FOOTNOTES:

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lieWhich we ascribe to heaven: the fated skyGives us free scope, only doth backward pullOur slow designs when we ourselves are dull.What power is it which mounts my love so highThat makes me see and cannot feed mine eye?The mightiest space in fortune nature bringsTo join like likes and kiss like native things.Impossible be strange attempts to thoseThat weigh their pains in sense and do supposeWhat hath been cannot be: whoever stroveTo show her merit that did miss her love?The king's disease—my project may deceive me,But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.

Besides its formal construction and its rhyme, this passage is overmuch afflicted with youngness to be accepted as the product of any other thanShakespeare's very earliest period. Of like quality to this are other passages scattered through the play. For example, the Countess's speech, Act I., Sc. 3, beginning, "Even so it was with me"; all the latter part of Act II., Sc. 1, from Helen's speech, "What I can do," etc., to the end, seventy lines; passages in the third scene of this act, which the reader cannot now fail at once to detect for himself; Helen's letter, Act III., Sc. 4, and Parolles's, Act IV., Sc. 3; and various passages in the last act. Shakespeare, I have no doubt, wrote this play at first nearly all in rhyme in the earliest years of his dramatic life, and afterward, late in his career, possibly on two occasions, rewrote it and gave it a new name; using prose, to save time and labor, in those passages the elevation of which did not require poetical treatment, and in those which were suited to such treatment giving us true, although not highly finished specimens of his grand style.

A few of the plays now remain unnoticed; but our purpose is accomplished without further particular remark. The reader who has gone thus far with me needs me no longer as a guide. The Roman plays, "Coriolanus," "Julius Cæsar," and "Antony and Cleopatra," particularly the last, should now receive his careful attention. In "The Winter's Tale," "The Tempest," and "Henry VIII." he will find the very last productions of Shakespeare's pen, and in the first and the third of these he will find marks of hasty work both in the versification and in the construction; but the touch of the master is unmistakable quite through them all, and "The Tempest" is one of the most perfect of his works in all respects. No true lover of Shakespeare should neglect the Sonnets, although many do neglect them. They are inferior to the plays; but only to them.

As to helps to the understanding of Shakespeare, those who can understand him at all need none except a good critical edition. And by a good critical edition I mean only one which gives a good text, with notes where they are needed upon obscure constructions, obsolete words or phrases, manners and customs, and the like. Of the plays in the Clarendon Press series, "The Merchant of Venice," "Richard II.," "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," better editions cannot be had, particularly for readers inexperienced in verbal criticism. Those who find any difficulty which the notes to those editions do not explain may be pretty sure that, with the exception of a very few passages the corruption of which is admitted on all hands, the trouble is not with Shakespeare or the editor. Shakespeare read in the way which I have indicated, and with the help of such an edition, has a high educating value, and in particular will give the reader an insight into the English language, if not a mastery of it, that is worth a course of all the text-books of grammar and rhetoric that have been written ten times over. As to editions, I shall give only one caution. Do not get Dyce's. Mr. Dyce was a scholar, a man of fine taste, most thoroughly read in English literature, particularly in that of the Elizabethan period. He was a man for whom I had a very high respect, and whom I had reason to regard with a somewhat warmer feeling than that of a mere literary acquaintance. This and my deference to his age and his position prevented me from saying during his life what there is no reason that I should not say now—that in my opinion he was one of the most unsuccessful of Shakespeare's editors. His edition is one of the worst that has been published in the last century, both for its text and, except as to their learning, for its notes. With all my deferential respect for him,[10]I was prepared for this result before the appearance of the first of his three editions. Being in correspondence with him, and on such terms that I could make such a request, I asked him to send me somesheets of his edition while it was passing through the press. He replied that he could not do this; but the reason that he gave was, not any unwillingness to confide them to me, but that it was then impossible, because after his edition was half struck off he had cancelled the greater part of it on account of changes in his opinions as to the reading of so many passages! And this after he was well in years; after having passed his life in the study of Elizabethan literature; and after having edited Beaumont and Fletcher! I was never more amazed. Such a man could have no principles of criticism. How could he guide others who after such study was not sure of his own way? With all his knowledge of the literature and the literary history of the Elizabethan period, he seemed to lack the power of putting himself in sympathy with Shakespeare as he wrote. Hence the crudity and incongruity of his text, his vacillating opinions, and the weakness and poverty of his annotation.

Of criticism of what has been called the higher kind, I recommend the reading of very little, or better, none at all. Read Shakespeare; seek aid to understand his language, if that be in any way obscure to you; but that once comprehended, apprehension of his purpose and meaning will come untold to those who can attain it in any way. In my own edition I avoided as much as possible the introduction of æsthetic criticism, not because I felt incapable of writing it; for it is easy work; on the contrary, I freely essayed it when it was necessary as an aid to the settlement of the text, or of like questions; and by its use I think that I succeeded in establishing some points of importance. But in my judgment the duty of an editor is performed when he puts the reader, as nearly as possible, in the same position, for the apprehension of his author's meaning, that he would have occupied if he had been contemporary with him and had received from him a correct copy of his writings. More than this seems to me to verge upon impertinence. Upon this point I find myself supported by William Aldis Wright,[11]who is in my judgment the ablest of all the living editors of Shakespeare; who brings to his task a union of scholarship, critical judgment, and common sense, which is very rare in any department of literature, and particularly in Shakespearian criticism, and whose labors in this department of letters are small and light in comparison with the graver studies in which he is constantly engaged. He, in the preface to his lately published edition of "King Lear" in the Clarendon Press series, says: "It has been objected to the editions of Shakespeare's plays in the Clarendon Press series that the notes are too exclusively of a verbal character, and that they do not deal with æsthetic, or as it is called, the higher criticism. So far as I have had to do with them, I frankly confess that æsthetic notes have been deliberately and intentionally omitted, because one main object in these editions is to induce those for whom they are especially designed to read and study Shakespeare himself, and not to become familiar with opinions about him. Perhaps, too, it is because I cannot help experiencing a certain feeling of resentment when I read such notes, that I am unwilling to intrude upon others what I should regard myself as impertinent. They are in reality too personal and objective, and turn the commentator into a showman. With such sign-post criticism I have no sympathy. Nor do I wish to add to the awful amazement which must possess the soul of Shakespeare when he knows of the manner in which his works have been tabulated, and classified, and labelled with a purpose, after the most approved method, like moderntendenzschriften. Such criticism applied to Shakