter of telling Jack had preyed upon
her," said Page sympathetically.

He saw an indefinable change come over Mildred's
face.  "I suppose Jack must bear his troubles
like the rest of the world," she answered with
a tinge of hardness.  "We thank you very much
for everything, Mr. Page," she added, holding out
her hand, and the other clasped it warmly.

"I would not have failed to be here for any
consideration, Miss Bryant.  I hope," looking into the
girl's eyes earnestly, "that the time may not be far
distant when I shall meet you and Mrs. Van Tassel again."

"Thank you," returned Mildred courteously,
and the young man left the house with a distinct
sensation of disappointment because she had not
echoed his wish.  He could not avoid the
suspicion that these young women would now expect
and wish to walk in a separate way from that of
all connections of his dear lost uncle.  He himself
would henceforth be classed with Jack, and, strange
new disloyalty, the prospect was unsatisfactory.

He turned his steps toward the office where he
was going to await a cablegram, and on his way
undertook to analyze his own unreasonable feelings.
"They are nothing to me, those girls," he thought,
while memory presented in fresh hues that averted
head leaning upon a white hand in Clover's spasm
of impotent pity for Jack, and all of a sudden,
instead of theorizing, Page found himself dwelling
with eager pride, as if it were the climax of
achievement in his life, on the fact that he had been of
assistance, of use, of comfort, to that fair, pale
creature, set in a sacred niche apart from all the
other women in the world.

He recalled himself with cold surprise from this
Scylla, only to fall into the Charybdis of a reverie
in which Miss Bryant's face and bearing were
regal, as she declared that Jack must bear his
trials like the rest of the world.

Page threw back his head in self-impatience.
"She is a fine, bright girl, and I should like to
know her better," he thought; "but there is this
comfort—in a couple of months I shall have
forgotten all about her.  I couldn't remember her if
I tried."

Before evening he received the expected message
from his cousin.  Jack sailed from Bremen at once.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CHRISTMAS VISITOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CHRISTMAS VISITOR.

.. vspace:: 2

The national dispute finished regarding the
location of the World's Fair, a local contest at once
arose among Chicago's citizens as to which portion
of the city was best fitted for the display.  The
debate was long drawn out.  Several sites were
energetically lauded by their several partisans, and
their respective advantages were hotly maintained
and as hotly contradicted.  It was very interesting
to Chicagoans, but to the public outside it was a
matter of indifference whether the North Side, the
West Side, or the South Side, should win the day.

Meanwhile a good many people—like Miss
Berry, for instance—forgot that such a thing as
preparation for a World's Fair was going on.
She thought it vastly more interesting that Jack
Van Tassel had returned from Europe, and that in
his desolation instead of going to his father's
deserted house he had begun to read law in his cousin's
office.

Miss Lovina's association with Mrs. Van Tassel
during the summer had brought much food for
thought into her quiet life; thought that haunted
her after the young wife had become a widow, and
after Jack had come home; his sore heart full of
cold anger, so Miss Berry surmised, against a
woman whom she devoutly declared to be "one of the
sweetest of God's creatures."

It was an exciting time to her when one November
day she received the letter from Gorham Page
giving her hope that she need not always be passive
concerning a matter which, in her uneventful life,
she had greatly at heart.  She read:—

.. vspace:: 2

DEAR AUNT LOVE,—Jack Van Tassel has
come back and is with me for the present.  Of
course he is very much shaken; and when I
met him at the dock I felt a good deal
disturbed about him; but you know his excitable,
gay disposition.  He will doubtless soon recover
from the shock, and react from his present low
state.  Naturally he wants to blame somebody for
his suffering, and I fear he is inclined to accuse
Mrs. Van Tassel of inconsiderateness in not
sending for him last summer.  I never met her
excepting on the occasion of the funeral, so my defense
has little weight; but I recall that my sister said
you esteemed her highly, and it occurred to me to
ask you to do what you can toward exonerating her
when you see Jack, which I dare say may be soon,
as he has spoken of visiting you in order to learn
something of the last weeks of his father's life.
Use your own discretion about this.  Jack will stay
with me for a time, and read law in my office for
the sake of occupation.  His father's affairs were
left in perfect shape.  His will divided the fortune
into three parts: one third is left to charities and
certain relatives; one third goes to Jack, and the
other to Mrs. Van Tassel, with the exception of an
amount sufficient to make her sister independent,
which he has left to Miss Bryant.

Please say nothing of this letter, and believe me,
with best wishes always,

.. vspace:: 1

Cordially yours, GORHAM PAGE.

.. vspace:: 2

These lines had not been penned without some
uncomfortable recollections on the part of the
writer of a day when he had himself received the
announcement of Aunt Love's attachment to her
young guest in a spirit of impatient skepticism.
Now that he discovered the strength of his desire
that Jack should be more yielding and credulous,
the memory of his own hardness was especially exasperating.

Miss Berry waited for her expected visitor with
much interest, and each day altered a little the
form of the statement she intended to make him
when he came.  She had opportunity to make a
variety of changes in her programme, for weeks
went by without a sign from him, and finally Miss
Lovina's faith in his coming wavered.

Christmas day dawned in ideal fashion at Pearfield
that year.  The sun fell on swelling drifts of
virgin snow.  The little town sparkled like the
village in a Christmas card, and just as the inevitable
church spire ornaments that souvenir, so the
Congregationalist meeting-house stood in a field of
glistening white, as Miss Berry trudged up the
shoveled path to attend a service of song planned by
the Sunday-school as a fitting festivity for the
morning.  There was a good attendance, and Miss
Lovina gave her neighbors, old and young, cheerful
greeting as she regarded complacently the holly
wreaths which she had yesterday helped to place in
the church windows.

When the exercises were over she moved slowly
down the aisle by the side of Miss Getchell with
whom she had promised weeks ago to eat her Christmas
dinner.  If there was something of the martyr
concealed under Lovina's benevolent countenance as
Miss Ann clutched her arm, the latter would not be
allowed to suspect it, and together they emerged
from the wide-open door; but once on the porch
Miss Berry, with an exclamation of surprise, shook
herself free, and Miss Getchell's astonished eyes
beheld her friend hasten down the steps towards some
one who ascended to meet her.

"It was a reg'lar young prince of a feller with
grand eyes," Ann said afterward, dramatizing the
occurrence to her old homekeeping mother, "and he
took off his hat as he come up to Loviny as though
she was somebody great."  Miss Getchell's curious
ears could not grasp Jack's low-spoken question:—

"Are you going out to dinner anywhere, Aunt Love?"

Miss Lovina's conscience would have done credit
to any Puritan of them all, but Jack had said
"are" instead of "were," and she considered that
in a flash before responding heartily:

"Indeed I am not, Mr. Jack.  You're just
comin' home with me and I'm delighted.  Wait
one second till I speak to one o' my neighbors."

Jack suspected her as she turned back to Miss
Getchell, but her evident pleasure in his arrival
decided him not to press the question.  He turned
his back while she hurriedly and emphatically
accosted her friend.

"I'm sorry it happens so, Ann, but"—

"Oh now, don't say you won't come, Loviny.
Fetch the young man along and welcome."

"Hush, don't say a word.  It is Mr. Van Tassel's
son.  You remember.  I'll make it up to you
sometime,—I mean you'll make it up to me.  You
see it can't be helped.  Now don't coax me, that's
a good girl; I can't possibly come, and don't be
mad with me, Ann, you see just how it is," and
Miss Getchell allowed herself to be twitched into
dumbness by Lovina's anxious grasp upon her arm,
and departed on her lonely way in a measure
consoled by the consideration of two luscious mince
pies which Miss Berry had sent her as a gift
the day before.

"I'll bet a cookie she wishes she had 'em back
now," she reflected as she looked after the erect,
tall form moving away beside Miss Berry's stout
figure.  "I'm glad 't ain't me caught by a city
feller like that on Christmas day without any decent
dinner to give him."

But Miss Getchell and Miss Berry were two
very different people.  The latter, as she walked
along trying with some preoccupation to talk to
her guest, was filled with felicitation that Jack had
chosen for his visit the day when each heart is
most inclined to gentleness, and in the same breath
she rejoiced that there were two roast chickens in
the larder at home prepared in a moment of
dubiousness regarding Ann Getchell's cooking.  "If I
don't relish my dinner, I'll have a good supper,"
Miss Lovina had thought when she roasted them,
and now the most devout thanksgiving of the
morning arose from her heart in consequence.

"This is my first glimpse of Pearfield in winter,"
said Jack, surveying the blue-white shadows on the
unspotted fields.  "I dreaded Christmas this year,
Aunt Love.  It occurred to me yesterday that
I would come to see you.  It is as I expected.
'Peace on earth' doesn't seem such a satire here."

"You couldn't please me better," replied Miss
Berry.  "I've been some expectin' you, for
Mr. Gorham told me you laid out to be in Boston a
while."

"Yes.  I have thought a great deal about Pearfield
lately."  There was a brief silence as the two
moved on between snowy bulwarks thrown up by
the village ox-plow that morning.  "Do you never
become lonely here, Aunt Love?" asked her
visitor at last.

"No, I don't know as I do.  Pearfield's a nice
safe stiddy place and I'm as busy as a bee all the
time.  Once in a while there's a tramp, but now
Blitzen attends to them in short order.  We all
have our gifts," continued Aunt Love, desiring
for the present to keep the conversation impersonal,
"and seems if Blitzen's was appearin' to go mad
whenever he wants to."

"Rather a questionable accomplishment, I should
suppose."

"It is convenient sometimes, though, there ain't
any denyin' it.  Blitzen does hate a tramp.  I
believe if he was off in the woods a mile he'd smell
one, if he was comin' towards the house; and no
sooner does one o' the shif'less critters knock on
the door and ask for a meal o' victuals, than
Blitzen's there.  Even if I haven't seen him for an
hour and haven't the least idea where he is, he'll
be there soon's the tramp is, and barkin' so the
feller can't hardly make himself heard.  Blitzen's
tramp-bark is queer," continued Aunt Love
thoughtfully.  "It's mysterious to me where he
gets his breath.  It ain't just one bark after
another, but he runs 'em all together without any let
up, and so loud and long, it's curious to me he
don't just choke to death and done with it."

"Rather discomposing to the tramp, I imagine."

"Well, 't is," admitted Miss Berry, one corner
of her mouth smiling.  "Some stand it longer 'n
others; but when one o' the critters sticks to it till
I'm wore out with him, I never have to do but just
one thing.  I just look at Blitzen,—he's always
jumpin' and whirlin' around enough to make a
clock dizzy,—and I say, 'What's the matter with
the dog!'  Then I close the door a little and look
through it at the tramp and holler, 'You'll have
to excuse me, but that dog acts so queer I'—then,
slam, I shut the door.  It never fails to work.
Takes away a tramp's appetite every time."

"I should suppose Blitzen might feel the weight
of a boot under those circumstances."

"Bless your heart, Mr. Jack, don't you believe
it!  A man would have to be built like one o' these
centerpedes to have any luck tryin' to kick Blitzen
when he's on the rampage.  No sir, a tramp don't
like the idea of a mad dog, and he needs all the
legs he's got to get over the fence with.  I always
step to the winder pretty certain what I'll see.  A
man just lightin' out for the road, and Blitzen
after him, makin' rosettes of himself, bringin' all
four feet together at every bound and hollerin'
enough to croozle you."

Jack laughed.

"He's a smart dog," went on Miss Berry in the
tone of one who gives the devil his due.  "He's
been a means o' grace to me more 'n once, but I
won't deny he's talented.  Now after one o' those
whirlwind times, you'd think he'd be so tuckered
out he'd just have to lay down a spell and get his
wind back; but land, he never turns a hair.  All
the time he's playin' hydrophoby on that tramp
he's rememberin' where he buried his last bone,
and he hasn't any more 'n seen him over the fence
when he switches around mute as a mole, and digs
in the ground just as pert as though he'd never
used any energy on anything else.  He needs
nourishment and he knows it."

"I should suppose he would get it some day,"
remarked Van Tassel, "in the shape of poisoned
meat."

"Law, they've tried that," said Miss Berry
contemptuously.  "I've had to laugh when I've picked
it up in the yard and burned it.  It was such a
simple idea.  Why, if a tramp could come into
the house and get one o' ma's white China plates
with the gold band, and set some victuals o' mine
on it and pizen 'em, he might stand some chance.
Blitzen puts on more airs and frills every day
about what he will eat and what he won't; but as
for pickin' up strange doin's! he and I both
rather prefer our own cookin' to other folks's,
anyway," finished Aunt Love with a little conscious
toss of her head.

The oriole elm was still bedecked with diamonds
when the two entered Miss Berry's yard, and the
branches of the pine trees were weighed down with
a soft, white burden.

In the distance, at the sitting-room window,
Blitzen's head could be seen, and it bobbed
convulsively as he barked an excited welcome to his
adored mistress.

"Such a time as I had to get away from him
this mornin'," she said.  "He knows Sunday as
well as you do, but other days he expects to go to
the store with me, and from the first I expected
trouble.  I thought I'd begin to plan about an
hour before service, so's to slip off without his
knowin' it; but Mr. Jack, I'm glad Salem days
are gone and done with, or that dog would be
burned for a witch.  As sure as I'm talkin' to
you this minute, he always knows what I'm
thinkin' about.  He acted meachin' from the minute
breakfast was over.  I was unusually clever to
him too; told him Merry Christmas, and snapped
my finger to him; but sir, he whined.  He just
sat down and looked at me pitiful and whined.
I really believed the critter was sick, and felt of
his nose; but it made me jump; 't was as cold's a
frog; and law, when I begun to go to church I
found he wa'n't confined to the bed by a long
chalk.  I say *begun* to go to church, 'cause that's
just what it was.  I've been back to this house
this mornin' three different times," said Aunt Love
impressively.  "The first time Blitzen wasn't
in sight anywheres, so I just thought I'd seize
the chance, and I turned the house-door key and
hurried down the path, puttin' my shawl on and
pinnin' my veil as I went.  I hadn't but just got
to the cross-roads when I spied him trottin' slowly
along as still and pious as though he'd been sent
for in a hurry to tend a dyin' friend.  I
suspicioned mischief, but still I wasn't sure.  You
can usually tell somethin' about a dog's notions
by his tail; but Blitzen not havin' any he gets
the best o' me there, and he knows it.  I tipped
along when I saw him, for thinks says I perhaps
he's settin' out to head me off at the store,
and if that was his idea it just suited me; for
'twas the other cross-road that was the shortest
way to church.  Well, he started that path.
Now," said Aunt Love argumentatively, as she
mechanically broke a long twig from a lilac bush,
"I don't s'pose you believe any more 'n I do that
Blitzen's got eyes in his back, though why he
shouldn't be equally blind in both ends is another
o' the mysteries; but the very minute I set my
foot, silent as the dead, mind you, into the church
road, that dog stopped and looked over his
shoulder.  It was a hang-dog look, but set.  I
stopped too, and he smiled,—there, like that,"
for Miss Berry had unlocked the house door and
Blitzen had flung himself upon her in an ecstasy,
his white teeth gleaming once and again as he
lifted his lip in a canine grin.

The use of the lilac switch now became apparent
as Miss Lovina, holding her silk gown away with
one hand, with the other belabored her adorer in
a business-like manner until he became penetrated
with the idea that his addresses were unwelcome.

"If 't wa'n't for whips, I shouldn't have one
frock fit to be seen," she explained calmly, as
Blitzen, unabashed, preceded them alertly into the
sitting-room, where he had been alternately
napping and lamenting all the morning.

"Yes, I had to bring that good-for-nothin' home
from the cross-roads,—just drop your coat right
off, Mr. Jack,—and I shut him up in the shed
and hasped the door.  Then I started off again.  I
told you he was a witch.  There must be some hole
out o' that shed that he's made himself, for I
hadn't got ten rods from the house before I found
him stealin' along after me.  Yes, sir, you
remember it very well;" and Blitzen, whom the
switching had not dispirited, now crept abjectly under
the sofa.  "The second time I tried the barn, but
that turned out to be a sieve too, so, though it's
against my rule, I was forced when I came back
the third time to lock him in the house.  He
hasn't broke a hole through the house yet.  Yes,
you better stay under there, you scamp!  Now
you make yourself at home, Mr. Jack, while I put
dinner on the table."  Miss Berry, as she spoke,
shook down the coal-stove, which she had left to
burn as little as possible in her absence.  She
twitched one damper in the back and one in the
front.  "It's cold as charity here," she remarked,
"but we'll soon heat up.  There's some o' those
bound Harpers you used to like to look at, with
the pictures o' the war in 'em; or there's the
Christian Union.  I'll call you in a little while.
Want a few cookies now, just to stay your stomach?"

Jack smiled at the familiar question.  Aunt
Love was one of those comfortable folk who are
always wanting to stay people's stomachs, especially
children's.  She had never thought it an odd
or inconvenient fact that boys are always hungry.
What wonder that she was popular?  Her visitor
assured her that he would prefer to wait, and she
hastened out to the kitchen, her brain seething
with plans to prepare a meal which should deceive
the visitor as to its impromptu nature.

With great celerity she tied a huge apron over
her black silk gown, and went to work.  Miss
Berry's friends, could they have looked on, would
have thought she had lost her wits; for never had
she been known to pare potatoes to such a reckless
depth.  She exulted in her own rule never to let
the kitchen fire go out, and flew hither and thither
with a practiced deftness which allowed of no false
move.  Once she stumbled over some object and
looked down impatiently.  It was Blitzen.

"I thought you was under the settin'-room sofa,
you rascal.  If you dare to hender me to-day!"
she said hotly.  Blitzen knew there was danger
in her voice, but the chickens were beginning to
send forth an appetizing fragrance, and all his
discretion could not keep him from joining in such
a novel romp as his staid mistress was making of
getting dinner.  The consequence was that in a
minute more Miss Lovina trod on his nimble toe.
The yelp he gave exasperated her.  She threw
open the kitchen door.

"Go out!" she ordered sternly.

Blitzen rolled over on his back and lay there,
limp, looking like a gigantic caterpillar.  Miss
Berry spoke once more in vain; then she swooped
upon him in a totally unprecedented manner, and
in another moment the terrier was picking himself
out of a snowdrift to the tune of the slamming of
the kitchen door.

Jack could see him from his window, sitting in
the path, scratching the snow out of his ears, and
reflecting on the mutations of this life.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AUNT LOVE'S INTERCESSION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AUNT LOVE'S INTERCESSION.

.. vspace:: 2

When Van Tassel saw Blitzen describe an arc
which had its beginning at the kitchen door and
its vanishing point in a snowdrift, the spontaneous
laugh which burst from him sounded strangely in
his own ears.  It was the first time he had laughed
in such fashion since that October day when Page's
cable messages had found him in Berlin.

He had been wondering, as he stood there by
Miss Berry's small-paned window, whether Aunt
Love's prattle on the way home from church had
been for the express purpose of diverting him.
He could not connect even that extent of diplomacy
with this friend of two of his childhood's summers;
but supposing her anecdotes to have had that purpose,
they had been successful.  Jack felt content
to be here.  The cold pure blankness of this outside
world, the absence of all necessity for exertion
or assumption of an interest he did not feel, were
surpassingly restful.

He had known that a merry Christmas was not
for him, and had shrunk from either joining in or
appearing to avoid the festivities of his Boston
friends; hence the idea of this postponed visit had
come to him as a deliverance, and been
suddenly acted upon.

When Aunt Love finally presented herself again,
smiling, red-cheeked, and minus the apron, Jack
found it awoke in him something like the appetite
of olden days to be led into the dining-room where
a tempting meal was spread.

The hostess heroically refrained from apologies
concerning a certain dryness of those twice-heated
chickens, since it might be hazardous to open the
subject; and the cream gravy generously provided,
with the delicate mashed potato, hot biscuit,
brandied peaches, and other adjuncts of the impromptu
meal, were delicious enough to divert the attention
of even the hypercritical from complaint.  A couple
of mince pies, the mates to those in Miss Getchell's
possession, and cups of golden coffee with Alderney
cream, finished a dinner calculated to put a
misanthrope into good humor, provided his pessimism
did not arise from a poor digestion.

It was a pleasure in itself to Jack to see what
pleasure his presence gave.  He had been most
kindly and tactfully treated in the Page home;
but they were too conscious there of his sorrow,
too comprehensive of his state of mind.  Aunt
Love was jolly.  She was so entirely absorbed in
the pleasant responsibility of making her guest
materially comfortable, that she seemed to have no
room at present for other thought; and her own
wholesome appetite was infectious.  She talked of
summers long past, and evaded all reference to
recent events.  Jack ate a hearty dinner, and as
Miss Berry watched him sitting opposite, leisurely
drinking and appreciating her coffee, she felt
wrapped in an atmosphere of content.

"You are going to let me help you clear this
all away and wash the dishes?" said Jack, as he
finished.

His hostess laughed deprecatingly, looking at
the hand with which he raised his cup to his lips.
She had been admiring the slender links in his
immaculate cuffs all through the dinner.  There
was a facet-like cutting in their gold that gave
them a glisten which attracted her.

"No.  We're both of us too much dressed up
to wash dishes," she remarked.  "I don't care if
they ain't done for a week, Mr. Jack.  I'm goin'
to enjoy myself with you, this afternoon.  You
make yourself at home in any part o' the house but
the kitchen for twenty minutes, and then I'll sit
down with you.  I guess you haven't forgotten
your way 'round."

Jack regarded her with serious brown eyes.
"Are there any moths in your sitting-room carpet,
Aunt Love?" he asked.

Miss Berry looked amazement, and even a little
anxiety lest her young friend's brain had received
more of a shock than she realized.  "What makes
you ask that?" she demanded, being careful to
speak gently.

"I know a sovereign remedy, that's all."

"I did, one time, have some trouble with that
carpet," said Miss Berry doubtfully, "but pepper's
good; I used that.  Camphor, too."

"Tobacco is excellent," declared Van Tassel,
looking pensively into the depths of his coffee cup.

A light of comprehension broke over Miss Berry's
face.

"Mr. Jack, do you smoke!" she exclaimed
reproachfully.  "Do you shut those shiny white
teeth o' yours on an old pipe-stem!  Oh, there
never ought a cigar to go into your mouth, never
in the world.  Do you *smoke*?"

"Well—on Fourth of July's, and New Years,
and Christmas, and—birthdays, I do sometimes
celebrate, and I thought if you wanted the moths
kept out of your carpet—  One thing really,
Aunt Love, if cigar smoke is disagreeable to you,
you ought to have told me before betraying me
into such a dinner."

"It isn't any more disagreeable to me than it is
to any other woman of good principles," returned
Miss Berry firmly.  "'T isn't a question o' that.
I can show you statistics, Mr. Jack."

"Yes, I have seen statistics," he answered,
mildly.  "You haven't time to look them up just
now, and I think I'll walk out of doors a while
and discuss the movement cure with Blitzen, and
ask him what part of the chicken he'll take."

"No, no, Mr. Jack.  There ain't enough paths
shoveled to make it pleasant to go out around the
house.  I let Obed go just as soon as he'd done
what was absolutely necessary this mornin'.  'T ain't
that a cigar's unpleasant to my nose.  It's my
principles it hurts; but 't ain't so bad if you only
smoke one for an occasional recreation.  Remember
you can't suit me except by makin' yourself
entirely at home;" and the hospitable woman arose
from the table.  "If you don't smoke now in the
sittin'-room, I shall feel bad."

So Van Tassel went back to his window and
sent a few rings of fragrant smoke into the air
before putting on his hat and sallying down the
garden path.  He had not finished his cigar before
he heard himself called.

Miss Berry was standing in the open door,
beckoning to him.  "Time's up," she said, smiling.

Jack smiled back and held up the cigar explanatorily.

"I know all about that.  Come in.  It's a good
smellin' one," she added, as her guest obediently
returned to the piazza.  "If folks would burn a
few leaves o' tobacco like that occasionally, it would
be agreeable enough, some like incense; but it's a
pity to have it at the cost of a man's poisonin' his
lungs."

Van Tassel followed her back to the sitting-room,
where he took the armchair she had arranged for
him, and smiled to see that one of the white and
gold China saucers had even been sacrificed to
receive the ashes of that disapproved cigar.

He thanked her and took from his pocket a little
dark velvet box.  "Here is something I brought
you as a Christmas gift, Aunt Love.  I had to get
it in a hurry last night and I don't feel sure that
it will please you."

Miss Berry opened the case and gazed at a hatpin
of onyx set with a conventional design of pearls.

"It's good enough for an empress!" she exclaimed
in ingenuous delight.  "Why, you're too good,
Mr. Jack.  I'm just gettin' spoiled this Christmas.
I got another present out o' the post-office last
night," and Miss Lovina took from her pocket
another and smaller box which she put into Jack's
hand.  "Velvet too, you see," she said, beaming,
"and more precious yet inside, just like yours."

Jack opened the case and found a gold thimble.

"And it's big enough for me," announced the
happy owner triumphantly; "I didn't know as
gold ones grew big enough for workin' hands like
mine: but you wouldn't catch Mrs. Van Tassel
givin' anybody a thing they couldn't use."

Jack's head was bent above the bauble.  "Oh,
it is from her?"

"Yes," answered Aunt Love, recalled by his
tone from her heedless flight of enthusiasm.
"This pin will always make me vain and happy,"
she added, "and I thank you from my heart,
Mr. Jack, for thinkin' about me."

"You have been an important person in my
thoughts this fall," said the young man, as he
handed her the thimble, "for you can tell me of
my father."

Jack looked thoughtfully at his cigar, and Aunt
Love, from her neighboring chair, looked at him.

"I will tell you," she said, after waiting a
moment to see if her guest wished to proceed.  "I
will tell you everything I can.  Do you want to
ask me questions, or shall I just talk to you a
little?"

"I want to know just how ill he was through
the summer.  I was deliberately kept in the dark."

Miss Berry was alert to perceive the resentment
in the quiet tone.

"He wasn't ill at all.  Not so to say real sick,"
she replied.  "His head didn't feel quite right
after that light shock he got in the spring, and he
thought he was takin' every precaution by comin'
out of all the excitement of his busy life, right to
this farm.  The doctor said it was just the best
thing he could do; and Mrs. Van Tassel"—

"Then he was not confined to his bed here?"

"No, indeed.  Not a day.  He had a steamer
chair out under the big elm, and it never seemed
to fret him a bit to be idle; and his wife"—

"He used to write me from under that tree,"
said Jack thickly.

"Yes, indeed he did; and he liked to be read
to, and to play backgammon; and whenever
Mrs. Van Tassel"—

"I ought to have been here to wait on him.
What I was cheated out of!"

"But, Mr. Jack," Miss Berry spoke pleadingly,
"you was trampin' through Switzerland, and just
havin' the best time of all.  Your father used to
have guide-books and atlases, and follow up what
you were doin' every day.  Why, he entered into
it, and enjoyed it just as if it was himself.  He
didn't know, and Mrs. Van Tassel didn't know,
that there wasn't many another summer comin'."

"It makes it especially hard," said Jack, still
staring at the forgotten cigar, dropped now into
the saucer, "that I had been away from him four
years already.  The past summer is the one I
should have spent with him.  It seems as though
the regret and the loss could never be forgotten.
There never was such a father as mine."  The
speaker's features worked convulsively an instant.
"The world is only a big, barren desert, without
him, and I might have had all those months.  I
might"—

Aunt Love used to feel an especial tenderness
for Jack when she tucked him into bed at night,
because he had no mother to do it for him, and
she had often kissed the child after he was asleep,
for the same reason.  Now his pale face in its
pain and effort at self-mastery appealed to her
irresistibly.  In a moment she had slipped her
arm around his shoulders, and with her other
hand drawn his head gently against her breast.

"I know you've been hurt awful bad, dear
heart," she said, tears running down her own
cheeks, as she softly patted his hair.

For Jack, he did not stop to be astonished.  It
was too comforting to have the barriers of his
self-restraint forcibly broken down.  From the time
when furtive bitter drops had added to the ocean's
brine, as he meditated at evening on board the
home-coming ship in cold November, no loving
human soul had dared till now to take his grief
into full companionship.  Aunt Love's primitive,
spontaneous method worked well.  It seemed the
most natural thing in the world to her that he
should weep in her embrace, on the ample bosom
of her black silk gown; and who shall say what a
comfort it was to Jack, with no spectators but the
haircloth chairs and sofa, to be held close in loving
arms after weeks of lonely, speechless heartache
under a conventional exterior.

"You are very good to me," he said at last, and
though he leaned back in his chair, he continued
to hold one of Aunt Love's plump hands as
though she were a sort of anchor which he could
not let go all at once.

"And now you've got to be patient with me
just a minute, dear boy," said his companion,
"and listen to something you won't like to hear,
perhaps.  My conscience wouldn't rest easy unless
I told you a little about your father's wife."

"I know her," said Jack.  "I don't want you
to think I doubt her kindness to him.  I am
jealous of her.  That is all."

"Kindness ain't just the word," persisted Aunt
Love.  "I can imagine your father livin' through
such a summer as last was, and havin' a pretty
weary time of it, cut off from so much that had
made his life before.  Now I just want you to
picture this young woman, a pretty, girlish critter
that had seen trouble enough to make her
low-spirited if she'd had a mind to be, just studyin'
to make the days pleasant for him.  She was
cheerful in just such a stiddy way as a brook is;
not much noise about it, but always right there,
singin' if so be you want it.  She played games
with your dear father, or she read to him, or she
waited on him, or she just set and sewed and let
him look at her, whichever happened to suit his
mood; and he bein' always thoughtful and tender
of her, 'twas just a pleasure to see 'em together.
She hunted up maps and articles about places you
was travelin', and from sunrise till sunset she just
had one idea, and that was whether anything
could make Mr. Van Tassel any more comfortable
than he was.  He was a happy man in spite of the
new weakness which might have made him miserable.
Ain't that somethin' for you to remember
when you think of the woman that bears his name?
You know some kinds o' clover brings the person
that finds it good luck.  I often used to think o'
that as I watched 'em together, and I thought
your father had found one of the best sort.  It's
a good name for her.  Clover's just like her,
unpretendin' and sweet, whether it's red or white;
always cheerful and innocent, distillin' honey for
mankind."  Miss Berry paused a minute before
she went on: "The word *father* means a great
deal to you, Mr. Jack.  It was the heavenly
Father that gave that lovely companion to soothe
Mr. Van Tassel's last days; and the same all-lovin'
Father has permitted a great blow to fall upon
you; but the Holy One whose birthday we are
keepin' to-day said that in this world we must
have tribulation, and He told us, too, be of good
cheer.  The Saviour did overcome the world;
there is a heaven, your father has gone to it, and
you and I are both bound for it.  It's the main
concern we've got in life to get ready for it.  Let
your sorrow help you along, Mr. Jack, and don't
shut anybody out o' your generous heart, least of
all the woman I've been talkin' about."

.. vspace:: 2

Van Tassel took an eight o'clock train back to
Boston that night.  He walked to the station
with a lighter step than the one that had carried
him from it.  Some subtle influence had softened
him; some poisoned rankling dart had been
drawn away.  A crescent moon hung in the sky.
The quiet snowclad village suggested more than
ever the idea of a Christmas picture, and the
song that the angels once sang, as they floated
through the starry heavens, seemed now to fall
like a benediction from above: "Peace on earth,
good will to men."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DEDICATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE DEDICATION.

.. vspace:: 2

Gorham Page thought he perceived a change
for the better in the spirits of his cousin, after
that visit to Pearfield, but Jack said little about
the event.  It was well into the New Year, when
the two happened to be alone in the office one
afternoon, that Jack mentioned his father's widow
voluntarily for the first time since his return.

"Did I understand you to say, Gorham, that
Clover sent word to me that she should not return
to the Hyde Park house?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it was because she felt enmity,
or because she feared it?"

"Why, it is your house," said Page.  "It was
left to you, as it turns out."

"Yes, but what difference does that make?"
returned the other, with a tinge of impatience, the
unreasonableness of which made his cousin smile.

"She wished you to feel full liberty in coming
back," said the latter.  "She broke down when
she spoke of it, I remember."

"I don't like that," asserted Jack, turning over
the pages of Blackstone.  "I don't like to have
Clover exiled from a comfortable place, where she
would like to be.  It is a dog-in-the-manger
business that doesn't suit me in the least."

"I guess you needn't worry about the matter,"
remarked Page.  "Mrs. Van Tassel is in no
condition to bear a Chicago winter."

"Do you mean she is ill?" asked the other,
shutting the heavy book suddenly.

"I don't know.  She looks like alabaster, or
something that would be easily broken.  Miss
Bryant was evidently much distressed about her."

Jack fell into a brown study.  It sounded
strange to hear his cousin speak of these old
schoolmates by such names.  The idea of Clover,
jolly, laughing Clover, with her sunburned cheeks
and dancing blue eyes,—the idea that any one
should speak of her as looking like alabaster.
And Miss Bryant!  It was a jest in itself to hear
his serious cousin refer in that tone, and by such
a dignified title, to Mildred.  It was more than
two years since Jack had seen the romping girl,
whose heavy hair would never remain in its braid,
and who, it seemed, would never cease outgrowing
her clothes.

He thought of the sisters for some time, while
Page went on with his work.  He recalled the
little boy and girl who had loved him, and gentle
Mrs. Bryant, whose mother-heart had always made
him welcome equally with her own children.  They
had all gone now to that world which had lately
gained definite interest for him.  Had Clover and
Mildred suffered yearning and loss comparable
to his?  The mere thought, tolerantly admitted,
gave him a new feeling toward his old comrades.

At last he spoke again.  "Where did Mrs. Van
Tassel say they were going?"

It was the first time he had given his friend
her title.  Page observed it.

"California," he answered sententiously.

"That doesn't tell anything."

Page smiled slightly.  "Perhaps that is just
what she considered," he returned, and Jack
thought that Gorham was a provoking, dry sort
of fellow.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said,
rising.  "I'm going to Chicago."

"Are you?  Well, you are that favored species
of individual who can control his own movements."

"Yes.  They've ceased pulling hair out there,
and have decided to locate the Fair in Jackson
Park, quite near our house, you remember."

"So I observed.  They have lost a good deal of
time in controversy, it strikes me.  They will
have to scratch gravel now."

And this, if Mr. Page had only known it, was
literally what had begun to be done out there in
Chicago, in the unreclaimed district which
bordered Jackson Park on the south.

Sand-dunes, and marshes, woodland and slough,
had all to be effaced, for a new earth must be
offered in time to be the foundation for those
castles in the air, which were already creating in
men's brains.

As the scope of the proposed work unfolded
and became clear, the time began to seem nigh to
hopelessly short for its accomplishment.  Of
public opinion in the East, the kindest expression
continued patronizing, amused, and skeptical; the
average, contemptuous and hostile.

But Chicago, which had formed a habit of making
stepping-stones of obstacles, now said "I will"
with greater doggedness of purpose than ever
before, and sending steam dredges to invade the
wilderness, began the patient, laborious grubbing,
which was necessary to excavate in one place, and
fill in in another.  Meanwhile the oldest
inhabitant wandered about, looking on, wondering and
fascinated.  The maiden, going in advance of the
feller of trees, caught with her kodak a farewell
glimpse of the wood-road, that had furnished a
foothold amid the sand for the spring violets of
her childhood.  The small boy looked longingly
at the sloughs, which had been first to freeze in
autumn, and thought it a thousand pities that
Chicago had been so brave as to deserve the Fair.
The Eastern papers thought so too, and still
exercised the virtue of frankness to the fullest extent;
but Chicago, with all her reputation for talking,
now had no time for such indulgence; but emulated
Uncle Remus's famous tar-baby, who, it will
be remembered, when Brer Rabbit jeered at her
once and again, still "ain't sayin' nothin'."  She
only grubbed away, and her citizens prepared
themselves for the long pull, the strong pull, and
the pull all together, which should win ultimate
triumph.

When Jack arrived there, he found his city in
all the excitement of work and plans and anticipation.
His father's Scotch housekeeper, Jeanie,
was in possession as of old when he reached home,
and gave him a reception in which tears mingled
with cordiality.  "It's all different without your
father, Mr. Jack," she mourned, "but we must
bear it,—we must bear it."

Jack went through the house, finding changes
in every room but his own.  In that one, every
object was familiar.

Jeanie had nothing but good words for her
young mistress.  She was ready to praise her as
long as Jack would have patience to listen.  Miss
Bryant, too, came in for a share of her voluble
encomiums; but she did not know where they were,
for though Mrs. Van Tassel wrote her an occasional
note, she said they were moving about from
place to place.

The upshot of Jack's trip was, that he went
back to Boston and his cousin's office, and waited
for destiny to show him some natural way of
communicating his generous impulses to Clover.

So he lived through the winter, keeping up some
interests in common with certain of his classmates,
and gaining a reputation for touchiness regarding
his native city, with whose exertions he felt a loyal
and filial sympathy.  It made him hot to read and
hear frequent allusions to prove that the public
was still holding its sides with merriment over the
exquisite humor of the idea that upstart,
pork-packing Chicago should undertake to conceive
and carry out a true World's Fair, one fit to
follow the great similar achievements of the Old
World nations, and to be an adequate embodiment
of the high ideas which gave birth to the
enterprise.

It was little mollifying to him to perceive that
much of the sneering had at least the merit of
genuineness; that there was much sincere incredulity
of Chicago's ability to rise to an occasion
so remote from her habits and experience.  With
his Cambridge training, his youth, and his years
of absence from home, he might have sympathized
in all this, more with than against the Eastern
element, but for his father's active labors, and his
own knowledge of the men who had the matter in
hand.

Only once Jack heard of Clover and Mildred
during the summer that followed.  He visited
Miss Berry again, and heard from her that
Mrs. Van Tassel's health was reëstablished, and that
the sisters had taken a trip to Alaska.  He asked
her to convey to them, for him, an earnest invitation
to return to the homestead, whenever they
pleased.

Once again, in the winter, he learned from the
same source of information that they had gone to
Europe.  In June, Van Tassel and Page took a
trip through the English and Scottish lakes
together.  Clover and Mildred evidently wished to
live a life apart.  Very well, it should be as they
pleased; but Jack could not help looking for
them at each little inn where his and Page's
horses stopped.  His father's memory was still a
living, ever-present one, and persons so strongly
associated with him could not be forgotten.

In the autumn the young men came home to
find the country absorbed in Columbian celebrations.
Red and yellow was as popular a combination
as red, white, and blue.  Columbus was
pictured on every hand.  There was no sameness,
no fear of monotony about these representations.
He was shown thin and stout, old and young, fair
and dark, narrow-visaged and rotund of countenance.
Meanwhile, the dedication in his honor
drew on apace.

The twentieth of October, Chicago was to be
clothed in bunting, and the great men of the
country were to be drawn by prancing steeds through
her streets.  On the twenty-first, the Exposition
buildings were to be dedicated to their splendid
use, and Jack Van Tassel told his cousin that
they must both be present at the ceremonies.
Page demurred, but Van Tassel had his way, and
ten o'clock of that sunshiny, clear, Friday
morning found the two men entering the grounds,
where a sense of roominess was the first sensation,
after struggling in the city's crowd.

Jack felt his breast swell with pride in the fair
scene, incomplete, yet already inspiring; but he
forbore from being the first to comment.  Let the
Boston man speak; and he finally did.  Page's
eyes slowly took in an overwhelming impression
of the general scheme,—of what had already
been, and what would be accomplished.  Then he
spoke:—

"This is great—so far."

The words were balm to his companion.

Page went on.

"But Eastern men designed these palaces.
Eastern art"—

"Now look here," burst forth Jack.  "Don't
try to apologize for Chicago's achievement.  She
hasn't got there yet, quite, of course, but she is
arriving.  She had sense enough to make this
Fair a national and not a local business.  You're
surely not surprised at that?  She understood it
that way from the first.  They are not all Chicago
men who have done this work, but be kind enough
to remember that they are Chicago men who
have laid the brains of this country under
contribution, and whose indomitable energy has been
the steam which has actuated the vast machinery
of construction from the beginning, and will do
so to the end.  Don't explain it, my friend; just
say it is stupendous, and pass on."

Page, as he silently obeyed, remembered Mildred
Bryant's prophetic words in the Portland
train:—

"It is very fortunate for the country that we
have taken the Fair."

It began to look that way; still herculean tasks
remained.

Jack had received an invitation to witness the
parade from the loggia of the Mining building,
and the cousins bent their steps thither, between
the lines of waiting spectators.  At present, the
building was used as barracks for troops.  The
two glanced down the neat perspective of soldier
beds, as they ran up the broad flight of steps
leading to the gallery, then they came out upon
the balcony that faces north, and looked with
interest upon the scene.  Flags in great numbers
were flying from every roof.  The waterways and
Wooded Island lay before them in the October
sunlight.

They were talking of the names of buildings,
and discussing the fabulous measurements of the
mountain called Manufactures and Liberal Arts,
when a new party appeared from the gallery
doorway.  The new-comers advanced to an arch a
couple of rods from where the young men were
standing, and Jack, who was profoundly interested
in his subject, merely received an impression
of beauty and fashion as he glanced at them, and
then, looking back, returned to his statistics.

"If they can only have good weather the coming
winter," he went on, "the thing will be ready
May 1st, in spite of the croakers."

Soft laughter and happy voices came from
beyond the massive masonry, which half concealed
their neighbors.

"Jack," said Page, in a low tone, "Mrs. Van
Tassel and Miss Bryant are with that party."

"No!  Why, I didn't see them."

"Yes.  Mrs. Van Tassel has some kind of a
gray and white dress on, and Miss Bryant"—

"I want to get out of here, then."

Page answered him sharply.

"Is it your intention to play the role of Indian
toward those ladies the rest of your life?"

"No, nothing of the kind," returned Van Tassel
uncomfortably.  "I am more willing to see them
than they probably are to see me.  I don't blame
Clover, if she chooses never to meet me again.  I
suppose she remembers as clearly as I do some of
the last things I said to her.  Whew!" for in
changing their positions one member of the party
had stepped back into plain sight, "what a
stunning girl they have with them!"

"That was Miss Bryant," said Page.

"No, no.  You didn't see the one I meant.
Splendid creature; carried her head as though
the Fair was built expressly for her."

"Yes, that was Miss Bryant.  I have met her
a number of times.  Perhaps I had better go over
and speak to her."

"Don't think of it till I am out of the way,"
and Jack grasped his cousin's arm.  "That,
Mildred?  Milly *Bryant*?" he added incredulously,
looking reminiscently into that young woman's
past, and seeing a combination of tanned countenance,
rough hair, and old clothes revealing
surplus wrist and ankle; a picture which refused to
have relation to the trim and elegant young
creature who had caught his eye.

This revelation increased to a panic Jack's desire
not to intrude upon these friends.  As though
to enlighten him still further, Mildred insisted
that her sister should step back also, and see some
vista, which her own movement had brought into
range.

Jack instinctively shrank more closely into the
shadow of his pillar, while Page sympathetically
followed his example, and both stole glances at
Clover's pleased, unconscious face; a changed face
from that which either of the men knew as hers.
Jack saw in it the signs of a greater maturity and
life-experience, as well as the subtle charm which
exists in a lovely woman whose advantages are
set off by tasteful and fashionable attire.  Page
saw what still seemed to him an angelic countenance,
only made earthly by the tints of healthy
youth, alert with interest; these smiling lips were
but distantly related to the rigid, delicate mouth
he remembered.

Clover vanished again, recalled by her companions'
interest in a company of cavalry who galloped
in golden glory across a distant bridge.

"I wish I was out of this," exclaimed Jack.
"They may all take it into their heads to come
over here any minute.  If the girls were alone, I
shouldn't mind it.  They could behave as they
pleased then; but with mutual friends it would
be very awkward for them.  Dick Ogden is in the
party.  I can hear his laugh this minute.  I'm
going, Gorham."

"Very well, I too, then.  Here comes some
governor and his staff."

"Yes, it is Russell.  The crowd is safe to cheer
now and wave handkerchiefs for live minutes.  It
is our chance.  We sha'n't be noticed.  Come."

Jack started across the loggia with Page beside
him.  As ill luck would have it, the only one of
the party by the balcony who turned idly curious
eyes to look after the pair was his friend Ogden.

"Why there's—it *is* Van Tassel!" ejaculated
the latter.  "*Oh*, Van."

How Jack anathematized the cheerful, loud
voice.  He turned a deaf ear and hastened on.

"Van Tassel!" bawled the other.  "Here,
what's the matter with you?  They're here, old
fellow."

There is no creature so difficult to escape as the
man who is convinced he is doing you a favor.

Jack could hear the legs of his persecutor's chair
grate on the flooring as he sprang to his feet.  He
paused and turned around, knowing that if he
persisted, his misguided friend would not hesitate to
pursue and capture him in his zeal.

"They're right here," repeated Ogden explanatorily,
his ingenuous florid face beaming.  "Wasn't
it curious you should have passed by, so near
and yet so far?"

Van Tassel and Page advanced, the former with
a rigidly impassive countenance.  It seemed long
to him that he was crossing the ten feet of balcony
which lay between him and the young women
whose reception he feared sensitively.

Ogden, and doubtless their other friends,
supposed them united by ties of intimacy.  Much as
he disliked to obtrude himself upon them, to
permit strangers to suppose that he was not pleased to
meet these ladies would set many tongues wagging
and was not to be considered.  Better to risk a
snub than to appear disloyal to those his father
had honored.

But he need not have feared.  Clover and Mildred
were not the inexperienced girls of his
acquaintance.  They had taken in the situation as
keenly as he had done, and when he reached them
were ready to greet him and Mr. Page in a matter-of-course
manner, calculated to divert suspicion had
any existed.  The circumstances, moreover, were
favorable.  The common interest of the parade at
once claimed the attention of all, and after Page
had been introduced to the strangers of the party,
Jack drew a breath of relief that at any rate the
ice was broken.

He stood near Mildred, looking down upon the
gay plumes, uniforms, and prancing steeds of the
procession, and wished she would address him.
Was this the girl who had always been eagerly
ready to act as crew of his boat, whose strong arms
had not been of contemptible assistance in bailing
her out? who had received his invitations to sail
in a thankful spirit, being thereby richly repaid for
her physical exertions?  She had sometimes needed
to be snubbed out of too energetic participation in
his own and Clover's plans.  She had been a good
fellow always, Jack remembered, even if occasionally
inconveniently effervescent in the matter of
animal spirits; had been an honest, fair antagonist,
with a brave love of sport.

It struck Van Tassel as very curious that he
should be so meekly desirous now of a crumb of
friendly notice from one who had looked up to him
so long and loyally.

He wished he could forget some of those heated
things he had said to Clover on that miserable
afternoon.  Of course she had repeated them to
her sister, and he felt uncomfortably sure that the
memory of them was even now seething beneath
the jetted crown of Miss Bryant's hat.

He envied Page the unconsciousness with which
he could lean toward either sister, making and
receiving comments.  Clover's sweet face moved
him with a tide of thought that gave his eyes a sad
expression, which she caught on the only occasion
when she looked up into his face.

On the whole, it was an uncomfortable half-hour
which Jack spent in that loggia.  The talk
and laughter of the others gave him a feeling of
remoteness and isolation.  He wanted Clover or
Mildred to speak to him, and they did not.  He
could not address them without a bit of encouragement.
It was a relief to him when it was proposed
to forsake the interminable lines of militia which
were filing by the Transportation Building, and
adjourn in search of luncheon.

Page seemed determined to accept Dick Ogden's
urgent invitation that the cousins should continue
of the party, and indeed Gorham started off gayly
with Mildred, as though it were a matter of course
that Jack should follow.  The consequence was that,
feeling a good deal as though the whole experience
were a dream of the Thanksgiving variety, Van
Tassel found himself after a while placed next
Clover at table.  On her other side sat Dick's
mother, a lady remarkable for an imposing figure and
a fluffy pompadour of curling white hair.  As this
personage declared that the morning in the open
air had given her an alarming appetite and
proceeded to apply her full attention to its demands,
conversation with her languished.  Jack observed
this, and renouncing the nightmare idea with an
effort, endeavored to make necessity serve him.

"You have been abroad all summer, I believe,"
he remarked to his neighbor.

"Yes, longer than that," returned Clover.  Her
self-possession seemed untroubled; but in reality
she suffered, too, from mingled emotions.  She
pitied Jack, but resented the fact that circumstances
had forced them together, and his presence evoked
memories overwhelmingly bitter and tender.

"Gorham Page and I did the lake regions of
England and Scotland this year," he went on.
"Did you happen to be in that vicinity?"

"No, we stayed in Switzerland during the summer
months."

"You have seen much of the world in the last
two years."

"Yes.  Mildred and I feel ourselves quite
experienced travelers."

"Shall you be satisfied to settle down now for a
time?"

"I can hardly tell.  We have formed a dangerous
habit."

"Are you"—Jack looked busily into his plate—"Are
you stopping at home—at the old house?"

"We have no home yet.  We mean to settle
down some day and make one."

"Why, have you parted with that dear old
place, Mrs. Van Tassel?" asked Mrs. Ogden
sonorously, helping herself again to chicken salad.

"Mrs. Van Tassel finds it rather large for her
purposes, I fancy," answered Jack quickly, "and
our old housekeeper mourns her defection; but we
haven't parted with the place.  I was there in
January, Clover, and Jeanie shed a few tears in
her homesickness for you.  I haven't seen her
yet this time.  Page and I only got in yesterday,
and we went to the Great Northern."

Jack did not add that this unusual step was
taken because he hoped that Clover and her sister
might have returned and taken advantage of the
invitation he sent them long ago through Miss
Berry.

"Do you know how steadily I have clung to
Boston of late?" he continued.

"Aunt Love wrote me you were there with your
cousin.  Are you going to adopt it as your home?"

"No indeed.  You will think, Mrs. Ogden,"
leaning forward to speak across Clover to her
neighbor, "that Mrs. Van Tassel and I are very
poor correspondents.  Here we have both been
roving about for the past year and waiting to meet
in order to learn details about one another's
movements."

"You can't tell me anything about young men
as correspondents," replied Mrs. Ogden feelingly.
"When Dick is away, the most I ever expect from
him is a telegram every day or two."

"We're a bad lot," admitted Jack.  "No,"
speaking again to Clover, "I am a Chicagoan,
and just now prouder than ever of the fact.  I
fancy that we shall all come home like straying
chickens on May 1, '93.  Of course you intend to
be here during the Fair?"

"Yes.  Mildred and I both anticipate it highly."

"I tell you, Mrs. Van Tassel," put in Mrs. Ogden,
"if you don't want to use your house next
summer, you can make a fortune renting it.  In
that situation, within walking distance of the
grounds, you can get anything you like to ask for it."

Clover for a second time was about to disclaim
any right or title to the homestead, but Jack
besought her with a glance.

"I think we shall find it too convenient to be
dispensed with," he said hastily.

After luncheon the party separated; their
invitations to the dedicatory exercises in the Liberal
Arts Building admitting them to different
situations.

The scene was such as one is glad to have assisted
in for its uniqueness if nothing more.  Even
seeing scarcely made it possible to grasp the
vastness of an auditorium covering forty acres; through
whose outer corridors companies of cavalry passed
now and then without making a noticeable sound
within.  Theodore Thomas's orchestra with its
attendant singers, a company of six thousand in all,
made but a little bright bouquet in one spot, and
the leader was obliged to telephone to the platform
half way down the hall in order to be informed
when a speech had ceased and a musical number
might take its turn.

At the end of the building opposite from
Thomas, the Mexican band enlivened the meditations
of the few thousands, fifteen or so, who were
hear enough to enjoy their martial strains.
Mammoth banners and flags made gay the grand
arches that supported the roof, and each tassel on
those which were so decorated weighed as much
as a woman.

Only a Brobdingnagian could have felt at ease
in such surroundings, yet wonderful order was
maintained amid this largest audience ever
gathered together under one roof.

Clover and Mildred were near enough to the
singers to hear the *pièce de résistance*, Chadwick's
inspiring, moving ode, and as she listened Clover's
eyes grew moist under the stress of the day's
emotions.

"Jack is evidently very friendly," she said that
night to her sister, when they were alone in their
room at the Auditorium.

"He ought to be," returned Mildred shortly.

"He behaved very well and kindly," continued
Clover.  "The situation was odious."

"Odious.  I should think so," remarked Mildred.
"I never disliked that bawling Dick Ogden
as I did when he kept on calling Jack like that.
Don't begin to praise him to me," added the girl,
turning toward her elder a glowing face.  "After
Jack Van Tassel has dragged around on his
knees a good long time I am going to forgive him.
Not before."

Clover looked troubled.  "But it might all have
been so awkward for us had he chosen to behave
differently," she protested.  "It is much easier
for us to lock injuries in our breasts that the
world knows nothing of, than it would be to have
a gossiping set of people wondering and staring.
Jack has grasped the bunch of nettles and saved
us from those stings.  You can feel as you please
about it, but I am grateful."

"I wish he would go away.  I wish he'd go to
Kamschatka," exclaimed Mildred hotly.  "I can't
rid myself, when he is present, of the idea that
he is considering how very differently we should
be situated now if it weren't for dear Mr. Van
Tassel."

"Well, it is true."

"Don't be tiresome, Clover.  Of course it is
true; but Jack has grown so grave and quietly
observing, I feel that I shall not be able to
endure having him about.  I like fine clothes and
fashionable life generally, and when I am soaring
in my natural element, if Jack is going to give me
those meditative, suggestive stares, it will ruin my
pleasure.  It is just as if one had a string about
a bird's ankle and could twitch it down whenever
he liked."

"I think you feel so because you haven't
talked with him yet, Mildred.  You know Jack
was always generous."

"Was he?" the young girl faced her sister.
"Was he when he accused you and insulted you?"

"Oh, I've forgiven him, Milly," returned the
other gently, making a repressive gesture.  "I
have considered his standpoint a great deal since
then; and we enjoyed his father and benefited by
him when the only son was far away.  We even
had the priceless privilege of serving him in his
last days, while Jack was unwittingly defrauded.
Oh, I should not have been at all surprised if he
had been unable to take me by the hand to-day.
Don't be hard on Jack."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GORHAM PAGE'S COMMISSION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   GORHAM PAGE'S COMMISSION.

.. vspace:: 2

A few days afterward a bell-boy brought
Gorham Page's card to Mrs. Van Tassel's parlor.  It
was followed shortly by the young man himself,
who felicitated himself upon his good fortune in
finding her at home.

"My stay in Chicago will be so short, that had
you been out I fear I should not have met you
again," he said.  "I am happy to see, Mrs. Van
Tassel," Gorham inspected her with kindly,
short-sighted eyes, "that travel has done all for you
Miss Bryant hoped.  Your face has quite a new
color and contour."

"No, just my old one," she answered lightly,
indicating a seat near her own.  "I am sorry my
sister is out; but she is a gay girl," with a little
smiling sigh.  "Wherever she is, somehow a
number of engagements seem to crop up."

"Yes.  One can see that she is a leader by
nature.  I should like to have seen Miss Bryant.
However, my errand is with you especially to-day."

"Oh, it is an errand that has brought you?
How unflattering!"

"Not necessarily.  It argued nothing unflattering
when John Alden performed his famous errand
to Priscilla."

Page looked argumentatively into his hostess's
amused eyes.

"Haven't you gone a long way afield for a
simile?" she asked.

"No, I think not.  I was quite as reluctant as
poor John to accept the mission."

"Then decline it even at this late hour.  I am
the least curious of women."

"Impossible."  Page shook his head.  "Miles
Standish is waiting for me over there at the
Northern, and he is in a great state of mind."

"You tempt me to wish I had been out when
your card came up.  Perfunctory visits are very
uncomfortable.  I think you had better return to
your friend, and tell him that Priscilla would not
allow you to speak."

"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?"
asked Gorham looking up and half laughing.
"You see it is this way.  I wanted to come to see
you, and as soon as Jack learned my intention, he
burdened me with this business.  He told me to
be eloquent, and not being in the least so, I am
overwhelmed by my responsibilities.  I had a
presentiment, and told him so, that I should make
a mess of the whole affair; but he insisted upon
trusting his messenger as blindly as the Puritan
captain of old."

Page had a way of lapsing, as he talked, into a
meditative manner.

"And do you insist upon refusing to be warned
by John Alden's failure?" asked Mrs. Van
Tassel.

"Oh, I mustn't fail," he returned with prompt
simplicity.  "That is, if I do I shall take a room
here in the Auditorium for the remainder of my
stay.  We all make rather a pet of Jack," he
explained.  "The thought of denying him or
contradicting him presents itself somewhat in the
light of a catastrophe.  What do you think,
Mrs. Van Tassel, of the effect on the average character
of a habit of success?"

Really, Clover thought this was one of the
oddest men she had ever met; but his question was
so serious that she felt constrained to express an
opinion.

"I am afraid I am no student of character, but
I should say it would have a genial, developing
effect."

"Yes, one thinks so at the first blush, and that
continued failure would dwarf the faculties.  One
can hardly lay down a rule where exceptions are
so numerous; and of course success and failure
are never accidents."

"I think they seem to be so very often."

"No," Page shook his head.  "Everything is
the result of law."

"Then the character that dominates and commands
success must grow by what it feeds upon,
and expand in its own sunlight.  I was right."

"Yes; but the flowers and fruits of a tropical
sun are heavy in scent and often coarse of flavor:
while the flower that struggles for life and
develops in meagre warmth is like the New England
arbutus, both strong and delicate."

"People have such varying standards by which
they measure success and failure," said Clover.
"That sort of scanty, hard-won success which
might be typified by the arbutus would scarcely be
counted success by many."

"True," said Page, nodding his head at her
thoughtfully.  "There ought to be some reliable
touchstone which we could apply to every case."

"Surely there is," replied Clover.

Her guest brightened.  "You mean we should
judge according to our best education in right and
wrong?"

She nodded.  "It amounts to that.  It seems
to me that all that comes to us is important only
according to its effect on character."

Page looked at her with admiring approval.
Here was a woman, a girl in years, who had
thought.

"Are your beliefs simply ethical," he asked,
"or are you religious in the usual acceptation of
the word?"

"I suppose I understand you," she replied.  "I
think if I could not say that I am religious I
should not be here to say anything.  I have stood
in places where ethical culture and humanitarianism
would not have saved me."

"Such testimony interests me very much," he
answered, "especially from a young and beautiful
woman."

Clover colored with surprise at this bluntness.
She need not have shrunk.  Page was as usual
making an impersonal statement as nearly
accurate as possible.

"I have not a particle of doubt," he continued,
"that there is a world of causes, and that ours is
a world of effects.  Why should not the universe
have a soul as well as the human body?"

"Yes; only you do not state it well," returned
Clover, entering into his spirit of analysis.  "It is
not the body that has the soul, but the soul that
has the body and will be through with it after a
while."

Page bowed.  "I agree to that.  I believe in
immortality.  We have been sent upon this plane
of existence; and to find out why is a problem of
daily interest."

"Yes.  Our wishes were not consulted when we
came, and will not be consulted when we go.  It
seems evident enough to me that we are being sent
to school."

"Some of us appear to learn very little, though,"
remarked Page.

"Some of us are set one lesson many times,"
answered Clover slowly, "until we learn it.  The
hand must be unclasped many times before we
learn to relax our rigid hold on what we have
considered our own.  It is one great lesson of life, I
have found, to learn to be relaxed.  You know
how much is said now by physical culturists on
the subject of letting go abnormal tension of the
muscles of the body.  Isn't the correspondence
interesting?  We can only have spiritual self-possession
when we relax the tension of our own wills
and let the divine will sway us."

"We are free agents, though," objected Page,
"and we must behave as if our own wills were
all-powerful; else we should never accomplish
anything."

"Oh yes," agreed Clover; "but if one is firmly
convinced that the higher Power is omniscient,
there is all the time an undercurrent of acknowledgment
that one is being directed, and it becomes
second nature to ask for the direction in all sorts
of wordless ways."

"You believe in that sort of Providence, then?"
asked Gorham curiously.  "I believe every one
has a God—his own God."

"Yes; my God is a Father who thought it worth
while to create me, and therefore, I am sure, thinks
it worth while to lead me through all the ways I
am to traverse.  He is close to me all the time.
Whether I feel that I am close to Him, depends
entirely on myself."

Page regarded the speaker a moment in silence.
Her face looked near to heaven then, he thought.
"Such faith comes more easily to women than to
men, apparently," he said at last.

"Why should it?  How strangely people behave
and talk, or rather avoid talking of spiritual things
as if such subjects were superstitious.  I suppose
perhaps it is because I have had so many dear
ones slip away into the other world that it seems
so real to me.  It has often been said that death
is the only certain event which we can count on;
but people will cease to shrink from it only when
they cease to think of it as death.  No wonder the
love of life is strongly implanted.  It is all we
need look forward to.  The loneliness we have to
suffer here," Clover paused a moment, "is a part
of the schooling."

"You have made good use of your experiences,"
observed Page.

"Not always," returned the other.  "Nevertheless,
I believe that is the chief thing we have to do,—to
learn something above worldly wisdom from
our experiences little and great."

"So your theory regarding success and failure
would simply be to decide its real nature by its
spiritual effect on a man."

"Yes," Clover smiled.  "You have thought of
that before or you would not have grasped so
quickly what I meant."

Her visitor nodded.  "Yes, I have had a similar
thought.  The greatest apparent success may
amount to a failure if it make a man more arrogant
and selfish than before; and the most dismal
failure is a success if only it brings with it an
interior humility and willingness to be taught."

They talked another quarter of an hour before
Page arose and took his leave.  He left his
compliments and farewell for Miss Bryant, shook hands
with Clover, and reached the door of the room
before he started and turned back with sudden
recollection.

"Why didn't you remind me?" he said
reproachfully.  "I haven't done my errand."

Mrs. Van Tassel smiled.  "Priscilla's part was
a passive one, if I recollect rightly."

"But you also recollect the rough temper of
Captain Standish.  I think you are rather cruel."

"Oh, failure might have given you true humility."

"I make plenty of failures, thank you.  Please
don't let this be one of them, and don't judge
Jack's intensity of interest by my own.  May I
sit down once more?"  Page knotted his brow
reminiscently.  "Jack outlined a plan for me.  He
suggested a number of arguments with which I
was to lead up to the main idea, but they are pretty
well muddled in my brain now."  Gorham gave
a short, desperate laugh.  "After this confession
of weakness, Mrs. Van Tassel, you will be obliged,
if only out of generosity, to send me back with a
'yes.'  Now, let me see; I'm confident this ought
not to come first, but Jack wanted me to say that
he was certain that Uncle Richard left the
homestead to him instead of to you, at your own
instigation."

Clover, who had not been able to imagine what
was coming, acquiesced gravely.  "Mr. Van
Tassel would probably have acted as he did in any
case, but I wanted to make certain that Jack's
dear old home should be secured to him."

"It humiliates Jack to feel that you avoid the
place for fear he might go there."

"This is an unpleasant errand for you, Mr. Page."

"Please don't use that tone.  Jack means so
well, I couldn't refuse to be the go-between.  He
asks, he even begs, that if you intend to remain in
Chicago now, you will go back to your home.  It
is comfortable.  All your belongings are there.
His father made every arrangement for you.  Jack
feels sure he would be grieved to have you leave it.
He himself is going back to Boston.  The housekeeper
is alone there and is pining for you; I forget
whether that was to be an argument, but the
fact remains.  Jack thinks it would save a lot of
talking among your friends if you were to go on in
the old way.  Naturally, he has no use for such a
big place.  It would be too lonely to endure under
the circumstances, and it is hardly the thing to
leave the house tenantless year after year.  Of
course all this is under Jack's supposition that you
have no prejudice against the home as a home.  If
that is false"—

"No.  I have a strong attachment for the locality
and the house itself.  Mildred has also."

"Then you will say yes; and I will promise to
take my success as meekly as you could desire."

"Shall I do it, Mr. Page?" asked Clover,
looking perplexed.

"By all means, if you ask me.  Here is the Fair
coming on, and the difficulties of suiting one's
self in a home in Chicago are going to be many, I
fancy."

"I don't want to think of that.  We should be
able to find a comfortable place."

"Then consider that suggestion unmade, and
let me take your consent to Jack.  Do you still
hesitate?"

"Yes.  I had quite made up my mind to do
without Jack, and this would change all that."

"Jack does not at all wish to be dispensed with."

"I consider," said Clover with grave gentleness,
"that I owe him any favor he chooses to claim;
but it seems quixotic on his part to call this
one."

"And yet he does.  We cannot always understand
the vagaries of youth, Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Jack was always willful," she returned, smiling
sadly.  "Tell him I thank him, Mr. Page, and
that Mildred and I will talk it over."

An hour after Gorham's departure, a note was
brought to Clover.  It was from Jack.  He said:—

.. vspace:: 2

I thank you for considering my proposition.  I
have a feeling that in the end you will not refuse
me.  I have suffered for every unjust word I ever
said to you, Clover, and now the only peace
possible for me is to be in friendly relations with
those my father loved.  Only when you are living
again under his roof shall I feel that I have
won his forgiveness as well as yours.  The selfish
jealousy of you which has made my heart sore has
gone, and gratitude has taken its place.  We have
both lived long in two years, and suffered much.
We can feel for each other.

.. vspace:: 1

Forgive your old comrade, JACK.

.. vspace:: 2

Clover's tears fell upon this abrupt note, and her
heart went out to her friend.  She did not need
now to talk the matter over with Mildred.  She
had decided to return to the home by the lake.

Jack went back to Boston without seeing her
again; for although he called, the sisters were both
away.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MAY DAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   MAY DAY.

.. vspace:: 2

What Chicagoan will ever forget the winter
of '92 and '93!  It was as though the elements
had joined with the majority who frowned down
their city's audacious effort.  The newspapers
recorded the storms and their damage.  What an
unthinkable thing it was to undertake a World's
Fair in such a climate!  Certainly if one wanted
an allegory of discomfort one had but to visit
the Garden City at that season, and witness the
teaming through torn-up streets, the building, and
the elevating of railroad tracks, while the sense of
shortness of time sent men to labor and often to
die in exposed places when the mercury was lost
below the zero mark.  Roads were either iron-bound,
or deep in the mud of a thaw, and blizzards
descended furiously upon the glass portions of
Exposition structures, destroying in an hour the work
of weeks.

As the first of May approached, more stinging
grew the criticisms upon the authorities who had
failed to have the Columbian Exposition entirely
ready to keep its engagement; but though on the
great day Chicago was still in an undeniably
uncomfortable condition of unfinished hotels and
bad weather, the White City rose like a perfect
superb lily from its defiling mud, and the great
crowd that swarmed into Jackson Park on the
morning of May 1st found so much to marvel at
that they were good-natured and eager under a
chill gray sky, and unmindful of the clinging soil
into which they sank at every step.

Jack Van Tassel had arrived in town a couple
of days before, and after registering at his hotel
had called immediately at his old home.

The girls received him cordially, although he was
unexpected.  One or two letters had passed
between Clover and himself during the winter, and
she now asked him to leave his hotel and take
possession of his old room.  He declined with thanks,
stating that his plans did not yet permit of a
prolonged stay in the West, and that it would not be
worth while to make the change.

"I am afraid he saw that I hesitated when I
asked him," said Clover to her sister after the guest
had departed.  "I wish we had known that he was
coming, then we could have thought the matter over
and arrived at a decision.  I really didn't know
whether I was doing a proper thing or not."

Mildred, who had seen and been amused by her
sister's perplexity all through the call, laughed
mischievously.

"It is an odd thing if you can't invite your son
to visit you," she said.

Clover regarded her helplessly, but she could
not help smiling too.  "I don't know whether we
should be outraging conventionality or not," she
repeated.  "He will be coming back again in a
little while.  If only Jeanie hadn't deserted us.
It was such an inconvenient season for her to be
overwhelmed with homesickness, but she said it
was the first time that she had not been really
needed here."

"You remind me of Iolanthe," said Mildred
wickedly.  "I couldn't help thinking of it all the
time Strephon was here."  And then she sang:—

   |  "'I wouldn't say a word that could be construed as injurious,
   |  But to find a mother younger than her son is very curious,
   |  And that's the sort of mother who is usually spurious;
   |          Tara diddle, tara diddle, tol lol lay.'"
   |

The color rose under Clover's clear skin as she
joined reluctantly in her sister's laugh.  "Perhaps
we had better procure a dragon," she suggested.

"Oh, wait a little," returned Mildred, loath to
alter their present mode of life.

But Jack, before he left, had agreed to call for
his friends on the morning of May 1st to take
them to see the opening exercises in the new city
whose completed splendor they had not before
beheld.

The three walked down through the grounds
in the dull gray weather, and joined the half
million of souls who waited in the Court of Honor
to see President Cleveland touch the electric
button.

Clover gazed at the white magnificence of architecture,
and felt a thrill at the solemn stillness
pervading all, which the fine orchestral music only
accented.

"It seems to me like the story of Galatea," she
said to Jack.  "We are waiting to see the breath
of life breathed into the statue."

Van Tassel looked down the Grand Basin to
where the heroic Republic stood veiled in white
from the eyes of men.  The low-hanging sky hung
its pall above all.

"I think the button may start the clouds as
well as the machinery," he remarked.  "They look
as though they were only waiting some signal to
pour down."

"We shall need a shower-bath to put out the
fires of our enthusiasm," exclaimed Mildred, who
looked as excited as she felt.  "Oh, Jack, aren't
you glad you are a Chicagoan?  Aren't you glad
that we've gathered goldenrod right in this very
spot in front of the Administration Building?"

Jack protested that he shared this subtle joy
fully; and at the moment a new shiver of
expectation passed through the throng.  The music had
ceased.  The President had begun to speak.  It
was a solemn moment, a triumphant moment,
when at last the electric button was pressed,
hitherto motionless machinery suddenly throbbed,
and the vast pulses of the stately, statuesque
White City began to beat.

Clover and Mildred unconsciously clasped hands,
and their breath came fast as they stood facing
the majestic Peristyle, its marble columns
surmounted by the solemn, glad, immortal declaration:
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free."

Jack stood beside them, his head bared before
this beginning of a new era; for at the touching
of the signal, down fell the veil from the golden
Republic, up streamed the enormous jets of water
from the fountains; color and movement thrilled
along the roofs of the snowy palaces; flags of all
nations unfurled gayly from myriad staffs; the
boom of artillery thundered from the lake side;
and as the multitude, swayed by mighty feeling,
rent the air with cheers, the sun burst from a
cloud and blessed the scene with new splendor.
The World's Columbian Exposition had opened.

.. vspace:: 2

Van Tassel accepted Clover's invitation to
dinner that afternoon when they reached home, chilled
with much standing about in the spring wind.

The impersonal common interest of the day had
done much toward reëstablishing the old easy
relation among the trio.

"So Jeanie felt a call to visit her own kin, did
she?" said Jack as they sat at table.  "She is so
much a part of the house I miss her."

"Yes; she could not be tempted from her project
even by the prospect of the Fair.  'What
do I want with the Fair?' she asked contemptuously.
'Chicago's just got unbearable since they
started it.'  But she wanted me to promise to take
her back when all the excitement is over and she
returns to America," said Clover.  "Of course we
miss her very much; but at present we get on
finely."

"Yes," remarked Mildred, "I don't know that
Jeanie would be pleased to know how well.  I
believe she was right.  No doubt a person of her
sort would be more fatigued than interested by
the Fair."

"I was wondering this morning," said Jack,
"while we were waiting down there, what Aunt
Love would say to it all."

Clover smiled.  "I think Chicago and everything
connected with it seems as far off to her as
the Sandwich Islands;" but as she spoke a novel
thought came into her mind, and after Jack had
gone she imparted it to Mildred.

"I have had a brilliant idea," she announced.

"That is nothing new," returned her sister.
"A quarter, please," holding out her hand.

Clover loftily ignored both the compliment and
the request for prompt recompense.

"We can't selfishly keep this comfortable house
just for our own two selves the next six months."

"I could, just as easy," returned Mildred
nonchalantly, dropping into an armchair.  "Aren't
you glad now that we have lived a life of resorts
for two years, and are not under obligations to
anybody?  Moreover, that we haven't had time
to make any intimate friends anywhere?  Why,
everybody we know here has either rented his
house and fled, or is wondering how servants and
expenses are to be managed through the summer."

Clover looked serious.  "I feel that we ought to
do exactly what Mr. Van Tassel would do if he
were alive."

"Yes, that is so," agreed Mildred promptly;
"but I don't see how you are going to find that
out."

"Why, it is perfectly plain that he would
entertain his near relatives."

Mildred raised her eyebrows thoughtfully.  She
began to sing softly again from Sullivan's opera:

   |  "'To say she is his mother is an utter bit of folly,
   |  Heigh-ho, our Strephon is a rogue!
   |  Perhaps his brain is addled and it's very melancholy,
   |              Taradiddle'"—
   |

"Stop that nonsensical song."

"My dear, Gilbert never writes any nonsense.
It gives me the utmost pleasure to warble his lays.
He is the only librettist in the world who says just
what he wants to say, and it happens to rhyme.
Pardon me if I appeared to be personal.  That
was another happening.  So you think you ought
to have sonny at home.  Anybody else?"

"Certainly.  Mr. Page."

Mildred pursed her lips into a noiseless
whistle.

"Mr. Van Tassel's sister's child," went on
Clover firmly.  "He has a right to expect an
invitation.  What is the matter?  Don't you like him?"

Mildred made her favorite grimace of faint
repugnance, and her head dropped to one side.
"I've had a good deal of him by proxy," she
answered.  "I'm very much afraid he's a worthy
young man."

"Well, what of it?"

"Oh, you know I can't endure worthy young
men," smiled the girl provokingly.

"Jack says he is a noble fellow," declared
Clover with dignity.

"Of course; but alas, if that was only one of
those things that go without saying!  His
sister-in-law adores him madly.  Well, then we are to
have sterling cousin Page.  Anybody else?  It
seems to me you are drawing about us a possibly
charming, but certainly unconventional family
circle."

"No, no.  There are the other Pages.  Of
course we must ask the married brother, just as
much as Gorham, and we are under obligation to
Mrs. Page for kindness to you."

"So she is to be the chaperone.  Is it your
expectation that she will wish to stay here all
summer?  What a perfect goose you were, Clover,
not to have your bright idea before you let Jeanie
go.  After you have thought up three meals a
day for guests, for about three months, your
opinion of the brilliance of that idea will probably
decline and fall."

"Just wait," said Clover triumphantly.  "You
haven't even heard my bright thought yet.  It is
Aunt Love."

Mildred looked into her beaming eyes
uncomprehendingly.  "It is nothing to me," continued
Clover, "whether Mrs. Page stays one week or
six.  I am going to ask Aunt Love to come and
take Jeanie's place all summer."

"Do you suppose she will do it?"

"Yes, I do.  I shall ask her, anyway, before
one day more passes over my head,—that is, if
you agree, Mildred."

"Oh, if I agree!" repeated the latter with
light scorn.  "I notice you didn't trouble yourself
to consult me about Strephon and cousin Page."

"You would like to have Aunt Love, of course,"
persisted Clover.

"Yes; but she must be sure to bring Blitzen."

.. vspace:: 2

There was only one subject discussed throughout
the length and breadth of Pearfield, twenty-four
hours after Mrs. Van Tassel's letter reached
Miss Berry.

Lovina Berry was going to the World's Fair.
Pearfield would be represented, after all.  It was
a dangerous undertaking.  Everybody felt that.
The postmaster made himself quite unpopular by
doubting whether Loviny ran more risk from
desperate characters in Chicago than she would in
any other large city; but his heretical opinion was
accounted for by a well known contrariness of
nature.

Many and solemn were the leave-takings and
warnings bestowed upon Miss Berry at the outset
of her pilgrimage.  She was somewhat astonished
herself at her own calmness at the prospect.

"It must be I don't sense it," she declared as
she gave her lisle-thread glove a parting wave
from the car window.  She had planned by letter
to have Gorham Page meet her in Boston, and
take her to an inexpensive boarding-house where
she might remain until she was fitted out for her
wonderful trip.

It was a tired and harassed woman that Page
met that afternoon, hugging to her, as she stepped
from the car, a straining, excited, furry bundle
that jumped eagerly to the end of his chain as she
permitted him to leap down.

"Such a time as I've had this day," she
ejaculated.  "I guess I've broke most o' the laws
ever made by God and man.  By good luck I
knew the conductor,—he came from near our
place, and he, seein' that Blitzen rampaged
dreadful in the baggage-car, let me hold him in my
lap.  I lost my temper before I'd been out o'
Pearfield half an hour, and I haven't found it
since.  I'm just tuckered out.  Miss Bryant
made a great point o' my bringin' Blitzen, but law,
before I'd have the care o' him from here to
Chicago I'd give up the whole undertakin'."  Miss
Berry looked anxiously at the dog as he bobbed
about at the end of his tether as though to
expend the energy stored in his lively legs during
hours of inaction.  "I don't know how I could
leave him in Boston," she added, "and yet"—

Page smiled.  "You know very well if you left
him he would walk on the ties to Chicago.  Don't
worry, Aunt Love, I'll send him safely for you.
You shall not have any trouble."

Miss Berry looked half hopeful, half incredulous.

"Yes, by express.  It will be all right," and
Page held open the door of a cab, into which Miss
Berry stepped with the nervous and astonished
Blitzen again caught in her strong clasp.

"I haven't thanked you a word," she said
when the horse had started, "but you can't think
what a help it's been to me to have you manage
about the boardin' place and all."

"Hilda wouldn't hear to your going anywhere
but straight to her," returned Gorham.

"Oh, that is too much," exclaimed Miss Lovina,
flushing with pleasure; and the warm welcome
she received when she arrived at Mrs. Page's
dainty apartment completed her relief from care
and embarrassment.

"I'm sure you never counted on Blitzen," Miss
Berry said anxiously, in return to her hostess's
greeting.

"But I am glad to see him," responded Hilda.
"It is well known that a dog who can wag his
tail can knock over lots of valuables in a flat, but
Blitzen is a safe and welcome guest."

"We'll let him run in the street all he wants
to.  Perhaps he'll get lost," said Miss Lovina,
regarding the small animal darkly in spite of the
confiding and questioning gaze he was bending
upon her, as though begging to understand
to-day's erratic movements.

"Much more likely to be stolen," remarked
Gorham.  "I had better send him on to Chicago
very soon."

Mrs. Page proved of great assistance to Miss
Berry in adding the right articles of dress to her
wardrobe, and completing her preparations.  It
was with a light heart that Aunt Love finally
shook hands with Page after he had settled her
comfortably in her section of the Chicago train,
and when the latter glided slowly and smoothly
from the station, Miss Berry leaned back in the
cushioned seat and felt happy though excited.
She had never been in a sleeping-car before, and
every convenience about her excited her wonder
and admiration.

She was traveling at Mrs. Van Tassel's expense,
and simply followed the explicit directions
Page had given her; so she went into the dining-car
for her meals, a proceeding which filled her
with wonder.  Her practical soul yearned to
examine the compact kitchen arrangements.

Gorham had charged the porter to attend to her
wants, accompanying the exhortation with the only
sort of persuasion which appeals to the species,
and innocent Aunt Love was in consequence
gratefully impressed by her new friend's assiduous
attentions.

There is no denying that the gentleman of color
had something to endure from the time the train
crossed the last state line and entered Illinois.
It had been impressed upon Miss Berry that she
was to alight at Hyde Park, and her porter earned
the money Mr. Page had given him before that
station was reached.

"You don't want to get out till you've passed
the World's Fair," he said at last in desperation;
and Miss Lovina clung to this definite clue with
such concentration that when the usual stentorian
announcement was made—"World's Fair Buildings
on the right," she scarcely cast a glance
toward the labyrinth of roofs and domes, but
clasped the handles of her bag and shawl-strap,
and sat on the extreme edge of the seat.

Soon the porter arrived, took possession of Miss
Berry's belongings, and in another minute she
stood on the platform, where Mrs. Van Tassel and
Miss Bryant met her with open arms.

At least one of Mildred's hands was extended
in welcome.  The other kept firm hold of a chain
to which Blitzen was attached.  Instantly the
little dog's leaps and grins monopolized the attention
of all three.  He whined, he actually howled
in the fullness of his joy at finding the mistress he
had despaired of seeing again.

"For gracious sake!" exclaimed Miss Berry,
much embarrassed.  "There, there;" she stooped
and patted the terrier sparingly.  "Yes, here's
my trunk-check, Mrs. Van Tassel.  My, but you
do look well, child.  For pity's sake, Miss
Mildred, take the chain off'n that dog, and maybe he
won't trip me up.  Be still, can't you?"

Mildred laughed as she stooped and unfastened
the hook from the smart new collar which had
gilded Blitzen's misery since his arrival.  "Yes,
he will not need chains now," she answered; "but
we have had to keep him a prisoner for fear he
might go back to Boston.  It would have been
such a pity for you to cross each other on the way."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CLOVER'S INVITATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CLOVER'S INVITATION.

.. vspace:: 2

Those who wished to continue to point out the
defects in Chicago and her Fair had ample
opportunity through a large part of the month of May.
It was indeed Chicago's Fair then; no one else
claimed it.  The exhibits were not all in place,
the electric effects were not complete, the weather
was cold, Orientals had to wear American overcoats
above their white gowns, and they sneezed
lugubriously under their turbans.  The pleasantest
spots in the White City at that season were the
open fires in the dignified or dainty club-houses
known as State buildings.  Only the Eskimos
were really comfortable, and some of those poor
women wished the incoming and outgoing visitor
would not allow the northeast wind continuous
entrance to their homes.

But the month was nearly out by the time Miss
Berry arrived in Chicago.  It was the beginning of
that marvelous summer whose weather every
Chicagoan will always proudly consider an exhibit
worthy to be ranked with any wonder it shone
upon.  The natural elements, like the human ones,
gradually admitted that the Columbian Exposition
was not only a worthy but an overwhelming
success, and in place of buffeting wind and destructive
storm, sent week after week a warm blue sky and
a cool east breeze to add the crowning charm to
the White City's bewildering loveliness.

Had the human element been as prompt in succumbing,
thousands of those who strove in the madding
crowd of October might have reveled instead
in the fresh beauty of June; but the general
confidence had not yet been gained.  The same journal
which had pictured the vulgar young city vociferating
for the World's Fair bouquet had not yet
declared that it took off its hat to Chicago, adding
that all other shows bore the relation to the
Columbian Exposition which Jersey City did to Imperial
Rome.  A comparatively small army of explorers
came from the East as yet, to spy out the land and
carry back reassuring reports to their skeptical or
timid friends.

Miss Berry, in her comfortable, novel quarters,
was from the first charmed with her surroundings.
The bright bracing air, the frequent tally-ho
coaches that passed the door, their scarlet-coated
buglers piping with cheerful unsteadiness, the
expanse of tumbling blue-green water that constantly
gladdened her eyes, all seemed as festive as the fine
house which was her temporary home.  She enjoyed
the playing of the orchestra every morning on the
piazza of an adjacent hotel, and was soon able to
hum "After the Ball," that unavoidable, omnipresent
accompaniment of the World's Fair summer.

Only one thing puzzled her for the first few days
after her arrival, and this perplexity she set at rest
one cool evening, by watching her opportunity and
walking clandestinely to the sands at the back of
the Chicago Beach Hotel.  Here she stooped to
the water's edge, dipped her finger in an incoming
wave and transferred it to her mouth.  Tasting it
critically, she looked thoughtful, and after a
moment repeated the operation.

"I suppose I've got to believe it," she murmured,
rising.  "'T ain't salt."

The more cultivated and traveled one was, the
more wonderful and beautiful the White City
seemed to him.  Upon a woman of Miss Berry's
narrow worldly experience, its unique characteristics
dawned but slowly.  For some weeks it is quite
certain that the housekeeping duties which Clover
at once placed in her hands were more attractive
to the good woman than the marvels which lay so
near her.  She was not insensible to the privilege
of being within walking distance of Jackson Park,
and now and then she made pilgrimages thither.

"It's somethin' like knowin' there's a big plum
puddin' standin' near by, and that whenever I want
to, I can go and pull out a plum;" she said; "but
law! it would take a whole lifetime to see what
they've got down there, and every time I go I
realize it more."

Clover carried out her hospitable intention as
soon as Aunt Love was fairly domesticated; and
one morning a letter from her was handed to
Mrs. Page at her breakfast-table.

Her family had just been talking about the
World's Fair, and Jack had been answering questions
concerning the best locality in which to secure
accommodations.

"There is nothing like having an ardent Chicagoan
in the house to make one attend to these
matters in time," remarked Mrs. Page.

"I am very much afraid you will find you are
not in time," returned Jack discouragingly.  His
advice, given a couple of months before, had not
been heeded, and he now proceeded to state a
series of facts and figures which were rather
appalling.

"You will have to do something about it, Jack,"
remarked Mrs. Page's husband, who is not so
designated on account of any inferiority.  He was a
stout, sandy-haired individual with a good
digestion and disposition, who was accustomed to allow
Hilda and Gorham to think for him in all matters
not related to the wholesale dry-goods business in
which he was engaged.  "You say we ought to see
the Exposition," he went on placidly, "and it is
your affair, in the interests of hospitality, to tell us
where in—Chicago we can find the proper quarters."

"I impressed upon you some time ago that you
ought to attend to it," returned Jack rather stiffly.
The air of lightness and condescension with which
his cousin always treated the subject of the Fair
grated upon him.

"Yes, he did, you know, Robert," declared
Mrs. Page, always inclining, like most of Jack's
feminine friends, to side with him.

It was at this juncture that the arrival of the
mail created a diversion, and Hilda opened Clover's
letter.

She glanced down its pages.  "Why, how lovely!
How kind!" she ejaculated from time to time.
"Listen to this.  You are all interested.  It is
from Mrs. Van Tassel."

.. vspace:: 2

MY DEAR MRS. PAGE,—I have been wishing
for some days to find the right moment in which to
thank you for your kindness both to Aunt Love
and me in rendering her so much assistance in
coming to us.  She seems happy and at home already.
I am the more pleased to have secured her that it
makes it easy for me, in the absence of my old
housekeeper, to entertain guests during the
coming eventful summer.  I hope you and your
husband have not already committed yourselves to
another plan for seeing the Fair, for our house is
most conveniently situated, and my sister and I
would be pleased to have you come to us.  Will
you extend my invitation to your brother as well?
As for Jack, it is not necessary, I am sure, for me
to write a separate invitation to him.  His room
is ready for him, and I count upon his taking
possession of it for as long a time as he can make it
convenient.  Indeed, I wish you all four to choose
your own times and seasons for coming, for I have
no plan to entertain any one else, and I beg you
to consider the house always open to you, and a
sincere welcome always ready.

Mildred wishes me to send you her love, and we
both hope soon to receive favorable word of your
plans.  Cordially yours,

.. vspace:: 1

CLOVER \B. VAN TASSEL.

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Page, upon finishing, let her pleased gaze
rove from one to another of her three companions.
Jack's face was eager and happy, Gorham's
interested, but her husband was the first to speak.

"I foresee that I am going to fall in love with
that woman," he remarked, breaking open his
third muffin and handing his cup to the maid for
a second cup of coffee.  "That is a charming
letter."

"Just an ordinary Chicago production," said
Jack exultantly.  "What do you say, old
Reliable?" he added, turning toward Gorham.

"We are in great luck," returned the latter.

"Now, I will admit," said Jack, "that I have
been trying to provide for us all at the Chicago
Beach; but I will cease my struggles gratefully."

"When do you want to go, Hilda?" asked
Robert Page.

"When can you go, is a more pertinent
question," she answered.

"July will, I suppose, be the best time.
Would it be heresy, Jack, to inquire if the
thermometer in Chicago rises above sixty-five degrees
in July?  I have understood that it does."

"I know of no city in the country where there
is no hot weather in summer," returned Jack
shortly.  "Chicago is, however, a summer resort."

"I suppose you mean a place where summer
resorts.  That is what I have heard."

"Perhaps you would better not risk your life
there."

"Tut, tut, my boy.  I am going to see the
writer of that whole-souled letter."

Jack, who had already excused himself from the
table, here left the room without deigning a
reply, and Mrs. Page immediately looked toward
her brother.

"What do you think, Gorham?  Of course
this is a delightful invitation, but ought we to
accept it?"

"I don't quite see your objection," he answered.

"It is charming of Mrs. Van Tassel, but it is
so evidently a sense of duty which impels her to
give such an invitation to a mere acquaintance
like me, and a stranger like Robert."

"Look here," remarked the latter, looking up
vaguely.  "I don't think I want any flaws picked
in that invitation."

"Now you keep still, Robert, like a dear.  You
don't know her at all, and Gorham does.  She is
just doing this in Uncle Richard's name; I know
it, and I am not willing to impose upon her."

"May I see the letter once again?" asked Gorham.

"Certainly;" Mrs. Page handed it to him with
alacrity.  He read it through from beginning to
end.  It sounded like Clover.  He could hear her
pleasant voice in every phrase.

"She is a thoughtful, deliberate sort of person,"
he said as he handed the letter back.  "Whatever
her motive is, it is a sufficient one, and one
thing that would influence me to advise you to
accept is the effect on Jack.  Their relations have
been a little strained, and I think it would make
things still pleasanter than they are now, if
Mrs. Van Tassel and Miss Bryant were to become
better acquainted with his people."

"Yes, that is what I think," remarked Mr. Page;
but his wife frowned upon him.

"You, and Robert, and Jack, go," continued
Gorham.  "I won't.  That would be rather too
much of a good thing; but I can get a room at
the Beach Hotel, and that is near by.  I propose
to spend a good deal of time at the Fair.  I want
to go through it with some degree of thoroughness.
Of course no one will really see half of it.  I
understand that, giving one minute to each exhibit, it
is estimated that it would take thirty-two years for
a man to get around."

His brother groaned.  He was stout and not
energetic save in the matter of wholesale dry-goods.

"Thank Heaven it won't take thirty-two years
to see Mrs. Van Tassel," he remarked devoutly.

There were no doubts or scruples in Jack's mind
as to accepting his invitation, at least for the
present.  Indeed, this reconciliation between himself
and the Bryants, as he still often found himself
calling his old friends, altered the whole trend of his
life.  He felt a new satisfaction in living; a new
desire for home; a willingness which amounted to
necessity to shake the dust of Boston from his feet,
and once more to make of Chicago a permanent
abiding-place.  His sense of loneliness, an aching
one still at times, abated.  His own place waited
for him.  The friendship of these cousins, kind and
helpful in their way, could never be to him like that
of those girls, the only sisters he had ever known,
who had so long divided with him his father's
affection and care.  He was going home.  It was the
first sensation of the sort that he had had for years.

He did not try to conceal his satisfaction from
Mrs. Page when he said to her his *au revoir*.  He
expressed sincere gratitude for her kindness and
hospitality, but she saw that he was not sorry to
have no plan for returning to Boston, and felt a
little piqued despite Jack's enthusiasm over the
plan which would soon make them a reunited family party.

"I have not seen Jack so gay since Uncle Richard
died," she said that night to Gorham.

"No.  His alienation from Mrs. Van Tassel and
her sister has worried him a good deal, I know,"
responded Page.  "This final burial of the hatchet
must be a great relief to a fellow so sensitive as
Jack is."

But this explanation was not sufficient to account
to Mrs. Page for Van Tassel's jubilant spirits.  He
had not sprung up three stairs at a time, and
whistled and sung over his packing, just because of
obtaining the forgiveness of two young women
whose feelings he had outraged.

"Men are stupid," she soliloquized.  "I know
that Jack is in love."

With this truly feminine solution of her cousin's
conduct she was the better satisfied because she
would so soon have opportunity of verifying her
own perspicacity by ocular proof.  But her
diagnosis would have been a surprise to Jack.  No
lover-like haste mingled with the impatience he
felt at the lateness of his train on the June
afternoon when he reached Chicago; and when finally
he found himself on the familiar home street, even
its unfamiliarity seemed representative of the
pleasant new state of things which had come into his
life.  His flying visit during the bad weather of
six weeks before had not shown the old neighborhood
in its present finished condition.

Van Tassel smiled as a coach and six rattled by
him, the notes of its "mellow horn" breaking in
impertinently upon the strains of an orchestra at
the adjacent fashionable hotel.  "Can this be quiet
little Hyde Park?" he asked himself.

How the long June evenings of his boyhood came
back to him as he sauntered down the changed
street!  How the thrushes used to sing here at this
hour!  How the boys and girls who could muster
anything to navigate, from a scow to a trim canoe
or sailboat, used to launch their craft, early in
these long evenings, and sometimes lashing the
boats together, a dozen in a row, would drift over
the rocking waves and sing by the hour beneath a
moon which electricity had not yet forced out of
a long-established business!

The wild shore was changed, cultivated, and
trimmed into order according to fashion now, like
the young people who once disported over it in
free country fashion.

Jack could not whistle the scrap from "Carmen"
against the insistent rhythm of "After the Ball"
which was being performed by a uniformed
functionary from the hotel who passed him under the
old familiar elms.

But Clover was on the piazza to meet him, a
gracious genius of home in her blue gown, with
the welcoming light in her eyes.

"I told you not to stay for me," said Jack,
coming up the steps, his hat in his hand.

"I know," returned Clover, looking down into
his happy, handsome face.  "I stayed for my own
sake as well as yours.  I have been at the Fair all
day, and did not feel like going down this evening.
Mildred went from town with the Ogdens on their
drag to take supper in Old Vienna.  She wished
me to give you an extra shake of the hand for her."

"Thank you, Clover," he answered, and he held
her hand a moment as they interchanged a look
that had in it reminiscence, but reminiscence from
which all bitterness was gone.  The sweet summer
air seemed throbbing with their love for him
with whom every part of this home was connected.

Miss Berry appeared at the house door.  She
started at the pretty tableau she saw, and the pure
white Christmas when she pleaded for this woman
with a heart-sore man passed like a vision across
the fair June scene.

She would have withdrawn, but Van Tassel saw
her.  "How do you do, Aunt Love?" he said, and
then she came forward to return his cordial greeting.

"Isn't this a queer thing, for me to be in Chicago,
Mr. Jack?"

"It is just as it should be," he returned.  "Now
when we get Gorham and Mr. and Mrs. Page here,
we shall be a complete party."

"Mr. and Mrs. Page promise me July," said
Clover, "but your cousin Gorham seems to think
he would better stay at the hotel.  We won't
quarrel with him at this distance."  She smiled.
"Well, Jack, will you go upstairs?  Is it to be
hammock or Fair this evening?"

"I can scarcely wait till to-morrow for the Fair,
yet I don't like to leave you at once."

"Don't mind that.  I should enjoy seeing your
first view, and should have saved myself for to-night
except that I could not escape personally conducting
a friend to-day who was very kind to us last year."

"Come in and eat something first, Mr. Jack,"
said Miss Berry, so anxiously that Van Tassel
laughed.

"I am sure, Aunt Love, if I have the good luck
to meet you in heaven, the first thing you will do
will be to urge upon me some manna or angel's
food, or whatever may be on the bill of fare."

"Hush, child.  Come straight in, for daylight is
precious."

"Thank you, but I knew that, and so I took
lunch in the train.  I expected only to carom on
the house as it were, and then make a bee-line for
the great show.  We did have the first view of it
together, Clover, you know."

The dimple dipped in Clover's cheek just as of
old.  "It will seem different to you to-night," she
answered.  "That was impressive and solemn; but
now—  No, I won't be so foolish as to try to
describe what is incomparable.  I will only say, Go.
You will be grateful for whatever feeble standards
of comparison you have gained by travel."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE COURT OF HONOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE COURT OF HONOR.

.. vspace:: 2

Jack jumped into a Beach wagon as it rolled
along from the hotel, and drove down East End
Avenue, approaching the gigantic failure known
as the Spectatorium, whose bulky, half-clothed
skeleton upreared against the sky like a type of
blighted hope.

Following Clover's advice, he entered the Park
at the Fifty-seventh Street entrance.  A band was
playing on its aerial perch above the Eskimo
village, and Jack smiled to hear the gay, assured
strains of "After the Ball" soaring above a
vigorous drum accompaniment.  He walked across
the bridge and looked down where the Eskimos
in their white robes with the peaked hoods
propelled their slender canoes noiselessly amid the
darkening shadows of the willows.

Straight before him to Michigan's brink stretched
an electric-lighted avenue, flanked on one side by
State buildings, and on the other by that
lion-guarded Greek Palace of Art whose columns, even
pictured, send a thrill of grateful delight to the
hearts of those who have passed within its portals.

The fresh verdure of the lawns showed living
green, as Jack passed on to the right until he
gained the waterside of the Art Building, and
there paused to gaze across at the edifices on the
opposite shores.  Towers and domes of all shapes
and sizes showed amid the June foliage.  Every
beauty of form and tint surrounded him, divided
by broad spaces of rippling water.  He was in a
city of preternatural loveliness.  What wonder
that a noiseless boat came gliding to his feet in
answer to his wish to explore these distant, fairy
vistas.  He stepped within, and silently the little
craft sped on.

The white loveliness of Brazil, the alabaster
lace work of the poetical Fisheries,—Van Tassel
glanced over his shoulder as they were left behind,
and in a minute more the lofty, winged angels of
the Woman's Building blessed his sight.

The dainty conceits of Puck and the White Star
melted from his vision to make way for the glories
of the Horticultural treasure house, surmounted
by its illuminated crystal dome.  Lilies, red,
yellow, and white, were asleep in the stone-guarded
lakelet, upon which smiled the wreathed marble
beauty of women and babies on the façade; and in
contrast, next sprang to life in electric light the
alert equestrian figures of cowboy and Indian
controlling restive steed, and peering forth into
the night.

But an exclamation escaped Van Tassel's lips
as the Transportation Building was passed, and
the arched grandeur of the Golden Door shone
down upon him.  The launch turned, and thus
ideally, without sound or effort, he was borne on
between Wooded Island and the homes of Mines
and Electricity, approaching the vast expanse of
the Liberal Arts building, only to turn smoothly
again beneath the bridge, and glide on toward
that Mecca of all Exposition pilgrims, the unique
Court of Honor.

Jack had stood there once in a still, chill time
of waiting, and had seen the dead marble city
quickened to life.  Now the heart which began
to beat that day had made all the whiteness to
glow.  He forgot to breathe as, passing beneath
the last bridge, he emerged where the sea horses
reared wildly above cascades that went splashing
down the stone steps beneath Columbia's triumphal barge.

Through pink and purple, the rippling opaline
water in the Grand Basin was losing its sunset
hues, and paling, as the fairy boat passed on.
The gold of the statue of the Republic was
turning to silver.  The figures on the snowy palaces
that faced the four sides of the lagoon still stood
white against the darkening background.  Angels
poised on soft, strong wings, seemed vivified as
the day died.  Jack saw their beckoning hands
through a mist.  He heard the penetrating tones
of their silver trumpets through the lingering
sweetness of a serenade that proceeded from a
distant pavilion.  Strange influences were about him,
and he was glad that no mortal friend stood by.

His father had worked and planned and striven
for this.  Did he see the result?  Could he know
the success that had crowned the efforts of his
confreres?

Suddenly, across the spontaneous regret that
sprang in Jack's heart at the realization of what
Death had snatched from his loved one, came an
idea which was like a glimpse of new light.  Since
such a miracle of beauty as now lay about him
was possible in this lower world, might it not be
indeed true—

Jack's thoughts became confused.  They had
followed so long and yearningly out into that
unknown country where his father had gone, and
about which he had never before troubled himself,
that he had grasped for his own consolation a
belief that it was a reality; and now something
in this stately and beautiful place built with men's
hands made him recall vaguely the Bible declaration:—

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him."

It was with reverence and a species of awe that
Van Tassel gazed about him.  The Court of
Honor had given him his first approach to a
realization of the possibilities of the Celestial City.

Only gradually the details of his surroundings
impressed him.  His boat glided toward the
Peristyle, and he began to notice that the water was
picturesque with gondolas, propelled by their
bright-sashed oarsmen.

Beneath a massive arch he could look out upon
the great lake, his lake, his old playmate, now
grown grandly alien as guardian of this mystical
city.  He knew every tone of its voice.  He had
braved it in its stormy strength, and gone to sleep
at night to its lullaby.

Now its surf, breaking against the outer stones,
appealed to his moved heart in the song of a past
gone forever, and he did not know whether its
proximity, the voice of this single friend in a
place of strangers, gave the crown of pain or of
joy to his tender ecstasy.

And now the royal palaces so lavishly decorated
with painting and sculpture began to assume
their further nightly decoration of jewels.  Tiny
incandescent lights ran swiftly in diamond
necklaces and diadems about cornice and pediment of
buildings, and glittered in long lines close above
the waters of the lagoon.  The crown of the
Administration dome shone out in immobile fire,
while torches of flame, "yellow, golden, glorious,"
flared across its façades.

Van Tassel had no well-meant descriptions of
this view to contend against.  No one had endeavored
to prepare him for what he was to see.  To
him these wonders were appearing for the first
time; one after another spontaneous, unexpected
change of scene forming a *crescendo* of loveliness.
More and more unreal grew the fairy spectacle.
Less and less did he try to realize the impossible
fact that he was in a familiar locality.

He left the boat mechanically because his quiet
fellow-passengers—figures also of a dream—did
so; and when he paused again, he was standing
near a giant horse and plowboy near the water's
edge.  Behind him stretched the spaces of lawn in
front of the Liberal Arts edifice, softly green in
the rays of many arc-light moons.  He gazed
westward toward the Administration Building, before
which three great fountains played, and suddenly
its regal jeweled dome became more splendid in
the surrounding darkness.  The cameos upon its
surface shone out clear-cut and white in the night.
A moment thus, then the carving disappeared,
and again the electric jewels stood alone against
the sky.  That magic, all-revealing light flitted
to rest upon the great central fountain where the
Muses propelled the barge of Progress through
musically plashing waters; and while the erect
figure in the chair of state still looked proudly
out into the night, all other brightness faded.
Even the jewels vanished.  The palaces stood
dark and mysterious beneath the stars.  All at
once a light was thrown upon the group which
surmounted the Peristyle.

Columbus in his four-horse chariot shone white
above the shadowy columns, driving in from the
broad waters toward distant, glowing, advancing
Columbia.

Van Tassel, spellbound, yielded still more to
the mystery of the place and hour, and a subdued
murmur caused him to glance again westward.
The fountains which flanked the great barge on
either side had ceased to play, while a strange
beam of light shot heavenward from either one.
At last at the foot of the beam a bright liquid
bubbling began, which seemed to gather strength,
and at last leaped from both fountains high in air.
This vivid red changed to violet, to gold, to
emerald, to molten silver, breaking in brilliant
showers and mists.  Apart from the lofty middle
jet in each one, circled low whirls of bright water
with such swiftness as to stand like sheaves of
wheat placed in a ring about the central cascade.

Van Tassel wished to have a fairer view of both
fountains, and changed his position to another side
of the great horse.  Around him were other
shadowy beings whom he did not regard.  Near
his new standpoint and rather in his way was a
woman seated.  He did not look to see upon what
she sat.  In his present state of mind he would
have supposed it a throne had he thought about it
at all; but he did not think about it, and the
throne was in his way, so he unconsciously leaned
slightly upon it in his effort to see.

The figure in the chair turned her head.  "Did
you find them?" she asked, then added coldly,
"Excuse me," and turned back again.

Van Tassel started like a somnambulist
wakened from sleep.  Another familiar voice had
spoken to him out of the past.  At the same
moment the search light which had been upon the
Quadriga sped to the angel above the pediment of
the Agricultural Building.  So light her poise, so
strong her wings, so beneficent her outstretched
arms, it seemed impossible in that mystical irradiation
that she should not quit her lightly touched
support and float downward to waiting mortals.

A need for sympathy upsprang in Van Tassel's
heart.  Involuntarily he spoke:—

"Is that not beautiful, Mildred?"

"Jack!"  The exclamation in amazed tones as
the girl sat up alertly in her wheeled chair.  "I
was just wondering if you had come.  When did
you arrive?"

He took the hand she offered.  "I don't know,"
he answered slowly.  "Do you see that angel?"

"Indeed I do.  That is my angel."

"Our angel then.  Let me share it."

"You shall," replied the girl generously.  She
waited a moment in smiling silence; "but that
isn't our hand," she added at last.  "That is
mine.  Haven't you had it a good while,
considering it is a loan?"

"Have I?  Well," and Jack slowly released it.

"I am in dreamland, Mildred.  I am glad to
meet you here, whether you are a reality or not."

"Oh!  You remind me of those creepy shades
in Vedder's picture where one asks the other who
he is and the second answers shiverily that he
doesn't know.  'I only died last night,' is what he
was inconsiderate enough to reply.  I have never
forgiven him."

Jack stood at her side and leaned an arm on the
back of her chair.

"This is a sort of No Man's Land too," he
answered, "and when it grows dark here one feels
that these marble creatures gain life.  See that
population on the Peristyle!  They belong here.
We are only strangers."

"I see the spell of the White City is upon you,
else you would certainly express some surprise at
finding me alone."

"It is only one of the good and wonderful
things that have befallen me to-night.  It seems
perfectly natural.  I needed you, Mildred.  I
needed some tie to the time in which life was
worth living to assure me that it is so still, and
that there is perhaps more use in it than there
would be in sinking into the opal water and dying
rapturously in this enchanted place."

"Why Jack, kindred spirit; you have it as
severely as we have!"

The girl extended her gloved hand impetuously,
and Van Tassel accepted it with alacrity.

"Are you going to take it away again immediately?"
he inquired, slowly waking to the situation.
"I was enjoying holding it before more
than I realized until I was bereft.  One must have
sympathy in a place like this."

"Oh I know it," she said, speaking hastily as
she withdrew her hand and looked over her
shoulder apprehensively, "and I am afraid every
second that Mr. Ogden will come back.  When our
party left Old Vienna, we separated and promised
to rendezvous by the plow-horses, *I* thought,
but Mr. Ogden understood that it was to be at the
Liberal Arts entrance, and he has gone now to see
if they are there.  My chair-boy is over yonder
resting his weary bones on the steps.  I never can
endure to have the poor things stand around any
more than they have to."

"I trust the Liberal Arts entrance is a sufficiently
ambiguous term to detain our friend some
time," returned Jack.  "Isn't there some white
magic that could be practiced on him?  Of course
no black art would be possible here, but I must
say I should have to come down by easy stages
before I could converse with Ogden to-night, and
I don't want to leave you."

"I don't want you to, either.  I—I especially
don't.  And I told Mr. Ogden that if we met you
here I should have to go with you—  Yes, I put it
that way, for I told him we expected you, and it
wasn't quite the thing for me to come away; but
of course I hadn't the least idea we *should* meet
you."

"And you told him that too, I suppose," remarked
Jack dryly, all his dreaminess departed.
"You declared it would be your duty to go with
me if we did meet, but of course such a calamity
for Ogden was improbable.  I know just how you
put it.  Girls know how to smooth a man the right
way.  Now that we have met, and Ogden is out
of the way, you tell me you especially want me to
remain with you, and don't want him."

Mildred looked up at the speaker, and after a
moment burst into a mirthful laugh.

"Where is our angel?" she asked.

Jack glanced across the lagoon, but all was
shadow save for the rosy glow in the colonnade of
the Agricultural Building.

"Vanished!" exclaimed Mildred.  "Frightened
back by your naughty temper just as she was
about to fly down to us."

"I don't like to think of you as the least bit of
a coquette," said Van Tassel.

"Then don't.  It is extremely disrespectful.
Oh, Mr. Ogden, you are back again.  The
unexpected always happens, you see, and truth is
stranger than fiction.  Here is Mr. Van Tassel,
after all."

"Well, Jack."  The two men greeted each
other, each endeavoring to conceal his dissatisfaction.
"It is possible to find a needle in the haymow,
then," said Ogden.  "Miss Bryant told me
you were expected about now.  Your first visit?
What do you think of our little show?"

"Can't say yet," returned Jack shortly.  "I am
just going to see another part of it."

"The fireworks, I suppose.  They will start,
now the fountains have stopped."

"Fireworks?  No!" exclaimed Van Tassel in
genuine repugnance.  What sacrilege for pyrotechnics
to paint the lily!  His eyes fell upon a
revolving globe of light inside a window of the
Electricity Building.  Its color changed with each
revolution.  "I think I will wander over in that
direction," he said.

"The fireworks are always fine," remarked
Mildred.  "Are you sure you would not prefer to
come to the lake shore and see them?  The reflections
in the water give beautiful effects."  As she
spoke, the girl left her wheeled-chair.

"Oh, don't rise, Miss Bryant," begged Ogden
hastily.  "I will find our pusher.  The rest of the
party did understand that we were to come to the
Liberal Arts entrance.  They will meet us at
Baker's Chocolate House."

"Don't let me detain you," said Van Tassel
courteously.  The electric jewels were again
running in lines of light around the buildings.  Jack
could see the expression in Mildred's face as she
stood before him.

She waited a moment and Ogden stepped aside
to find the guide.

"I don't want to see a rocket go sputtering
over this place," explained Jack, for the girl's eyes
demanded something.

She gave a short laugh.  "You poor, provincial
Bostonian," she remarked.  "Go your way; and
when you discover what the fireworks of the
White City really are, perhaps your fastidiousness
will not be shocked.  Certainly, Mr. Ogden, I am
ready.  *Au revoir*, Jack."

"Good-by, old fellow," said Ogden, as Mildred
resumed her position in the chair.  He was beaming
again with relief from the apprehended loss of
Miss Bryant's society.

Van Tassel moved away in the opposite
direction from that they took: but no amount of
attempted concentration on his surroundings would
restore to him the dreamy delight of half an hour
ago.  He saw continually the reproach and
surprise in Mildred's eyes.

"What right had I to take her away from
Ogden?" his thoughts protested.  "It was all
nonsense for her to think that hospitality
demanded it."

Then his reflections passed over from the
indignant hazel eyes to Miss Bryant's cavalier.  The
latter's uneasy devotion had been apparent even
in the few phrases Jack had heard him say.  The
eagerly bent head, the short nervous laughs with
which he interspersed his sentences told the story:
and instantly curiosity leaped up in Van Tassel's
heart as to Mildred's real sentiments toward her
admirer.

She had said she especially wanted Jack not to
leave her to-night.  What did that mean?  Jack
walked a little faster because he suddenly knew
that it was the fact that she had said that,
coupled with Ogden's lover-like manner which had
made him hold aloof.

He had made a point of giving Ogden his
chance, and now he felt ashamed of it.  Why
should he have felt injured because Mildred had a
lover?  Probably she had a dozen, and what
wonder if she had?

He felt humiliated, and convicted of disloyalty.
Milly Bryant had wanted defense from something,
and had appealed to him in vain.

Jack had passed along the side of the Electrical
Building and crossed the bridge to Wooded Island
by this time, and, deciding to postpone further
exploration, determined to walk straight up through
the Cornell Avenue entrance and go home.  But as
thousands of people, know to the cost of their groaning
muscles, getting on Wooded Island and getting
off it are two very different things.  Jack
wandered about for some time before he found another
bridge, and when he did so, it led off to the east,
and his aimless walk brought him to the lake shore.
Cannon-like reports were sounding upon the air,
and superb bombs bursting high above the water
broke into lavish showers of emeralds, rubies, and
diamonds.  The shore was black with a watching
multitude, and Van Tassel found himself drawn to
its outskirts to watch and wonder with the rest.
Volcanoes and serpents of flame, bouquets of a
hundred rockets at once, filled the night with
brightness, paling the stars, and illuminating the
surging water; and when a succession of fiery
white cascades slowly unrolled their graceful curves
and stood poised in air, showering a light as of day
upon the scene, Jack joined in the cheers that, with
whistles from a congregation of boats saluted the
gorgeous spectacle.

"I'm a fool," he said, as he resumed his walk
northward.  "I am sure Mildred would have given
me her hand again on that."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MASSACHUSETTS CELEBRATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MASSACHUSETTS CELEBRATION.

.. vspace:: 2

"I see by the paper there's some sort o' doin's
at the Massachusetts house to-day," observed Miss
Berry to Clover, as the two stood in the
dining-room one morning after breakfast was over.

"A day when you ought to visit the Fair then,
surely," replied her companion.

"Why, yes.  I don't know but I will," returned
Miss Lovina ruminatively.

"And you ought to make an early start, Aunt
Love.  You are not the only loyal Yankee in town."

"Just so," said the housekeeper placidly.  "Mrs. Van
Tassel, we must have a chocolate puddin' pretty
soon.  Mr. Jack was fond o' chocolate from a child.
I well remember"—

"Yes, I want to hear all about it some time;
but you know how hard it is for you to get an
early start for the Fair.  Let me attend to your
department to-day, and you go down to the
Massachusetts house and have a good time."

"My dear, I shall get there in good season.
Don't you worry a mite.  Independence is won.
The country's safe and my bein' on hand at just
such a minute don't signify.  I'd rather go through
my reg'lar routine.  I'm happier that way."

Thus it was that when Aunt Love stepped leisurely
through the Cornell Avenue turnstile, taking her
way down between Kentucky and West Virginia
and around Pennsylvania's edifice, she saw that
the Massachusetts Building was surrounded by a
crowd.

"That's clever," she murmured, in nowise
disturbed by the evident fact that she could not
approach near enough to hear the speeches.
"There's plenty o' folks to show an interest."

The wreathed façade of New York's palatial
home rose beside her, and she ascended the broad
marble steps, passed through the hall, and out
upon the eastern porch.  A fountain plashed coolly
in its centre, wicker rocking-chairs stood about,
dull blue portières were looped between its pillars.
Miss Berry was warm and tired from her walk.
The chairs looked inviting.  She sank into one
of them, and listened to the lulling tone of the
fountain while she looked across the street at
the more energetic patriots or more curious idlers,
who lined the way to the Hancock house in the
hope of seeing the dignitaries of the occasion pass
in and out.

A fine band stationed in the yard of the mansion
began to play inspiringly.  As Miss Berry grew
refreshed under the influence of the silvery falling
water and her comfortable chair, her anxiety to see
and hear increased.  Her point of view was
unsatisfactory, and yet the idea of joining the crowd of
spectators was not attractive.

"I wonder if they'll let you go upstairs in this
grand, big place," she pondered.  "One o' those
blue fellers'll stop me quick enough if I can't.
They know a good deal better what a body can't
do than what she can."

Miss Berry might be excused for grumbling.
She had made her acquaintance with the Fair
City at a date before the Columbian Guards had
learned their points of compass; and she would
have to become lighter on her feet before she
could forgive them the unnecessary walking which
their blundering directions had caused her to perform.

She left the shady stone porch, and, passing
through the spacious apartment which led to the
hall, began to ascend the stairs.  No one protested,
and she took courage to remark her surroundings.

"The New Yorkers seem to like any color so
it's red," she mused, noting the Pompeian glow of
the wall.  Of course a Massachusetts woman on
this day must not be uncritical of her neighbor's
efforts.

But when Miss Lovina entered the banquet hall
she stood amazed.  Only for a moment, however.
It was an unrighteous place.  She felt it.  She
refused to be dazzled by its prismatic glass and its
painted cherubs.  There was an unholy luxury,
a theatrical suggestion about its velvet boxes.  Miss
Berry, looking straight before her, hastened swiftly
as she dared across its polished floor and through
the light room beyond, out upon an upper balcony
which overlooked the festivities of her own
substantial and respectable State.

Yes, Miss Berry could breathe out here.  Coming
from the seductive shadow of the dim hall, the
sunlight seemed doubly clear.  The heavenly blue
of the firmament bent above snowy and golden
domes, flying flags, and winding waterways, while
the bewitching sparkle of Lake Michigan's electric
blues and peacock greens seemed more vital as one
listened to the rhythmic harmonies poured forth on
the summer air by the musicians below.  It was a
season of delight.  The whole atmosphere seemed
charged with gayety.

A man leaning his elbows on the rail of the
balcony was thinking this when Miss Lovina emerged
from the doorway.  She glanced at him, then
glanced again, then gazed.

"Of course 't ain't him; but if it don't look like
him!" she mused.

The more she looked, the stronger grew the
resemblance of that back to one she knew.  The
man was interested in the celebration over the way.
Why should she not stand beside him a minute?

Acting on the impulse, Aunt Love also leaned
her arm on the rail, and waited a second before
stealing a furtive curious look at her neighbor's
face.  Their eyes met.  In a moment both her
hands were being shaken.

"For the land's sake, Mr. Gorham!"

"Hurrah for us," he answered, laughing.  "To
think that I should have come unexpectedly upon
this celebration and you.  What more could a
Bostonian ask?"

"You might ask to be in the Massachusetts
house instead of over here in Gotham."

"I fancy only invited guests go in there to-day;
but at any rate I have only just arrived, and this
is a fine place for the general effect.  So that is
the old Hancock house."

"Yes.  I remember the real one very well."

"How well the grounds look.  I am anxious to
get in.  You have visited it, of course."

"Yes, I have.  I must say to you, Mr. Gorham,
I had to laugh to see some o' the stuff they've put
in a glass case over there.  I've got some things
in my attic in Pearfield they could have had and
welcome."

"Perhaps they would have been glad of them,"
remarked Page.

Miss Berry laughed.  "I never thought before
o' puttin' Aunt Jerushy's old calash under glass
for a show," she said.  "It would 'a' looked simple
to me; but there's papers in one o' the downstairs
rooms that are interestin'.  There's no
doubt about it.  It does make a body's blood boil
to see the old superstitions down in black and
white, and think o' the past sufferin's of innocent
folks.  There's one paper there makin' out a case
against some poor critter for havin' dealin's with
the devil, 'way back in Salem times."

"I want to see everything in that house,"
returned Gorham, with anticipatory relish.

"Well, give an account of yourself," said Miss
Berry, after a moment's silence.  "Have you been
to Mrs. Van Tassel's?"

"No, not yet."

"But you are comin', ain't you?"

"To call, certainly."

"But you've been invited to stay?"

"Yes, I know; but I have taken a room at the
Beach."

"Why, what's that for?  Mrs. Van Tassel will
think that's queer."

"She will have guests enough without me."

"It is your Uncle Richard's house," persisted
Miss Berry.

"Yes, that is just the trouble," returned Page
quietly.

Aunt Love sighed.  "Well, I was 'lottin' on
helpin' to make you all comfortable."

"I haven't a doubt of it, you dear soul.  Be
sure that only stern principle drives me from
under your wing, and please get me an invitation
to dinner soon, won't you?  How is Jack?"

"He's lively.  I heard 'em at breakfast talkin'
about all comin' down to the illumination tonight."

"I wonder if I might join the party."

"Of course.  Nobody knew you were comin'
out so soon."

"I didn't expect it myself.  It was a sudden
determination."

"They are goin' to have their supper down
here at six o'clock, I heard 'em say at breakfast,
at the Marine—Caffy, I think they call it.  At
any rate I know the house first-rate; and if 't wan't
for the Art Buildin' I could show it to you from
here.  It's brown, and that's queer enough in
this place, and then it's all covered with candle
snuffers.  Just as soon as I once sensed it that the
Columbian Guards were put here to look pretty
and didn't know where anything was, I made up
my mind if I didn't learn the g'ography o' the
place I'd be a cripple; so I buckled down to it
and I'm most ready to stand an examination.
Miss Bryant told me when I first came down that
if I'd just take the opposite direction to what a
Guard told me, I'd find myself all right; and that
did work pretty well, but it's better yet to know
your own way around and not have to make calculations."

Page nodded smilingly.

"It does beat all," Aunt Love went on, "how
when you're at this north end o' the Fair, the
Art Buildin' is just across the street from
everything.  It does seem sometimes as if it hadn't any
end; and when you once get into it.  My!"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Page, "but," he
added with the courage of a new-comer, "I propose
to see all that's in it; and speaking of
thoroughness, have you looked over this building?"

"I just glanced as I came along," replied Miss
Berry cautiously.  "It's pretty worldly and glitterin',
just like the folks that built it.  That hall
in there with the slippery floor"—

"A ball-room, yes.  Let us go back and examine."

"Oh, it's a ball-room, is it!" said Miss Berry,
following the young man back into the lofty apartment
where sunlight sifting through caught in the
prismatic chandeliers and lay in rainbows on the
floor.

They stood at the rope-guarded door of the dainty
tea-room.  Page pointed out to his companion the
beauties of wreathed pillars and mural decorations
in the lofty hall, but he observed that the light of
suspicion still shone in her eyes.

"Let us try the roof, Aunt Love," he remarked.
"You can see the Hancock house again from there,
and I'm sure you will be more comfortable."

"Oh, I know this is all elegant, Mr. Gorham,
and it's a great thing to have such riches opened
up for everybody to see.  Why, downstairs there's
a gold piano, and velvet and silk curtains; but
folks don't want to set their hearts on gold pianos
and diamond chandeliers.  You ain't goin' to take
that elevator, are you?" she added, dropping her
virtuously impersonal tone for one of anxiety.

"Certainly.  You must have learned the importance
of economizing steps here."

"Better get lame from walkin' than break your
leg in a fallin' elevator," remarked Miss Berry.
"Accidents in the papers do scare a body."  But
she consented to run the risk, and soon was standing
beside Page in one of the square towers on the
roof, with the Fair City spread out around them.

"I suppose you have visited the Midway,"
remarked Page, looking over to where the Ferris
wheel revolved, slowly and steadily.

Miss Berry threw up both her hands.  "Yes,
all I want to," she returned sonorously.

"Don't say that.  I expect you to pilot me to
all the shows."

"You'll be disappointed, then.  Civilization's
good enough for me.  If I'd had a call to minister
to naked savages, I s'pose I'd 'a' been given grace
to conquer; but to listen to 'em yell, and see 'em
dance, is a mighty queer thing for Christians to
seek for entertainment, it seems to me.  If I could
go into that Pleasance with plenty o' hot water
and Castile soap, and some sensible clothes, and
could help those poor critters to a more godly way
o' livin' that would be a different thing; but
when I want a good time I ain't goin' to try to get
it bein' trod on by camels and yelled at by Turks,
all the time smellin' smells I don't know the name
of and would be afraid to.  No, sir."

Page laughed.  Miss Berry looked as though
Michigan's breezes were powerless to cool her.

"Perhaps the Midway Plaisance is an acquired
taste," he said.  "You may like it better, later."

"No, I've seen enough of it if I can't be a
missionary, but I'm glad all the natives have got it
warm at last, anyway."

"Which natives?"

"Oh, all those foreign folks.  They're all
natives of some place, I s'pose, and they do say
when 't was rainy and cold and muddy they had a
forlorn time of it in the Pleasance."

"Yes; we used to read about it, and my brother
Robert nicknamed the street then the Mudway
Nuisance.  We all laughed at the joke but Jack.
It is against Jack's principles to jest at sacred
things like Chicago and her Fair.  I shall have to
get him to show me the fine points of the Midway.
He won't refuse me."

"No, indeed.  There's plenty that like it.  The
place gets more crowded every day.  Why,
Mr. Gorham," Miss Berry dropped her rather sad,
musing tone, and spoke feelingly.  "That Midway
is just a representation of matter, and this great
White City is an emblem of mind.  In the Midway
it's some dirty and all barbaric.  It deafens
you with noise; the worst folks in there are
avaricious and bad, and the best are just children in
their ignorance, and when you're feelin' bewildered
with the smells and sounds and sights, always
changin' like one o' these kaleidoscopes, and when
you come out o' that mile-long babel where you've
been elbowed and cheated, you pass under a
bridge—and all of a sudden you are in a great,
beautiful silence.  The angels on the Woman's
Buildin' smile down and bless you, and you know
that in what seemed like one step, you've passed out
o' darkness into light."  Aunt Love paused
thoughtfully.  "It's come to me, Mr. Gorham, that
perhaps dyin' is goin' to be somethin' like crossin' the
dividin' line that separates the Midway from the
White City.  I've asked myself when I've passed
under that bridge and felt the difference down so
deep, what did make it so strong?  'T ain't only
the quiet and the grandeur o' those buildin's
compared with the fantastic things you've left behind;
I believe it's just the fact that the makers o' the
Fair believed in God and put Him and their
enlightenment from Him into what they did; and we
feel it some like we'd feel an electric shock."

Page nodded.  "You make me more interested
than ever in my prospect of sightseeing," he said.
"Now I propose that you show me the way to that
café where you say the others will come this
evening, and we will take lunch together there.  Not
a word of objection, Aunt Love.  This is a great
day.  United we stand, divided we fall.  Let us
charge on the café under the candle-snuffers."

The two friends descended to the street, and
Page, submitting to Miss Berry's guidance, was
led through the archway running beneath the
eastern corridor of the Art Building.  "I won't
attempt to take you through the buildin' itself,"
said Miss Berry, "'cause I know well enough I
shouldn't get you through before the middle o'
the afternoon; partly 'cause you'd stop to look at
the statuary, and partly 'cause the first thing I
always do when I get in there is to lose myself.
I've thought, up to this summer, that I had a
pretty good bump o' locality; but land! let me
turn around in that place a few times and all
those signs, 'East Wall,' 'North Wall,' and the
rest, don't mean any more to me than Greek
would.  You'll see how 't is when you try it."

Page was only half listening.  He paused by
the brink of the water, fascinated by the sparkling,
shining, noonday beauty before him.  Gondolas
were stealing from beneath the bridges, and
electric launches passing and repassing silently
and smoothly over the changing waves.

"We must get into one of those boats, Aunt
Love," he said with enthusiasm.

"You can't sail to the restaurant.  That's right
over yonder," observed Miss Berry practically,
indicating with her parasol the many-towered roof
of the Marine Café.

Page sighed.  "Do what you like with me," he
answered resignedly.  "I can see already that the
summer will be too short."

"If your breath ain't, that's all you need fret
about," returned Miss Lovina, as they started
eastward, along the bank of the pond.  "Many's
the time in the last weeks I've wished I only
weighed one hundred.  Don't those ducks and
swans have it comfortable?"

Page watched the undulating motions of the
pretty birds that eyed them as they passed.

"No, I didn't bring my lunch; hadn't the
least notion o' stayin'," replied Miss Berry over
her shoulder, to the graceful followers who soon
veered away, secure of dining sumptuously every
day.

"These here steps," remarked Aunt Love, as
she climbed up to Costa Rica's entrance and
down on the other side, "do seem an awful aggravation
when you're tired, which I ain't now, of
course.  There's no gettin' out of 'em except by
walkin' all around Robin Hood's barn."

Page found his companion surprisingly intelligent
as to the names of the buildings they passed
lingeringly on the way to the café, and once arrived
at that haven, they proceeded to take a leisurely
lunch, after which Miss Berry allowed herself to be
easily persuaded to ride around the lagoon in an
electric launch.

Page found so much to interest him in this
initial trip, the quiet gliding motion, cool air, and
constantly stimulating panorama were so charming,
that he scarcely knew when to abandon this
certain good for one more doubtful.  At last, however,
he and Miss Berry found themselves roaming
beneath the gilded towers of the Electricity Building.
Miss Lovina gazed benevolently and uncomprehendingly
upon one and another evidence of marvelous
achievement, waiting patiently whenever
Page paused to examine and question.

"There's one place here," she volunteered at
last, "where I will say for 'em they've done a
cute thing.  They've harnessed chain lightnin' so
it pulls up and down a zigzag path just as tame as
my cow'll go to pasture.  Come and see it, Mr. Gorham."

So Page was piloted through the spectacular
southeast portion of the building, where color and
movement thrilled through every phase of
intensity, from the steady glow of the living green
pillars of the Egyptian temple, to the various
whirling globes and wheels, and the racing
bubbles of changing light which sped along their
irregular tracks.

"Ah, here are the telephones," remarked Page.

"Yes; do you know, Mr. Gorham, till I came to
Chicago I'd never seen a telephone?  I find folks
don't make anything of 'em here.  Mrs. Van
Tassel ain't any more afraid of her telephone than
she is of her sewin' machine.  When I first came
I used to jump a foot every time that sharp little
bell rung; but I made up my mind that I was
havin' advantages, and that I wasn't goin' to
slight 'em.  I made up my mind I was goin' to
speak into that box, no matter how fast the chills
traveled up my back, and I did it; it makes me
as weak as a kitten yet, but I just will be up with
the times I live in if I get a chance; and ain't a
telephone a perfect wonder now?"

"It is, indeed, and they are improving them all
the time.  I see there is a long-distance telephone.
How should you like to talk to New York?"

"I shouldn't like to make a fool o' myself that
way or any other, Gorham Page."

"But really, Aunt Love"—

"Save your breath, Mr. Gorham.  I know this
buildin's full o' queer doin's and it's a good place
to play jokes on a body, but there's limits to even
a greenhorn's credulity."

"I was never more in earnest, I assure you.  It
is possible to talk to New York."

Miss Berry regarded her companion severely.
"Then it's blasphemous.  That's all I've got to
say."

"Why, I don't see that."

"Do you s'pose the Lord would have put New
York a thousand miles away from Chicago if he'd
expected 'em to talk to each other?"

Page laughed.  "I never thought of that before
as a reason for the antagonism between the two
cities.  Nonsense, Aunt Love; the world moves,
and you must move with it.  You shall speak to
New York and be proud of yourself ever afterward.
You know it is to be expected that science will
do everything possible toward annihilating space."

Page ascended the steps toward a silk-curtained
cabinet; a uniformed boy opened its glass door.

After remaining in the closet a minute and
speaking a few sentences into the telephone, he
beckoned to Miss Berry who had remained standing
at the foot of the steps looking very apprehensive.

"Now, Aunt Love," he said encouragingly, as
she slowly approached, a do-or-die expression on
her face.  Had Miss Berry been of the Romish
church instead of being a "Con'regationalist in
good and regular standing," she would assuredly
have crossed herself before entering that tasteful
little apartment.

Page smiled into his mustache as he placed the
receiver in her hand, fervently wishing that he
might hear both sides of the impending dialogue.

"Mr. Gorham," said Miss Berry, addressing
him over her shoulder impressively, "think of the
miles, the hours, I traveled; the rivers and lakes I
crossed; the mountains I tunneled"—

"Yes, yes, Aunt Love; but don't keep our New
York friend waiting."

"I feel prickly, Gorham.  I think I'm goin' to
faint."

"Oh no, you're not.  Just say Hello," returned
Page cheerily, his eyes twinkling.

"Hello," quavered Miss Lovina, and promptly
the answer came:—

*New York*.  Is this Miss Berry?

*Miss Berry*.  How did you know my name?

*New York*.  A gentleman just told me to expect
you.  I am happy to meet you, or to hear you,
all the way from New York.

*Miss Berry*.  Go away!

*New York*.  Aren't you a little unreasonable,
madam?  I'm a good way off already.

*Miss Berry*.  How am I to be sure you ain't in
the next room, sir?

*New York*.  Do you hear me so distinctly?

*Miss Berry*.  It is the most wonderful thing in
the world if you are real.

*New York*.  Oh, I am real, I assure you,
madam.  I see you have been making trips to the
Midway, and your confidence in human nature is
shaken.

*Miss Berry*.  You're just right there.  I should
like to talk to you about the Midway.  Have you
been to the Fair yet?

*New York*.  No; and alas, I'm afraid I'm not
coming; but if I do, I'm going to the Midway the
first thing.

*Miss Berry*.  Now, young man, you just stand
there a minute, and I'll convince you—"Hey?"
for Gorham was pulling her sleeve.

"There are some more people waiting to speak,
Aunt Love."

"What?  Oh," Miss Berry looked dazed, relinquished
the receiver, and moved like a somnambulist
out of the cabinet.

"You might have said good-by to your new
friend," suggested Page.

"Mr. Gorham, tell me," spoke Aunt Love
beseechingly.  "If I was ever good to you, if you
ever liked my cookies, tell me the truth.  Was
that all hocus-pocus, or was it genuine?"

"Why, it was genuine, Aunt Love.  It is done
every day in business."

"Well," Miss Berry stepped off energetically.
"All is, then, I've capped the climax o' my life.
I don't calc'late to ever call anything wonderful
again."

But she did.  Page took her upstairs to the
gallery where a door opened by magic when her
foot touched the threshold; where the tel-autograph
reproduced a writer's chirography while
transmitting his thoughts; where a metal rod,
passing along a person's spine, caused blue flames to
leap forth, crackling and spitting in Mephistophelean
fashion, a cure which Miss Berry thought
worse than any known disease.  She saw there,
too, the smallest steam-engine in the world,
reposing its miniature perfection in a walnut shell, and
displaying its exquisite mechanism only beneath a
magnifying glass.

But the cooking of food and the hatching of
chickens by electricity appealed to Aunt Love so
engrossingly that, after repeated vain efforts to
woo her away from both these attractions, Page
finally took his leave of her there, and his parting
view showed Miss Berry gazing through the side
of an incubator where chicks were in every stage
of existence, from the first thrust of a yellow beak
through the eggshell, to the freed and bedraggled
little wretch whose sole aim in life seemed to be to
half hop and half tumble across the incubator until
its wet body rested directly upon an incandescent
light.  These eventful journeys, with their
apparently suicidal goal, so absorbed Miss Berry that
she could do little more than wave her hand after
Page as he set briskly off for pastures new.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BRONZE BABY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BRONZE BABY.

.. vspace:: 2

Somebody says that we only really live when
we do not know that time is passing.  If that be
true, Miss Berry lived intensely during the period
she passed in the gallery of the Electricity
Building that afternoon.

"I wonder how late it is!" she asked herself at
last with a start.  "The folks'll think I'm lost.
I must hurry home directly."

But she sighed as she said it.  To "hurry home"
from this city of magnificent distances was but a
form of words.

"If I could only borrow the wings off 'n some
o' those angels!" she murmured as she hastened
down the nearest flight of stairs; but doubtful as
she was of the lateness of the hour, she could not
keep her mind from straying back to the strange
scenes in the miniature world she had been
watching.  Next the incubator had been a little sandy
inclosure in the midst of which stood a small
curtained house where the young chickens could
be brooded at will, and across whose front ran the
defiant legend, "Who cares for mother now!"

"I wonder how soon electricity'll take the place
o' folks," she mused.  "Seems if 't won't take long.
Yes, yes," she went on in answer to a faint
peeping that came from beneath her wrap, "we'll get
home some time to-night," and she hurried faster
still, a pleased smile breaking over her face; for
Aunt Love was not alone.  She had at the present
moment one of those emancipated chicks in a
pasteboard box pressed to her side.

"I believe I'll take the Internal Road, and
then the cars," she said to herself.  "There'll be
an awful crowd at Sixtieth Street, but I can stand
consid'able squeezin'.  I know I'm late."

She was late.  Not that it mattered.  She was
to dine in solitary state that evening in any case;
but she had meant to reach the house in time to
carry the information of Mr. Page's arrival and
his plan to meet his friends; and in this she was
disappointed.  Only Blitzen was left at home to
give her his customary boisterous greeting, and
she had before her the difficult task of explaining
and introducing to him her ball of yellow fluff
and impressing its sacredness upon his volatile
mind.

Jack was the first to arrive at the rendezvous
that evening, and to his satisfaction Mildred was
second.  She sauntered up to the steps accompanied
by a young army officer at whom Jack stared
down from his post on the balcony.  He had,
however, sufficient self-control to swallow his
discontent.  Mildred had somehow taught him this
self-control in the short space of a week, and he
managed to walk to meet her with an air of
nonchalance suited to that with which she slowly mounted
the steps after dismissing her escort.

"Who is the military?" he asked lightly.

"A cousin of Helen Eames.  He has been showing
us over the Battle Ship."

"Indeed?  I was there this afternoon too."

"Were you?  It is awfully stuffy down below
in that museum, isn't it?  Our party was glad to
retreat to a private room and have a sherry
cobbler.  Everything is beginning to be crowded
now."

"What interests me," said Jack, placing a chair
by one of the tables for Mildred as he spoke, "is
to know how soon you are going to give me a day."

"Oh, any time," returned the girl as she seated
herself.

"Any time!  That is what you always say, but
when I try to pin you down you slip away."

"Wouldn't anybody?" smiled the other.  There
was something about the curves at the corners of
Mildred's upper lip and its downward dip in the
middle that made her smile more provoking than
other girls'.

"There!  You are slipping away again."

"No, indeed.  I am far too tired and this is too
comfortable."

"You have had an engagement every day since
I have been here.  You can't deny it.  What sort
of a way is that to treat a guest?"

"You aren't my guest, you are Clover's."

"Clover is a daisy and always was," exclaimed
Jack, regardless of paradox.  "She is the sweetest
girl in the world."

"Of course," returned Mildred, raising a glass
of water to her lips as coolly as though she liked
this.

"I ought to have gone with you that first evening,"
said Van Tassel gloomily.

Mildred set down her glass and looked at the
speaker with an unfathomable expression as she
spoke slowly:—

   |  "'There is a tide in the affairs of men
   |  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to'"—
   |

"Would it, Mildred?" Jack broke in with a
sort of earnest excitement.  "Would it have led
on to fortune?"

The girl colored under the glowing gaze.

"If I had gone with you, would you have had
fewer engagements and more time for me since
then?"

"How can I tell?" she returned, with a low
laugh of enjoyment.  Jack was fairly dramatic.
He was really entertaining.

"I didn't know exactly what my feeling was
then; but I knew afterward," he went on.  "Ogden
wasn't any part of our past.  I didn't want
to share you with him that night."

"He didn't want to share me with you either,
so you were both satisfied," returned Mildred
demurely.

"Was he satisfied?" asked Van Tassel savagely.
"Methinks not.  I notice that whatever your
engagements have been this week, he has not been
in them."

"How observing you are!"

"Yes.  He is done for.  It would be interesting
to know how many scalps that makes, Mildred."

"Look here, Jack," the girl was not smiling, and
her eyes darkened as she met his; "if you will
practice conservation of energy now, I will give
you a capital opportunity to air your talents in
amateur theatricals next winter.  You are the
very man we have been looking for."

"Can I make love to you?"

"That depends on your versatility."

"Or my patience in standing in line.  I've been
standing in line all the week.  Don't you think it
is about time I got there?"

"What do you call this?" Mildred gave him
a tantalizing glance from under her half-dropped
lids.  "I arrive early at the rendezvous.  We sit
*tête-à-tête*, and how do you make use of the time?"

Color flashed all over Jack's face.

"I am a fool," he agreed.

"That must be why you always speak the truth
so indiscreetly.  I never thought of that as the
reason, really.  Now let us decide what to order
before Clover comes.  What can make her so late?"

The fact was that Clover, wanting to stop a
minute to look at some pieces of old china and
silver in the Louisiana house, had had the usual
curious experience in World's Fair minutes.  In a
city of enchantment, how could it be expected that
sixty seconds should be of the conventional length?
She had set aside plenty of time also just to walk
through the middle of the Art Building; and as
every woman knows, it was always impossible to
pass so near "The Young Athlete" without
pausing, if but for a brief acknowledgment.

Gorham Page had just been admiring the bronze,
and had stepped aside to look at the photographs
on a neighboring table when Clover advanced.  He
was short-sighted, and she wore an Eton suit and
a sailor hat, the garb of ninety-nine out of every
hundred women in the summer of '93; but he knew
her at once, and paused.  After a moment's
watching he approached her.

She colored faintly with surprise as she returned
his greeting.

"The subtle differences in the nature of man and
woman are more interesting than the obvious ones,"
he said.

"What are you leading up to now?" she asked.
"I expected your first words to be an explanation
or an apology, or both.  How does it happen that
this is the place where we first meet?"

"You were very, very kind, Mrs. Van Tassel,
and I hope I assured you of my appreciation in my
letter; but I found I could get a room at the hotel
near you, and then affairs taking a favorable turn
I left Boston suddenly, and none too soon; none
too soon; I have been here all day.  How
stupendous it is!  You are on your way to the Marine
Café.  May I go with you?"

"Oh, you have seen Jack, or my sister."

"No."

"Then how comes it that you are so well informed?"

"Happily for me, I ran across Aunt Love."

"Oh, that explains her prolonged absence perhaps.
Usually it is hard for us to persuade her to
spend a whole day down here.  We must hurry a
little, I think."  Clover laughed.  "Hurrying is
the normal condition of people who try to keep
appointments at the Fair."

They threaded their way amid groups and figures
in plaster and marble, and emerged from the
southern entrance.

"What I started to speak of when I first met
you was the contrast of a man's and woman's way
of approaching that bronze," said Page.  "I went
up to it and especially noticed the muscles and
veins of the man's hand and the truthful way the
fingers sink into the flesh of the baby it supports.
You approached it and took hold of the baby's
hand and patted his leg.  Now why didn't I want
to pat that little fellow's fat leg?"

"I give it up," laughed Clover.  "I can only
say you had very poor taste."

"No, there is a deep reason for the difference.
Of course it is a woman's nature to pet a baby."

"What a deep discovery!  I congratulate you
on the result of your explorations.  Do you think
you shall write a book about it?"

"I amuse you, Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Yes, you do, I won't deny it."  Clover was a
trifle ashamed of having been caught in her loving
ebullition toward the soft bronze, and was willing
to laugh it away.

"Still it is interesting," Page went on musingly,
"to observe how affection is outward with women
and inward with men."

"That doesn't sound complimentary to us, Mr. Page.
I hope you mean well."

Gorham's pensive eyes met her merry ones.  "Yes.
I revere the wise arrangement by which it
takes a man and a woman to make one complete
being; and the more I observe and understand
refined human nature, the more I think I see the
possibilities, and what it was intended that
marriage should be.  You are a good walker,
Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Yes; I am thinking how impatient Mildred
and Jack will be with me.  I will give you a
subject for your analytical mind.  Make a record of
the broken appointments at the World's Fair and
discover the reasons for them.  You would have
a psychological study of absorbing interest."

"All phases of human nature are interesting."

"Even that where vials of righteous wrath are
poured out upon you for delinquency when you
know you haven't any defense to offer?  You are
my defense this time."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh, I wouldn't trust you to say anything.  I
am morally certain that you would tell the truth."

"That isn't so very damaging, is it?"

"Why, certainly.  You would tell them that I
stopped to make love to the bronze baby; and if
Mildred heard that, hungry as she is by this time,
you would soon have to formulate exceptions to
your rule that women are all affection outwardly.
By the way, what a fortunate experience yours must
have been."

Page smiled philosophically, and looked approvingly
at his light-footed companion.

They arrived at the café shortly after Mildred
had directed her companion's attention to the
menu, and the apparition of the unexpected guest
entirely diverted from Clover any comment upon
her tardiness.

The cordiality of his welcome pleased Page.
He could not know the reason for the nervous
energy of his cousin's greeting.  The four sat for an
hour at table and then took their way by boat to
the Court of Honor, where they remained in the
launch during the playing of the fountains.  Clover,
sitting next Page, watched his attitude toward this
first view of the evening's spectacle with some
curiosity.

He caught her amused gaze once as it rested
upon him.

"Sumptuous!  Delicate!  Wonderful!" he said,
breaking a long, absorbed silence.

"What?" returned Clover.  "But you haven't
suggested yet going down beneath the electric fountains
to find out the why and the how of it all; and
I am sure you will not rest until you have been on
the roof of the Manufactures Building and made
friends with the man who manipulates the search
light."

"No."  Page smiled vaguely and shook his head.
"I do not want to go behind the scenes."

"Then the Court of Honor is a wonderful place,"
said Clover.

"Poetical!  Marvelous!" gasped Page.

A gondola decked with soft lanterns stole by.
One gondolier swept his oar lazily through the
water, the other stood with his hand caught in his
bright sash, and poured forth the "*Dammi encor*"
from "Faust" with true musical intensity.

Again Clover and Page looked into one another's
eyes, but there was no badinage this time in her
glance.  It was a place of dreams.  Showers of
golden mist fell beneath the stars.  The massive
buildings softened away into distant shadowy
suggestion.  The sculptors' creations shone out
thrillingly.

In heavenly beauty stood the Agricultural Hall
with its foreground of gleaming water, the pure
white of its columns defined against the tempered
rose-color of its inner wall,—a vision glowing and
pure; as far above its sister palaces in beauty as
its use was set apart from theirs; for here were
displayed the works of God rather than the
imperfect marvels of man's handiwork.

Amid the majestic splendor of the night rolled
the passionate appeal of the gondoliers' love-song,
become an impersonal voice now as the boats drifted
apart.  Little wonder that Page forgot to be
abstractly analytical, and that the soft spontaneous
sympathy of his companion's eyes exercised
enchantment borrowed from the environment.  He
smiled upon her with a bright tenderness which
transfigured his thoughtful face.

For a long time they were silent, but when he
gave her his hand as she stepped from the launch,
he spoke out of the depths of his enjoyment:—

"That was a never-to-be-forgotten experience
for me."

"I think no one ever forgets his first evening
in the Court of Honor," returned Clover.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked
Mildred, as they ascended the steps.  "My!  How
the wind has sprung up from the lake.  They will
hardly dare to have the fireworks."

"Then let us take a brisk constitutional home,"
proposed Jack.

"Come, children.  Follow your leader," commanded
Mildred, turning and addressing Clover
and her companion.

"Hurry her by the chocolate houses, Jack," said
Clover; "that is, if you can."

"He can't," returned Mildred.  "I have my
eye on Baker's now."

She insisted that they all stop and partake of
the cup, more potent than tea to cheer when the
east wind blows, served by the pretty, uniformed
girls, who by this time in the evening were
inclined to be pessimistic and severe, small blame
to them.  They must easily believe that the
human body is largely liquid.

Leaving the little circular temple, the quartette
started up the lake shore on the stone walk.  The
dark waves were tumbling and dashing, tipped
with foam in the sudden gale.  The battle-ship
and large excursion boats were gay with electric
lights.

"Oh, Mrs. Van Tassel!" exclaimed Page.  "See
the search light on the Quadriga."  They turned
to view the group with its mounted heralds and
champing, prancing horses, distinct and unearthly
fair in the surrounding blackness.

"Could we walk home backward, do you think?"
he asked.

"No," replied Clover.  "I can answer with
certainty, for I've tried it more than once."

"I suppose we do in course of time get past the
Manufactures Building?  What an incomprehensible,
colossal thing it is."

"Yes, a good deal more so to me now than it
was a month ago."

"Have mercy!" exclaimed Page with a groan.

Mildred and Jack were walking in front of them.

"Isn't this like old times, Mildred?" asked
the latter with a relish, clapping his hat on tighter
as the sweep of the wind threatened it.

"Just about as unlike as we could imagine.
Sorry to disagree with you, Jack."

"Don't mention it.  You don't disagree with
me, my child.  I have enjoyed this first evening
with you immensely."

"First evening is pretty good, isn't it?"
suggested the girl, and they both laughed.  "You
didn't use to quarrel for my society," she added.

"I want you to understand that I wasn't quarreling
with you there, a few hours back, at the
Marine Café."

"Oh!"

"No, I was merely making the excusable protest
of an old friend,—speaking in a brotherly way,
you know."

"Oh, it won't do, Jack."  He knew exactly how
she was smiling in the darkness.  "It is my
unalterable rule never to be a sister to any of them.
I can't break over it for you."

"Them!" ejaculated her companion.  "I don't
thank you to class me with Tom, Dick, and Harry,
and the rest of these late arrivals.  Remember, I
was the first-comer into your friendship."

"You were a pretty good sort of fellow."

"Yes; you probably can't conceive of what
a healing thought it is to me now that I have
snubbed you many a time, young lady.  I had to.
Your attentions were so persistent in those days.
Yes, mademoiselle, I had to hold you off, or I
should never have had any peace of my life.  I
remember it well.  Perhaps you don't."

"Oh yes, I do, perfectly," sighed Mildred.
"Wasn't the Flirt the stanchest little dear that
ever spread a sail; and to think that is all over!
I don't feel nearly so much elation over going with
Mr. Eames on that yacht party to-morrow as I used
to in nagging you into consent that I should sail
the Flirt."

"Is that the infantry officer?"

"Yes; and he is very nice.  I should like you
to meet him.  If I knew him a little better I would
have procured you an invitation.  You should
remember that virtue is its own reward.  If you had
not preferred smoking in the hammock to coming
into the parlor and making yourself agreeable
the other evening when Helen Eames and her
mother were calling, they would surely have
asked you to join the party.  'If you would be
loved, be lovely.'  That is what my mother used
to tell me."  Mildred laughed to herself.

"Then why don't you obey her?" returned Jack
curtly.

"I don't want to be loved," returned the spoiled
girl.  "I'm loved too much already."

After this they marched in silence for a time,
their springy steps carrying them by the foreign
buildings, Ceylon, France with its green,
fountain-sprayed court, Spain, and Germany.  It was not
until they turned beside Iowa's pavilion and left
behind them the waves dashing on the sea-wall that
Mildred spoke again.

"It gives me the blues, Jack, every time I see
our boathouse stranded high and dry behind that
nightmare of a Spectatorium."

"I don't see how you can call anything dry that
is as full of beer as that is."

"Oh," exclaimed the girl indignantly, "what
a fall from its old estate!  To think of our
playhouse being turned into a saloon!  Do you
remember the dance it was christened with?  I was
allowed to go, and you made me perfectly happy
by waltzing with me once."

"Humph!" returned the other.  "And now it
is a great question whether you would make me
perfectly happy by waltzing with me once."

"Oh, Jack," Mildred laughed out now, "don't
be cross.  Don't grudge a girl her 'little brief
authority.'  My observation of life has taught me
that her queenship is brief enough.  She blossoms
out of awkward childhood into an attractive
womanhood, and then after a little space yields up
her sweet liberty to some lord of creation whom
she has to pacify and wait on ever afterward.
Moral: Let her keep her authority as long as
possible."

"You seem to have been rather unfortunate in
your married masculine acquaintance," returned
Van Tassel drily.

A sudden thought sent the color flying to
Mildred's face, and her customary complacent poise
was shaken.

"There was one exception," she said, so timidly
and meekly that her companion was struck by the
change; but she had not the courage to be more
specific, and there was no need.  Jack understood
her.

When the four reached home they found Miss
Berry in the sitting-room reading by the light of a
lamp.

Blitzen was sitting on a rug, and did not, as
usual, run to meet them.  On a chair reposed a
bird-cage with some white stuff in it.

"What is this, Aunt Love?" asked Clover.
"Have you some new pets?"

"I've got one," returned Miss Berry, smiling
placidly.  "I'll give you all three guesses.  It's
a World's Fair souvenir."

"Tell us, Blitzen," said Mildred, kneeling on
the rug beside the small dog and shaking his
tousled head; but Blitzen, as soon as he could free
himself, withdrew in unwonted dignity.  Evidently
there was that within him to-night which could not
brook flippancy.

"A live souvenir?" asked Clover, perplexed.

"Mr. Gorham can guess," remarked Miss
Lovina, glancing again down the columns of her
newspaper, and shaking in a comfortable silent
laugh.

"I?" said Page; then, after a moment's
cogitation, "You surely didn't bring home one of
those chickens?"

"I did.  In that cage, my dears, there is an
electric chicken."  Miss Berry looked over her
spectacles impressively.  "The same power that
runs the inter-internal railroad and shines in
the rainbow fountains, don't disdain to hatch a
chicken.  If you doubt it, there's the chicken."

She gestured toward the bird-cage.

"I brought it home in a box; and I said to
myself that most everybody had an old cage, so I
went up garret, and there I found that one.  On
Blitzen's account I thought best to use a cage
to-night."  Her gaze descended on the terrier, whose
head descended beneath it.

"Blitzen," asked Jack with deliberate, stern
solemnity, "what do you think of the chicken?"

Blitzen rose with a crushed air, and slowly, as
one who would not attract attention, crept across
the room and retired under a remote sofa.

A shout of laughter followed his unostentatious
disappearance.

"We've had some words," explained Aunt
Love.  "He barked cruel at the poor little thing
when he first saw me with it."

"Have it out, have the chicken out," said
Mildred; and Miss Berry, yielding to the general
urgency, produced her prize from the depths of
the cotton wool.  It began to struggle and peep
vigorously as soon as its beady eyes saw the light,
and there came a muffled howl from under the sofa.

"What are you going to name it?" asked Clover.

"I don't know what name would be good
enough for such a smart critter."

"Why, Electra, of course," remarked Jack.
"Nothing less for such a star among chickens."

"Sounds well and suitable," observed Miss
Berry placidly, "whether it means anything or
not."

"I wonder if it has any unusual springs," said
Mildred.  "If I should touch the button do you
suppose it would give us a rest?" She advanced
a finger toward one of the bright eyes, but Miss
Berry removed her squeaking prize from harm,
and tucked it away again in the cotton from which
it struggled several times before finally settling
down with a diminuendo of peeps.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CLOVER'S DIPLOMACY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CLOVER'S DIPLOMACY.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. and Mrs. Page arrived duly, even a little
earlier than they had at first anticipated.  Jack
met them at the station and drove with them to
their destination.

"You see it was simply impossible, Mrs. Van
Tassel, for my wife to curb her impatience after
Gorham began to write home," said Mr. Page to
his hostess in explanation of their change of plan.
"Gorham doesn't very often gush, as perhaps
you know."

"And I assure you that Mr. Page was not difficult
to persuade," added Hilda.  "Your last kind
letter determined us.  And I am really in
Chicago!" she went on, looking about her.  "Jack,
congratulate me!"

"I do, sincerely.  I think you, Hilda, will
appreciate your advantages."

Mr. Page gave his contagious, quiet chuckle.
"That is the way he goes on," he said, turning to
Mildred.  "Jack is very severe on me always.  I
am going to show you, Miss Bryant, several lists
of adjectives, carefully prepared, very carefully
and thoughtfully, one for every day in the week,
that I am intending to use on the World's Fair to
mollify my cousin."

"You might have trusted safely to the inspiration
of the moment," returned Mildred gayly.

"Oh, you don't know Jack.  One single false
move, one expletive out of place, and it would be
all over with me."

"Poor Robert, I feel for you," remarked Van
Tassel.

"Why, that is mysterious," replied his cousin.
"Anybody who compassionates me just now doesn't
understand economizing his emotions."  The
speaker sank back in his roomy wicker chair and
took a glass of lemonade from a salver which Miss
Berry was passing to the company.  The crushed
ice jingled pleasantly against the crystal, and the
couple of straws that emerged from each glass were
alluring to a stout and thirsty man.  "Aunt Love,
it is very pleasant to see you here," he added.
"We shall have to renew our old acquaintance.
We had no time in Boston."

"That's so, Mr. Page.  I guess I can jog your
memory about a good many things."

When later the husband and wife were shown
to their own room and the door was closed, Robert
looked at Hilda with large eyes.  "Whew!" he
said softly.  "Uncle Richard was all right.  What
pretty women!"

"I told you so.  I told you that Mildred was a
perfect Juno, and that you were very unfortunate
to be out of town when she spent that week with
me at the beach.  As for Mrs. Van Tassel"—

"Why, she's an angel,—she's an angel!  I
knew it from her letter.  I felt it in my bones."

"As if you knew anything about your bones, you
dear old cushion.  Stop praising those
girls,—calling one a goddess and one an angel.  Come
and apostrophize the lake.  Isn't it beautiful?"

"It was you who called Miss Bryant a goddess,
remember.  Yes, this is every bit as good as the
ocean, for all I see," walking to the window and
putting an arm around his wife's waist.  "We are
in great luck, Hilda," continued Page, glancing
about their spacious room.  "This isn't much like
the discomforts we read about in connection with
World's Fair visiting.  I don't wonder," he added
after a pause, "that Jack was cut up by being at
cross purposes with those girls."

"H'm.  There is one exhibit I have come out
here to see that isn't inside the White City,"
returned Hilda.  "I've come to discover which
one of them Jack is in love with."

"Both, of course.  How can he help it?" replied
her husband promptly.

Gorham took it upon himself to launch his
brother and sister on their Fair pilgrimage that
very evening.

When they came home again, hours later, Clover
and Jack were sitting alone in the parlor and rose
to meet them as they entered the room.  Their
tired, excited faces were a study.

Hilda dropped into a chair.  "Well," she
exclaimed, "I never expected to go to heaven till I
died; but I've been there."

"Jack," added Robert meekly, "get in your
fine work now.  I've nothing to say, absolutely
nothing.  I've dropped my jaw so often since
six o'clock that it isn't in working order, any way."

"Say no more," returned Van Tassel, waving
his hand grandiloquently.  "We Chicagoans are
nothing if not magnanimous."

"I thought I knew what I was going to see,
that is the queer part of it," said Page, looking
perplexed; "but it seems I didn't know anything
at all about it.  I feel there is an unlimited feast
in store for me, Mrs. Van Tassel."

Clover smiled at his enthusiastic tone.  "You
are in the first-day frame of mind, I see."

"What is that?"

"Oh, eagerness and hopefulness."

"And what is the second?"

"Despair; yes, overwhelming, stony despair."

"What is the third?  Suicidal tendency?"

"No indeed.  Resignation.  At first one expects
and determines to see everything; soon finds that
to be so impossible that he yields to his bewilderment,
and at last accepts the inevitable and sets
himself to see what he can, and be rapturously
content therewith."

"Thank you, thank you!  Forewarned, forearmed.
Perhaps we may even skip the second stage."

A few days later, Clover, her guests having
scattered on various quests, went to the noon
orchestral concert in Festival Hall.  This wonderfully
generous free exhibit attracted a large audience,
many of whom embraced it as an opportunity to
rest from the fatigues of sight-seeing, while many
others, coming perhaps from the country where
"hearing a band" was a rare privilege, were
drawn thither by the hope of attractive music.

Possibly one half the number came intelligently
to the feast, and greeted the conductor when he
entered upon the stage.  Clover joined in the
applause as Theodore Thomas passed before his
players with that quiet, characteristic grace, which
has power to thrill with anticipation a greater
number of America's music-lovers than the
movement of any other man.

It interested her as it had many a time before,
this summer, to note the effect upon certain of the
audience of the number with which the programme
opened.  She saw pleased hopefulness give way to
apathy in many faces, as strange harmonies and
dissonances fell upon uncultivated ears.  She noticed
one patient-faced countryman who waited through
two numbers, evidently discovering nothing but a
wilderness of sound.  He then examined his
programme, and not finding "After the Ball" on it,
arose and departed from the hall more in sorrow
than anger.

Blessings on the man, by the way, who introduced
the noiseless paper on which those programmes
were printed.  There were two girls sitting next to
Clover, chewing gum while they listened for some
melody they could recognize, and Clover congratulated
herself that all the foldings and drummings
of their programmes were inaudible; but alas, as
soon as the maidens discovered that the music
they were hearing was unworthy the name, they
cheerfully set about doing the next best thing,
which was to prepare for the afternoon's campaign.
This was a free concert anyway, so no matter if it
wasn't worth much.  They would not leave at once,
because this was a better place to rest than they
would be likely to find soon again; so they
unfolded their maps of the grounds, not printed on
absorbent paper, far from it, and proceeded to
discuss their plans.

Clover caught sight of Jack standing across the
hall.  He discovered her at the same moment.
His concentrated look flashed into a smile as they
exchanged nods.

At the close of the number he came around to
where Clover sat in the front row of the circle, and
leaned his arm on the railing in front of her.

"How handsome Jack can look, when he is
happy and interested," she thought, and instantly
became aware that her neighbors had ceased their
planning, and were nudging each other in silent
absorption.

"Wasn't that great!" he exclaimed.  "Are
you going over to the Music Hall this afternoon?"

"Indeed I am.  They are going to play the
Tschaikowsky Symphony."

"That settles it.  Suppose we go up in the
wheel after lunch, and then go over to the concert
together."

"All right.  I'd like to.  Why, there is Mildred
on the left, down there near the front.  I
didn't know she was coming."

"Nor I.  Shall I go and speak to her?"

In a minute Jack was back, just as the music
began again.  The girls who had constituted the
thorn in Clover's side during the first half of the
programme had left their seats as soon as he moved
away, so he came in and took the place beside
Clover.

"Mildred says she will go with us," he whispered.

When the Intermezzo was finished, Clover spoke.

"Did you ask Mildred to join us?" she asked.

"No, she proposed it," returned Jack, and there
was a pleasure in his eyes which did not escape his
companion.

"You mentioned last night in our talk that you
hadn't seen much of Mildred since you came; that
she was too much of a belle for your comfort."

"Yes.  It is simply surprising to find her here
alone."

Clover's eyes twinkled.  She had mentioned to
her sister, this morning, that she meant to meet
Jack at the noon concert.

"Well, you leave her to me.  No matter what I
say, don't contradict me.  Promise?"

"What's up?" asked Van Tassel doubtfully.

"Oh, Mildred's conceit and a few other things
that ought to come down.  I want you to myself a
part of the time, Jack."

Her companion met her laughing glance.

"I am yours to command, Clover, always."

"Don't forget, then," she answered.

When the concert was over, Mildred came
slowly up the aisle, superb as usual in her
consciously unconscious carriage.

"Well," she said to her sister as they met,
"where are we to lunch?"

"Are you going to lunch with us?" asked
Clover in well-affected surprise.

"Of course I am," returned the younger with a
half-pouting smile flung at Jack; "and I am
going in the Ferris Wheel with you too.  I haven't
been up in it yet."

"Why, I don't see how you possibly can, Mildred,"
said Clover coolly.  "I heard you promise
Mr. and Mrs. Page to meet them in the Art
Gallery at two o'clock, and show Mrs. Page some of
our favorite pictures."

Mildred expected some protest from Jack, and
was disconcerted that none came.  "I only told
them that if I was at the south entrance at two
o'clock I would act as their cicerone," she
answered.

"Well, my dear, having said so much," suggested
Clover gravely, "I think the least you can
do is to be there, considering that they are our
guests."

Still Jack did not interfere.  Mildred could not
forbear hurling one glance at him from beneath
her eyelashes, but it might have been a gaze.
Van Tassel was absently viewing the dispersing
audience.

Her eyes and cheeks burned as they had on the
night he refused to accompany her to witness the
fireworks, but as on that occasion she carried the
matter with a high hand.

"Very well, then you have lost my company at
lunch, too.  You and Jack would be sure to make
me late, dawdling at table.  *Au revoir*," and as
they nodded to her, she swept away.

Clover looked at her companion and tried to
repress the mirthful laugh that bubbled over her
lips.

"Jack, you wouldn't be human if you hadn't
enjoyed that."

"Then I must be inhuman," he responded
rather ruefully, "for I give you my word I'm
scared almost to death."

"Don't you worry, mon ami; I know Mildred
to the depths of her noble, generous, overbearing,
over-indulged soul."

"I don't suppose you realize, Clover," Van
Tassel spoke low and jerkily, "but I care very
much; absurdly much, you might think, considering
the shortness of the time."

Clover looked into his flushed face, and the
merriment in her sweet eyes was quenched.

"Dear Jack," she said, laying her hand lightly
on his arm, "whatever you wish, I wish.  Trust
me.  No harm has been done.  Do you want my
advice,—the advice of one who knows?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then don't let Mildred suspect what you have
told me.  The round world is just a rattle to her
now.  You are one of the bells on it that jingle
for her amusement when she moves you.  There
are Katherines in existence still, and Petruchios
are wholesome teachers for them."

"Imagine me cracking a horsewhip at Mildred!"

"Out, please!" roared a Columbian Guard,
exasperated by the sight of these two loiterers,
after the remainder of the audience had drifted
away.  "As if there wasn't any other place on
the grounds to spoon but just this," he muttered.

Mildred, to her credit be it said, devoted her
afternoon to Mrs. Page with as cheerful courtesy
as though she bore no grudge in her mind against
the world.  Mr. Page left them together and went
off somewhere under his brother's guidance.  It
was nearly dinner-time when he drove up to the
house in a Beach wagon, and found Mildred
swinging idly in a hammock on the piazza.

"Your wife is taking a nap," she announced, as
he came up the steps.

"Fortunate woman!" he responded, sinking
wearily upon a wicker divan.  "The only interest
I've had for hours in any exhibit was as to
whether there was a chair in it; but Gorham is a
terrible fellow.  Merciless.  Each building being
one thousand miles from every other building
makes it hard lines.  I threatened more than once
to trip over one of those chains that say 'Keep off
the grass,' and refuse to get up again."

"You and your brother should have taken one
of those double chairs."

"Oh, there wouldn't have been any room for
Gorham," and the jolly man laughed.  "I
suppose you have done the Plaisance."

"Partly, yes."

"Gorham and I went into the Dahomey village,
this afternoon.  Some of those savages were
unpleasantly personal.  Good afternoon, Aunt
Love," as the housekeeper appeared on the
veranda.  "I was just telling Miss Mildred how
those children of nature in the Dahomey village
injured my finer feelings to-day.  One of them
came for me with a big carving knife, yelling 'Big
man, fat man,' and going through the pantomime
of taking a slice off my sacred person."

"Dirty critters!" remarked Miss Berry sententiously.

"Isn't it a funny paradox to see an incandescent
light over the door of each hut?" went
on Page.  "There was one big fellow squatted
down in the sun, off by himself, playing on a
rough sort of a harp, and singing monotonously
something that sounded like 'Come away, come
away, Chicago.'  I tried to write down the pitches
he sang, and that amused him immensely.  His
ivories would have made a perfect dentist's sign.
I gave him a dime or so to repeat the performance,
a sufficient number of times, and he was
delighted, and kept saying 'Chicago beer.'"

"Yes," returned Miss Berry bitterly.  "They
have to come to a Christian land for that."

"Wait till you see the South Sea Islanders,"
said Mildred.

"We did.  Fine, aren't they?  There is an
exhibition of drill and muscle worth seeing."

"And that *café-au-lait* skin!" exclaimed Mildred.
"I am entirely spoiled for white beauties."

"Let 'em wear somethin' more 'n a straw wreath
and a piece o' calico then," remarked Miss Berry.

"But Aunt Love," suggested Page, "you
must remember how clothing that brown skin is.
I am sure you must admit it is an improving sight
to see one of those heavy-eyed beauties sit
cross-legged, and absently scratch one great toe while
she sings."

"What are you all laughing about?" asked
Hilda, coming out upon the piazza in the freshness
of a light organdie gown.

"Your husband has been to the Midway,"
returned Miss Berry.  "Don't be surprised at
anything he may say or do; and I don't believe we'd
better wait for Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel any
longer, for dinner was ready when I came out
here."

"I don't understand Clover's staying so,"
remarked Mildred, leaving the hammock and trying
not to speak severely.

"I go, I fly, to make myself presentable,"
said Page, slowly dragging himself up from his
comfortable resting-place.

After dinner Mildred made an opportunity to
address the housekeeper privately.  "For pity's
sake, Aunt Love, when you are going to speak
of Jack and Clover as you did this evening, don't
say Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Why not?" asked Miss Lovina with exasperating
unconsciousness.

"Why, it sounds so—so—absurdly married."

Miss Berry smiled.  "What shall I say then?"

"Mrs. and Mr. Van Tassel, of course," replied
Mildred, making an effort to speak with a suavity
she did not feel.

"Well, if that ain't a new idea.  Mrs. and Mr.!
Do tell!" said Miss Berry good-naturedly.  "Oh,
I'll learn a deal of etiquette to take back to
Pearfield.  It's enough to do a body good to see
Mr. Jack and your sister so much to each other, ain't
it?  Seems if they have lots o' pleasure together
now; just as it should be."

"I don't know that they are together so very
much," returned Mildred coolly.

"That's 'cause you're off so much o' the time.
Why, they're just the best friends that ever was;
and Mrs. Van Tassel, she's gone back before my
eyes from a grave woman full or care to a merry
girl just as free as a bird.  It does me good, Miss
Mildred.  It does me so much good, I'm 'most
afraid I shall grow fat on it."

Mildred's bright eyes looked thoughtful for a
second, as though she were digesting the
housekeeper's words.  "There is Blitzen, barking,"
she exclaimed, and both hastened to see whether
Electra's nervous system was receiving some fresh
shock.

Gorham Page strayed over from the hotel, as
was his habit after dinner, and found the family
disposed in various comfortable chairs and
hammocks about the piazza.

The autocratic Miss Bryant was feeling a trifle
sore, although she did not dream of acknowledging
to herself that it was because Clover and Jack
still remained away, and in the present sensitive
state of her self-love it was a new affront that
Gorham did not at once seek her side, but after
bowing to her, settled down beside Mrs. Page, who
closed the book she was reading upon her finger
as a marker.

"Yes indeed, the afternoon was delightful," she
said, in answer to his question.  "Mildred and I
had a charming time among the pictures.  You
nearly committed fratricide.  Do you see poor
Robert fast asleep over there?"

"This will do him a world of good.  Train
down his flesh, and strengthen his muscle; though
the poor old chap did say, before we decided to
come home, that he had walked so long his feet
splayed out like the camels' every time he set them
down."  Page laughed reminiscently.

"Camels?  Did you go into Cairo Street?"

"No, to the Bedouin village; the Wild East show."

"Very well.  You have just saved your lives.
I understand that Cairo Street is one of the plums
of the Plaisance, and if Robert had gone without
me, I should have been highly offended."

"Yes, he is well trained.  I wonder if my wife
will find me as thoughtful.  I am afraid not."

Hilda laughed at the sincere meekness of his
tone.  "No, I'm sure she won't, for the simple
reason that you will never have one."

"I should be sorry to think that."

"Then why don't you do as nine out of every
ten men in your place would do?"

"You mean fall in love?  You know, Hilda,
how often I've done that."

Mrs. Page laughed again at the gently remonstrant
tone.  "Your sort of falling in love isn't
worth two straws," she declared scoffingly.  "Don't
take that into consideration at all.  The next
woman you meet who satisfies you intellectually,
propose to her.  If she accepts you, marry her.  I
don't believe you would make her very unhappy.
You wouldn't if you were as kind a husband as
you are a brother."

"Thank you.  You might give me a written
recommendation.  See how handsome Miss Bryant's
face looks against that golden pillow."

"Yes; it is a proof of your hard heart that you
withstand her."

"I don't withstand her.  You have no idea how
much I enjoyed an afternoon I had with her at the
Fair last week; but Jack was remarkably short
with me that evening, and I fancied I had
trespassed on his preserves."

"Not a bit of it.  He must be a dog in the manger."

"Why, I'm very sure he is hard hit in that
direction."

"Oh, where are a man's eyes, I wonder!  I
haven't been here very long, but long enough to
discover the truth."

"I suppose you want me to ask you what truth?"

"No, I don't, my dear."  Mrs. Page reopened
her book.

"You are not hinting at—at—Mrs. Van
Tassel?" Gorham spoke in a hushed tone.

"Just observe for yourself," said Hilda sententiously.

"You ought not to have such a thought."

Mrs. Page looked up, wondering at this severity.
"Why, if you please?  You surely haven't an idea
that that young creature is going to sacrifice the
rest of her life to a memory of duty done?"

"But Hilda, that is repugnant!" Page rose
suddenly, and his sister's gaze followed him as he
moved away.  It was very unusual for him to show
so much feeling.  "Wouldn't it be a strange,
strange thing if after waiting all these years
Gorham should love at last and love hopelessly?"  She
banished the query with a sigh.  Sober second
thought assured her that her brother had not meant
more than he said.  The idea that Jack might wish
to marry his father's widow was distasteful to him,
and that was all.

Page approached Mildred, little realizing how
indefensible she considered it that he had not done
so some minutes previous.  She was too glad of his
presence, however, to punish him.  It would never
do for Jack to come home and suppose that she had
not been holding court.

"What beautiful evenings you have in Chicago,"
he began.  "May I take this chair?" drawing one
near the hammock in which she was sitting against
a nest of pillows, her foot touching the floor gently
as she rocked.

"Yes, I never tire of seeing the moonlight on
the water as it is shining to-night.  When I was
a little girl it was a great treat to me to be allowed
to spend a summer evening on this piazza, and I
enjoy it scarcely less now."

"You enjoy it very seldom, I observe."

"Yes, of course there are lots of engagements
this summer, and a quiet evening at home like this
seems very welcome occasionally.  One likes too,
sometimes, to renew acquaintance with the moon.
After living among rosy, violet, pale green, and
white search lights, and all sorts of spectacular
electrical effects so much, one comes back to
moonlight on the water as to an old friend."

The girl clasped her hands above her head upon
the down pillow, and allowed Page to look at her,
which he was not slow to do.

"I miss your sister and Jack, this evening.
Where are they?"

"Columbus knows!  Since the authorities have
been Barnumizing the Fair, as they call it, one is
led on to stay, and stay, and stay, to see this race
or that dance or the other illumination.  I left them
after the noon concert."

"You were there, then.  Of course you are fond
of music."

"I enjoy it very much, although Clover says I
don't.  She and Jack are cranks about it.  I am not."

"They have one strong predilection in common, then."

Mildred did not reply; and Page continued:
"The effect of music upon a person who is in
sympathy with it is an interesting study.  Those
involuntary chills that pass over one under the moving
influence of good music are rather annoying to me.
I do not wish to be moved uncontrollably by
anything.  I wish to decide just how deeply to feel on
any subject.  Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, exactly."  The decision of the girl's reply
rather surprised her companion.  She let him look
deep into her luminous eyes set in the moonlight
fairness of her face.  "And further than agreeing
with you in the desirability of the principle," she
added, "I carry the theory into practice."

"Do you mean to say that you are always able
to let your head decide what your heart shall feel?"

"Invariably."

"But that is no common characteristic in a
woman.  With women the heart speaks first usually."

"Not in the case of the well-balanced woman."

"Then perhaps you can tell me," said Page,
much surprised and interested, "perhaps you will
be good enough to tell me what your ideas are
concerning love.  There, too, do you think it
possible for the head to speak first?"

Mildred let a repressed laugh burst its bounds.
"Do you mean, do I think it possible to fall in
love head first?"

"Forgive me if I ask too much; but it seems to
me very helpful to compare notes with one whose
aims and desires are similar to your own."

"Oh, I don't mind telling you, Mr. Page," said
the girl, sobering.  "My ideas on the subject are
clearly formulated, and I know of no reason why
I should not impart them to one who will be
appreciative.  I believe a woman can decide what
characteristics would be sympathetic with hers,
and when she is sufficiently acquainted with a man
to discover if he is possessed of those qualities, she
can give rein to her heart, and love him"—the
speaker suddenly extended her white hands before
her—"love him with all her soul!"

The sudden thrill in her movement and in her
low contralto voice electrified her listener by its
unexpectedness.

"But can one always love where the head
dictates?" he asked; "that is the question."

"Undoubtedly; for when one finds the combination
she seeks, she will discover that she has loved
it already.  I will tell you, Mr. Page, you tempt
my confidence because you captivate my judgment.
I will describe to you the man I await.  He must
be good to look upon, for I value beauty of form;
but he must be cool and steady of brain, must love
to think, to analyze, to look upon life not as a
plaything but as something the laws of which must
be studied and explored continually.  Incidents
which appear trifling to others, to him will
suggest a thousand questions.  He must in short be a
student of human nature whose researches I may,
by-and-by, as I grow wiser, assist.  Oh, proud,
happy destiny!"  She paused as though overcome,
and grasping the sides of the hammock
looked with a quick turn of her head toward the
moonlight.

Page regarded her in silence, then leaned toward
her in his earnestness.  "A man like that is not
found every day, Miss Bryant; but I congratulate
you on your high standard; for the being you
describe has surely a great heart to throb for
humanity as well as the head to study it, and your
affections will not be starved, I am sure of that."

Mildred grasped the hammock closer and caught
her lip between her teeth.  Page's unconsciousness
had turned the tables, and she had sufficient
sense of humor, in spite of her vanity, to make it
difficult not to smile as he walked unseeing around
her net, and it fell, enveloping her own saucy head.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FERRIS WHEEL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FERRIS WHEEL.

.. vspace:: 2

It was half past nine when the wagonette
bringing Clover and Jack stopped before the
house.  They were received with a chorus of
questions, in which Mildred was too clever not to
join.  She was glad that Van Tassel must see
Gorham seated near her, apart from the others,
confidentially discoursing in the moonlight, even
though Jack did not seem to observe it.  He
seated himself on the step near Mrs. Page, and
leaned against a railing.

"We have had a fine time!" he exclaimed with
what Mildred's practiced ear recognized as
unmistakable sincerity.

"Oh, the German village by moonlight, Milly!"
added Clover, taking a place near her sister.  "You
really ought to see it."

"We ought to have been there, Mr. Page," said
Mildred regretfully.

"I doubt if I could have had a pleasanter
evening anywhere," he returned; and if Miss Bryant
had had power to decorate him she would have
done so on the spot for that timely speech.  She
trusted Jack had heard it.

"We sat there at table, you know," went on
the latter, "and saw the moon come up over those
quaint old gables.  Oh, it was fine.  I declare, we
didn't know where we were.  Did we, Clover?"

"I thought you were quite certain by the alleged
German you entertained me with."

"Alleged German!  Well, if this isn't sad!
There I wasted Heine's poems by the yard on you.
Ungrateful girl!  You will never know all the
sweet things that were said to you to-night."

"I know you drank a lot of beer and smoked
too many cigars."

"Of course, being in Rome I complimented the
inhabitants by imitation."

"Mr. Jack," spoke Miss Berry reproachfully, "I
remember well that you said once you only smoked
on holidays and birthdays."

"Certainly, Aunt Love, that is my rule still.  I
never break it."

"Whose birthday is this?" demanded Miss
Berry, somewhat taken back.

"How should I know?  Somebody's, surely."  Jack
looked up innocently.  "I never show favoritism."

"Oh!" groaned Gorham, rising.  "I can't stay
here.  Discipline him, Aunt Love.  I am going
to my uncontaminated roof-tree."

"Let us all take Gorham home," suggested
Jack, also rising.  "I'm afraid to be left here
with Aunt Love's righteous wrath.  Come, all of
you.  Nobody is too tired to walk to that music."

For the band on the hotel piazza was playing
the Washington Post March, which by midsummer
was running neck and neck with "After the Ball."

"Come, Robert," said Hilda, shaking the somnolent
form in the hammock.

"Hey?  What?  Don't disturb me.  I can die
here as well as anywhere.  What!  Walk home
with Gorham?  Do you take me for an idiot?
Music and moonlight!" with deep scorn.  "Oh,
go to!  Woman, stand aside, or I shall do you an
injury.  Don't tempt a desperate man."

"Dear Robert doesn't seem to care to come
with us," laughed Mildred *sotto voce* to Jack.
She was determined that none other than he should
walk by her side to the hotel, and of course she
had her way.

An hour later she came into Clover's bedroom,
brushing her long hair.  Her white wrapper fell
open at the neck, disclosing her handsome throat,
and she looked particularly beautiful to her partial
sister.

"Where else did you and Jack go to-night beside
the German village?" she asked.

"Nowhere."

"You took supper there and stayed all the evening?"

"Yes.  We really couldn't tear ourselves away.
It was like being in some romantic old story."

Mildred smiled and hummed her favorite bit
from Iolanthe.

"No indeed," answered Clover.  "I am not his
mother.  He doesn't pretend that I am, and he
doesn't wish me to be: so your little song doesn't
fit the case at all."

She did not look at her sister, but went on with
her effort to braid her rebellious hair.  Mildred
ceased humming.

"I wish my hair was curly," she said at last.

"We all have our gifts," replied Clover.  Mildred
thought her tone sounded unusually complacent.
It was a novel experience to feel aught but
compassion, or tenderness, or reverent admiration
for Clover, but now she suddenly found herself
regarding her for the first time as another girl like
herself, and observing her attractions with new
eyes.

"What a pretty foot you have, Clover," she
said, looking at her sister's slippered feet.

"Not a bit better shaped than yours, my dear.
Let us have a select little mutual admiration
society."

"But mine are large," returned Mildred, sitting
down and thrusting forth her slippers for inspection.

"So are you," suggested Clover.

"But isn't it strange that people never consider
that, in speaking of a woman's foot?  She must
have small feet irrespective of her size, or else they
had better never be seen or mentioned.  In old
novels a man sometimes keeps his beloved's slipper
under a glass case.  What a formidable piece of
furniture my lover will have when he gets a glass
case for mine."

"Foolish child!  You are proportioned just right."

"Perhaps; but what I say is that the consensus
of opinion decides that I ought not to be.  Shoe
men fall in with that idea.  Dainty shoes are
small shoes.  I tell you fame and wealth awaits
the shoe-dealer who becomes inspired with the idea
that large women want pretty shoes too."

"You seem to have made Mr. Page have a
delightful evening," remarked Clover.

"Yes; he didn't ask for one of my slippers,
though.  Fancy sterling cousin Page ordering a
glass case!"

Clover smiled in answer to Mildred's laugh.

"What did you talk about?"

"Oh, weights and measures, as usual.  I wasn't
in the mood to be good, and I tried conscientiously
to make a fool of our friend."

"Mildred!"

"No harm done; I didn't succeed.  He made
one of me instead.  This has been what you might
term an off day for your little sister."

"What do you mean?  How did he make a
fool of you?"  Clover turned with so much
curiosity in her gaze that Mildred rose quickly.

"I'll never tell you,—or hardly ever.  Perhaps
when we are both married."

Clover turned back to the glass, and Mildred
was a little dismayed.  The words had slipped out
unthinkingly.  Until this evening she had agreed
in her sister's acceptance of the fact that her life
could not be like that of other girls.

"Good-night," she said, standing back of Clover
and meeting her eyes in the mirror.

"Good-night," returned the other.

Mildred kissed her cheek.  "Do you like me?"
she asked softly.

"Pretty well," Mrs. Van Tassel smiled.  "Lots
better than you deserve."

The younger sister went to her room satisfied.
Arrogant and autocratic she might be to her
slaves, but Clover's approval was the necessary
sunshine in which her life blossomed.

Van Tassel had to put a guard upon his lips in
the next days.  He was trying to follow Clover's
advice not to ask Mildred again to go to the Fair
with him.  It made the case harder, inasmuch as
he could not help feeling that now she expected it.
He noticed that she did not make outside
engagements as much as before; but was oftener at
home, either sitting about the piazzas in gowns
which Jack thought the most becoming that ever
girl wore, or else romping with Blitzen and
paying exasperating attention to Electra, who was
fast developing into the most self-assured and
exacting chicken of the Columbian year.

The following sort of scene was sometimes
endured in anguish by the lover who was
disciplining his lady to order.

Jack was one morning reading the newspaper
on the piazza, Mildred sitting in the hammock,
and Clover and Hilda training the morning-glories.

"Why don't I go to the Fair?" Mildred said,
addressing the lake, resplendent with miles of
diamonds.

Jack's hand closed on his paper in his longing
to accept the challenge; not being at all certain
that he would not receive a negative if he did,
but still yearning to try his luck.

"Is it a conundrum?" asked Clover.  "I can
give a guess, if you like."

"Thank you; you're always so kind, dear.
Come, and go up in the Ferris Wheel with me,
Clover.  If you will, that will decide me."

"I couldn't, really.  I'm glad I have been.
One must go, of course; but twice, no, I
couldn't."  Clover passed near Jack, who threw an imploring
glance at her behind his paper.  "I can feel my
hair whitening!" he murmured; but Mrs. Van
Tassel frowned warningly upon him.

"What a pity you didn't say something about
it before Robert went," said Hilda.  "I think he
means to go in the wheel to-day, as that is one of
the things I can't bring my mind to do."

"But you will have a hundred chances, Milly
dear.  Some of our friends are always going,"
added Clover comfortingly.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself," remarked Mildred
with nonchalance.  "I assure you I can go
when I like," and she rose and sauntered into the
house, followed by Hilda.

Clover laughed softly into the pink lips of a
morning glory which she held in her hand.

"This may be very good fun for you," said Van
Tassel, his unread paper dropped, "but let me tell
you it is making an old man of me."

"Do your own way then, Jack, and live to
repent of it."

"But I don't want to have to repent."

"Then behave as though you had some backbone.
Remember Petruchio."

"Oh, that will do to say!  Petruchio was married."

"All right.  I wash my hands of you."

"No, no, don't, Clover."

Clover took pity on the clouded face.

"I'll give you a little bit of comfort, Jack," she
said, gazing down at him knowingly.

"Angel!"

"Oh, it is only a wee, wee bit; but Mildred is
uncomfortable."

"I should think that was wee," returned Van
Tassel, his face falling.

"I don't know.  It is the first time any man
ever affected her that much."

"A very poor recommendation, I should think,"
remarked Van Tassel.

"Oh, Jack," Clover laughed, "I can see you
would have had an awful time without me."

"I am having an awful time with you, Clover."

"Then gang your ain gait any time"—

"And may God have mercy on my soul, I
suppose you mean," added Jack ruefully.

It was his habit to have flowers sent to the
house almost daily, and Clover often wore his
roses; Mildred never.  Van Tassel asked her
once if she never wore flowers, and she answered
indifferently that she often did.

"I have never happened to see you with any
on," he said.

"Indeed?" she returned with one of her
characteristic smiles.  "Then that must be because
you never sent me any.  Now don't look like that.
Jack.  If you should send me flowers, now, do you
know what I should do with them?"

"Pitch them out the window, probably."

"No; for that would disfigure the lawn, and
Clover is very particular about the lawn.  I
should present them to Aunt Love."

So Jack only gave one impotent look into her
starry eyes, and continued to send his lavish floral
gifts impersonally to the house.

But one morning Mildred came down with some
sprays of heliotrope fastened in her dress.  Van
Tassel was delighted; but acting with blind faith
in Clover, he did not appear to notice the
concession.  He had won several words of commendation
from his mentor for the manner in which of late
he had been playing his role.  He had even called
upon Mildred's friend, Miss Eames, in response to
the latter's invitation, and had gone with her one
day to the Art Gallery, and after coming home
praised her discriminating and intelligent taste.  It
seemed to him an eternity since he had asked
Mildred to go anywhere with him.

On this morning she waited for some remark
upon her decoration, but none came.  Matters had
become serious if such condescension was not going
to be gratefully received.  The family usually
sauntered out upon the piazza after breakfast, and Van
Tassel took his paper with him to-day as usual.
He was alive in every nerve to the fact that
Mildred had on a street dress, which meant the Fair.
He wondered profoundly, as he always did, what
her plans were and whom she was going with, but
he gazed unseeingly into his paper, and was dumb.

All of a sudden, a sort of electric shock seemed
to pervade the air about him.  Mildred was
standing at his side.

"Did you notice how perfect this heliotrope
is?" she asked, looking down, not at him, but at
the blossoms on the lapel of her jacket.

"It is pretty," he answered, wondering how
soon his evil star would lure him on to say the
wrong thing.

His apparently indifferent manner piqued her
still further.  "If you feel very good, and are sure
you are going to be good all day, I will give you a
piece," she said, separating one spray from its
fellows.

Van Tassel sprang to his feet, and in a second
Mildred's fingers were upon his coat.

"The round world is just a rattle to her, and
you are one of the bells on it that jingle when she
moves you."

Clover's words were sounding warningly in his
ears.  He could not help it.  He only prayed to
jingle in tune, for moved he was to the depths of
his being.

"You like heliotrope very much?" he asked,
not daring to look below her cool, fair forehead.

"Yes.  Sometimes, I think, best of all; but,"
with a sigh, "it goes quickly."  And she dropped
her hands and moved back.

"Like all the happiest moments of life," said
Jack, and something leaped from his brown eyes
that actually surprised Mildred, coming out of the
long train of indifferent days.

"Oh, if Jack is like that," she thought, and a
new respect grew in her for the man who ruled
himself, and refused to submit to her caprice.

"It is a clear day, Mildred.  Let us go up in
the Wheel," he said.  "Have you made the trip yet?"

"No, but I have a new idea about it.  I'm sure
it will make me dizzy.  It did Clover; and I
think I shall be afraid, too."

"Don't give up going.  I'm sure you will not
be afraid.  It is an absolutely steady, safe motion,
and the changing view is unique."

"No, indeed; I wouldn't give up going, only I
think I would rather go alone.  I don't want any
one to behold my weakness."

"Oh, very well."  Van Tassel made a gesture
of indifferent assent, sat down, and returned to his
paper.  The little incident of the heliotrope had
done more to convince him of Clover's wisdom
than all her sage words.  Its perfume stole up to
him as he sat reading the same line over twelve
times.

Mildred moved away, outwardly calm, inwardly
vexed with Jack for his ready acquiescence.

She went into the house and met Clover.  "Going
to the Fair?" asked the latter.

"Yes, I think so."

"Wait half an hour or so, and go with us."

"I don't believe you will take my way, for I am
going in the Wheel."

"With Jack?"

"No, alone."

"Mr. Page wants to go again.  Let me ask him.
He is upstairs writing a letter."

"Don't speak to him for anything."

"But I don't want you to go to the Midway
alone, Milly.  Hilda and both Mr. Pages and I are
going to the Anthropological Building together.
Do put off the Wheel, and come with us."

"No, I thank you.  Our friend Gorham will be
in his element, getting your mental and physical
strength tested up there in the gallery.  I wouldn't
be in that revel for anything," and Mildred ran
upstairs.

Clover passed out upon the piazza.

"Is Mildred going to the Fair?" asked Van
Tassel, looking up quickly.

"Yes.  I do wish for once, Jack, you had asked
to go with her, for she is bound for the Ferris
Wheel."

"I did."

"And she refused?" exclaimed Clover in surprise
and exasperation.  "Was there ever such an
incomprehensible"—

"But she gave me this."  Van Tassel exhibited
his flower.

Clover looked interested.  "Well, then, we are
getting on," she said, much pleased.  "Go on
being an icicle, Jack.  It is the only way.  Don't
for the world urge her to let you accompany her,
even though I don't like her to go alone.  In the
first place she would only retreat as you advanced,
and in the second it would probably be salutary
for her to stick among the clouds of heaven for a
few hours, so I won't worry about the Wheel."

Jack took his hat, lying on the chair beside him.
"I think I will go on down," he said.  "There is
a bare possibility, you know, that I may meet
Mildred.  If she should be later than you expect in
coming home, you would better think of me as
being the trap than of the Wheel."

"You won't meet," sighed Clover.  "What a
foolish girl she is!"

To tell the truth, Mildred could not resist a
certain suspicion of her own foolishness, as she
emerged upon the piazza a few seconds later,
ready to start.  She was conscious of disappointment
that Jack was not in sight.  It was a warm
day, and starting off alone was not inspiriting.
It required all her pride to pursue her intention.

"You won't have a good time," prophesied
Clover, and that strengthened her waning
determination; so with a light response she set forth.

The Midway was a seething mass of humanity
when she reached it, and she had hardly entered
the street when she met her friend, Helen Eames.
The latter greeted her eagerly, and began to talk
about an entertainment Mildred had attended
recently with Jack at her house.

Helen was voluble, and Mildred resented the
tone in which she spoke of Jack, so she parted
with her friend as soon as civility permitted, and
passed on.

She began to feel that she was doing an absurd
thing, to be forlornly and doggedly pursuing her
way among the motley crowd, to the monotonous,
rhythmic beat of drum, and the sing-song of
strange voices.

Above their village the South Sea Islanders were
pounding out their measures from a hollow log,
and across the road the daintier Javanese rang
muffled music from gongs and tinkling bells.
Scenes and sounds had grown familiar to Mildred,
but to-day she found neither truth nor poetry in
them.  Indian, Turk, and Bedouin passed her by,
but she kept eyes ahead on the mammoth wheel,
circling with ponderous deliberation.  All she
wished was to keep her word, take the skyward
trip, and return home.

"All the girls are delighted with Mr. Van
Tassel," Helen Eames had said.

"Silly thing!  Does she suppose I will tell
him?" thought Mildred, too absorbed in her own
cogitations to note the "vera gooda, vera nice,
vera sheep," of the jewelry venders, the stentorian
exhortations to enter the dance houses and theatres,
or the incessant "hot! hot! hot!" of those
that offered the thin waffle-like Zelabiah.

Mildred did not like to find in her own heart
the wish that Van Tassel had been with her, that
Helen Eames might see him in his proper place
this morning.  She must indeed have fallen from
her high estate if she could wish to display an
admirer to another girl.  All men were her
admirers.  It had been a foregone conclusion so long
that she had never been obliged to harbor a
thought of jealousy or rivalry, and she instantly
challenged and condemned this novel weakness.

The Midway Plaisance was a strange place for
introspection, yet Mildred's thoughts were
sufficiently absorbing.  People were always apt to
turn and look a second time at her exceptionally
vigorous young beauty, but she passed on to-day,
totally unconscious of the glances bent upon her.

Might it be true that she had finally alienated
Jack by her persistently capricious treatment?
"All the girls admired him!"  He did not fancy
any of them, she was sure.  If he cared for any
woman, it was Clover; and then the girl coolly
and impartially compared her gentle, sympathetic,
tender sister with herself.  Mildred possessed a
clear head, and as she dwelt upon her own and
Clover's characteristics, a sermon seemed preached
to her amid that crowded babel, in a small voice
which the noisy tongues could not drown.

"How would it be possible for a man in his
senses to prefer me?" she thought, raising her
eyes to a delicate, bell-hung minaret that pierced
the cloudless sky.  This novel humility impressed
her with gravity.

But she had reached her destination.  She
moved up with the line to the ticket office that lay
directly in her path, and bought her bit of
pasteboard mechanically.  In a moment more the
movement of her fellow-passengers had brought
her to the base of the wheel.  Those who have
stood in that position know the effect of looking
straight up.  Mildred, already feeling small,
experienced a painful physical sense of being
overwhelmed.  The monster had paused for its cars to
be filled, and she shrank from the prospect before
her with unprecedented sensations.  If she allowed
herself to be shut up in that glass cab, it meant
that two flights of two hundred and fifty feet
skyward must be taken ere she could regain her liberty.

"I believe I am trying to be nervous," she said
to herself coldly.  "I did not know I was
speaking truth to Jack this morning."

Oh, if only she were not the vainest and most
obstinate of girls, this trip would be a pleasure
instead of a pain!

The faint, steady color in her cheeks faded, but
she walked into the car determinedly, and taking
one of its swinging chairs looked steadily through
the glass front.  The seats filled, the door was
closed, and the scarcely perceptible motion began.

The roof of the next car began to swing into
view.  The inexorableness of the journey began to
impress itself upon Mildred's mind.  She was
trying to turn away from the thought, when a
well-known voice set her beating heart to throbbing
faster.

"Why, this is fortunate," it said, with studied
carelessness.

She started and lifted her eager eyes.  There
was Jack Van Tassel looking down upon her,
triumphant, but as usual uncertain of his reception.

It has been said before that Mr. Van Tassel
was a good-looking young man; but the radiance
which seemed to Mildred now to invest every
feature of his face, and each dark hair of his head,
was certainly the figment of an excited imagination.

"Why, Jack," she gasped, and clasped her
hands tightly in her lap for fear they might tell
too much.

"You are pale," he said, and stooped with tender
concern.

"Why—the sun was pretty warm, didn't you
think?" she returned.

Jack did think so.  He had had considerable
time in which to test it, dodging from one side of
the Plaisance to the other in that crowd, where
every one knows that his best friend had a faculty
of dissolving from view even when he was supposed
to be safely at one's side.

"Our poor heliotrope!" he said, glancing down
at their decorations.

Mildred followed his gaze.  The sprays on her
jacket looked, she thought, much as she felt five
minutes ago.  "Let us throw them away," she
answered, starting to withdraw the pin.

"Never," said Jack promptly, and the girl
hesitated, then dropped her hand.

"Turn this way," he added.  "See the University
buildings,—a fine massive gray city that is
going to be!  Doesn't it seem strange to think
that college will ever be venerable and have
traditions?"

From this time their attention was fully
occupied with the panoramic view.  The crowd of
sightseers in the Plaisance became a congregation
of umbrellas and parasols, ever lessening in size,
and whitened in patches where a number of faces
were upturned at once to behold the gyration
of the wheel.  The strange colors and shapes in
architecture brought from many lands stood in
startling conjunction on either hand.  Beyond
stretched the Fair city with its winding waterways,
held safe in the great azure crescent of
Lake Michigan's embrace.

Mildred's eyes sparkled with interest and pleasure.
The color had returned to her face, and her
spirits to their natural level.  When their car
again neared earth she was glad, not sorry, that
another circuit was in prospect to help her to a
more satisfactory view of what had seemed but a
tantalizing glimpse.

"The deed is done," said Jack, as at last the
exit door of the car was opened, and the passengers
passed from under the gigantic steel web and
set foot on solid earth once more.  "What is next
on your programme?"

"I was going home," answered Mildred, rather
hesitatingly.

"World's Fair finished?" asked Jack with a smile.

"I have seen almost everything in the Plaisance
that I care for."

"But I haven't."

"What do you mean?  Are you hinting?"

The girl smiled too, and somehow her expression
was not so exasperating as at other times.

"Yes, I am hinting."

"Out with it, then.  Speak up like a little man."

"Sometimes when I have spoken up like a little
man you have made me feel like a little donkey."

"I don't see how you can like me at all, Jack,"
returned Mildred naïvely.  "I made up my mind
this morning that I was going to try to be more
like Clover."

"Capital scheme!" exclaimed Van Tassel, with
so much enthusiasm that Mildred felt disconcerted.

"I don't suppose the leopard can change his
spots, though," she returned, rather stiffly.

"Let us go to Hagenbeck's and see," suggested Jack.

"It is rather far from here if we are going to do
the shows with any system."

"Do you wish to, Mildred?  Don't let me bore you."

"It only bores me to have you want me to be
like somebody else."

Jack's lips drew together in an inaudible whistle,
and it needed all Clover's warnings to aid him
in holding the rein over himself.  They were
aimlessly walking east.

"But I honestly don't blame you," she added.
"I have done nothing to make it pleasant for you
here.  In your own home it didn't seem necessary
to treat you like a guest."

"You are right.  There was no necessity in the
matter; there isn't now.  Perhaps you really
wish to go home."

"Clover wouldn't go if she did wish it," Mildred
smiled at him with a sidelong glance, "and
so I will stay."

"Not with me," said Jack, lifting his hat and
looking very firm as he paused in the road.

"Then you take it back that you wish me to
be like little sister?" Mildred also paused, still
smiling at him with her chin lifted.

"I want you to be honest."

"I am honest.  I want to stay, you uncivil man."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE.

.. vspace:: 2

The magic carpet in the Arabian Nights which
transported its owner from one country to another,
remote, in the space of a few seconds, was the
property of all visitors to the Midway Plaisance.
Mildred and Jack spent a little time amid the
Swiss Alps, the former amusing herself by picking
out for Jack's benefit localities where she and
Clover had traveled.  Then they looked in at the
Bedouin Encampment and saw an old woman making
bread.  She whirled the dough on one hand
until it spread into a very thin sheet.  This she
flapped over a cushion and from thence transferred
it to the top of an inverted iron basin, where it
baked above burning sticks.  It looked when
cooked like a delicate cracker, as it was broken up
and passed around to the spectators.

A gigantic black, clothed entirely in red from
his high leather boots to the rope-like twists of cloth
about his head, lay stretched on a divan beside
another fire smoking a narghileh.

"The bread is coming this way," remarked
Mildred apprehensively.  "Let us go into that
door and see what is there."

Jack followed her.  "This room, Miss Bryant,
is taken from a Damascus palace," he said.  "I
am surprised that you didn't recognize it at once.
Observe these pieces of silver set into the walls,
and the lavish number of mirrors.  I believe a
periodical lecturer appears in here."

"How much nicer to have it to ourselves, and
guess about it.  I have been standing so long, I
can guess very closely what these gold-embroidered
velvet divans are for," and Mildred stepped up on
the dais at the end of the room and seated herself.

The ceiling was lofty, and in the centre of the
room a fountain played.  Beyond it was another
dais surrounded by divans.  The floors were
covered with rugs.  Outside, two Bedouins fenced
with curious swords, the handles wrapped with
twine, waving their small brass shields meanwhile
with ostentatious gestures as they deliberately
stepped about.  Increasing in concentration and
swift fury to the climax of the play, they paused
unexpectedly, and seating themselves on the ground,
fell to rolling cigarettes and making coffee over the
small fire beside which lay the immobile black.

Shrill and dull arose the rhythm of the flageolets
and the tambours.  The click of castanets
told that the dark-eyed women were dancing.

While Mildred and Jack still rested, an Arab in
loose robes came in, and going to the fountain
bathed his face and hands and dried them on a
purple silk towel striped with yellow.

"How nice of him," said Mildred, acknowledging
this touch added to the picture.

As they were passing out, one of the Bedouins,
the cloth from his twisted turban hanging about
his shoulders, paused near them with a baby in his
arms, a curly-headed tot of a year old, around whose
big brown eyes were drawn lines of artificial black.
Mildred looked gently upon the child, and the
father, smiling with pride and pleasure, glanced
from one to the other; so she patted the baby.

"She is very pretty," she said, and he understood.
His large gaze grew soft, and he nodded.
Mildred looked at the dancing women with more
interest.  One of them, her chin tattooed with blue,
was pointed out to her as the baby's mother.

A realization of the probable hardships and
homesickness endured by these people in all the changes
of scene and weather they had undergone assailed
her; but it did not do to dwell too long on that
side of life in the Plaisance.  She only turned her
sweetest smile once more on father and child,
patted the baby's cheek, and followed Jack out.

To him it mattered little where they went.
Each scene gained a glamour which, could the
managers of the various enterprises have purchased it
as a permanent adjunct to their attractions, would
have ensured their fortunes.  Passing from Arabia
to the electric-lighted palms of the Moorish Palace,
Van Tassel was prepared to admire everything.
The labyrinth of mirrors which might in some
moods have impressed him as a tiresome device,
now triumphantly vindicated their right to be, by
presenting him a hundred Mildreds so like the
original as to be an embarrassment of riches.  Even
the wax figures above stairs were interesting.  The
rise and fall of the Sleeping Beauty's gentle breast
was a marvel.

From the various tricks and optical illusions of
the Moorish Palace they betook themselves to
Hawaii, and stood together in darkness on the
borders of a lava lake from whose centre shot living
flames from the volcano's heart toward the lurid
sky.

A priest, a shadowy figure, came forth among the
gray rocks, and chanted a prayer to the dreadful
goddess of fire.  In the remote distance gleamed
the peaceful blue waters of the Pacific.  Jack
would have been willing to stand for hours here
by Mildred, in the weird dusky silence broken only
by the monotonous chant, for the longer one
lingered the more perfect grew the illusion; but she
took him away presently, and in a trice the island
of Hawaii had vanished and Egypt was gained via
the western entrance to Cairo Street.

They passed in before the Temple of Luxor, in
front of which a brazen-lunged American showman
was reeling off a highly-colored description of
the attractions within.

"Mummy of Rameses about the fifth on your
right!" repeated Jack, laughing.  "Let us postpone
Rameses until he can be located a little more
definitely."

"Yes, I want you to see the Soudanese pickaninny,"
said Mildred, and they went over to the
tent where the jolly little black baby hopped about
among her elders, shaking the girdle of feathers
and shells about her hips and dimpling with
delight in the applause and laughter she called forth.
More interesting than the Soudanese were the
Nubians, who came in from the dark huts adjoining,
and danced in the same tent.  One of these in
particular attracted Jack's eye.

"What a splendid woman, Mildred!" he exclaimed.
"What an artist's model she would make."

The object of his admiration was tall, straight
as an arrow, dressed in a long robe of white, and
wore large hoop earrings.  She had symmetrical
features of haughty mould, and was very dark,
with thick crinkled black locks free from the
feathers, shells and twine, braided among the
Soudanese tresses.  She was an impressive figure
standing immovable upon the stage among the
dancers.

"Like a splendid bronze!" said Jack, gazing at
the delicate proud face with all his eyes.  The
Nubian smiled, disclosing the most perfect teeth
imaginable, and Van Tassel regarded her with
growing admiration.

"I tell you, Mildred," he said enthusiastically,
"if that woman could have been brought up in a
different environment she would have been superb.
Fancy having her well-trained for a servant?
How would you like her to pass you your coffee
at breakfast?"

Mildred laughed.  "What a pity that I am not
a reporter," she said as they left the tent.  "You
could be worked into a taking newspaper article,
Jack.  A young scion of one of Chicago's well-known
families is maturing a plan to abduct the
chief of the tribe of Nubians in Cairo Street.  It
is feared there will be an uprising, and so forth,
and so forth."

"A feminine chief?  I don't blame them."

"No, sir.  Your superb bronze woman, your
artist's model, is Mohammed Ali, the chief of the
Nubians."

Jack looked incredulous.  "You expect me to
believe that?"

"Not if you wish to go back and inquire.  It is
true, though.  Mohammed is a friend of mine.  He
was good enough, when Clover and I looked into
his hut, to show us how he polishes those perfect
teeth of his with a little stick.  Did you ever see
anything so shining?  You can buy his photograph,
if you like, at one of these booths, and keep
it as a memento of Mr. Van Tassel's"—

"Look ou-at.  Look ou-at for Mary Anderson,"
called a donkey boy in a blue gown.

"You wouldn't run over me, would you, Toby?"
asked Mildred.

The boy trudging by through the crowd, showed
his ivories in a smile of recognition, and urged his
little white donkey onward in the narrow, crooked,
brick-paved street.

Such a throng, such a noise, only the memories
of the experienced can witness to.  Camels swung
along between the irregular houses, the warning
cries of their drivers mingling with the monotonous
sing-song of the venders in the closely packed
booths.

Egyptian flower girls, veiled to the eyes, plied
their trade.  A conjurer pushed his way amid the
gazers, a hen's egg sticking in his eye and another
clinging behind his jaw.  The rhythm of the
Midway sounded from two drums slung at either side
of a gaudily caparisoned camel, and was sung
monotonously from the booth of the much-vaunted
Oriental sweetmeat:—

   |  "Alla gooda bum-bum,
   |  Vera nice candy,
   |  Beautifula bum-bum,
   |  Vera good candy,"

repeated *ad libitum* by the swarthy Arab presiding.

Mildred and Jack glanced into the showcases
as they passed onward, the former restraining her
companion from purchasing specimens of brasswork,
filigree silver, ornaments, and embroidery.
But once Mildred exclaimed with pleasure over a
small hanging-lamp of dull silver.

"I will take it," said Jack to the instantly
voluble salesman.

"Not for me; no don't," protested his companion.

"You must have a souvenir," returned Van
Tassel, smiling over the word which had grown
hateful by iteration to all Fair-goers.

"Please don't get it," said the girl; but the very
tassel on their Oriental's fez was active in his zeal
to wrap up the parcel for this gentleman who did
not bargain.

The foreign fashion of changing a price by the
beating-down process was one with which many
Americans amused themselves when they found it
was expected; but Jack was in that state of mind
when an article which had the rare fortune to
please Mildred was above rubies.

She dissembled her satisfaction, however.  "If
I had let you buy everything you have started to
since we came into the street, we should have had
to charter a donkey," she began.

"Look ou-at—look ou-at for Yanka Doodoo,"
bawled Achmet, the donkey boy, directly upon
them.

"I don't like to feel that I mustn't admire
anything," finished the girl as Jack stepped between
her and the little quadruped who carried a
much-excited and curled maiden of five.

"I like this lamp so much, I don't know that
I shall let you have it," responded Van Tassel
serenely, as he took the package.  "Look up,
Mildred.  What a deep blue the sky gets between
those irregular roofs."

"Only one of us can look up at a time, while
the other keeps watch of the menagerie."

"There appears to be an extra crowd yonder,"
remarked Jack.

"Oh, that is the camel-stand.  Hear the people
laughing.  How can anybody be willing to furnish
so much amusement to the public as to mount one
of those beasts?  There is always just such a
crowd there."

"Well, are we through here?" asked Van Tassel.

"What?  Are you weary of Cairo Street?"

"Not if you are not; but it is rather warm, and
there is a good deal of a mob, and I have inhaled
enough attar of roses to last until my next
incarnation.  I thought perhaps you might be tired,
standing."

"I am."

"There isn't a place to sit down, either," said
Jack, looking around.

"That is just what almost every one thinks.
I don't know how soon people will find out my
enchanted palace, but they hadn't done so last week."

"Well, now, an enchanted palace is exactly
what I am looking for," returned Van Tassel
hopefully.  "How did you learn the open sesame?"

"The open sesame is"—Mildred paused apologetically.
"I am sorry to have to say it, but it is
the only prosaic feature,—the open sesame is
fifteen cents."

They moved along toward the crowd by the
camel stand, and here in the noisiest, busiest portion
of the winding street, Mildred led her companion
into an open door which revealed a long, blank
corridor.  The dragon guarding it was a most
commonplace American.  Most people whose curiosity
led them to look into the uninviting hallway
were quickly frightened off by the placard stating
the fifteen-cent admission fee.  There was so much
to see, and time and money were so limited, little
wonder that the obvious attractions of the street
decided them not to explore this side-show.

Mildred and Jack, leaving the din and bustle
behind, pass the easily placated dragon, and at
the end of the low, empty corridor found themselves
in and open, floored court, out of which led a
flight of stairs.  A large earthen jar filled with
water stood at one side over a smaller vessel into
which the water filtered in crystal drops through
the porous clay.  Palms and lilies stood about,
and edged the entire length of the staircase.  It
was very quiet here, and Van Tassel looked about
him curiously.

Mildred gave him a smiling glance of mystery,
"Let us go up and see Sayed Ibrahim," she said.

"Look here," returned Jack, frowning and
smiling, "you are altogether too sophisticated."

"Sayed doesn't think so," answered the girl,
and they proceeded upstairs.  Entering a
hallway where was a heavy bronze door of fabulous
age and richness of design, they were met by a tall
handsome Oriental in robes and fez, whose melting
eyes lighted as they recognized Mildred.  He
bowed low.

"How do you do, Sayed Ibrahim; I have
brought another friend to see the beautiful house."

He bowed again and held aside a portière of
cloth-of-gold.  The visitors passed within and found
themselves in a spacious shadowy room with lofty
arched ceiling.  The windows were unglazed and
shielded by curious hand-carved lattice work.
Thick rugs were upon the floor, and small tables
inlaid with pearl and ivory stood about.  On a
larger one were a number of tiny and precious
coffee cups, held in little brass stands.
Long-stemmed pipes hung upon the walls, and divans or
cushions upon the floor invited to repose.  Rich
portières divided the suite of rooms one from another.

The light was dim, coming out of the glaring
street, and the colors in rugs and hangings were
tempered in the wonderful Oriental weaving.
There were no other visitors.  Jack looked at the
swarthy cicerone who stood ready to answer their
questions.

"I do not wonder," he said to Mildred, "that
you call this mysterious spot enchanted.  It is a
chapter out of the Arabian Nights."

"Yes; are you ready to come back to the nineteenth
century?  The nineteenth century in Egypt,
you know.  I wouldn't make your fall too sudden
and profound."

Mildred moved to the broad window-seat which
was covered with a rug, and smiled at the Arab.
It was a language he understood as clearly as the
Harvard graduate, and he hastened forward and
threw open the lattice.

Van Tassel seated himself opposite Mildred,
and together they looked down upon the madding
crowd.

Their position was just opposite the camel stand,
and from their height they commanded a view of
the kaleidoscopic life of the street.  The bystanders
pressed about the cushions upon which the camels
knelt to take on or be relieved of their burdens,
and seemed to find never-failing entertainment in
the behavior of those intrepid passengers who
embarked for the adventurous journey to the end
of the street and back again.

Mildred and Jack in their romantic eyrie held
their sides with laughter over the absurdities
enacted before their eyes.

"If any trip ever deserved the name of pleasure
exertion, that is the one," said Mildred, wiping her
eyes, while she watched two girls who evidently
took their lives in their hands as they seated
themselves on the cushioned back of one of the patient
beasts.  The Arab driver cried out, and tapped the
creature on the neck.

"Now then," said Jack, "see the ship of the
desert let out the reefs in its legs!"

Shrieks arose from the maidens at the first
ascent, wilder and wilder cries and clutchings at the
second and third, and by the time the animal had
reached the stature of a camel and swung away, the
whole crowd was uproarious, only quieting to
observe the next pair embark.

"Miss Amelia Edwards says the camel is a
beast that hates its rider," said Jack.  "I wonder
what are the private prejudices of the Cairo Street
variety."

"As if you couldn't see!" answered Mildred.
"It wouldn't be half so funny if the camels didn't
curl their lips and look so supercilious all the time
those idiots are shrieking so.  'What fools these
mortals be!' is the sentiment their faces express
chronically.  Poor things!  Just think, that they
are only intended to kneel once or twice a day, and
here they have to go down every three minutes.
How they would execrate Columbus if they only
knew how!  Oh, look at that old lady!  It is a
shame to let her go," added Mildred.  "They will
laugh at her, too."

"Never mind.  She will be the heroine of Perkins
Point, or wherever it is, all the rest of her
life."

"She looks scared, Jack.  Oh, dear! her bonnet
is falling off.  I wish she wouldn't.  Why, there
are Clover and Mr. Page!  Do you see them?  Let
us go out on the balcony."  Mildred left the
window-seat, and Jack followed.

"Is there a balcony?  Why didn't you say so?"

"Because I am economical of my pleasant
surprises."  The watchful Sayed threw open double
doors of the lattice work, and revealed a small,
square balcony upon which the visitors stepped into
the sunlight.  The fanciful minarets and spires of
the street gleamed against an azure sky.

Clover and Gorham had paused just below, also
interested in the venturesome old lady, who was
followed by cheers as her scornful camel bore her
up the street.

Jack took advantage of the temporary lull that
followed, to whistle the bit from "Carmen."

Clover instantly looked up and called the
attention of her companion.

Mildred beckoned.

"Clover knows the way," said Jack.

"Most certainly she does.  We Chicagoans
aren't Fair visitors.  We are Fair livers."

"Don't be so toplofty, mademoiselle.  What am
I, if not a Chicagoan?"

"Oh, a sort of deserter."

"'I deny the allegation and despise the
allegator.'  I am going to marry a Chicago girl, and
live here all my days."

"Have you asked her?"

Van Tassel, perhaps reminded by the neighborhood
of his mentor, forbore from replying to the
saucy smiling eyes, and here Clover and Gorham
appeared at the door of the balcony.

"Come out," said Mildred, "it holds five.  Is
this the way you visit the Anthropological Building?"

"Why, this is all right," answered Page.
"'Midway Plaisance, Department M. Ethnology.'  Look
on the catalogue, and you will see this is all
a part of the Anthropological exhibit."

"And apart from it," suggested Mildred,
"which certainly is in its favor.  I thought you
would see enough ghastly pictures and graveyards
and mummies in a short time."

"The exhibits in the gallery are wonderful and
beautiful," said Clover.  "I don't believe you
know what you are talking about."

"I do, my dear.  I have oh'd and ah'd over
them all, from the dainty infinitesimal sea
creatures on pink cotton to the mammoth.  I felt so
much obliged to him.  He really made me feel
small.  Then the realistic cliff, with the birds and
beasts artistically disposed, and the waterfall and
flowing brook.  I've seen them.  How long have
you been here?"

"Not very long.  We have been watching the
antics of the women on the camels, and the
long-legged men on those tiny donkeys."

"A great deal of human nature comes out in
Cairo Street," said Page with interest.  "One
sees a great variety of motives, and many grades
of self-control by that camel stand.  See that little
woman going now to take a trip.  Is it amusement
she's after?  Not at all.  Note the determination
in her face.  Duty calls and she obeys.
Dollars to doughnuts she doesn't scream, Jack."

"I'm out of doughnuts; but I'll bet you the
supper she does.  I haven't seen a quiet one yet."

"Done!  You will see one now."

"That girl is from the East," said Mildred.

"I am sure of it," returned Page, gazing with
pleased curiosity at his protégée, who stood waiting
her turn; "but what brings you to that conclusion?"

"The trimming of her hat looks as if it were
nailed on.  They say all Boston women's bonnet
trimmings are nailed on."

"She is a character," said Page.  "Now I
would like to know what her motive is in riding
that camel."

Jack guffawed.  "I am sure you would.  You
will be asking her the next thing we know."

"Well, it is no idle one, I'm sure of that."

"Perhaps she is a school teacher," suggested
Van Tassel, "and wants to go home and tell her
scholars how pitch-and-toss in Cairo Street
differs from the usual game."

"There she goes," said Clover, and they all
watched the fair-faced girl approach and mount a
camel whose expression for utter boredom rather
outdid its neighbors.  At the driver's cry it
gathered itself convulsively.  The rider lurched
forward.  Her back was to the watchers on the
balcony, but they could not hear a sound from
her.  She lurched backward, still without a cry,
and they were not surprised when the camel
swung around to see her face still set in its
determined and composed lines while the crowd
looked on in silence.

"I shall enjoy that supper very much, Jack,"
said Gorham.

"You haven't won it yet.  Wait till she comes
back.  When his Nibs kneels down is the time a
girl's lungs really come into play.  After she
thinks every joint in his body has doubled up there
comes one unexpected plunge that fetches the most
dignified of them every time.  They say a sailor
came in here the other day and after riding one of
our humped friends said that the camel played
cup-and-ball with him the whole length of the street,
and only missed him twice."

In a few minutes, back came Gorham's heroine,
still composed as she rocked back and forth clinging
to the rope which the driver had handed her
for a support.

"Now that supper hangs in the balance," remarked Page.

"I'm safe enough," returned Jack nonchalantly,
"and I assure you my appetite is in prime condition."

The camel, slowly winking and holding his nose
aloft, approached his cushion, and began the series
of spasmodic collapses which made its rider look
as though at the mercy of a rocking-chair gone
mad.  She pitched wildly, but valiantly held her
peace.  Even Jack had to admit that she did not
make a murmur, and all his protests against playing
off a dumb girl on him were unheeded as Page
gazed benignly down on the young woman, who
smiled sweetly and triumphantly as she rejoined
her friends.

"Five minutes of four," said Mildred.  "The
wedding procession will soon pass.  Aren't we
fortunate to have the balcony?  Do you see, other
people are daring to visit the house and taking our
window-seat?"

"Your window-seat!  That is pretty good," said
Clover, turning toward the speaker with an arch
smile.  "We thought that was our window-seat,
didn't we, Jack?"

She saw the color flash over her sister's face in
the instant before the girl controlled herself.  She
wondered if Jack had seen the novel evidence of
feeling before Mildred turned to him coolly.

"So you have been here before," she remarked.
"Why didn't you mention it?"

"Clover and I looked in a short time only, the
evening we took supper in Germany," answered
Van Tassel.  "I did not examine the curious place
at all then, so this is really my first view of it."

Clover turned away to conceal her amusement.
Jack in his embarrassment had implied all she could
have asked from the disciplinary standpoint.

But now the attention of the quartette was
claimed by the wedding procession, which was seen
coming down the street, the camels nearly hidden
under their gaudy, bulky trappings, and the din of
the tom-toms filling the air.  When the music,
dancing, and sword play were ended, Mildred spoke
to her sister.

"What have you done with Mr. and Mrs. Page?"

"They went to the Chinese theatre, and we
have promised to meet them in Old Vienna and
take supper there."

"Our dear Jack will have to take supper with
us now," declared Gorham cordially.

"I suppose," said Van Tassel, addressing
Mildred, "that Old Vienna is an oft-repeated
experience to you?"

"At least I shall not pretend that it is a novelty,"
she answered without looking at him, and Jack
was silent.  He even colored, but it was not with
proper contrition.  It was a flush of pleasure that
overspread his countenance as his brown eyes sent
a quick glance into Clover's.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OLD VIENNA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   OLD VIENNA.

.. vspace:: 2

"How remarkable that you met Mildred," said
Clover to Jack, after the four had wended their
way out of Cairo and turned west.

"It was a lucky chance," replied Van Tassel.

"Where did you meet?"  The fun in his face
gave Clover her first suspicion.

"In the Ferris Wheel.  Wasn't it a coincidence
that we should have chosen the same cab?  And
I'll tell you in confidence, Clover, that I think
Mildred was considerably impressed with his Wheelship."

"Why should you make a confidence of that?"
asked Mildred nonchalantly.  "We are all
impressed, aren't we?"

"Not to the verge of pallor, Milly."

"Don't call me Milly.  No one does that but
Clover."

"Were you really frightened, Mildred?" asked
her sister with much interest.

"Why do you ask me?  Ask Jack.  He evidently
knows all about it."

"No, I insist on referring you to Mildred herself.
She scorns petty deceits of all kinds.  I cannot
be relied on to tell the absolute truth."

Mildred looked at the speaker with a dangerous
sparkle in her eyes.  "Why don't you give Clover
her present?" she asked suddenly.

"A present for me?  Why, hurry," exclaimed
Clover.  "What new extravagance have you been
committing, Milly?"

"It isn't I this time, it is Jack.  He has bought
you the most adorable little silver hanging-lamp
you ever saw.  Open it, Jack; or shall we wait till
we are seated in Old Vienna?"

"You told him I wanted it, you naughty girl."

"No, I didn't."  Mildred was bubbling over with
mischievous satisfaction in Van Tassel's struggles
to look bland.  "It was purely spontaneous on his
part.  I even went so far as to urge him not to get
it.  Didn't I, Jack?"

Van Tassel's reply was scarcely audible; but
they had reached the guard, who with puffed sleeves
and feathered hat stood motionless, spear in hand,
before the entrance to the Vienna of two hundred
years ago.

Inside they found the Pages, standing before
one of the many open shops which formed the first
floors of the weather-stained, peaked, and turreted
houses.

"Hilda is buying a spoon," announced Mr. Page
as his friends approached; "but that goes without
saying.  I have kept careful count, and this is the
seventy-seventh she has purchased while with me.
Of course there may be others.  I can't tell what
pleasant surprises may be awaiting me when we get
home."

"How was the Chinese theatre?" asked Gorham,
while Clover and Mildred gravitated naturally
to Mrs. Page's side to lend her their aid in deciding
between the merits of two spoons she was examining.

"Immense; you must go."

"You mustn't go unless you want to be driven
crazy with noise," put in Hilda.  "Robert says I am
deficient in the sense of humor, but you positively
can't think in that place.  There was a Chinese-American
in the audience acting as an interpreter,
and I suppose he saw that Robert was interested;
so he just stayed with us, and put the crowning
touch to the confusion by explaining the play at a
pitch to be heard above the squealing music and
the shrieking actors."

"Women's parts all taken by men, of course,"
explained her husband, "and they jabber in a high
monotonous falsetto without any change of countenance
except an occasional attack of pathetic strabismus.
Two lovers meet after a separation of ten
years.  They start, then with two simultaneous
squeaks fall backward in a swoon, feet to feet, and
lie there with their elaborately dressed heads
sticking up in the air, while a supe runs in with wooden
supports which he tucks under their necks.  The
interpreter explained: 'Of course they cannot spoil
their hair!'  Ha! ha!  It was great; and as for
the costumes and hangings, they would stand alone
for the gold and silver embroidery in them.
Confess, Hilda, they were consoling."

"Yes, they were; and so was the baby we saw
upstairs in the Joss-house.  He was ten months old,
with a black tuft of hair on top of his head exactly
like the Chinese dolls, and was dressed in green silk
trousers and a red silk shirt."

"You must have wanted to steal him," said Mildred.

"That is what his mother thought, I am sure.
He lay asleep in a little wagon, and when she heard
me exclaim, she flew out from behind a curtain with
a very suspicious expression on her pretty face.
Yes, she was really pretty, and dimpled, and young;
and her hands were loaded with rings.  Robert, just
look here one minute.  Don't you think the filigree
handle is the prettier?"

"My dear, I ate too many bananas once, and
have never since been able to endure the sight of
them.  If you knew the sentiments with which a
souvenir spoon inspires me, you would tremble."

"I will take the filigree one," said Mrs. Page,
with a sigh of relief.

The six ate supper together at a table
pleasantly distant from the fine German orchestra.
Feathery bits of white cloud scudded over the
blue above them.  Picturesque gables and weather-beaten
façades illuminated with the decorations
of a bygone time closed them in from the outside
world with such an atmosphere of antiquity, that
even the dignified beauty of Handel's Largo, as
its stately measures pealed forth on the evening
air, seemed an anachronism.

Mildred sat at Jack's right hand.

"What shall I put down for you?" he asked,
looking up from the order he was writing.  "I
found nothing on the card injurious enough to be
appropriate."

Mildred smiled slightly as she glanced over the
menu.

"You deserved a worse punishment than that,"
she answered.

"It is true it was no great punishment.  I
should like to give Clover all Cairo Street if she
wants it."

Clover was sitting opposite between the other
men, and the music effectually concealed from her
the above colloquy.

"Hurry up, Jack," she said, leaning forward;
"they keep you waiting forever here.  Give her
bread and milk if she can't decide.  It is good for
the young."

While the party were waiting for their meal to
be brought, Jack, now at ease in the situation,
produced the silver lamp, which received much praise
as it was passed about.

Gorham, Mildred's other neighbor, turned to her.
"Your sister suggests that you must have practiced
much self-control," he remarked.  "She says this is
just the sort of lamp you have been searching for."

"Do you hear that, Jack?" asked Mildred demurely.
"I am afraid Jack does not appreciate
me, Mr. Page."

Mildred, ever since the evening of her
confidential talk with Gorham, had carried the half-nettled,
wholly amused consciousness that he was regarding
her with considerations of her search for that
affinity she had described.  She felt sure he would
not repeat their talk to Jack; but if he should!
The thought brought a stinging red to her cheeks.

Page was not thinking of her now, however.
This little circumstance of the gift of the lamp
impressed him.  That Jack should, while with
Mildred, buy this bauble which the latter coveted and
give it to Clover, looked as though Hilda's convictions
might be correct.  As he caught a serene
glance from Clover's violet eyes it suddenly seemed
to him very improbable that an impressionable
fellow like his cousin should not dream by day and
night of that pure and beautiful face.

Jack was not worthy of her, he could not
precisely state to himself why; and he ran over his
acquaintances in his mind to see if he could find
one the consideration of whom would rouse less
antagonism.  He had not succeeded when the
waiter appeared with the supper.

"What are you indefatigable people going to
do next?" asked Robert Page, lighting a cigar
when their meal was finished.  "I am extremely
comfortable and good-natured now, but I warn you
I shall turn dangerous if any one suggests the
illumination.  To be asked just to step over from
Old Vienna to the Court of Honor sounds pleasant.
It was played on me once when I was a tenderfoot;
but I'm not to be roped into any such pilgrimage
to-night.  If I wasn't a married man, I should sit
right here and listen to the music, and see the
Wheel go round, until it was time to go to my little
bed."

"What nonsense!" remarked Hilda.  "If you
weren't married you would be urging me to go
with you in a gondola."

"My dear, where would be the use?  You know
the gondolas are all bespoken by this time.  What
a sweet consciousness it is, by the way," added
Page, sighing restfully.

"We are going, though, some night," returned
his wife.  "Before we leave the White City, you
must take me in a gondola and hold my hand."

"See the lengths to which this woman's frenzy
for spoons carries her!  Why, I'll hold your hand
now, my dear.  Any suggestion which presupposes
so little exertion as that will find me in an
affirmative state of mind every time."

Hilda glanced at his offered hand scornfully.
"We haven't the stage-setting," she replied.  "Be
careful, Robert Page, or you will frighten Mildred
out of getting married at all."

"Is that true, Miss Mildred?  Oh, I don't believe
it.  You are so level-headed you must see the
situation in the right light.  Did you ever hear the
simile of the horse-car?  When a man is trying to
catch a horse-car and afraid it is going to escape
him, he waves his arms, shouts, hurries, and disturbs
himself generally.  After he has caught the
conveyance, if he continued to behave in the same
perturbed fashion he would be set down as a
lunatic.  You see the point, of course?"

Mildred pursed her lips and shook her head.
"You are a very audacious man," she answered.

"Now Jack isn't smoking," continued Page
argumentatively.  "That indicates the restlessness
of the man who is afraid he will arrive too late at
the street corner."

"It indicates that I am not going to stay here,"
returned Van Tassel.

"Whither away, restless one?"

"You will have to ask Miss Bryant.  She is
showing me the World's Fair to-day."

"Not after your perfidious behavior," said
Mildred.  "I was too sophisticated, was I?  Oh,
for shame!"

"Do you speak to me of perfidy!" exclaimed Jack.

"Well, sha'n't we all go somewhere together?"
suggested Gorham.

"No, I think we sha'n't, dear brother," replied
Robert mildly.

"Do you want to stay, Hilda?" asked Gorham.
"Aren't you growing tired of hearing Zwei Bier?
Come with us."

"No, thanks.  I will stay here until it bores
me, and then I will give Robert his choice of
selecting another souvenir spoon or taking me out."

So the other four left their seats and moved
away to the martial strains of Die Wacht am
Rhein.

Clover found herself beside Jack a moment.

"It was a shame about the lamp," she murmured.

"What?" returned Van Tassel, looking
uncomfortably into her roguish eyes.

"I saw how it was.  Too bad; but that is
another thing she will repent at leisure."

"How did you know?"

"By Mildred's impish dimple.  She has one
just above her lip that never shows except when
she is in mischief.  At first I was taken in; but
after a moment I saw the imp, and then I knew."

"What a wonderful sight the Wheel is with its
double row of electric lights," said Mildred to
Gorham.

"What—yes; it has been rather warm," he
replied; this irrelevance being due to the effect
upon him of observing Clover's murmured
colloquy with Jack.

Mildred stared.  When she made a remark to
a man, she was accustomed to find him attentive.

Page continued with another inexcusable speech.

"I wonder if perhaps Mrs. Van Tassel would
like to go somewhere with Jack."

"I believe Jack considers himself otherwise
engaged this evening," returned Miss Bryant with
hauteur.

"Oh—oh yes."  Gorham's eyes fell upon the
speaker with an expression which suggested that
he had just become aware of her, and until this
moment had been talking to himself.

A light broke upon Mildred.  There was but
one possible explanation of such ignoring of her
own preëminent right to homage.

"They are both in love with her!" she thought,
and the slight pang that came with the idea
surprised her.

Clover and Jack, with the laughter on their lips,
stepped forward and joined the others.

"Have you any wish, Mrs. Van Tassel?" asked Page.

"No, let us drift until something tempts us."  They
soon lost sight of Mildred and Jack in that
stream of humanity which flowed in both directions
along the Midway between the soft arc-moons.
They left behind them the great Wheel, slowly
revolving in sparkling light as though, sweeping
through the heavens, myriad stars had caught
thickly along its edges and were borne on to earth.

"Let me carry that precious lamp," said Page,
taking Clover's parcel.

"I would not let Jack keep it, for fear he might
give it to Mildred," she explained.

Her companion looked surprised.

"Jack is a little weak and indulgent where
Mildred is concerned," said Clover.

Page did not know what to reply.  Hilda had
assured him in days past that no one could help
seeing that Mrs. Van Tassel was unwilling Jack
should ask Mildred to go to the Fair with him,
and now this frank avowal of jealousy perplexed
him greatly.

"But what—what mystifies me, Mrs. Van
Tassel," he said hesitatingly, "is that you should
care for a gift—but there are limits to a man's
right to express his thoughts."

Clover laughed out mirthfully.  "Analyze me.
I am perfectly willing, only it will necessitate
exposing the fact that my sister is a very saucy
girl."

Page regarded her so earnestly that he nearly
stumbled over a wheeled chair that grazed him.

"I don't understand it at all," he said seriously.

"Of course not.  Well, I will tell you.  Jack
bought this lamp for Mildred; and she, to punish
him for some offense, forced him to give it to me
in the way you heard.  She doesn't know that I
saw through it; but now I do not propose that
she shall have the fun and the lamp too."

Page found the Midway grow a trifle cheerier
under this disclosure.  "Of course not," he
answered; then, after a moment's thoughtfulness:
"That was a strange prank for your sister to
play," he added.  "I fear I shouldn't have known
how to yield as easily to the joke as Jack did."

"Oh, he stuttered a good deal, poor fellow,"
laughed Clover.  "Mildred is a spoiled child."

"Not so superficial, though, as one would at first
believe," returned Gorham.  "There is plenty of
depth to her nature.  Society educates a girl to
seem shallow, that is all."

Clover looked surprised and pleased.  She
glanced at Page with quick, responsive feeling.

"It is very nice of you to see through Mildred,"
she said, and Page felt a strange glow under her
approval.

"The folly of Hilda," he thought, "in supposing
this woman could be jealous of another!"

There was something too in the quiet joyousness
of her sphere which assured him that whatever
were her sentiments for Jack, she was not longing
for his society now.  She was content, he felt it,
and the knowledge was bliss to him.

"I wonder how soon we are going to be attracted,"
remarked Clover, after they had walked
a minute in silence.

Page turned to her suddenly.  "What do you
mean by that?" he asked so eagerly that the
surprised color rushed to his companion's face.

"Why, we were waiting, weren't we, for one of
these side shows to tempt us beyond the point of
resistance," she answered, with the glibness with
which a woman can skim over a moment which
threatens too much.

"Well, to tell the truth I had forgotten what
we were doing beyond sauntering together in this
very interesting, motley crowd.  Isn't it strange
how completely alone we are in such a place?"

"Or might be, if it were not for the wheeled
chairs," said Clover.  "It isn't safe to become
introspective here."

"Was I?" anxiously.  "Have I been silent,
Mrs. Van Tassel?  My thoughts often play me
tricks.  Hilda is always saying that I am 'queer.'  I
don't know just what she means, but if you would
be kind enough to mention it if I do anything you
don't like, I should be—it would be a great favor."

"You are very flattering," returned Clover, turning
away to smile.  "What a temptation you offer me!"

"Then I do offend you?" he exclaimed with
frank consternation.

"No, no, I didn't mean that.  I was only thinking
what a temptation you hold out to a woman to
mould a fellow-creature into the form she likes.
But I know what an ignis fatuus that alluring idea
is.  Men do not alter themselves to please women."

"I should say," returned Page ruminatively,
"that you are wrong.  I know that Hilda has
changed Robert in many ways, materially."

"By the force of years of influence, yes; but
your brother did not know what was going on.  I
am certain of that."

"I should suppose," said Page earnestly, "that
a man could not rest in the knowledge that he was
doing something offensive to the woman he loves."

"Yes, you would suppose so," agreed Clover.
"My knowledge of the truth is gathered from
observation, not experience, as you know.  I
reverenced Mr. Van Tassel too completely to think of
desiring to change him.  In my married life it was
myself I wished to alter; but I have seen a good
deal of young married people, and—well, tell me,
Mr. Page, did you ever hear Hilda say that she
would be glad if her husband did not smoke?"

"Yes," replied Gorham, and said no more.

"Now I begin to feel a strong temptation,
Mr. Page.  How is it with you?  Are you prepared to
resist the Javanese village?"

"I have not been in there."

"Oh, you mustn't miss that.  I wonder you
have been able to pass that charming, fantastic,
bamboo entrance.  The lightness and simplicity of
this life makes it to me the most charming in the
Plaisance."

They entered the gateway and came suddenly
upon the quiet attractions of the dainty straw
village.  Yes, it was still, here; still enough to hear
the muffled music of the water-wheel.  Clover and
Page stood a moment in the hush, listening to its
tinkle, and the plashing of the wavelets.  A small,
soft-footed Javanese occasionally passed them.

"I wish that I smoked," broke out Gorham suddenly.

"Here will be an opportunity," returned Clover.
"You will be offered cigarettes at every turn in
Java."

Page's seriousness was unmoved.  "I want you
to believe that I would give it up if you asked me."

Mrs. Van Tassel's serene heart quickened its
pace, but she laughed.  "Isn't it a pity that I
shall have to remain incredulous?" then she
hastened on, vaguely afraid of her companion.  "Don't
misunderstand me, please.  I was not criticising
your brother a minute ago.  Do you know you
have formed a shocking habit of frankness in me?
You have searched out my thoughts and opinions
so many times that now you have only to suggest
a subject and I pour out my ideas.  I think I
ought to have kept my observations to myself on
this topic; but since I have said so much, I don't
wish to leave you with the notion that I think your
brother and men like him monsters of selfishness.
A woman makes an absurd mistake to marry a
smoking man, and then to be grieved because he
refuses when she artlessly requests him to give up
the habit; but a girl nearly always thinks that all
she need do is to marry a man in order to make
him over into anything she likes.  I tell you,
Mr. Page, it is the result of my observations that all the
voluntary changes a man makes at the request of
his beloved are made before—before he catches
the horse-car."

Gorham smiled.  "But I don't think Robert
ought to smoke, since Hilda"—

"Pardon me.  I am going to defend the absent.
Did he smoke while they were engaged?"

"Yes."

"Very well.  Now, do you wish to hear some
words of wisdom?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Here they are.  If Hilda disliked tobacco, she
should have said so, then; and she probably did.
When she found Mr. Page would not give up the
habit, she should have weighed the question in her
mind as to whether the matter of smoking were
going to affect her happiness seriously.  If she
thought it would, she should have broken her
engagement.  The great point is, that if she decided
to marry him she should have realized that she
took him as he was, tobacco and all, and would be
likely to have rather more than less of it for the
rest of her life."

"A man is a selfish brute," remarked Gorham.

"Sometimes; but he has the same right a woman
has to choose between his habit and his love;
that is, if the woman speaks in time."

"Hilda does not particularly dislike cigar
smoke," said Page, "but she thinks smoking is
bad for Robert.  I wonder if all men are as
thick-skinned as you say.  Now, there is Jack.  Do you
believe he would not fling all his cigars into the
lake for—for you?"

"Yes, indeed; so long as there were plenty
more to be had."

"No, Mrs. Van Tassel, be serious; and for the
moment pardon personalities.  If Jack were
engaged to you"—

He waited, gazing at Clover.  She smiled at him
and said, "Well, if Jack were engaged to me?"

Page swallowed some impediment to speech.

"And you should earnestly ask him not to
smoke, can you doubt the result?"

Clover shrugged her shoulders.  "No, I am
afraid I can't.  Jack is a gentleman, and such an
impulsive, affectionate fellow, I know pretty well
what he would do, supposing of course that he were
very earnestly and deeply in love with me."

"Which he is, of course."  The dismal exclamation
broke from Page unawares.

Clover stared at him.  "Oh no, he isn't," she
said gently, after a minute.

"What!"

"No, indeed.  Jack and I always were good
comrades, and always will be, I hope."

Page suddenly took both her hands excitedly,
and laughed aloud.

"Pardon me," he said, sobering suddenly.  "I
was forgetting where we were."  He drew her hand
within his arm and they started to walk.  "Pretty
little light things these bamboo houses are," he
continued.  "What a gentle life they suggest.  I
don't know exactly why I am so glad to hear what
you tell me, Mrs. Van Tassel.  I was under a
mistaken idea that you and Jack were—and it is
no reflection upon Jack that I am relieved.  He
is a fine fellow.  There is no man I like better;
so it is—it is really difficult for me to explain
why—why"—

"Never mind trying, Mr. Page," returned
Clover, smiling softly at a cage of doves outside
a cottage door.  "It isn't necessary," she added
demurely, "to label every feeling one has."

"It is a sort of habit of mine," he returned
apologetically.  "What is this long straw building?"

"The theatre."

"Will you come in?"

"Yes; I have not visited it, but I hear it is
interesting."

So they entered the well-filled hall just as the
performance was beginning, and were fortunate
enough to find seats near the stage.  At both sides
of the latter were placed rows of puppets with
grotesque faces, featured like the masks worn by
most of the actors.  At the back of the stage
were ranged the musicians, sitting cross-legged in
rows before their highly ornamented instruments.
These were soft-toned gongs, bells, and strings of
strange fashion, and instead of being solely
noticeable for rhythm, like most of the music of the
Midway, one heard from this orchestra plaintive
harmonies and cadences which seemed but an
amplification of the minor pleading in the
water-wheel's play.

The curtained entrances at the side back of the
stage looked too small and low to admit the actors,
but there was room and to spare even for the men,
and still more for the dainty brown dancing-girls
who soon glided forth.  They were exceedingly
pretty and graceful, dressed in gold-embroidered
velvet trousers to the knee, and short skirts.
Their dimpled shoulders and arms were bare, and
their fringed sashes were used to fling over their
wrists in the fascinating monotonous gestures with
which they pointed their little hands as they
stepped about in their white-stockinged feet.

The performance was all in pantomime, the lines
being read by some one hidden behind a screen
in the centre of the stage.  The orchestra men
in their calico gowns and turbans often smiled at
some sally of the clown; but Clover and Page did
not need to comprehend in order to be amused.
There was something tenderly comical in the
pompous movements of the little people gesturing in
stiff, studied fashion.  From time to time the
dancing-girls would appear, gliding hither and
yon, and posing to the tinkling music.

"This is surprisingly pretty," said Page.

"I want one of those brown girls to take home
as bricabrac," returned Clover.  "Aren't they
the roundest, prettiest little creatures!  Really, the
whole thing seems strange enough to be a sight in
fairy-land; and do you hear that enchanting rustle
of trees above our heads?"

The light summer breeze was stirring the dried
straw and grass that thatched the roof, with the
lulling effect of wind in a forest.

"I am enchanted, I admit," answered Gorham.

After the play they walked about the village,
among the houses where the little inhabitants sat
upon their piazzas and sang, or talked, or rested
silently.

"I shall never see such a reposeful place again,"
said Gorham, when at last they passed out beneath
the bamboo arch into the turbulent street.  "I
should like to prolong that experience indefinitely."

"You can repeat it," suggested Clover.

"I should like to believe that; but one seldom
has so much enjoyment in the same space of time
as I have had this evening.  I feel grateful to you
for showing me all that."

They passed down the remainder of the Midway
and under the last viaduct.  Walking north
around the end of the Woman's Building, they
stood a moment arm-in-arm by the lagoon, and
watched the quiet boats glide by, then slowly
began the homeward walk.

"You did not tell me," said Page, "what you
knew Jack would do in our supposed case."

"Haven't we finished yet with the sins of
smokers?"

"I don't know.  Perhaps we have.  Were you
going to say that you believed Jack would give up
the habit at the request of the woman he loved?"

"I was going to say that he would promise to.
Yes, I am quite sure what Jack would do, for I
have known men of his kind to do the same thing.
His fiancée—I, for example"—

"No, say your sister; although he is not at all
her kind."

"Why, what is the matter with poor Jack,
Mr. Page?" asked Clover rather resentfully.  "In
what category do you place him, pray?"

"I place him high enough," returned Gorham
hastily.  "I only refer to a woman's fancy, and I
have an idea that Miss Bryant would prefer a more
sober, studious man."

"Why, I can't imagine what makes you think that!"

"It doesn't matter," said Page.  "It can't
hurt her at all for us to engage her to him for a
few minutes.  You are not going to say that Jack
would make a promise and break it?  If you
think that, you rate him lower than I do."

"He wouldn't mean to.  This is about the way
it goes, or the way I have known it to go.
Supposing Mildred to be engaged to Jack, she might
tell him she wished he did not smoke; that she
disapproved it for many reasons.  He would
probably reply that he hoped she would not ask him
to give it up, for if she insisted of course he should
comply with her wishes.  This would make such
an appeal to her tenderness that she would forbear
objecting awhile, feeling sure, poor thing, that her
lover was completely in her power; but after a
time, inclination and conviction both urging her,
she would return to the subject.  She might say,
for instance, that she could not help wishing
strongly that he would give up this habit, and
that Clover had said no man would do it for any
woman.  At this Jack would flare up.  How could
Clover be guilty of such a speech!  She had
evidently never known any man who loved a woman
as he, Jack, adored her, Mildred.  He would die
for her.  It would be a pleasure to him to give up
this comparatively slight gratification for the sake
of proving his affection for his beloved.  Great
elation on the part of Mildred.  Lying low on the
part of Clover.  Jack stops smoking, and is
ostentatiously careless and cheerful.  Mildred
flatters him gratefully.  He assures her that he does
not care if he never sees a cigar again, and is
glad if such a trifling sacrifice pleases her.

"Some day, perhaps before their marriage,
perhaps after, it depends upon the length of the
engagement, Jack, after dinner, lights a cigar with
a friend.  Mildred protests gently.  He answers
reproachfully.  Of course she knows the habit is
entirely broken up, she surely is not going to be
puritanical and unreasonable because once in a
way he lights a cigar as she would eat confectionery?
She still feels uneasy, but is rather ashamed
to show it.  He puts his arm around her, tells her
she is a nice little girl, and came just in time to
save him from smoking to excess, and he thanks
her for it."

"Well?" said Gorham, as she paused.

"Well, that occasional cigar soon becomes a
daily one, or one of a daily half-dozen."

"Mrs. Van Tassel!  How cynical you are!"

Clover laughed.  "Oh no, not cynical.  Jack
was honest in his expectation to give up his pet
indulgence.  He reasoned himself into thinking
his course was right."

"I can't believe it is always so."

"Always, Mr. Page," returned Clover, nodding
wisely.  "Men have died and worms have eaten
them, but not for love.  Men have given up
tobacco and endured the torment it entails, but
*not—for—love*!"

"I never wished before that I was a smoker,"
said Page musingly, "but I suppose it would be
rather foolish to cultivate the appetite merely to
deny it."

"A piece of braggadocio which would be sure
to reap the reward of failure," replied Clover.

"Don't say that, or you will tempt me to
experiment.  My first cigar made me dreadfully ill
when I was twelve years old, and my father
counter-irritated my internal misery with an outward
application; so I didn't try it again for some time.
In the past year I have occasionally yielded to
Jack's urgency and smoked a cigar, but it doesn't
interest me.  I forget about it, and it goes out."

"By all means let well enough alone," laughed
Clover.

"Do you object to the use of tobacco?" asked
Page earnestly.

"In you I should," answered the other, her eyes
shining in the darkness.

"I wish I could give it up," he replied simply.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ON THE LAGOON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   ON THE LAGOON.

.. vspace:: 2

Mildred and Jack, when they discovered that
they had lost their companions, made no effort to
find them.

"It is a great bore for more than two to try to
keep together in this place.  Don't you think so?"
asked Van Tassel.

"It is very difficult, certainly," agreed the girl.
"Isn't it strange to look about this wonder-world
of a street and realize that it is just the Midway
Plaisance?  Recall the old driveway at this hour."

"Yes; early evening was its most populous time
too; but even then, how quiet it was.  What a wild
idea it would have been to expect to see Turkish
dancing-girls, half-naked Dahomeyans, and all the
rest, living in those still, green fields.  Have you
been in to Hagenbeck's and seen the marvelous
trained animals?"

"Yes; but it is a rather creepy pleasure to watch
lions, tigers, bears, and leopards walking around
that one solitary man and hissing threateningly at
him even while they obey."

"The one moment when I found my breath short
was when the trainer made five lions lie down on
the ground, and threw himself on his back upon
them as though on a rug.  He flung his arms
out and caressed their great noses.  I tell you,
I didn't like him to let those beasts out from
under his eyes."

"That was thrilling, I remember; but I felt for
the lions sometimes, too.  I didn't like to see them
demean themselves.  When one had to hold the
end of a rope in his teeth and swing it to let a
hound jump, it seemed rather small business to
demand of the king of the forest."

When the two friends, stopping often by the way
to watch some curious object of interest, reached
the Japanese bazaar, they went in for a few
minutes.  By the time they emerged, the twilight had
wholly faded.

"See your kings of the forest!" exclaimed Jack.

Mildred looked across the street.  There in mid-air,
apparently suspended like Mahomet's coffin,
the iron cage above the entrance to the Hagenbeck
arena was brilliant with electric light.  Five great
lions were within, and the strange effect, in the
surrounding darkness, was heightened when the
trainer, whip in hand, entered and closed the door
behind him.  In a shorter time than it takes to tell
it, Jack and Mildred found themselves in the centre
of an ever-growing crowd, all with upturned faces
watching the wondrous apparition.  The magnificent
beasts glided lithely back and forth, watching
the trainer, who, exciting them more and more by
the whip which he cracked in the air, adroitly
avoided being knocked down as they bounded
about him, passing and repassing one another
with increasing swiftness.

"A great advertisement," remarked Jack; then,
as Mildred moved and turned her head, "Are you
being uncomfortably crowded?" he asked.

"Never mind, it is worth it!" she said, rather
breathlessly, as a big fellow, uncouth in his
open-mouthed wonder, unconsciously shoved her against
her companion.

Van Tassel drew her in front of him and placed
his arm between her and the countryman.  The
latter still pressed, but feeling an obstruction firm
as a bar of iron, turned his admiring countenance
vaguely around toward Van Tassel.

"Well, I vum," he exclaimed.  "Ever seen
anything like that before?  Wife and I never did.
Them lions hangin' betwixt earth and heaven
shakin' their manes at that feller, and he dodgin'
around out o' their way as cool as a cucumber!
It's wife's aim to tell the truth when we get home,
and it's mine, too.  It's both our aims; but we
might's well lie.  There won't anybody believe this."

"It is amazing," said Jack; "but you can see as
well in one place as another.  Would you kindly
push the other way?"

"They're a-hunchin' us on this side too," explained
the man; then continued to gape, oblivious
of his surroundings.

The trainer placed a white and gold chair in
the centre of the cage, and made one of the lions
spring into it.  The creature placed its powerful
forepaws on the chair-back, and waved its graceful
tail from side to side.  Another of the beasts
reared on its hind legs high above the trainer's
head, resting its paws against the iron bars; and
its roar resounded through the crowded street.

The trainer motioned the sitting lion from the
chair, shot a revolver twice into the air, left the
cage, and lo! the wondering spectators were
gazing into blank darkness.

"Another dream over," said Jack into the ear
so close to him.

The tightly hemmed-in mass of humanity slowly
dissolved into its integral parts.

"They ought to have a packed house after that,"
remarked Mildred.

"Shall we swell the number?"

"Not unless you wish it."

"I don't.  I wish something else very much.
Will you answer as meekly and civilly when I ask
it?"

They had begun again their walk eastward.

"I don't know."

"Oh, that is not encouraging."

"It is wise, though.  I was brought up never to
be afraid to confess that I didn't know a thing."

"I want you to go with me in a gondola.  Compare
my humility with Robert Page's *sang-froid*."

"A gondola will be even more difficult to catch
by this time than a horse-car," suggested the girl.

Jack looked at her, but her piquant smiling face
taught him renewed patience.

"Then you will not run much risk in promising,"
he answered.  "Shall we leave it to Fate to decide?
If we find a gondola easily, will you go?"

"Yes, indeed."

As they left the Plaisance and came around the
Woman's Building, a sun-burst of fire in the east
illuminated the sky.

"A salute to royalty," said Jack.  "Queen Mildred
has arrived."

The white light faded, to be followed by dazzling
green, ruby, and gold, as one bomb followed
another, to burst above the lake and cast abroad in
the heavens fountains of jewels that rained down
in glittering showers.

"Now, let us see if Fate is good-natured," said
Van Tassel, leading his companion toward the
nearest gondola-landing.  A graceful willow hung
above and obscured it.

"I must laugh at you, Jack," said the girl,
suiting the action to the word.  "The idea of
expecting to find a gondola now, way over here."

"Stranger things have happened.  Suppose,"
suddenly standing still and looking down into her
eyes,—"suppose you should say that you wish it.
Just for luck, you know."

"I never wish for impossibilities."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"Well, I try not to."

"But wish for this.  You know it is possible to
have strawberries in January."

"What a great boy you are still, Jack.  Very
well, I wish that two gondoliers may have been
attacked by an unusual access of laziness this
evening, have denied their craft to all applicants, and
skulked over here away from the crowd, and that
they may be waiting for us now in the shadow of
the willow.  Any more midsummer madness you
would like me to indulge in?"

Van Tassel led her down the bank.  "Behold!"
he said.  "Mildred, what a witch you are!  This
is necromancy."

The girl stood with lips parted, for the waiting
gondoliers sent their graceful craft to her feet.
She put her hand in Jack's and stepped within.
In a moment Van Tassel was beside her, and
they had glided away.

The lagoon rippled in a light breeze.  Along
the edge of Wooded Island the sedges dipped in
the waves.  Here and there on the bank a group
of water-birds showed white, as a neighboring
electric light touched the soft plumage beneath which
their heads nestled.

Jack wanted his companion to speak first, but
she kept silence long.

"Is the sorceress enjoying herself?" he asked
gently, at last.

Mildred returned his gaze as she leaned back in
her cushioned corner.

"I am a philosopher," she answered.  "I am
being kidnapped, but I might as well enjoy it."

"Well, that is pretty good.  I should say"—

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say.
I am convinced that you are the most designing
creature alive.  Ask your minions to sing, please."

Jack longed that he might know the thoughts
that flitted white-winged through his companion's
mind as their boat glided on, to the gondoliers' song.

This ceased as they entered the Court of Honor,
grown dusk now in preparation for the second
playing of the electric fountains.  Half the weary
sightseers had gone home; no black crowd lined
the railings around the Grand Basin.

The rainbow jets sprang triumphant skyward.
An invisible orchestra lent their colors richer
meaning and beauty.

"Do you remember the song that Clover sang
last night?" asked Jack, leaning a little toward
his companion.  "It suddenly came to my mind
then as the water shot up.  Those lines,—

   |  'I share the skylark's transport fine,
   |  I know the fountain's wayward yearning,
   |  I love—and the world is mine!'

Clover says that is a man's song.  I don't agree
with her.  A woman may be angel enough to
feel divine fullness of content simply in loving; but
a man who loves must be loved again, or else feel
that nothing is his,—nothing; there is no beggar
so poor as he.  Isn't it so?"

The earnest tone thrilled close to Mildred's cheek.
She caught her breath quickly.  "I—I don't
know," she said, nervously surprised.

"Still true to your bringing up," remarked her
companion, controlling himself with a strong will
as he felt her shrink, and leaning back with a short
laugh.  "Not afraid to say you don't know, when
such is the case.  Well, I can only speak for
myself.  When I love and am loved I will agree with
the poet,—I would even sing with her if I could:

   |  'For soft the hours repeat one story,
   |  Sings the sea one strain divine,
   |  My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,
   |  I love—and the world is mine!'"
   |

Mildred was startled.  What a lover Jack would
make!  He was not Clover's.  She was sure of it
now, but the thought brought no elation, rather a
new, timid humility, which made her seem strange
to herself.

She felt her companion's dark eyes upon her,
and her usually ready tongue was mute.

Van Tassel did not know whether to gather
courage or alarm from her silence as they sat there
side by side.  The gondoliers slowly propelled the
boat, keeping in view of the fountains' tossing
banners of liquid light.

"Tell me what you are thinking, Mildred," he
urged, at last.

"I am not thinking.  Do you ever come to such
times?  I do always in this spot.  Perhaps it is
because I have no thoughts to match such unearthly
beauty.  At all events I never think, here.
I feel.  I absorb."

"Yes, that is it," answered Jack simply.

"Give me the Peristyle," said Mildred, "and what
I can see from it, and sweep all the rest of the Fair
away if you like.  I don't love many things in this
world beside Mildred Bryant, but the Peristyle is
one of them."

It was a novel speech from her, and in a novel
tone.  The low cadence of her voice had lost the
laughter or imperiousness which usually characterized it.

Jack was silent for a time.  "Are you warm
enough?" he asked at last.

"Yes; but I think we had better go home."

"Aren't you comfortable?"

"Oh, certainly, and it was very kind of you,
Jack, to take so much trouble."

This gentleness alarmed Van Tassel more than
any amount of coldness or impertinence would have
done; but he fought off dejection.

"I have given you one thing, then, that you
can't hand on to Clover," he said lightly.

The fountains leaped a last time and fell,
dropping lower and lower, till only the white sea
foaming about Columbia's barge was left.  Soft
radiance again lit up water and sculpture.

Mildred longed to be at home; and soon she and
Jack entered a wagonette at the Park gate and
were driven to the house.  When they arrived, the
orchestra at the hotel was playing the music of
Carmen.

"There is a delicate compliment to you, Jack,"
she suggested, as they ascended the steps.

"Yes; but must you go right in?" for she
showed symptoms of leaving him.

"It has been a long day," she answered, lingering
with an unusual gentle compliance from which
he gathered no hope.

"You are tired," he said, with tender contrition.
"I have had you so long, and yet—when should I
be ready to let you go!  Oh, Mildred,—is it any
use?" he burst forth suddenly, in a low tone,
seizing both her hands and holding them with painful
tightness.

A fluttering and wild, loud peeping came from
the tangle of vines near which they stood, and a
small dark object half fell, half flew down past
their heads to the grass below.

Mildred started.  "It is Electra,—a falling
star."  She laughed nervously.  "I am glad she
fell, else I might be crying now instead of laughing.
It would be such a serious unhappiness to me if I
should cause you pain, Jack," she added brokenly.
"You are so different from anybody else."

"I am answered," he said briefly and steadily;
but he did not loosen her hands.  "I am going to
ask a great deal of you now, Mildred.  Can you
forget what I have said?"

"I—I am afraid not."

"Please try to; I will help you."

"Help me?" repeated the girl, bewildered.

"Yes, for everything between us shall be the
same as before.  To-morrow morning you will say
to yourself that you had a dream.  That is all."

"Very well."  The girl regarded him questioningly.
"I hope you are not—are not thinking
that I might—might speak of it?"

Jack threw his head back and gave an excited
laugh before suddenly growing grave and gazing
ardently into her eyes.

"Speak of it?  What would it be to me, my
darling, if every one knew," he said with swift
ardor.  "I love—but the world is not mine.
That is the whole story, and the only peace for you
is to forget it."

Her head drooped under his look.

"I am dreadfully tired, Jack," she said faintly.

"Yes, dear, go, and forgive me."  He kissed her
hands passionately and released them.  She passed
into the house, her head and heart pulsing.
Bewilderment was her chief sensation.  The finality
with which Jack seemed to accept defeat was so at
variance with his manner.

She stole upstairs silently to her room, closed
the door, and turned up the light.  Then she went
to her mirror and questioned her own pale face
with wistful eyes.

"I haven't expected it.  I didn't know it was
coming this time," she said, answering some
thought.  "Is Jack really so unselfish as that?
Can he care for me enough to—and then cover
his disappointment with gayety to save me pain?"

His loving words rang in her ears, her hands
still felt the wild pressure of his, and the warmth
of his kisses.  No one had ever received failure so
before.  No man had ever dared to call her
"darling."  A look that was almost fear came into the
eyes that gazed back from the mirror.  How had
Jack contrived to make himself seem victor
instead of vanquished?

He had not even pressed his suit; he had not
begged her to try to love him.  How nobly he had
spared her,—but how audaciously he had treated
her!

The color was flowing back to her cheeks.  Mildred
could no longer study that face in the glass.
She turned away, weary, perplexed, troubled by
the restless beating of her heart.

"I will get to sleep as quickly as possible.  He
told me to believe it a dream.  I must try to take
it all as Clover would."

The thought of her sister was like calling up the
image of a saint.  She had not been the object of
Jack's adoration, after all.  How strange, strange!
How much better it would have been for him.  Not
that Clover would have married him, but it would
have been good for him merely to love her.  Fevers,
perplexities, could not come where Clover was; and
with this thought came a great longing to breathe
Clover's cool, wholesome atmosphere.  Mildred
slipped into a wrapper, and without pausing to
think further, crossed to her door.  There was
but a dim light within.

She spoke her sister's name very softly, not to
wake her if possibly she might be asleep; but
Clover herself in an instant opened the door.

"I thought I heard you come in, Milly."

"Why, what are you doing here, all dressed, in
the dark?" asked the younger, entering.

"Thinking."  Clover laughed.  "It sounds
amusing, doesn't it; but the music was pleasant
and my window especially enticing.  I felt rather
tired when I reached home a little while before
you, and meant to be asleep by this time, but here
I am, you see."

"Let me come and think too," said Mildred;
"or rather, let me come where I can't think."

The two sisters sat down in the large bay
window overlooking the lake.

"Haven't you had a pleasant day?" asked Clover.

"I've had all sorts of a day.  How has yours
been?"

"Delightful."

"You are my despair, Clover.  Things are
always delightful to you."

Clover heard the depression in her sister's
voice, and wondered; her thoughts flew to Jack
too, and she questioned what mood the day might
have left him in.  "Oh no," she answered, "but
those nut-brown maids in the Javanese theatre
would put any one into good humor.  When they
dance, you can no more help laughing than if you
were being tickled with a feather.  Such dear,
cunning, absurd motions as they make, their little
bits of mouths looking so serious all the time."

"You take such an interest in everything," said
Mildred wistfully.  "It is because you have 'a
heart at leisure from itself.'  I have never longed
for that sort of a heart as I have to-day.  For
quite a while it has been slowly dawning upon me
that I am more self-centred than most people;
but to-day Gorham Page gave me the final blow."

"Mr. Page?  Why, you astonish me.  He has a
high opinion of you.  He was saying to-day how
much deeper and more earnest you were"—

"For mercy's sake," exclaimed Mildred, flushing
to her ears, "don't tell me what he said!"

"Why?  Are you too conscientious to accept a
compliment when you haven't a 'trade'?"

"I have plenty of 'trades.'  Jack never talks
about you without using superlatives."

"Dear Jack.  He is far too appreciative," returned
Clover, wishing it were light enough to see
how her sister accepted this; "but you haven't
told me how Mr. Page hurt you."

"No, it was the truth that hurt me."

"Mr. Page is a very good representative of
that," smiled Clover.

"We were coming out of Old Vienna, and you
and Jack fell behind to speak to one another, and
I addressed Mr. Page.  He looked at me vaguely,
and answered at random.  Well, it was the way
that trifle affected me that made me see Mildred
Bryant as I had never seen her before.  I was
deeply offended, yes, angry, that the important
favor of a remark from my lips should be
disregarded.  Oh, Clover, the disgrace of it!"

The speaker's voice was unsteady, and she
suddenly covered her face with her hands.

Clover leaned forward and put a hand on her knee.

"Isn't it beautiful," she said earnestly, "to find
yourself shrinking from sin?  It is so safe to
condemn it in ourselves.  Hatred of evil is only
treacherous when we feel it for the mistakes of others."

"The worst of it was that I knew I should have
felt less injured had it not been that another
woman was what was preoccupying his attention.
He was thinking of you, and I resented it.  I
couldn't live if I didn't tell you.  It proved to me
that I was growing into a regular—oh, a regular
octopus.  Everything must be absorbed to feed my
vanity, and especially every man."

"Why, Mildred, I am so glad for you," said
Clover simply, her cool tones falling on the
other's scornful heat and extinguishing its fire.
"We have to come to these places, you know,
for we mustn't be left in our badness, and a little
light is let in at a time as we can bear it."

"But I can't bear it," exclaimed Mildred wildly,
"for it is second nature to me to be vain and
exacting."

"You won't indulge it now."

"Yes, I shall."

"Not so carelessly as before.  All this is what
comes into the battle of life.  One part of our
dual nature loves our evils and the other hates
them.  You can have God's help if you ask it, you
know, and you will find how little and how
deceptive the progress will be that you make without
Him."

"Your battle seems won, Clover."

"I am in one of the peaceful places now, and I
am very happy and grateful.  I wasn't given your
tempestuous nature, dear, so our experiences always
are and will be different.  The Father in mercy
lets us develop as irresponsibly as the plants until
we get such a glimpse into our souls as you had
to-day; but then responsibility begins.  It is
sinning against light that warps and distorts us."

"I wonder if it would be good for me to be
married," said Mildred musingly.  "When girls are
married, they haven't much time to think about
themselves."

"It is good for every girl to marry when she
truly loves a man who is unexceptionable,"
returned Clover, smiling at her own triteness.  "But
you remember the girl must ask herself, not Can I
live with this man? but Can I live without him?"

"Then I should certainly never marry.  You
didn't do that, Clover."

Clover looked musingly out at the window.
"No; I didn't do that.  I often think of that
little ignorant girl who married dear Mr. Van Tassel.
I don't know whether I did right or not; but at
the time I thought I did, and that is all I have any
concern with; but I was not in freedom.  You are
in freedom.  The Can I live without him? ought
to mean Can we be more useful together than we
could apart?"

"Why, you don't leave a girl any comfort in
thinking about herself at all," complained Mildred,
half in tears.

"There isn't much comfort in it, that is a fact,"
returned Clover, smiling.  "You are tired, dear;
go to bed now."

They rose, and Mildred took the smaller woman
in her arms and their cheeks clung together.  "I
am unhappy, Clover," she said, with plaintive
surprise at the fact.

"It is so restful," replied the other, "to think
you have all eternity before you.  Even if we only
make a beginning here, it will be all right."

"I like your arms around me," said Mildred.
"Let me sleep with you to-night."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HOTEL DANCE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE HOTEL DANCE.

.. vspace:: 2

It was Gorham Page's habit to drop in at the
Van Tassel house before making his nearly daily
visit to the Fair.

One morning, as he ascended the steps, his
sister met him.  "I hoped you would come," she
said.  "I want to be condoled with.  Robert's
foot has descended.  We are going home."

"Oh, I am sorry," replied Gorham, taking the
chair she offered him; "but can't some
arrangement be made?"

"No.  Robert has said 'positively;' and when
he says 'positively,' I never waste any more
nervous force.  Poor, dear boy, he wants to stay
as badly as I do, but we have been here longer
than we expected already, and after all I would
rather go back than to give up the apartment
and go to the poorhouse, which he says is the
alternative."

"I must go to Boston before long," said Page.
"Wouldn't you like to stay and go back with me?"

"Let Robert go home alone?"

"Yes."

"No, I thank you," with a firm shake of the
head.  "I shouldn't care for the Fair without
Robert."

"That is nice," remarked Gorham, regarding
her attentively.  "I think I should like my wife
to feel like that."

Hilda laughed.  "Oh, that vague and shadowy
wife of yours!  Once I believed in her.  Too bad
that such a good-natured match-maker as I would
have been should be burdened with such an impossible
brother as you.  I have lost all my interest
in you, and have transferred it to Jack."

Gorham smiled pensively, and struck the palm
of one of his hands with the knuckles of the other.
"You think yourself very clever about Jack, don't you?"

"It goes without saying that I am clever, of
course, but this occasion does not demand much
insight.  If they were a trifle more secret in their
chats in corners and their exchange of masonic
signals, I should think, perhaps, I was a treacherous
guest to mention them; but they enjoy their
little comedy, and are perfectly willing others
should.  I think it is unkind in them not to come
out openly and allow me to give them my blessing
before I go."

"I must say, Hilda, I don't enjoy hearing you
use that tone about Mrs. Van Tassel."

"What is the matter with my tone?" asked Hilda.

"It is light," answered Page, with grave simplicity.

His sister stared a moment, then burst into
laughter.  "What crotchet have you taken now?"
she asked.  "Doesn't the match please you?"

"It is not a match.  You are laboring under a
false idea.  If Mrs. Van Tassel should ever distinguish
a man in the way you are speaking of, it will
come to our knowledge in a different manner from
the one you describe.  We are talking in low
tones in a corner now; but we are not
sentimentally interested in one another."

"An unanswerable argument," said Hilda
good-naturedly.  "You needn't take the matter *au
grand sérieux*.  I am profoundly grateful to
Mrs. Van Tassel, and think her one of the most
charming women I ever knew."

Page's countenance, which had been grave to
sternness, relaxed until, slowly smiling, he looked
into his companion's eyes and beamed mutely upon
her.

Hilda noted the change with private astonishment,
and determined to experiment.

"She is so refined," she added after a pause.

"The perfection of refinement," said Page.

"And very graceful."

Gorham nodded.  "It is a pleasure to see her
move, is it not?"

"She has plenty of spirit too, and wit."

"Yes, indeed.  In whatever company she is, she
makes her mark."

"And it is never a black and blue one either,"
responded Hilda, passing her handkerchief over
her lips as she returned the rapt gaze of the
earnest face drinking in her words.  "There is so
much in that.  Her wit could never hurt.  Her
uniform, considerate kindness is her most
prominent trait."

"Yes," responded Page, faithfully antiphonal.
"Only a pure, true heart like hers could prompt
such behavior."

"There is a subtle charm and stimulus in her
society."

"And a restfulness, a satisfaction.  It is hard
to word it, but you have felt it; you recognize it.
One can only say, it is good to be in her presence."

Hilda pushed back her chair so suddenly that
her companion started.  "Gorham Page," she
said, gazing at him with sparkling eyes, and
rising, "don't you see what has happened?"

"No," he answered, removing his fixed gaze and
pushing aside the vines, the better to peer about.

"Not out there!" exclaimed his sister.

"Oh," he answered mildly.  "I thought perhaps
Blitzen had killed Electra."

Mrs. Page burst into laughter.  Peal after peal
broke from her, and she clasped her hand to her
side.

Robert appeared on the scene.

"It is time you arrived," said Gorham, vaguely
smiling.  "I haven't the least idea what ails
Hilda."

Mrs. Page dropped her head on her husband's
shoulder.

"Gorham thought—thought that—that perhaps
Blitzen—had killed Electra," she gasped.

"How intensely amusing," remarked Robert.
"This girl is tired to death, Gorham," he went on,
patting his wife's convulsed shoulder.  "She thinks
she doesn't want to go home, but I know it is time.
Mrs. Van Tassel urges our remaining.  What a
spirit of sunshine she is!  If ever there was an
angel in a house, she is one."

Hilda lifted her head, to look at Gorham's face.
She found it beaming upon his brother with tender
delight, and falling back she relapsed into another
spasm of laughter.

"Stop this, stop this," said her husband, giving
her a little shake.

"I am really afraid Hilda isn't well," said Gorham
with concern.  "I am sorry if she is too tired,
for I wanted to see if you all wouldn't like to come
over to the dance at the hotel to-night."

"That is sensible, profoundly sensible," remarked
his brother.  "What could finish off a day at the
Fair more appropriately than a dancing party!"

"You've got to go, Robert," said Hilda, wiping
her eyes.  "It will be lovely.  We will smoke on
the piazza, and watch the others through the windows."

"Yes, I know how you enjoy looking on at a
dancing party."

"Yes, thank you, Gorham, we will come,"
continued Mrs. Page relentlessly.  "I shall just go
down to the Court of Honor for one last look,"
she added, sighing.  "I will go up in that little
balcony at the corner of the Electrical Building,
and gaze once more down the stately, spacious
square.  I shall see the peacock-blue lake through
the columns of the Peristyle, look up into the
Italian sky roofing all, and say my prayers or sing the
doxology; then I shall come home and pack.  Oh,
Robert, how can we leave it all!"

That evening Jack entered the parlor and found
Clover leaning back in an armchair.  He dropped
into a seat beside her.

"You look fitter to adorn some marble shrine in
the White City than to decorate a humdrum, mortal
home," he remarked, regarding her thin gown
approvingly.

"I believe I never saw you before in a dress-suit,"
she answered lazily.  "You look very neat,
my dear.  That is what mother used to say to us
to suppress our vanity, when we were in festive
array.  It is rather amusing to see Fair pilgrims
in evening dress, isn't it?"

"Where is Mildred?" asked Van Tassel, looking about.

"She will be here directly.  If my sister were
entirely costumed at any appointed time, I should
be anxious about her."

"I haven't had a chance to confess before,"
went on Jack, low and hastily.  "I spoke to her
too soon, after all.  I need a keeper."

"Oh, Jack!  I'm sorry."

Clover looked dismayed, and her tone was heart-felt.

"The milk is spilled, though; there is no going
back.  Didn't she tell you?"

"No, indeed.  When did it happen?"

"The night we took the gondola ride."

"Days since, then.  You are a wonder, Jack.
Are you going to stay here and live it down?"

"I am going to stay here if you will let me."

"Let you?  It is your home.  Oh Jack, I am
afraid of your tone.  You haven't given up.  I
must tell you, though, that Mildred would be
honest, uncompromisingly honest, in a serious matter
like that.  She is not a coquette."

"I know it."

"If she doesn't love you, you do not want her."

"I don't know whether she loves me or not, and
I don't believe she knows any better."

As his handsome, frank eyes looked up at her,
Clover's heart swelled with the approval and
admiration she felt.

"We must relax to it," she said involuntarily.

"Or brace up to it," he replied, with his brilliant
smile; "but it is too late now for the Petruchio
act, Clover.  I have literally and figuratively given
myself away."

"Yes," said the other simply; "what you have
to do now is to leave her in freedom.  The Lord
loves you both alike.  If He does not give you
Mildred, it will be because that marriage would
stand in the way of your real advancement."

"Do you really believe that?" Van Tassel
regarded her in curiosity and surprise.

"Why, Jack, think it out some time.  How can
it be any other way?" she answered, speaking
hastily, for she heard a rustle on the stairs; and a
moment after her voice ceased, Mildred came
into the room.

She was dressed in a pale violet gown, which
revealed her superb neck, and she pulled long
gloves up over her bare arms as she came.

Jack sprang to his feet.  How could she help
liking the homage in his eyes?

"I know I haven't kept you waiting," she said
brightly, "for Mrs. Page's light is still burning,
and of course it will take her some little time to
wake up Mr. Page."

Hilda's feet, in their little black satin slippers,
came flying down the stairs as she spoke.

"Is Robert in a hammock?" she exclaimed
apprehensively.  "I meant to stick them both full of
pins, but I haven't had time.  That poor dear man
has done a lot to-day, in spite of all my warnings.
I expect he will sleep from here to Boston, when
we get started.  You two girls look perfectly
lovely.  I shall wake him up with that information."

As they were all finally setting out, Gorham
Page came up the walk.

"I thought I would wander down and make
sure of you," he said to Clover, as he turned back
beside her.

"You were sure of us," she returned.  "I have
not danced for five years.  It seems to me I
should never have thought of it again but for
your invitation."

"You do not care for the amusement, then?"

"Clover Bryant used to care greatly," she said,
smiling; "but perhaps Mrs. Van Tassel has
forgotten how to dance."

They found the long, spacious piazza of the
hotel gay with promenaders.

Robert Page groaned.  "How marvelous is the
endurance of man and woman kind," he remarked.
"How many of these people do you suppose have
been doing the Fair to-day?"

"You mustn't talk about the Fair," returned
his wife.  "It is fortunate for you that the diversion
came up, else I should have spent this evening
weeping because I have said good-by."

"Have you come over here with the notion that
I am going to dance?" asked Page mildly.

"No, I haven't the least idea you will.  I
wouldn't ask it, since you were foolish enough to
tramp miles to-day."

"How could I help that, my dear, with the awful
'last chance' sensation hanging over me?"

The orchestra in the hotel parlor began to play.
Jack Van Tassel came up to where the husband
and wife were sitting.

"Are you going to dance, Hilda?"

"Apparently not," she answered gayly.

"Give me this, won't you?"

"Oh, you don't need to.  Why, where are
Mildred and Clover?"

"They are sitting over yonder.  They have
many friends here.  It seems to me this is rather
a peculiar way for you to treat my invitation."

"No, Jack," said Page, with a heart-rending sigh.
"The old man will have to dance once.  'Let it
be soon,' as the song says.  Come, my love, weary
and footsore, let us tread the dreamy maze together."

"Robert really wants to dance," said Hilda to
Van Tassel confidentially.  "The music inspires
him.  I haven't the heart to refuse.  Thank you.
Perhaps later we can have a turn."

"Now, wasn't that sweet of Jack and exactly
like him?" asked Hilda, when they had drifted in
among the floating couples.  "He was afraid you
were going to be immovable; and the very first
dance, when of course you would suppose he would
ask Mildred"—

"Or Mrs. Van Tassel, according to your theories."

"My dear, I am shaken on my theories.  I may
have been wrong.  I hope I have been.  What
do you think, Robert?"

"I can't tell any of my thoughts while I am
dancing, Hilda.  Don't ask it.  If you do, I shall
probably step on your foot.  I have the greatest
sympathy with the man who, when his partner
insisted on talking to him in a round dance, replied
as follows: Yes, two, three; one, no, three; one,
two, yes; and so forth."

"What a goose you are, dear; but you dance
as well as you ever did, if you have forgotten how
to say sweet nothings during a waltz."

"Pray remember how much more breath I used
to have.  The spirit is willing still, but the flesh
is too many for me."

"There go Gorham and Clover," said Mrs. Page
with some excitement, pausing in the dance, and
taking her husband's willing arm.  "Robert, I
want you to watch Gorham to-night," she added
impressively.

"More mysteries?" returned Page plaintively.
"I don't see anything out of the way about him.
He is rather stunning in a dress-suit."

"I wonder if Clover thinks so," responded Hilda
significantly.

"Oh, you are only marrying him again," remarked
her husband, with an air of enlightenment.
"If all your plans succeeded, I don't know what
would become of Gorham.  He couldn't even take
refuge in Utah, for I understand the Mormons are
discouraging plural marriages."

"You can chaff, Robert; but mark my words,
some day you will look back to this evening and
exclaim over my cleverness.  I haven't told you
all I know.  I have proofs, if I chose to"—

"Yes, my dear, your fate is the common one of
those who cry 'Wolf' too often.  I've heard your
proofs before."  Then squeezing his wife's hand
against his side, he added, "There isn't another
Hilda for poor Gorham, so how can I take a
breathless interest in his prospects?"

Mrs. Page was mollified, of course; but she
shrugged her shoulder.  "I don't understand how
you can see those four people together and not
weave romances.  Now, for instance, I am burning
to know why Mildred and Jack are not dancing
this first dance together, instead of with Lieutenant
Eames and his cousin.  I dare say poor Jack
lost his chance by coming to take care of me."

But Hilda was wrong.  A little circle of friends
had gathered about Clover and Mildred as soon as
they appeared on the hotel piazza, and Mildred
saw at once in Jack's quiet withdrawal that he did
not intend to ask any favor for himself.  She liked
this in theory, but it half-vexed her to find herself
alertly cognizant of his every movement even while
she chatted and laughed with her other friends.
She saw him approach Hilda, and wondered if he
were asking her to dance; then, when the latter
moved away into the hotel with her husband,
Mildred talked volubly to Eames in order to prevent
his having an opportunity to offer himself for her
partner.  These dances were informal.  There were
no printed programmes.  She wished to give Jack
time to return to their group and claim her before
the lieutenant should.

How exasperatingly deliberate his motions
seemed to her, as he sauntered along!

"I can easily believe what you say, Mr. Eames,"
she said glibly.  "The papers print a great many
of the amusing blunders that are made, and I am
sure they are not exaggerated, by my own
experience.  There were two women standing near me
in front of the Manufactures Building the other
day, and one said to the other: 'Oh, look at that
big statute of Liberty; do you suppose it's solid
gold?'  'No!' replied the other scornfully, 'it's
holler.  If that was solid gold it would be worth
ten thousand dollars.'  Then this sophisticated one
turned to me.  'Can you tell me where the Court
of Honor is?  Is it in the Administration
Building?'  I answered that this was the Court of
Honor, and I suppose I gestured generally, for she
looked down at the Basin and then at me with a
pitying smile.  'Oh no,' she said, 'that is the lagoon.'"

Why *would* Jack stop to look in at the window?
How slow he was!  "Oh yes, and, Mr. Eames, was
there any truth in that story I read about the
battle-ship?  Somebody says, you know, that
although it looks so solid and impressive, an angry
man could do it considerable damage with a
crowbar, and I read lately about some country people
who were visiting it.  While they were exploring,
the ship's bells rang, and coincidently the whistle
of a neighboring tug began to blow.  The story
said those poor people thought the boat was going
to start and rushed for the gang-plank,
panic-stricken.  One man fell into the water, and a
woman broke her ankle.  It ought not to be amusing,
but it is."

"Ha, ha," responded Eames, "there is a grain of
truth in it;" (Jack was drawing near) "the rest is
the reporter's imagination.  I can tell you what was
the foundation of that yarn."  (Jack approached
and stood near the speaker.)  "Won't you dance
this with me, Miss Bryant, and I will initiate you
into some of the methods of newspaper men as
discovered by the officer-of-the-day at Jackson Park."

They moved away, and Helen Eames, who had
audaciously escaped a would-be partner in the hope
of this very event, fell to Jack's lot.

She was a vivacious, jolly girl, and a man was
not obliged to talk much while with her, so Van
Tassel yielded to her determination to detain him
at her side as long as was feasible.

Mildred, promenading with her partner on the
piazza after the dance, passed them sitting near
the water where one could see, down the curve of
the lake, the fireworks of the White City bursting
in starry brilliance.  Far out upon Michigan's
breast shone a row of steady lights, beside which,
as on a liquid boulevard, the illuminated
passenger-boats plied up and down.

Van Tassel was playing with his companion's
fan, and laughing as though he were well
entertained, at the moment Mildred passed by.

The sight did not please her.

"It is all my monumental vanity," she thought.
"I am glad Jack isn't one of the sort of men who
stand around in corners and watch one tragically."

She had danced several times when Clover, left
near her by Gorham Page while he went to bring
her a glass of water, addressed her.

"You haven't danced with Jack once," she said,
with hasty reproach.

"Haven't I?" Mildred raised her eyebrows.

"But aren't you going to, dear?"

"Not unless he asks me, darling."

Clover stared, then turned away to smile.  She
had not often seen Mildred in such an ill-humor.

"Poor, dear, unconscious Petruchio," she reflected.
"I wonder if he is building better than
he knows."

Here Page returned with the water, and she
could say no more, even if she wished.  Moreover,
Gorham now addressed Mildred, to claim the dance
for which the strains of the Washington Post
March were already sounding assertively.

Jack had this two-step with Hilda, and when it
was over he brought her to a seat near those which
Mildred and Gorham had taken on the piazza.

"Mildred," remarked Hilda, "this young man
does know how to dance."

Van Tassel bowed until the parting in his hair
was visible.

"That is nice," returned Miss Bryant languidly.

"The fireworks are over," continued Hilda.
"That awful word 'nevermore' is hanging over
everything for me to-night.  I meant to be out
here to see the last piece, but I wasn't,—that
superb volcano, or mine, or whatever name they try
to describe it by.  I want you all to think of me
with compassion every time you see it hereafter.
Where do you suppose Robert is?"

"Perhaps I ought to know," suggested Gorham.
"I will hunt him up if you will allow me, Miss
Mildred."

"I'll go with you," said Mrs. Page.  "It is
rather cool here to sit still after dancing.  You will
excuse me, Jack?  I think I ought to let poor
Robert off now, and take him home."

It was the first time Mildred and Jack had been
alone together since the memorable evening.

"May I have the next dance?" asked Van
Tassel abruptly.

"If you like," answered the girl carelessly.
"Haven't you had enough dancing?"

"I haven't had any," he answered briefly; and
Mildred told herself that the demon of her vanity
had received what it craved, so warm a sensation
of satisfaction stole around her heart.

"I thought I would make myself safe before one
of your other friends espied you here; but if you
are tired"—

"I am never tired—physically," said the girl,
with a slow smile.

"I was only going to say that I would be
content to sit out the next with you; although we
have not danced together since that night in the
boathouse."  Jack smiled.  "Do you remember
what you told me?"

"Oh yes.  You made that child very happy.
She owes you a dance."

"These surroundings are strange.  Have you
been thinking of it?"

"Yes.  Only last year this ground was a tangle
of goldenrod and willow-trees.  How many times
we have gone bathing on that beach!  It was as
good a playground for jolly youngsters as could be
imagined; and now"—

She paused.

"Now, the music has commenced," suggested
Jack, rising.  "In consideration of the manner in
which I have effaced myself so far, you should
allow our dance to begin promptly."

They entered the parlor by the door which
leads from the east piazza.  She put her hand in
his, and they glided away over the polished floor
among the pillars with their vine-like wreaths of
electric lights.

Amid the scattering groups which, outside,
watched the dancers through the windows, was one
spectator who was seeing a conventional dancing
party for the first time in her life.  It had
suddenly occurred to Robert Page that it would be
worth the exertion of going after Aunt Love to
see her view this pretty scene; and when Hilda and
Gorham reached the front entrance of the hotel in
their search for Robert, they found him ascending
the steps with Miss Berry.

"The young ladies did ask me if I didn't want
to come over, and I thought I should feel out
o' place," she said; "but Mr. Page, he just made
me, so here I am."

"Now, come to this window," said Robert, "and
tell me what you think of that."

The others clustered around Miss Lovina, as she
murmured and exclaimed in her surprise.

"I never approved o' dancin'," she said.  "I
never saw any before.  Mr. Gorham, do you
remember that hall in the New York Buildin'?  That
must be temptin' to young critters when it's lighted
up, and the music's a-playin'.  Why," eagerly,
"see Miss Mildred and Mr. Jack.  My, don't they
go pretty!  And there's Mrs. Van Tassel herself
and some feller.  Why," turning suddenly upon
Gorham, "why ain't you in there dancin' with her?"

"I have danced with her twice," he answered.
"I mustn't be a monopolist, although it is a
temptation.  She is by far the best dancer here."

Upon this Hilda pressed her small satin shoe
against her husband's foot, and he obtusely moved
it out of her way.

"Well, I declare," exclaimed Miss Berry, gazing
in ever-warming admiration, "if it ain't enough to
make a body want to be young and pretty.  To
think this is the real, wicked thing itself, and I
ain't shocked.  What's the matter with me,
Mr. Gorham?"

"Considering your prejudices and traditions, it
is a little odd.  Perhaps it is because you cannot
associate an idea of evil with anything you see
Mrs. Van Tassel engaging in."

Here Mrs. Page again endeavored to gain her
lord's sympathy, with the result that he ejaculated:
"Where would you like to have me put my feet,
Hilda?"

"Why don't you go in there and dance, Mr. Gorham?"
pursued Miss Berry.

"Am I so young and pretty that you want to see
me?  Well, if Hilda is willing to favor me."

"Oh certainly, so long as Robert doesn't care
to go home.  *Au revoir*, dears."

"Now, then," Aunt Love turned upon her companion
argumentatively, "are you perfectly willin'
a man should put his arm around your wife's
waist?"

"On the contrary, I should object seriously."

"How about that, then?" Miss Berry gestured
toward the hall.

"For a man to place his hand on a woman's
waist to steady and support her is not to put his
arm around her.  There are too many other things
for a couple to think of in guiding themselves
successfully through a crowd of dancers to allow of
their usually being conscious of the intimacy of
their position.  Don't be afraid to admire the
dancing, Aunt Love.  It can be abused, like everything
else; but it is an excellent exercise, inculcating
grace, strength, and good manners."

"Well, now, I'm goin' to tell some folks I know
what you say.  Ain't your wife just as light as a
fairy, and don't your brother look handsome
to-night?  No, sir, there ain't any folks here as
good-lookin' as ours."

When the waltz was finished, Gorham Page and
Hilda approached Clover and told her that Aunt
Love was without.  She excused herself from her
partner to go with them, and soon afterward
Gorham walked home with her.

"Thank you so much for coming," he said, when
he was bidding her good-night.

"I am sure we have all to thank you," she
answered.  "Isn't it hard to be reconciled to
letting your brother and Hilda go?  We have been
such a pleasant party."

"Yes," returned Page, looking down at her as
she stood in her white wrap, an unconsciously
adoring expression in his eyes; "this summer is an
experience that one could wish would never end.
Going away," he smiled vaguely, "leaving you,
having these weeks come to an end, is almost as
difficult to grasp in prospect as the thought of
death."

Clover laughed softly.  "We won't borrow trouble,"
she said.  "Good-night."





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.. _`DRESS PARADE`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   DRESS PARADE.

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"Do you think Jack enjoyed himself?" asked
Clover, when her sister crossed the hall to her room
that night for the usual last word before retiring.

"I suppose he did.  How anxious you are about
Jack all the time!  You make an absolute fetish of
him.  It used to mislead me."

"Did it?"  Clover smiled, and turned back to
her dressing-table.

"Yes, indeed, and no wonder.  It is a good thing,
however, that I was mistaken, else I'm sure there
would have been coffee and pistols ordered for two.
I want your opinion, Clover, on a delicate question.
Supposing a man of some strength of character
spends a whole evening at a dance following about
after a woman, smiling pensively at her face, or
the back of her head, or her shoulder, or whatever
of her he can get to smile at, and finding spots of
vantage from which he can behold her dance when
he is not dancing with her himself.  Supposing he
flies about to bring her glasses of water, and wraps,
and fans, and performs all the other offices which
are usually the privilege of her partners, driving
said partners to the last pitch of exasperation.
What, I ask you, is the matter with that man?"

Clover turned her tender glance upon her sister,
marveling that the spirit of mischief could be so
rampant in her eyes.

"Dear," she said reproachfully, "that man is
very deeply in love."

"That is what I supposed myself," replied Mildred
demurely; "but I wanted to be sure I didn't
exaggerate."

"Too seriously so for you to make merry over
it," continued Clover, shaking her head.

"Well, if you aren't a pair of you!" exclaimed
Mildred, bursting into laughter, which she endeavored
to repress out of consideration of the lateness
of the hour.  Then she seized her sister's
astonished face between her hands and kissed her
repeatedly.  "I suppose there isn't another man in
the world beside Jack Van Tassel, is there?  How
glad I am, I am not attached to him; I should be
wildly jealous."

"Oh—let me go, Mildred.  I didn't know you
meant—I didn't know that any one noticed"—  Clover
was as red as her namesake, and looking
everywhere except at her sister.

"Noticed!  Why, my dear, he was a perfect
spectacle.  I fancy everybody in the room noticed
except himself.  He doesn't know what is the
matter with him, either.  He asked me once, when we
were out on the piazza, if there wasn't some
malaria here.  He isn't able to sleep of late, and his
appetite isn't right."  Mildred went off into a
peal of laughter.

"Hush.  Do please hush, Milly," implored poor
crimson Clover in an agony.  "Supposing Hilda
should hear you and come in.  She will.  Oh,
*please*."

"He said he thought he should take—oh dear,
I'm hurting myself—he thought he should take
quinine!" Mildred wiped her eyes; "and I
said—I was of the opinion—oh my! that something
sweet would help him more; extract of Clover,
perhaps."

"Mildred, tell me instantly you didn't say that!"

"Well, not quite so much as that; but he
tempted me dreadfully."

"Go to bed, Milly.  Go to bed straight off.  It
is late."

"All right; but isn't it funny?" pleadingly.

"No.  I do not think it funny at all."

"Oh, you must; that big, absent man, vainly
mooning around among his data"—

"Well, if you will only go away; perhaps—it's
a little—  There, I have turned the gas
out.  You will have to go."

"I am about to set up a Gorham to match your
Jack," said Mildred irrepressibly.  "I am going
to see that you treat the poor man right, and help
him diagnose his symptoms.  I am going to give
you reproachful glances and him tender ones.  I
shall have to tell him they're tender, though"—  But
here Clover succeeded in pushing her over the
threshold and closing the door upon her.

The following day Mr. and Mrs. Page took their
departure, the latter more reluctant than ever to
leave so many objects of interest.

"Ain't it lonely without 'em?" said Aunt Love
that night to Clover, after dinner.  "I don't know
but you'll want to ask Mr. Gorham over here to
help fill up the gap," she suggested rather timidly.

"No, I think we won't disturb his arrangements,"
replied Clover quietly.  "I suppose he
can't stay here very much longer any way."

Miss Berry went to the back door to give Blitzen
and Electra their supper, and arbitrate between
them while they ate it.

"She won't ask him over.  H'm!" she soliloquized,
arranging two dishes of scraps, while the
two pets barked and chirped expectantly.  Then
she seated herself on a step to watch their proceedings.

"That looks like it," she continued in her own
thoughts.  "Well, if this is what he's been waitin'
for, thirty odd years, I don't feel to blame him.
Now you get back, Electry.  Blitzen ain't a-goin'
to stand everything.  Sometimes it does seem's if
you had the most cheek of any critter in feathers.
Well, look at that now!" for Blitzen, exasperated
at a raid upon his plate, jumped at the chicken,
who quick as thought hopped on his back, and
clung to her perch by means of claw and wing
while the terrier raced in a mad circle.

Aunt Love's hearty laugh rang out as she
watched Blitzen's fruitless efforts to disembarrass
himself.  At last he lay down and rolled over, and
Electra, squawking excitedly, ran back to her plate.

She was not pursued.  The terrier ever afterward
regarded her as something uncanny, and so
far as possible refrained from acknowledging her
existence.

An event of general interest during the Fair
summer was the visit to the Exposition of the West
Point cadets.  Cro' Nest itself is scarcely more
immovable from its position among the Highlands of
the Hudson than these pets of Uncle Sam; but it
is a matter of history that they and their
paraphernalia were transferred to the Philadelphia
Centennial, and now again with much form and
ceremony their camp was set up in the green plain
adjoining the Government Building on the shore
of Lake Michigan.  They arrived one dazzling
afternoon, which began serenely calm, but toward
evening gave the guests a northeast wind which
sent white-capped waves rushing landward, and
shook the tents in the new company-streets.

Starting from the Terminal Station, the young
soldiers marched through the streets of the White
City, preceded by their famous band, and as they
proceeded looked neither to the right nor the left at
the widely noised marvels surrounding them, but
kept eyes front as though still treading their own
quiet, elm-lined avenues, while the waiting crowds
cheered and cheered again the elegant precision of
their movements.

In an hour, gray-coated sentinels were again
walking post in this new Camp Sheridan, alertly
conscious of their routine business, and apparently
without a thought of the surroundings beyond the
camp.

Mildred Bryant felt considerable interest in the
cadets, and assumed much more.  "Helen Eames
says that no matter how good a time a girl may
have, she can never have as good a one as if she
had spent a summer at West Point," she announced
to Van Tassel one day, on the occasion of
their being together.  She felt that he made these
occasions rare, and at times the fact touched her.
At others she said to herself, "He is getting over it."

"Then why don't you go there?" asked Jack.
"I don't know who has a better right to the flowers
of life."

"I did think of getting Clover to take me next
summer, but now, wonder of wonders, the mountain
has come to Mahomet.  Don't you want to go down
to parade to-night?"

"Yes; I don't know just how to make you
comfortable, though.  The mob is something
marvelous.  I looked over their heads a minute last
night, but being in the sixth or seventh row,
concluded the game wasn't worth the candle."

"Ah, that is where the convenience comes in of
having a military friend," returned Mildred gayly.
"We shall not need to mingle with the *hoi polloi*.
Won't you come too, Clover?" as her sister entered
the room.

"Where?"

"To see dress parade this evening."

"Yes, I am going.  Mr. Page has already
asked me."

"I don't believe you had better try to get along
without me.  Jack and I are going to meet
Mr. Eames on the steps of the Army Hospital at a
quarter before six.  There is a great crowd."

"Thank you.  Perhaps we will be there.  Did
you hear Aunt Love's comment last night?  She
said that in the afternoon she ran into an
impassable throng near the Administration Plaza, and
after vainly trying a long time to get through, she
finally found the attraction was only a lot of
schoolboys drilling.  If those important young heroes
could have heard her scornful tone!"

When Clover had left the room, Jack spoke
again.  "Since you have an appointment with
Eames, I withdraw, Mildred.  I don't see why
you asked me."

"He said I might bring my friends," she replied.
"Do come, Jack."

Van Tassel looked straight into her eyes, and
smiled with an expression which seemed to the girl
both brave and hopeless.

"Won't you?" she persisted.

"Of course," he answered.

In the afternoon, Clover walked to the Park, and
entering back of Texas walked down the northern
avenue of State buildings.  The usual crowd was
flocking in and out of Mount Vernon, but she
crossed the street to New Jersey's charming home,
and entered.  It was entertaining a large number
of sightseers, note-book in hand, who jotted down
their inventories.  Clover wished she might look
over the shoulder of one woman, with a harassed
but determined countenance, whom she met in the
cosy west room downstairs.  She wondered how
this anxious one would be able to transfer to paper
the charm of its quiet comfort, with the breezy
foliage waving near its half-closed green blinds
and casting shadows on the dainty white curtains.

It was all familiar ground to Clover, so she went
upstairs and seated herself in a corner of the deep,
luxurious sofa which commanded a view, down
through the open gallery, of the front door.

People came, looked, commented, passed into
the dainty blue chintz bedroom, emerged smiling,
and went away.

Many had appeared, climbing the stairway with
various degrees of toil, before the figure she awaited
came into view.  This one sprang up the steps
alertly, with a serious expression, which brightened
to pleasure at sight of her.

"Have I kept you waiting?" he asked eagerly.
"I came around from the Cliff Dwellers by the
Intramural road, and we had a stoppage of several
minutes.  I have been very anxious."

"I am sorry for that," answered Clover, as Page
seated himself beside her.  "I thought you knew
that I am always content in this house.  I should
move down here and live, if they would let me.  I
have been fancying that I was holding a reception
as the visitors came and went.  I wonder if any
pilgrim to the Fair has a soul so dead as not to
covet this house."

"I didn't know you liked it so much," said
Gorham, as though the fact were of serious
importance.  "Perhaps you would enjoy having tea
here."

"Tea in the New Jersey Building?  What a
pleasure!  But why do you tantalize me?"

"I think we can.  The lady manager from New
Jersey is a near relative of mine.  Excuse me a
minute and I will try the magic of her name."

Page went downstairs, and in five minutes returned.

"The house is mine, practically," he declared,
smiling.  "I herewith present it to you."

"How delightful!  And the tea?"

"Is near by."  Gorham went to one of the
locked doors on the east side of the hall and
knocked.  Presently he ushered Clover into this
exclusive nook, and the door closed behind them.

It was an appetizing little supper that was
shortly set before them on the daintily clothed
round table.

"You have gratified one of my pet ambitions,"
said Clover.  "Now I shall always feel a small
proprietorship as well as a great affection for this
house.  I am really breaking bread at its board."

"You spoil your friends by the pleasure you
make it to contribute a little to your happiness,"
returned Gorham, his eyes resting upon her with
the utmost satisfaction.

"This room is as charming as the rest," remarked
Clover, looking about at its ruddy decorations;
"and the remoteness one feels from everything
confusing, or noisy, or soiling, can only be
appreciated by those who do not live in the midst
of a large, well-kept park.  I amused myself while
waiting for you by searching for the fewest words
that will describe the faces of Fair visitors.  I
decided upon 'tired' and 'pleased.'  Not 'delighted;'
they are too weary for that,—but just 'pleased.'"

Page looked away and considered the idea, as
Clover had intended he should.

"Do you know Mildred gives us the opportunity
to find good places at parade under Mr. Eames'
wing?" she suggested after a minute.

"Oh, I am glad to hear that.  I don't quite
understand what makes the cadets such a fad.  No;
one can't call it a fad either, for there is no sudden
interest in them, they are always lionized.  Since
they have been here, I notice that people go hours
before the time for parade for the sake of securing
good places, and then wait patiently; so I have
been wondering this afternoon how I could fix it
for you to get a view of the ceremonies.  It will
be very pleasant to have Mr. Eames' assistance."

"Then comes in that awful word again," laughed
Clover.  "We shall have to hurry a little."

Page sighed unconsciously.  "Is this very good
tea?" he asked, as they finally rose from the table.
"I am not a connoisseur."

"Very nice indeed."

"I thought it must be.  I never enjoyed any
tea so much in my life."

"Then we are very much obliged to each other,
aren't we?" said Clover gayly, and consuming her
watch, she reminded her companion again of the
hour of the appointment, and they hastened away.

They arrived at the hospital steps just as the
others were leaving.

"Oh, you loiterers," was Mildred's greeting.

"Don't you see our breathless condition?"
returned Clover.  "How can you have the heart to
reproach us?  How do you do, Mr. Eames?  We
are very grateful to you.  What a hopeless throng
that looks like!"

"Let me take some of those camp chairs," said
Gorham, suiting the action to the word.

Mr. Eames led his party towards the officers' tents.
They had to force their way through serried ranks
of gazers, who were held back with difficulty by the
blue-coated sentinels from the camp of "regulars"
near by.  The sentinel saluted Eames as he passed,
and the lieutenant stood still and allowed his friends
to file before him to the reserved places before the
officers' tents.  There they found Helen Eames,
who welcomed them radiantly, fixing cordial eyes
on Jack in a manner not lost upon Mildred.  The
latter did not enjoy this effusiveness.  She did
not wish to marry anybody, but at the same time
she did not like to have any other girl try to
appropriate her especial friends.

However, her attention was soon momentarily
distracted by the novel sights before her, and the
usual questions began to flow.

Eames was most willing to answer them.
Before long the band marched out upon the plain,
and the evening's ceremonies had begun.  The
cadets, a shining assembly, marched forth from
the company-streets and fell into line.

The band, playing The Thunderer, marched up
and down the plain before the motionless ranks,
and one to whom the West Point forms were
familiar asked himself if it must not all be a dream.
Here were the same camp, the same cadets, the
same band; but where were the mountains, the
huge old elms, the river?—instead, the Government
Building, the Fisheries, the Battle-Ship, and
Lake Michigan.

To Mildred the very sight of the band was not
thrilling from all it implied, but she soon found
herself absorbed in interest and admiration.

Once she turned around to Jack, who stood
behind her.

"I think I must go to West Point, after all."

"Indeed, you must.  It is perfectly lovely,"
exclaimed Miss Eames.  "There, you see, that is the
adjutant now, advancing to the officer-in-charge;"
and she proceeded volubly to explain the tactics
which followed.

"I think I shall have to know some cadets,"
remarked Mildred, turning to Eames.

"That will be very easy; and when you know
one, you will know all.  They can talk only on one
subject," was the rather stiff reply.

Mildred was perfectly aware that the young
lieutenant admired her.  She saw that her proposition
was displeasing to him; but what she did not know
was that he had not yet recovered from that
profound fall which results from exchanging the
chevrons of a first-class man for the shoulder-straps of
a second lieutenant.  That young officer must
indeed have a seared conscience who can lay his hand
on his heart and declare that he entertains only
cordial sentiments for a cadet of the first class
when their ways chance to cross.

"You refused to attend the cadet ball with me
at the New York Building to-night," added Eames
reproachfully.

"Why, of course; in my ignorance.  Wasn't it
stupid of me?  Oh, what are they running for?
Isn't that pretty?  Wouldn't you like to be a
cadet again, Mr. Eames?"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated that officer devoutly.
"I am waked up by reveille yet.  Hope
I shall get over it some time."

"Mildred is contracting cadet fever, Mr. Van
Tassel," declared Helen, looking up at Jack in a way
which Miss Bryant noted resentfully, in spite of
her preoccupation.

"I never before noticed how objectionable
Helen's ways with men are," she thought.  "I
know Jack wishes she wouldn't look at him like
that."

"I suppose so, Miss Eames," replied Van Tassel.
"I am trying to find out what it is that is so
fetching about those all-conquering youngsters."

But Jack need not have tried.  No male civilian
under forty was ever known to discover.

"What is cadet fever?" asked Mildred, "and
what is the microbe; a bell-button?  I haven't one
yet."

The "double-timing" companies had retreated
down the streets of camp, and the cheering crowds
of spectators quieted.  Many of them moved toward
the lake shore; for in a short time it had been
learned that the cadets would next march to
supper preceded by the drum corps; and any ceremony
which they performed, no matter how simple, drew
a curious throng.

"What is the matter?  What are they going to
do now?" asked Mildred.

"Going to the Clambake to supper," replied Eames.

"Then I am going to the Clambake to supper,"
announced Miss Bryant.

"I think you would not enjoy it," said Eames
shortly.

"I know I shall," responded Mildred, with her
glorious smile.

"I am so sorry I shall have to leave you,"
remarked Helen.  "I have a number of friends
among the first class.  They were yearlings when
I was at the post.  I have promised to attend the
festivities with one of them to-night.  Do come
and see me, Mr. Van Tassel," holding out her
hand.  "Remember you owe me a game of tennis.
I assure you, you would not beat all the time.
Are you coming with me, Fred?"

"I believe not, unless you want me.  If these
people are determined to go to the Clambake, I
think I shall have to go too; but remember, you
are to save a two-step for me to-night."

"*Au revoir*, then;" and Miss Eames, her last
glance for Jack, moved away.

"We won't go with Mildred," said Clover, "for
we have had tea recently, and aren't hungry yet.
You would never guess where, either.  Good-by,
Mr. Eames.  We are all greatly indebted to you."

"Indeed we are," said Gorham, shaking hands
cordially with the lieutenant.  "That was a most
interesting sight.  I congratulate you on being
one fit to survive that tremendous training.
This is the show side, but I know something of the
other."

"Where did you have tea; where?" demanded
Mildred, smiling into Gorham's serious face.  He
instantly smiled back.  Those cold, abstracted
eyes of Page's had learned a new look recently, as
though so much sunshine had warmed his heart
that there was an overflow.

"It would make you so discontented with the
Clambake, dear," suggested Clover with
mischievous deprecation.

"Why, I *will* know."

"The New Jersey house."

"You selfish creatures!  Aren't they?"
exclaimed Mildred, calling upon Eames and Van
Tassel to witness.

"Yes, we are," laughed Gorham, as he and
Clover turned away.  "We know it."

Mildred, her companions on either side of her,
began her walk northward.  Eames wished
cordially that Jack would remember an engagement.
Jack wished sincerely that he knew what Mildred
wanted him to do.  Unconsciously fulfilling the
lieutenant's desire, he spoke:—

"I suppose I really ought to be at home attending
to some correspondence I have been putting
off, instead of loitering at the Clambake."

Eames answered without giving Mildred time
to speak.  "I shall be most happy to take Miss
Bryant home after her curiosity is satisfied."  Van
Tassel's jealous ears detected the eagerness
in his polite tone.

"But supposing my curiosity is not gratified by
the time you are obliged to go and array yourself
gorgeously for the evening?  No, Jack, I am sorry
for you, but Mr. Eames is engaged elsewhere."

"It need not be for some hours yet," protested
the lieutenant.

Mildred shook her head firmly.  "I couldn't
think of allowing you to assume the care of me
in addition to all your other responsibilities this
evening."

"Very well," said Jack.  "When it comes to a
matter of letter-writing, my conscience never
requires very much soothing."

When they reached the Clambake, two cadets
were just issuing therefrom.  Their hands went
up in an instant salute to Eames, who had for the
moment preceded his friends.

"I suppose there is a great deal of eating and
running being done to-night," remarked Jack.

"But where are they?" asked Mildred aggrievedly,
as they entered the busy, noisy eating-room.

"The cadets mess upstairs," returned Eames,
with latent satisfaction.  "Did you suppose they
fell in here with the general company?  You don't
know much of military discipline, Miss Bryant."

"Never mind; if they are going to run up and
down that staircase all the time, as they are doing
now, I shall see a great deal of them."

"There isn't much order to-night," remarked
the lieutenant.  "The cadets own the Fair for the
moment, and permits have been issued *ad libitum*."

But supper had scarcely been brought to the
three friends when, with a grand clatter on the
bare staircase, the remainder of the corps came
hurrying down, walked out the door, and quickly
forming in ranks marched back to camp.

"Now, does that pay for mingling in this drove
of people and getting half-served?" asked Jack,
with disdain.

"Fully," exclaimed Miss Bryant, with enthusiasm.
"Without those absurd straps around
their faces, one can see what beautiful creatures
they are."

"Well, I'm glad," returned Van Tassel shortly.

"I am resigned to your interest in the cadets,"
said Eames, "if it brings you to West Point, for
I am likely to get a detail there next year."

Jack took no part in the animated discussion
that followed.

"Don't look bored, Jack," said Mildred at last.
"Ask Mr. Eames questions, as I do."

"There isn't any need.  You have covered the
ground.  You are mistaken about my being bored.
This is my expression when I am absorbing
stimulating information."

"Then he should abstain from stimulants.
Don't you think so, Mr. Eames?"

They arose from the table, and going out into
the arc-lighted street, walked slowly west.

When they reached Brazil, Mildred declared her
desire to go into the building.

"I suppose I ought to leave you," said Eames
reluctantly, "but perhaps if you remain in the
grounds I may meet you again."

"What is going on?" asked Van Tassel.

"Several things.  A procession of illuminated
boats in honor of the cadets, a concert by the
West Point band outside the Michigan house,
illumination of all the State buildings and dancing
in many of them, but notably New York, all for the
cadets.  You will be likely to hear enough of those
young men and see enough of them if you remain,
Van Tassel."

"Oh, we can't," smiled Mildred demurely, as
she gave her hand to the lieutenant.  "We have
important letters to write."

The "we," even in jest, was music to Jack.  He
turned to her as they ascended Brazil's steps.
"Well, are you ready to come back to civil life?"

"Haven't I been civil all the time?  And you,"
reproachfully, "were going to leave me."

"Only out of regard to Eames."

"I think you might have more regard for me
than for him."

"I have.  I thought you knew it."

Mildred did not answer.  They had reached
the large salon which was the second floor of
Brazil's home, and from thence ascended the spiral
iron staircase leading to the roof.  Mounting
another short flight of steps, they entered one of
the four towers, and standing between its white
pillars looked down on the enchanting vision of
early evening in the White City,—the sum of
imaginable loveliness.

The imposing façades of its palaces were now
pure but not dazzling; the green trees and flowering
shrubs of Wooded Island were hung with thousands
of fairy lights; the long, bridge-spanned
canals wound away into distant mysterious vistas,
where tower on tower still rose far as the eye could
discern; and, queen above all, stood the flamy
curves of the coronet of Administration.

The columns of the Art Palace were mirrored in
the lagoon, and near and far upon the water's
breast lay little boats, gay with lights, in readiness
for the procession soon to take place; their chains
of colored globes faithfully reflected in the depths
below.

Distant bells were chiming; from one of the
boats the tinkling melody of a mandolin floated up
to the watchers in the lofty tower; all else was still,
as though the peerless scene were indeed something
supernatural, evoked for a moment's breathless
rapture, and fated to disappear forever.

Neither Mildred nor her companion spoke for a time.

"Once you gave me your hand when we lived
such an experience as this together," said Jack at
last, withdrawing his gaze and looking at Mildred
in the twilight.

She hesitated, then extended her hand frankly.
"So I will again," she answered, with an effort at
her old air of good-comradeship.  "I am a great
believer in handshaking."

Van Tassel only looked at her without accepting
the favor, and shook his head slowly.  "No,"
he said, as though to himself, "I cannot be
satisfied with it."

Mildred blushed as her hand dropped.  "You
said," she returned low and swiftly, "that
everything should be as it was before."

"Yes, I did, because I was inexperienced.  I
have never been in love with any one else, and I
didn't know how it was going to be.  I have
become better acquainted with myself since that night
and can speak with more intelligence.  I find
myself hoping, even though I say over every day
that there cannot be the slightest hope for me,
because you know me well, and by this time the
truth would be evident to you.  If it were in my
favor you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

The girl gave him one fearful glance, and
looked away.

"You would, of course?" he said, with sudden
excitement, seizing the hand he had refused.
"Mildred, I love you!  I love you!  I do not say
it to you every hour, but I think it with every
breath.  You would not make me wait one moment if"—

"Oh, how can you, Jack?  Why must you love
a girl so unworthy?"  She shrank closer to the
railing.  "I told you,—I tried to warn you,—I
told you that I do not love anybody but Mildred
Bryant."

Before she ceased speaking, Van Tassel had
released her and recovered himself.

"And the Peristyle," he added steadily, "you
are forgetting that."

She did not smile, and her lips quivered.

"So long as my only rivals are your sweet self
and the Indians, Helmsmen, *et. al.*, who view the
country from the top of the Peristyle, I cannot
despair.  Perhaps I ought to, dear, but I can't."

Mildred wondered if her companion were really
so pale as the shadows made him appear.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and
I am going to hope until you announce your
engagement to me.  Then, until I receive your wedding
cards, I shall look to see you find that engagement
a mistake.  And if you are married," Jack
paused; "I don't know.  My mind turns blank
when it occurs to me that you might marry
another man."

"I am not worth it.  I am not worth it," repeated
the girl.

"Have I made you unhappy?  Shall I go away?
Will my presence be a burden to you now?"

"No."  Mildred looked at him piteously.  "I
think I have a stone in here instead of a heart,"
she said, pressing her side, "but stay with me
and—and keep the others away.  I don't need to tell
you how much I like you, Jack.  If only it were
safe to say what you want me to when I only like
you, and value you, and respect you more than
any other man"—  She paused, unable to proceed.

He turned to her, tender consideration in his tone.

"That is a great deal, Mildred.  I must try not
to forfeit it."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN THE PERISTYLE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE PERISTYLE.

.. vspace:: 2

The next morning, before seven o'clock, Miss
Berry, while busy arranging matters in the
dining-room preparatory to breakfast, was summoned by
a maid to the back door with the word that a
gentleman wished to see her.

To her great surprise, it was Gorham Page who
stood waiting on the path.

"Well, well, Mr. Gorham, ain't the days long
enough for you?" she asked, smiling, as she came
out of the door.  "This is new manners for you.
Go 'way, Blitzen.  Look out, Mr. Gorham, his
paws must be wet."

"I didn't want to disturb the house by ringing
the bell," explained Page, "and I knew you would
be likely to be about by this time.  A very
unfortunate thing has occurred;" he looked annoyed as
he spoke.  "I have received a sudden call to
St. Louis by a client I cannot neglect, and the
business requires that I should spend the whole day in
town before I go.  Mrs. Van Tassel has promised
to go down to the Fair with me this morning on
the Whaleback.  I want you to explain to her how
seriously I regret breaking the engagement.  I am
really very much put out by the necessity."

Miss Lovina smiled as she broke a twig from
the maple under which they were standing.
"Ain't you comin' back at all?" she asked.

"Why, certainly I am coming back," replied
the other severely.

"Oh," remarked Miss Berry innocently.  "I
thought perhaps you wanted me to say good-by
to 'em for you."

"No, indeed; nothing of that kind.  I may be
detained a week or ten days, but I wanted
Mrs. Van Tassel to understand that no trivial
circumstance would deter me from taking the boat trip
with her and Miss Bryant as we planned.  I would—I
would give a great deal not to be obliged to
leave."

"Mrs. Van Tassel won't lay it up against you,"
remarked Miss Berry.

"No, I dare say not," said Page abstractedly.
"I mustn't wait," he exclaimed, after a moment's
reverie.  "Tell her, Aunt Love, how sorry I am;
put it strong.  I thought I would see you instead
of leaving a note, for writing is so formal; and oh,
by the way, tell her if she forgives me and
understands the situation, how glad it would make me
to receive a word from her to that effect.  This is
my address," thrusting a card into Miss Berry's
hand.

"What's the use?" asked Miss Lovina, her
shoulders shaking in a laugh.  "You know you're
always forgettin' girls.  If you should get a letter
signed Mrs. Van Tassel, you'd scratch your head
and say 'Van Tassel?  Van Tassel?  Where have
I heard that name before?'"

"This is no time to joke," he returned
hurriedly.  "I trust you to deliver my messages
faithfully.  Don't make light of the matter.
Good-by;" and with a hasty bow Page moved
briskly away.

Miss Berry looked after his departing figure
with some exasperation.

"I hope I do him an injustice," she murmured,
"but it's my opinion he hasn't found out yet that
he's lovin' a woman instead o' worshipin' a saint.
I don't want to be profane, but I must say I'm
reminded of Ann Getchell's brother.  He used to
say that he liked a fool, but a darned fool he never
could stand."

Clover and Miss Berry sometimes began breakfast
before the other and sleepier members of the
family appeared on the scene.  This was one of
the mornings; and while Clover poured the coffee,
Aunt Love embraced her opportunity.

"You can't guess who's been here already,"
she began.

"No; tell me.  Don't make me guess.  The day
is too new."

"Now you look just fresh and bright enough to
guess anything."  Miss Berry gazed affectionately
at her as she spoke.

"I saw Mr. Page going down the street," said
Clover, as she set a steaming cup on the waitress'
tray.  "Could it have been he?"

"Yes; but you'd never 'a' guessed him, would
you?  He come over to get me to tell you that he's
called away on important business, and regrets
very much breakin' his engagement with you this
mornin' about goin' on the Christopher Columbus."

Clover's transparent skin flushed, but she looked
coolly into her informant's eyes.  "He does not
see us again, then?"

"Law yes, in a few days he does"—

"Lena," said Clover to the maid, "please tell
Katie to keep the other things hot for a while.  Miss
Bryant and Mr. Van Tassel are both a little late.
I will ring when I want you."

The moment the door had closed behind the
girl, Clover's face changed.  "Tell me all about
it," she said.

"Ain't it a pity that gump can't see her this
minute?" thought Aunt Love.  "Even if he's a
darned one, I guess he'd get a glimmer o' sense."

"Why, he was the most distressed bein' you'd
want to look at," she returned, "just 'cause he
couldn't stay and go with you on that boat.
You'd think he'd never seen a sign o' the Fair,—not
that he said a word about that, he was all
taken up with the disappointment o' not goin' with
you."  Aunt Love was determined to make the
most of Gorham's behest to "put it strong."

Clover's face had quieted, and she was occupied
in stirring her coffee.

"I told him I guessed you wouldn't be overly
hard on him, and he told me to ask you, pervided
you did forgive him, to write and tell him so to
this address."

Clover looked up quickly as she accepted the card.

"How long will he be gone?"

"A week or ten days, I think he said.  Law, if
I've forgotten anything he told me, I shall need
the prayers o' the con'regation.  Strange,"
continued Miss Berry slyly, "that I haven't ever
seen anything so severe about you that Mr. Gorham
should look all beside himself at breakin'
a light, triflin' promise to you through no fault
or his."

"I will write in three or four days," said Clover
musingly.  "That will divide the time."  Then
she looked up, and met Aunt Love's eyes fixed on
her with an expression that made her glance away.

"He's a none-such," said Miss Berry.  "I guess
you better let him off easy, Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Oh yes," returned Clover with some confusion.
"I will ring for the breakfast now, Aunt Love.
We will not wait any longer."

Gorham Page came home to his hotel in St. Louis
a few days afterward, tired and enervated
by the excessive heat, and requiring to remember
all his philosophy not to anathematize the fate
which had snatched him from the feast spread
upon the shores of Lake Michigan.  A little later
in the season, during the Congress of Religions,
the gentle Dharmapala was riding upon the lagoon
one evening, where his snowy silken robes seemed
more in place than the close-fitting black of his
companions.  Looking about him in the waning
light where all was melody, harmony, and beauty,
he said:—

"All the joys of heaven are in Chicago."

This sentiment of the lovable Singhalese Page
would have echoed, had the anachronism been
possible.  A sort of chronic yearning and dissatisfaction
possessed him, and the heat in St. Louis being
a tangible discomfort, he dwelt to himself upon
the superior vitality in the air of the lake region,
and laid his discomfort at the door of the weather.
It was his custom, as soon as he entered the hotel,
to inquire for letters; and to-day he received one
in a feminine handwriting.

The clerk noticed the expression of his face as
the missive was handed him.

"That fellow can't sing 'The letter I looked for
never came,'" was his comment.

Gorham's sensations, as in his room he opened
the square envelope with religious care, were of a
chaotic nature, which required analysis.  He even
went so far as to hold the folded sheet a moment
and look at the opposite wall with an effort at
introspection; but the insistent desire to possess
himself of those written words engulfed all other
considerations.

The letter was gentle and friendly like the writer
herself.  It compassionated him on the fact which
Chicago papers reported, of a hot wave in St. Louis;
and described her sight of a great Maharajah,
the nabob then visiting the Fair, who, resplendent
in cloth-of-gold robes and pale green turban,
passed in state with his suite about the grounds.
Jack had surveyed him, and with democratic audacity
dubbed His Highness "that chocolate duffer."

The little letter closed with these words:—

"I am alone in the house; even the servants are
away.  It is rather a desolate sensation; and yet
some people profess to feel more keenly the
loneliness of being in a crowd of strangers, than that
of being entirely by themselves.  The former is
your sort of loneliness at present.  I wonder if you
dislike it?  I wonder—you always seem so
sufficient unto yourself, so much more a man of
intellect than of heart—I wonder if you ever feel, as
I do more and more strongly every day, our
dependence on each other?"

There was nothing more save the conventional
ending.  Page scarcely glanced at the signature.
Something seemed to mount to his head, as his eyes
dwelt fascinated upon the last sentence recorded.
The sweetness of his instant interpretation of it so
possessed and intoxicated him that no other thought
could obtain entrance.  All the processes of his
system seemed arrested for one overwhelming
moment, then the pulses, reacting, sent the blood
boiling through his veins.

Mechanically he rose, and going to the bureau
began throwing articles of clothing into an open
valise near by.

Recollecting himself, and duties still undone, he
stopped these premature preparations and, the
valise happening to be the object under his vision,
he gave it the most prolonged amorous gaze that ever
fell to the lot of insensate leather.  Then catching
up the letter again, he read it over and over.

That evening a messenger boy ran up the Van
Tassel steps, and five minutes afterward Clover
was smiling and frowning in perplexity over a
telegram addressed to her.

.. vspace:: 2

I shall come back at the first possible moment.

.. vspace:: 1

GORHAM PAGE.

.. vspace:: 2

Aunt Love had brought her the message, and
she in her mystification read it aloud.  Something
in Miss Berry's glance, as she met her eyes, made
her color rise finely.

"You need not speak of this to Mildred," she
said after a pause, with dignity.  "I—I do not
quite understand it."

"I don't either," thought Miss Berry, discreetly
moving away.  "Either he's even more kinds of
a gump than I thought, or else he's come to his
senses with a crash.  I always knew when Gorham
Page did start out to love a woman somethin' had
got to break; and it ain't goin' to be his heart now,
thank the Lord.  What a pair they will make!
My, my!"

Page returned on the second day toward evening.
He hoped fate would favor him by sending Mildred
and Jack to the illumination that night.  It
did not occur to him that Clover might have gone
too until he neared the house.  Then the thought
brought dismay.  He had schooled himself for
days to work and conquer among dry-as-dust details
of his profession.  Now, it seemed impossible
to wait a matter of hours.

There was no one on the piazza when he ascended
the steps, and the evening being fine the fact
appeared sinister.  Miss Berry answered his ring at
the bell.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" was her greeting.  "Glad
to see you back, Mr. Gorham.  It hasn't seemed
right not to have you runnin' in every day."

"It is good to be here again; but I am afraid
you are alone to-night."

"Yes, the young folks are down to the Fair, as
usual."  Miss Berry's keen eyes saw the disappointment
in the earnest face.  "I s'pose like as not
you wouldn't feel like goin' down any way, wore
out as you must be with all that heat."

"I would go gladly, if there were any chance
of meeting them; but the people you want to
meet are the ones you do not happen upon at the
Fair."

Miss Lovina looked at him with a shrewd smile.
"Then I guess you'll give me a good mark for
once; for it happened to come over me that you
might get home to-night, and I said as much to
Miss Mildred.  I asked her where they'd be, and
she agreed to stay by one o' the big horses till the
illumination was over."

"What time is it?" asked Page with sudden
haste, wringing Miss Lovina's hand cordially.

"Oh, you've got time, I guess," observed Aunt
Love, with a comfortable chuckle.  "Now haven't
I got a head for somethin' more 'n cookies,
Mr. Gorham?"

"If I should stop to compliment you as you
deserve, I should miss the appointment," was the
hearty response, as the young man lifted his hat
and hurried down the steps.

The boy in the driver's seat of the Beach wagon
just passing did not bear even a faint resemblance
to any conventional idea of Cupid; yet surely no
power less than that of the little god could have
sent that conveyance exactly at the moment it was
needed.  Page felicitated himself on the occurrence;
and in the whole history of the Fair it is
doubtful whether better time was made by a pedestrian
than his record to-night between the Sixtieth
Street entrance and the Court of Honor.

But for all his haste, when he reached the giant
horses his friends were not there.  He rushed
from one to the other with frantic energy, but
in vain.  No familiar face and form rewarded his
search.

The Grand Court was lighted.  The first playing
of the electric fountains was over; perhaps had
been over for some time.  Page was too dispirited
to look at his watch.  For him the surroundings
were stale, flat, and unprofitable,—another
proof that the Kingdom of Heaven is a condition
rather than a place.  He was just about moving
away with a sense of disappointment which
he condemned as unreasonably keen, when there
loomed up before him a vision more beautiful to
his eyes than the most lovely sculptured angel in
the neighborhood.

"Well, Jack," he exclaimed, taking his cousin's
hand, "here you are!  I was just looking for you."

Van Tassel smiled at the eager reception.

"Thought we had flown, did you?  So we have,
a little way.  The girls are sitting over yonder.
Mildred has been sending me on periodical scouting
expeditions, lest you might come down.  Glad
to see you back.  Business go all right?"

"Yes, I'm all right, thanks.  Didn't quite get
a sunstroke."

Van Tassel was striding along to keep pace with
Gorham, who had instantly started in the direction
Jack indicated.  The latter smiled, and did not
make a further attempt at conversation until the
settee was reached where Clover and Mildred were
waiting.

"You did come," said the latter pleasantly.
"We thought you might hunt for us."

"It was so kind of you," exclaimed Page gratefully,
as he greeted them both.  "Now I can draw
a long breath."

The four exchanged a few commonplaces concerning
his trip, and then Mildred changed the
subject.

"We have cards for a reception at the Woman's
Building to-night, and we have been in a dozen
minds about going: but I think it would be
pleasant to look in."

Gorham glanced tentatively at Clover.  He had
not been gazing at her this evening as was his
wont, and Mildred observed the change.  "It
would be pleasant," he said, without enthusiasm.
"Don't let me detain you, of course.  I haven't
been here for what seems to me a very long time,
and I don't feel inclined to go indoors.  Do you
especially wish to attend the reception, Mrs. Van
Tassel?"

"No—in fact"—

Mildred spoke quickly, for she felt her quiet
sister's embarrassment.  "The truth may as well be
told, Mr. Page.  Just previous to your appearance
she had flatly refused even to approach the
Woman's Building; so she cannot put on airs about
relinquishing a pleasure."

"Then we might divide," suggested Page, with
so much alacrity that Mildred smiled; but the
smile was fleeting.  She had risen, and was standing
behind her sister.  Now she placed a hand on
her shoulder.

"Oh, my friends, look!" she cried suddenly,
lifting her hand toward the east.  The moon was
rising behind the Peristyle.  Deep in the soft sky
it shone between the lofty white columns and cast
a silver sheen across the summer lake.

"This is Greece, and that is the Mediterranean!"
exclaimed Jack.

Mildred, after a moment of gazing, stooped and
dropped a light kiss on her sister's cheek.

"Good-by, Clover."  Then, with a loving pressure
of the other's shoulder, she added in a jealous
whisper: "My Clover."

As the other two moved away, Clover and Gorham
rose simultaneously.  "I believe we had the
same thought," he said, looking at her with happy
eyes.

"Mine was to go to the Peristyle," she answered.

"And mine."

She took his offered arm; they started down the
half-deserted walk, and quickly came one of the
magic changes of the place.  The lights vanished,
and the colossal moonlit gateway of the Peristyle
gained new majesty.

"At last I can thank you for your letter," said Page.

"Were you glad to get it?  I am afraid it was
not much of an epistle."

"As if any word you would write could be
anything but precious!  It breathed of you in every
line.  All things are made new since I read it.
My whole life, all my powers, every worthy thing
I may ever attain, are yours.  Is it possible that
you are really going to accept them, that you can
care for me, Clover?"

She felt his strong arm tremble under her hand,
and it thrilled her; but she was silent, and his
impetuous speech rushed on.

"I have had to hold under with an iron will all
my thoughts, the contradictions, the hopes and
fears, of the last few days.  Last night I dreamed
of this.  We were walking together somewhere,
and the moon shone on the water.  I asked you to
marry me, and you looked at me pityingly and said—No.
I reminded you of your letter, but still
you shook your head.  Clover!"

He spoke her name with tender appeal.  They
drew near the Peristyle and, stepping within,
walked slowly down the wondrous vista of fluted
columns beneath the clusters of flower-like lights.

"My letter?" she repeated softly.  "How could
you value that trivial little letter so much?  What
was there in it?  I do not even remember."

Page stood still, to look in amazement into her
face; but even in his surprise it did not occur to
him that she might be resorting to subterfuge.

"I have the letter here," he said simply,
thrusting his hand into an inside pocket.  "We will
see."

Clover crimsoned to her throat.  She did not
wish to see the letter.  She suddenly feared it.
What trick had been played upon her?  Could
Mildred—  Oh, impossible!

Gorham unfolded the sheet before her reluctant
gaze.  Then with sudden haste she took it from
him, opened it, and read the closing lines.  Her
breath came freer.

"Oh yes," she said, smiling in her relief.  "I
wrote that."

Gorham unconsciously received the paper into
his hand.  He was scrutinizing her face.  "What
did you mean by those words?" he asked.

"Why, nothing," she answered, surprised and
affected by his agitation,—"nothing except what
I said.  Let me read it."

"Those last words," said Page briefly, indicating
them.

Clover read obediently aloud.

"I wonder—you always seem so sufficient unto
yourself, so much more a man of intellect than of
heart—I wonder if you ever feel, as I do more
and more strongly every day, our—dependence."  The
voice gradually lowered, then paused; Clover
cast one beseeching, troubled glance up into her
companion's face.  It was as pale as hers was
glowing.

"We always have been so impersonal.  Of
course I meant people in general," she finished,
low and quickly.

Page gave her a sad smile.  "We have theorized
and speculated together a great deal, I know.  So
this was only one more speculation, was it?"

"Why, Mr. Page!" said Clover, scarcely above
the breath that was failing her.  "How could you
think"—

"I don't know now, myself," he answered with
simplicity.  "I suppose I was so suffused with love
of you that this one hint at reciprocation set my
head aflame, and brought on an attack of emotional
insanity.  I ask your pardon; but all the same,
Clover, I am not ashamed, and I cannot regret it.
It was my good angel who held your little hand
while you wrote that, for it gave me moments of
such happiness as I never knew before, and
perhaps never shall again."

Clover wanted to speak and could not.  She
thought if he would move, or take his gaze from
her face, her courage might rise.  She lifted her
eyes, but only far enough to note that the electric
fountains were flinging their jets of color aloft;
the water taking new shapes each moment with
bewildering grace and rapidity.

"I never thought of you before as a woman
whom it would be right for a man to ask to come
down beside him; I did not know that my heart
was reaching out toward yours until that day of
the letter.  Would you mind telling me, Clover,
how long you have known that I loved you?"

Clover drew a long, involuntary breath.  "I did
not know it," she said at last, looking up at him
bravely; and when once her eyes were held in that
compelling gaze, she did not wish to escape.  "I
only—hoped it," she finished.

The fountains fell and vanished.  The dainty
flame-blossoms in the remote sculptured nooks
overhead still added their soft radiance to that of the
moon.  The lovers were alone in that colossal aisle,
that pillared temple, where for one transcendent
moment they stood heart to heart.  It was the
period of shadow in the Court.  At the other end
of the lagoon, far away through spaces of darkness,
the gemmed dome of Administration lifted its
cameos and starry crown against the heavens.
From the distance of the lighted Peristyle the deep
surrounding shadows gave a supernatural effect to
this single lighted edifice, whose triumphant angels
seemed to move in the waving illumination thrown
over them from flaming torches.  It was an aerial
castle, with no affinity for earth; an exalting
vision such as visited the prophets of old.

"Earlier in the evening," said Page, almost too
deeply moved to speak, "I would willingly have
turned from the Court of Honor.  I could not find
you, and its company of angels was incomplete.
Now, heaven itself lies here.  I ought to be a good
man, my darling.  You will help me.  It is a debt
I shall owe for ever more."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEW YEAR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE NEW YEAR.

.. vspace:: 2

The reception at the Woman's Building proved
attractive.  It was late when Mildred and Jack
returned home that night.  All was still about the
house.  They parted in the usual friendly fashion,
which both sought to make easy, and each felt to
be constrained.

Mildred went quietly to her sister's door and
listened.  All was still.  "Then she has been at
home some time," thought the girl.  "Good!
That speaks volumes.  Poor fellow, I'm sorry for
him."  The *frou-frou* of her dress as she turned
away almost drowned the voice that spoke her
name.  Not quite, however.  She turned the
handle of the door.

"Did you call me, Clover?"

"Yes; come in."

"I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Oh, I can't go to sleep.  I don't want to."

The speaker put out her hand, and drew Mildred
down on the side of the bed.  The latter's eyes
widened in their effort to penetrate the darkness.

"Something did happen, then?"

"Yes, it is all right," answered Clover, and her
soft, glad tone pierced to her sister's heart.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He does love me!"  What a different voice
was this from the one in which she had said the
same words to Jack Van Tassel five years ago!

"Of course; but, Clover, surely you don't love
him!" exclaimed the other, aghast.

For answer, Clover took the hand she held and
pressed it against her breast.  "With every throb,"
she said slowly.

Mildred stared, then threw herself face down on
the pillow and wept with abandon.

"Dearest, please don't," exclaimed Clover,
shocked.

"I must," sobbed the other.  "Oh, why did we
ever see him!  You are all I have in the world.
I hate anybody who takes you away from me."

"Nobody can, dear.  You know that," returned
Clover, distressed by this rare flood.  She slipped
her arm around the recumbent form, and
interspersed her words with loving pats.  "I am so
disappointed, Milly.  I thought you would be as
happy as I am."

"I am never as happy as you are," answered
the other.  "I know this is abominable, but I've
got to be selfish this once.  I'm just envious and
miserable, Clover.  Why should you always be
blessing people and I never?  My heart is heavy,
and it hurts me all the time."

In an instant Clover sank her joy in loving
compassion.  It was the first admission
concerning Jack that Mildred had ever made.

"My poor darling, I am so sorry," she said
feelingly, "and I do not see that you have done
any wrong.  Instead, you have been true to yourself.
Anything else would have been a dreadful
mistake."

Mildred was so surprised that she stopped
crying suddenly.  "Then Jack has told you?" she
said without lifting her face, a belated sob
struggling in her throat.

"Yes.  Shouldn't you prefer to have him go
away?"

"No, not unless he wishes it.  I would rather
he stayed."

"Things will come right for you, dearest.  They
always do when one is trying to live up to her
standards, and to do the best she knows how.
Perhaps I have made you feel that even I thought
you ought to marry him.  If I have, please forgive
me for adding to the cruelty of your position.
I ought to have known that you would be glad, too,
if it could have been Jack."

Mildred rose to a sitting position.  "Let us
forgive mutually," she said, wiping her eyes.  "I
am mortally ashamed of myself for bothering you
at such a time.  Wait till to-morrow morning and
see me redeem my character by my treatment of
that—thief!"  She stooped and kissed her
sister passionately.  "Why should I blame him,
when I know that I would not look at any woman
but you if I were a man?  What a lot of trouble
it would have saved me, by the way!"

"I don't know," returned the other with a
smile.  "You see I should have been forced to
refuse you."

"That is just like saying you love him better
than me," with quick suspicion.

"No, no; only better than that man you were
going to be."

"Well," said Mildred, shrugging her shoulder
in a characteristic gesture, "I rather think I
should enjoy the refreshing change of being
refused once or twice.  As for you,—as if I should
mind your refusal!  I should simply kidnap you."  She
stooped, and laid her cheek against Clover's
once more.


Aunt Love was a happy woman next day.  She
was quite a heroine in the small family jubilation.

"All my life I shall owe you twelve added
hours of happiness," Page said to her, when she
gave him a rousing kiss.

"Well, Mr. Gorham, you know I always was
good to you," she responded radiantly, and
contented herself all day by drawing Mildred off into
corners to discuss this and that detail of "his" and
"her" behavior during the past weeks; "trifles
light as air," but "confirmation strong" to Aunt
Love of a good time coming, and which she dwelt
upon with such profound delight and secrecy that
Mildred had not the heart to refuse her an
audience for all the asides she chose to make.

Gorham Page allowed himself a brief period in
which to realize his happiness before returning to
Boston, but his energies now turned willingly
toward his work as the means by which he could
soonest carry Clover to his own home and hers;
and before he left, it had been arranged that they
should be married the following spring.

The day before the one set for his departure,
Jack came out to Clover, who was sitting with
some fancy work on the piazza.  Page was at the
hotel, writing business letters.

"Gorham says your cigars are too strong to be
good for you," she said, looking up as he struck a
match.

"Yes, he has let out from the shoulder lately,"
returned Jack, puffing his cigar alight.

"Do listen to him, Jack," said the other
pleadingly.  "Don't injure your health."

"What is my health good for?" asked the
young fellow, dropping down on the edge of the
piazza, upon which he extended one leg, while he
embraced the other knee as he leaned against a
pillar.

"Don't talk that way," said Clover.  Van Tassel
had never heard her use so acute a tone, and he
was surprised on looking up to see her eyes
swimming.  "It is wicked when one has friends who
love him as yours do you."

"All right, Clover.  Thank you.  I am listening
to Gorham.  This cigar that I have here"—he
removed it from his lips, and regarded it
through contracted lids—"might have become
sauerkraut by a little different process of
handling."  He smoked a minute in silence, then said:
"Mildred has gone away, hasn't she?"

"Yes; she has gone to spend a day or two with
Helen Eames.  Helen has been urging her all
summer."

"I think I'll go back with Gorham to-morrow,"
added Van Tassel briefly.

"Why, Jack!"  Clover dropped her work and
gazed at him.

"Yes, I'll go back."  The young man flipped
the ash from his cigar off into the grass.

"Do you feel that you have seen the Fair?"

"Yes, too many Fairs."  Jack smiled rather
dolefully as he glanced up toward the blue eyes.

"I can't urge you to stay," said Clover sadly.

"Oh, perhaps I'll come back," remarked the
other cheerfully, "when I get my second wind, as
it were.  The first supply has been about knocked
out of me."

"You don't look well."

"Oh yes, I am well enough."

"You have behaved like an angel, Jack."

He laughed.  "I feel a little like one of those
angels on the side of the Transportation
Building,—the sort you can pass under a door without
touching their buttons, you know."

"Did you plan to go without saying good-by to
Mildred?"

"Oh no."

"I'm glad of that.  It would hurt her."

"No.  I will run up to the Eameses this evening
and kill two birds with one stone.  I ought to say
good-by to Miss Eames.  She has been very kind
to me.  That is," looking up inquiringly, "if you
and Gorham can spare me on your last evening.
How is that?"

There was dew again in the violet eyes.  "It does
not seem right for me to be happy when you are
not, Jack," Clover said, unconsciously clasping
her hands together.  "If I could only say
something that would stay with you as a comfort!  I
am afraid to seem to preach when my own lot is
what it is.  You are plucky and have plenty of
self-control, but I hope you will not try to lean
only on your own strength.  We can all have faith
that, so long as we do right, the outcome will be
the best thing for us, whatever it is."

"I'm not kicking," said Jack quietly, "but I
am going away because I believe it is the best
thing both for Mildred and me."

"Does she know your intention?"

"No.  It is rather sudden.  I only took it to-day.
I have staid here long enough to bring things
the way I want them if it were on the cards.  Now,
I will do the next best thing."

A couple of days afterward, Mildred returned
from her visit.  She came breezily into the room
where her sister was sitting.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" exclaimed
Clover, starting up and kissing her.

"Let us look at you," said Mildred, holding her
off and scrutinizing her with bright, audacious
eyes.  "No, they are not red," she continued; "I
thought I might be coming home to a Niobe."

"They are both gone," said Clover plaintively.

"Yes."  Mildred turned away to a mirror, and
began removing her hat-pins.  "I have been kept
so busy consoling Helen Eames that I couldn't
come home any sooner to dry your tears."

Her sister look at her inquiringly.  Was there
any bravado in this disappointing gayety?
Apparently not.  Mankind loves a lover, and Clover,
especially loving this lover, felt tempted to
resentment; but might it not be that Mildred indeed
felt more light-hearted than for months past?
Why should she be blamed, if she found relief in
the knowledge that her home was free from a
presence which had been in a way a constant reproach?

"I wish Jack did care for Helen Eames,"
returned the elder, unconsciously sighing.

"Yes; wouldn't it be convenient?"

"I'm glad you've come home, Milly.  The
house has seemed so empty."

"Oh, but what lovely flowers!" exclaimed the
latter, espying a great bowl of roses in a shaded
corner.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

"They are not yours, my dear."  Clover smiled
at her work.  "They came last night."

"They are beautiful.  Did brother actually
remember to have such a sweet substitute sent you
on your first lonely evening?  I am proud of him.
What else interesting has happened?"

"Nothing, I think.  Gorham received a characteristic
letter from Robert just before he left.  He
gave it to me to keep, with one that came from
Hilda.  Perhaps you would like to see it?"

"Indeed, I would.  Nice, jolly Mr. Page!  I
wish they lived next door."

Mildred took the letter Clover handed her.
"I'm going to read it aloud.  It probably says
nice things about you.

"DEAR GORHAM,—So you have won that sweet
woman!  Blessings on you, my boy!  I may be
partial, but I believe you are somewhere near good
enough for her.  Truth compels me to state, however,
that your gain is my loss, owing to the
overweening satisfaction it is to Hilda.  In an evil
moment, I underrated her prescience when she
prophesied this happy event, and the consequence
is that I am considering living at the club until the
first blush of her triumph passes over.  It flavors
the matutinal oatmeal and the after-dinner coffee.
I cannot indulge in a short nap without encountering
a tall nightmare in which the wife of my bosom
pops out from unexpected corners and ejaculates 'I
told you so.'  She sits opposite me now, writing a
letter to go with this.  I know those are burning
words that are growing with such swiftness.  I can
almost hear the paper hiss.  However, I am just as
pleased as she is.  Please give Clover my love,—you
see I am not slow to use my privilege in naming
her,—and tell her I am sure the world will
be a better place for such a home as you and she
will make in it.  Indeed, I feel more than I can say
on the subject.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "With kind regards to all,
       "Your brother,
           "ROBERT."

.. vspace:: 2

With the early autumn came the Parliament of
Religions,—the congress which, among the many
that preceded and followed it, proved, to the general
surprise, to be the one of greatest interest to the
public.  Miss Berry was indefatigable in her
attendance; and her young ladies were often with
her.  The names of those Orientals, whose words
she listened to as to music, were impracticable to
her; but their dark faces and graceful gestures
were fixed in her mind forever.  Aunt Love was
one of thousands whose complacent generalization
of "the heathen" received a blow.

Clover did her share in the entertaining of
some of these scholarly delegates from the far East;
and Mildred found a totally novel sauce piquante
in the society of a handsome coffee-colored Indian,
who wore a pink silk turban and mouse-colored
robe, and talked transcendental philosophy in the
purest English while gazing at her from long,
beautiful eyes.

Lieutenant Eames had rejoined his regiment,
whether or no hiding a heart-wound, Clover did not
know.  Mildred said nothing.  October, the
busiest, gayest month of the Fair, came on.  Such of
society as had hitherto been obdurate, now
returning from seashore and mountains, made one united,
belated rush for the widely extolled Exposition.
The climax of attendance during one day came on
October 9th, Chicago's own celebration, the
anniversary of the great fire, when more than seven
hundred and fifty thousand persons were in the grounds.
The effect, when one could rise to a slight eminence
and look down, was such as is observed in a trap so
full of flies that there is only a general stir and
movement among the mass; no form is visible.

The day was faultless.  Not a cloud flecked the
azure against which shone the groups of the
Agricultural Building, that one edifice which interposed
no roof between its superb statuesque decorations
and the revealing blue of the firmament.  The
three mammoth fountains at the end of the Court
of Honor played in dazzling sunshine, filling the
air with crystals.

Clover and Mildred were present, attended by
the Pink Turban, splendid in his unconsciousness
of being regarded on all sides as a sort of embodied
apotheosis of the Midway.

The ceremonies of the day began with what Clover's
chair-boy naïvely called a procession of "the
hussies," although the Chicago Hussars might
have taken exception to the term.  From that
moment until late evening, the interest was not
permitted to flag.  A tightrope-walker in cavalier
costume ran and pirouetted high in air before the
Peristyle, the scarlet and gold of his costume
showing jewel-like against the pure columns.

A large chorus sang national hymns.  The
young liberty-bell pealed.  Hundreds of children
in fancy costumes marched around the lagoons; but
the magnitude of the crowd defeated its own
entertainment by the fact that the procession of
elaborately prepared floats could not force their
way through the avenues.

It was all very wonderful, but greatest of all was
the fabulous splendor of the night display.  The
Van Tassel party viewed it from the roof of the
New York Building.  Surely, Chicago had earned
the right to celebrate herself by bombardments of
colored fire, if so it pleased her, and she did so this
evening on a scale which trebled previous efforts,
and made the heavens as luminous as on that night,
twenty-two years ago, when she was the victim
instead of the instigator of her pyrotechnics.

Once more the city meant to distinguish the
World's Fair by novel and striking accompaniments
to its intrinsic grandeur.  It was intended
that its close should be attended with a metaphorical
flourish of trumpets; but close upon this
last day, shame and affliction visited Chicago in
the murder of its mayor, and all festivities were
renounced.  The last hours of the existence of
the Dream City were mournfully quiet.

"A bubble is always most beautiful just before
it vanishes," Mildred said to Clover, as they stood
together in the Court of Honor on that afternoon,
waiting for the fateful moment.

"It never looked more lovely," replied Clover.
They spoke softly, as in a holy place, and with one
accord looked up at the infinite message in carven
letters, the significant legacy of the summer's grand
experience:—

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."

A strain of solemn sweetness sounded through
the harmonies that poured without ceasing from
the orchestra in a neighboring pavilion, touching
every heart in that waiting throng.

The rays of the low-hanging sun shot for one
moment past the side of the Administration Building,
gleamed through the waters of the fountain,
and traveled a swift path across the lagoon to
illume for an instant the golden Republic.

"It is the swan-song!" exclaimed Mildred.

A long, sullen roar sounded from the east.  It
was the first peal of the salute which bade the
Dream City vanish.  The sisters clasped hands, as
they had once before in the selfsame spot.  The
eyes that had sought each other, dark with
excitement and anticipation, that day, now saw through
mists of tears.  The myriad flags they had seen
unfurled in gladness now with one accord slipped
down from sight, and the music died as the message
from the cannon's mouth told the country around
that all was over.

Jack had been with them on the opening day.
Mildred could recall how earnest and handsome he
looked, standing with his hat off, carried away by
the spirit of the occasion.  A great wave of
compassion swept over her heart, and mingled with the
yearning and sense of loss in the air.  The weather
was chill now and cloudy.  She was glad to slip
her arm through Clover's and hurry home.

Soon after this, Aunt Love returned to Pearfield.
There was some discussion as to whether she
should take Blitzen; but that sagacious animal, as
was usual when anything inimical to his interests
was in the air, seemed fully aware of her doubts,
lost his high spirits, haunted her like a silent ghost,
walked when she walked, sat when she sat, and
whined as he gazed at her, until the persecuted
woman yielded to his mute entreaties.  Electra
stayed, and remained the heroine of her latticed
inclosure,—an additional reason for Blitzen to
prefer returning to his native heath.

Aunt Love's farewell was by no means a sad
one.  She was radiant as she remarked how soon
Clover would be her neighbor.

"And in that way we'll get you, too," she said
to Mildred; but that young woman demurred.

"Of course she will come," said Clover.

"I'm not sure," persisted the younger.

"Well now, my dear," said Miss Berry in parting
advice, "don't you wander through the woods
too long and take up with a crooked stick at last;
but, whatever you do, marry a man o' your own
color, who wears a hat and coat instead of a turban
and a bath wrapper.  Remember that."

"I don't know," responded Mildred, with a teasing
smile.  "The Pink Turban says he has a pair
of very handsome diamond earrings.  Perhaps, if
I should have my ears pierced, he would let me
wear them a part of the time."

"Go 'way!" exclaimed Miss Berry, with a
repudiatory gesture.

The old Scotch housekeeper soon returned, joyful
to be back again, and felicitating herself that
the Fair was safely over; and life might have been
supposed to move on as before, but it did not.

Clover had come into a new state of existence,
the deep, constant joy of which she never expressed
in words.  Except for the framed photograph on
her dressing-table, Mildred might have believed
her equable sister to be unchanged in thought as
well as habit; but Mildred's own mode of life
was noticeably changed this season.  The winter
was a hard one.  Cold weather set in in November,
and the reaction from the great business activity of
the year before caused a depression cruelly felt
among the poor.  Charitable work was the order
of the day, and Mildred entered into it heart and
soul.

"Slumming was never so fashionable," she said;
and thus lightly accounting for the new direction
of her energy, she learned novel views of life, which
would modify her character in all time to come.
Clover was her efficient aid, and her friend Helen
Eames sometimes went on these expeditions too,
under the shadow of her wing.

It was rather a grievance with Helen that Mildred
never of her own accord referred to Jack, and
if questioned, made brief replies.  Mr. Van Tassel
was a Chicago man and belonged here.  He was,
in Helen's own phraseology, "perfectly fascinating,"
and not to be lightly dropped.  She intended
to keep herself posted as to the probabilities of his
return; but Mildred early nipped her plans in the
bud.

"We can't reckon on Mr. Van Tassel as a
Chicagoan any more," she said.  "He is reading law
very earnestly now in Boston, and he has lived
there so many years, it is home to him.  Besides
that, he is devoted to Clover, and when she is
married to his cousin, that will be another tie to
keep him at the East."

Upon which Miss Eames grew thoughtful, and
fortune shortly after throwing in her way an
invitation to visit a friend in Boston, she
incontinently dropped her pilgrimages amid Chicago's
back streets, and departed on the most limited
train available.

Soon afterward, Mildred received a gay letter
from her.  Mr. Van Tassel had called, and had
been one of the theatre party her hostess had given
the night before.  She was having a charming
time, and hoped dear Mildred would not take
something in those dreadful basements before she
could return to help her again.

"Wouldn't it be strange," Clover asked, when
her sister showed her the letter, "if little Helen
should catch Jack's heart on the rebound, after
all?"

Mildred returned her look with unusual gravity.
"Are men's hearts so unfaithful, do you think?"
she asked seriously.

"Sometimes," answered Clover, "when they
despair; and women's, too."

"Then they are unworthy," Mildred said quietly.

No winter ever suffered more than this by
contrast with the summer.  In public print and by
private hearsay, the bitter needs of the poor
surrounded one.  The corpse of the White City lay
wrapped in a winding-sheet of snow.  The sisters
never entered the grounds from the afternoon its
spirit departed.  They looked askance, in passing,
at the buildings, with their cold, silent surroundings,
where so recently all had been life and
warmth.  The same domes and façades upreared
under the cold sky.  One could only say as he does
in glancing tenderly and sadly at a dear, dead
face: "How natural it looks!"

Little wonder that plans were innumerable for
preserving a portion of that dream of beauty, to be
resuscitated and to become the joy of one more
summer; but the work of spoliation had begun,
and would march on inexorably.

"Miss Mildred has grown awful quiet, Mrs. Van
Tassel," said old Jeanie one day in confidence.
"It's a wrong you're doing her, I'm thinking,
letting her quench all her bright spirits in those
holes she visits."

"I think not, Jeanie," Clover replied.  "Miss
Mildred is having a deep experience; but we can't
help the sorrow in the world except by coming
close to it."

"I saw tears in her eyes the other night,"
whispered Jeanie profoundly, "and I asked the poor
child why, and what do you suppose she answered?"

"I suppose she had the heartache over some of
our new friends."

"Maybe; but if she did, she wouldn't acknowledge
it.  She said 't was because the Chicago
Beach Hotel was closed for the season, and there
couldn't be any dances there!"

Clover smiled.  "That sounds as if her spirits
had not all departed," she remarked.

But she had been quick to observe the alteration
in Mildred.  Sometimes she hoped that Jack's
absence had wrought the fulfillment of his desire,
but she did not seek to probe her sister's feeling.
If unseen influences were expanding the entrance
to the holy of holies in the young girl's heart,
what right had she to interfere?  Sometimes she
feared Mildred was depressed by the prospect of
a marriage which would break up this home.
Whatever the cause, the fact remained that her
sister's interest in society had waned, and the part
she kept up in it was perfunctory, and did not
extend beyond those efforts which courtesy
demanded.  She had never been more companionable
with Clover, however, and the latter had never
enjoyed her so much.

Thus matters stood when the New Year was
ushered in.  The day was clear and bright, and
many thousands took advantage of the fact that
Jackson Park passed back to-day into the public
jurisdiction.  Curiosity seekers and vandals poured
down the strangely mute Midway Plaisance and
through the avenues of the Park.  Clover and
Mildred did not swell the number who gayly
parodied "After the Ball."

And now was to come the long pull and the
strong pull of winter.  Mildred wondered in her
own mind why the prospect should look so very
dreary.  No other season had ever seemed like it.
Doubtless it was her new and close acquaintance
with the griefs of others that had changed the
world, and made life a novel sort of struggle.

The new year was less than a week old when
Clover received a letter from Jack, announcing his
intention to make them a call.

"I won't give any excuses," he wrote; "I admit
that I am coming simply because I want so much
to see Mildred and you that I believe I shall do
better work after indulging in that pleasure."

"Loyal as ever," said Clover, looking up, and
Mildred did not raise her eyes from her work, but
she was smiling.

Jack had said he could not set a precise time
for his arrival, but that in a few days they might
expect him to drop down.

When his determination had been taken, Van
Tassel pushed forward his preparations with all
haste, and his restlessness did not quiet until he
found himself, in the early evening of the 8th of
January, walking down the old familiar home street
once more.  As he reached the corner, he suddenly
observed that clouds of smoke mingled with large
red cinders were rolling up from the south.

"Must be a fire in the Fair grounds," he
thought.  "I wonder if the girls know."

They were coming out of their door, with their
outside wraps on, when Van Tassel came up the
steps, and they gave him a greeting in which
excitement and cordiality mingled.

"There is a fire in the Fair," they all three said
at once.

"You will take me down there, Jack," exclaimed
Mildred.  "Clover was going, but she hasn't been
well and she ought not to."

Clover protested faintly, suggesting some of
the rites of hospitality for Jack's benefit; but he
would hear nothing save carrying out Mildred's
wishes, and after taking a moment to deposit his
bag in the hall, he set off beside her.

"How is Gorham, I wonder?" murmured Clover
with a comical little smile and plaintive raised
eyebrows, as she looked after the figures retreating
into the dark.  "I feel as if I had been in
a whirlwind."  She looked toward the once gay
hotel; now, its many sightless eyes gazed blankly
southward.  "I will go there," she exclaimed with
sudden determination; and reëntering the house,
she called Jeanie, and made her hurry into her
wraps.  The housekeeper obeyed, with many a
fussy groan over her mistress' caprice, and soon
they were walking northward.

They ascended the dark stairway to the piazza
of the hotel, and peered through the door at the
office, where one dim light showed.  Clover was a
bit frightened, but she knocked on the glass.  A
man appeared behind the office desk, and, picking
up the lantern which was the vast hotel's single
attempt at illumination, advanced through dark
spaces, casting strange shadows on the marble
floor as he came.

"May we look at the fire from here?" asked
Clover, wishing Gorham were with her rather than
Jeanie.

"Yes; I see they've got a fire down there," the
man remarked imperturbably, but he stood back
for them to enter, and then clanged the heavy door
behind them.  It echoed in the big empty hall,
and Jeanie looked so discomfited that Clover
smiled, though she herself thought the situation
rather eerie.

The last time she had stood here, the place had
been ablaze with electric light, and gay with music
and guests.  She had ascended with her friends
to a balcony to view the lighted White City in
the zenith of its beauty, and to revel in the fiery
marvels which mirrored themselves in the lake.
It flashed into her memory how enthusiastic the
crowds had been over the rising of a slender cylinder
of light which poised itself aloft, then slowly
unrolled until the stars and stripes appeared in
the heavens.  She could hear again the patriotic
salutes from a congregation of boats as Old Glory
sailed away across the lake.

Now, all was hushed and dark.  A second man,
who appeared in the office, struck a match and lit
another lantern, by whose light he proceeded to
pilot the two women upstairs.

Jeanie muttered and grunted to such an extent
that Clover relented after the ascent of three
flights, and the old man led her to the window of
one of the white-sheeted bedrooms, from which she
eagerly looked.

"Oh, Jeanie, I am sure it is the Peristyle!" she
exclaimed, gazing horror-struck on the volume of
fire and smoke visible through the bare ribs of
the Spectatorium.  "What will—what will
Mr. Page say!"  Involuntarily she pressed her hand
on her beating heart, seeming to hear the roar of
those cruel flames.

Meanwhile Mildred and Jack had caught a
train, which they left at Sixtieth Street.  The
young man was glad that the tension of his
anticipations had been relieved by the unconventional
circumstances of his welcome.  To be joined with
Mildred in the present excitement was far
preferable to the doubtful home evening he had looked
forward to.  Arm in arm they pressed forward
against the cold lake wind toward the shore, and
did not pause until they had neared the Music
Hall.

Only once Mildred spoke as they hurried on.
"I am afraid," she said breathlessly, "that it is
the Peristyle."

"It looks like it," said Jack briefly.  The
hoofs of galloping horses smote the hard ground,
and the puffing of fire-engines was borne to their
ears before they reached the scene of confusion.
There they stood still, Mildred clinging with both
hands to Van Tassel's arm, her wide, horrified eyes
fixed on the blazing Casino, the building into
which the Peristyle merged at the southern end, as
it did into Music Hall on the north.

The lagoon was coated with a thin sheet of ice,
across which the sparks, after circling around the
head of the golden goddess, whirled up the Court
of Honor in lines of fire.

Above, the wind bore the glowing brands swirling
over the great neighboring buildings.  Streams
of water fell with no quenching power into the
flames.

"Why don't they bend all their energies to
saving the Peristyle?" exclaimed Mildred.

"That is what they are doing now.  See?"

The dauntless firemen were fighting the flames
at close range.  A dozen streams of water at once
were directed upon the Peristyle; but in vain.
The walls of the Casino crashed in; devouring
tongues of fire fastened upon the first noble pillar
and ate upward.

Van Tassel felt his companion shudder in her
furs, and put his hand on hers.  The crowd
that had gathered in the very spot where they
cheered the summer's pyrotechnic display were
strangely motionless and silent, watching with
fascinated eyes and saddened faces as the fire crept
upward, leaping from pillar to pillar, ascending
toward the statues which stood serene and fair
above smoke and flame long after the watchers
expected them to succumb.  At last, each white
figure in turn, seeming suddenly to become aware of
its environment, wavered on its pedestal, hesitated,
and with one shrinking look below, plunged
downward into the fiery chasm.

"Jack!" gasped Mildred, shivering from head
to foot, her dilated eyes never leaving the
heart-rending sight.

For an instant, free of smoke and illumined
gloriously, shone out for a last time the heavenly
promise:—

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."

"The Quadriga!" groaned Van Tassel, for the
grand arch was seized upon, and swiftly melted
away in the furnace.  No search-light of the
summer ever compared in grandeur with the effect that
succeeded to the crumbling of the staff below the
famous group, the pride of the noble Peristyle.
The iron skeleton supports, laid bare, were
invisible in the night.  Columbus, his chariot, the
outriders with their banners, and the spirited horses
led by maidens, stood triumphant in the vivid
light.  It was a sight of supernatural beauty.  In
the glare of the leaping flames the snow-white
horses seemed to stir restlessly and paw the air,
as they arched their necks and gazed proudly down
into the glowing chasm.

"Jump, oh, jump!" cried Mildred; then,
unable to endure the impending catastrophe, her
nerves strained to the utmost, she turned with a
wild movement, and sobbing, hid her head on
Jack's breast.

He put his arms around her.

"The—the Peristyle has gone!" she exclaimed
chokingly,—"gone back—to heaven!"

"Yes, darling," he answered close to her ear.
"My rival.  Forgive me, but you are making me
so happy I can't realize anything except that I
have you in my arms.  What does it mean? only
that you are overwrought?"

Mildred lifted her face slightly, but away from
the burning pyre.

"Your rivals are all gone, Jack," she said, as
steadily as she could speak.  "Even I do not
count."

.. vspace:: 2

Half an hour afterward, Clover heard them
enter the house, and hurried down to the parlor.

When she pushed aside the portière and entered,
she paused in amazement and her heart leaped up,
for Jack's arms were about Mildred and his lips
were pressed to hers.

They saw her, and in another instant she was
beside them, her hands clasped in theirs.

As she gazed at her sister, mute for joy, Mildred
regarded her with a tender version of her beautiful
smile.

"I believe," she said, "this lifts the last cloud
from Clover's horizon."

"Yes," answered the latter rather unsteadily;
"the world never looked so bright to me as now.
I think, Jack," turning to him, her face aglow,
"heaven itself must have grown happier to-night."

Van Tassel's eyes shone wistfully.  "I hope he
knows," he answered gently.

.. vspace:: 4

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   STANDARD AND POPULAR

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   BOOKS OF FICTION

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   PUBLISHED BY

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   HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

.. vspace:: 2

**Thomas Bailey Aldrich.**

.. vspace:: 1

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The Story of a Bad Boy.  Illustrated.
Marjorie Daw and Other People.  Short Stories.  With Frontispiece.
Marjorie Daw and Other Stories.  In Riverside Aldine Series.

.. vspace:: 1

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These volumes are not identical in contents.

.. vspace:: 1

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Prudence Palfrey.  With frontispiece.
The Queen of Sheba.
The Stillwater Tragedy.
Two Bites at a Cherry, and Other Tales.

.. vspace:: 2

**Jane G. Austin.**

.. vspace:: 1

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Standish of Standish.
Betty Alden.
A Nameless Nobleman.
Dr. LeBaron and his Daughters.

.. vspace:: 1

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Colonial Novels, including above.  4 vols.

.. vspace:: 1

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The Desmond Hundred.
David Alden's Daughter, and other Stories.


.. vspace:: 2

**Edward Bellamy.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Miss Ludington's Sister.
Looking Backward: 2000-1887.


.. vspace:: 2

**Helen Dawes Brown.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Two College Girls.
The Petrie Estate.


.. vspace:: 2

**Clara Louise Burnham.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Young Maids and Old.
Next Door.
Dearly Bought.
No Gentlemen.
A Sane Lunatic.
The Mistress of Beech Knoll.
Miss Bagg's Secretary.
Dr. Latimer.


.. vspace:: 2

**Edwin Lassetter Bynner.**

.. vspace:: 1

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Zachary Phips.
Agnes Surriage.
The Begum's Daughter.

.. vspace:: 1

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These three Historical Novels, in box.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Penelope's Suitors.
Damon's Ghost.
An Uncloseted Skeleton.  (Written with Lucretia P. Hale.)


.. vspace:: 2

**Mary Hartwell Catherwood.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

The Lady of Fort St. John.
Old Kaskaskia.


.. vspace:: 2

**Rose Terry Cooke.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Somebody's Neighbors.  Stories.
Happy Dodd.
The Sphinx's Children.  Stories.
Steadfast.
Huckleberries.  Gathered from New England Hills.  Short Stories.


.. vspace:: 2

**Charles Egbert Craddock [Mary N. Murfree].**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

In the Tennessee Mountains.  Short Stories.
Down the Ravine.  For Young People.  Illustrated.
The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains.
In the Clouds.
The Story of Keedon Bluffs.
The Despot of Broomsedge Cove.
Where the Battle was Fought.
His Vanished Star.


.. vspace:: 2

**James Fenimore Cooper.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Works.  New *Household Edition*.  With Introductions
to many of the volumes by Susan Fenimore Cooper,
and Illustrations.  In 32 volumes.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Sea Tales.  First Series.  New *Household Edition*.
With Introductions by Susan Fenimore Cooper.
Illustrated.  In 5 vols.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Sea Tales.  Second Series.  New *Household Edition*.
With Introductions by Susan Fenimore Cooper.
Illustrated.  In 5 vols.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Leather-Stocking Tales.  New *Household Edition*.
With Portrait, Introductions, and Illustrations.  In
5 vols.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Cooper Stories.  Narratives of Adventure selected
from Cooper's Works.  Illustrated.  Stories of the
Prairie.  Stories of the Woods.  Stories of the Sea.
3 vols.


.. vspace:: 2

**Mary Hallock Foote.**

.. vspace:: 1

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The Chosen Valley.
The Led-Horse Claim.  Illustrated.
John Bodewin's Testimony.
The Last Assembly Ball, and the Fate of a Voice.
In Exile, and Other Stories.


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**Arthur Sherburne Hardy.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

But Yet a Woman.
The Wind of Destiny.
Passe Rose.


.. vspace:: 2

**Joel Chandler Harris.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Mingo, and other Sketches in Black and White.
Nights with Uncle Remus.  Illustrated.
Baalam and his Master, and other Stories.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

Uncle Remus and His Friends.  Old Plantation
Stories, Songs, and Ballads.  With Sketches of Negro
Character.  With 12 illustrations by Frost.


.. vspace:: 2

**Miriam Coles Harris.**

.. vspace:: 1

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Writings.  New Edition, uniform.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Rutledge.
Frank Warrington.
The Sutherlands.
Richard Vandermarck.
St. Philip's.
Missy.
Happy-Go-Lucky.
Phoebe.
A Perfect Adonis.
An Utter Failure.

.. vspace:: 1

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Louie's Last term at St. Mary's (for Young People).
Happy-Go-Lucky.


.. vspace:: 2

**Blanche Willis Howard.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

One Summer.  New Popular Edition.  Illustrated by Hoppin.
Aulnay Tower.
Aunt Serena.
Guenn.  Illustrated.
The Open Door.
A Fellowe and His Wife.  Collaborated with William Sharp.
No Heroes.  A Story for Boys.  Illustrated.


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**William Dean Howells.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Their Wedding Journey.  Illustrated.
A Chance Acquaintance.  Illustrated.
A Foregone Conclusion.
The Lady of the Aroostook.
The Undiscovered Country.
The Minister's Charge.
Indian Summer.
The Rise of Silas Lapham.
A Fearful Responsibility, etc.
A Modern Instance.
A Woman's Reason.
Dr.  Breen's Practice.
The Sleeping-Car, and other Farces.


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**Rev. George A. Jackson.**

.. vspace:: 1

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The Son of a Prophet.


.. vspace:: 2

**Oliver Wendell Holmes.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Elsie Venner.
The Guardian Angel.
A Mortal Antipathy.


.. vspace:: 2

**Augustus Hoppin.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Recollections of Auton House.  Illustrated by the Author.
A Fashionable Sufferer.  Illustrated by the Author.
Two Compton Boys.  Illustrated by the Author.


.. vspace:: 2

**Henry James.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Watch and Ward.
A Passionate Pilgrim, and other Tales.
Roderick Hudson.
The American.
The Europeans.
Confidence.
The Portrait of a Lady.
The Author of Beltraffio; Pandora; Georgina's Reasons;
\      Four Meetings, etc.
The Siege of London; The Pension Beaurepas;
\      and The Point of View.
Tales of Three Cities (The Impressions of a Cousin;
\      Lady Barberina; A New-England Winter).
Daisy Miller: A Comedy.
The Tragic Muse.  2 vols.


.. vspace:: 2

**Sarah Orne Jewett.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

The King of Folly Island, and other People.
Tales of New England.  In Riverside Aldine Series.
A White Heron, and Other Stories.
A Marsh Island.
A Country Doctor.
Deephaven.
Old Friends and New.
Country By-Ways.
The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore.
Betty Leicester.
Strangers and Wayfarers.
A Native of Winby.


.. vspace:: 2

**Ellen Olney Kirk.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Ciphers.
The Story of Margaret Kent.
Sons and Daughters.
Queen Money.
Better Times.  Stories.
A Midsummer Madness.
A Lesson in Love.
A Daughter of Eve.
Walford.


.. vspace:: 2

**Flora Haines Loughead.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

The Man who was Guilty.
The Abandoned Claim.  A California Story for Young People.


.. vspace:: 2

**Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Mrs. Ward].**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

The Gates Ajar.
Beyond the Gates.
The Gates Between.
Men, Women, and Ghosts.  Stories.
Hedged In.
The Silent Partner.
The Story of Avis.
Sealed Orders, and other Stories.
Friends: A Duet.
Dr. Zay.
An Old Maid's Paradise, and Burglars in Paradise.
The Master of the Magicians.  Collaborated by Elizabeth
\      Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward.
Come Forth.  Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
\      and Herbert D. Ward.
Fourteen to One.  Short Stories.
Donald Marcy.
The Madonna of the Tubs.  With Illustrations.
Jack the Fisherman.  Illustrated.


.. vspace:: 2

**F. Hopkinson Smith.**

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

Colonel Carter of Cartersville.  With Illustrations.
A Day at Laguerre's, and other Days.

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::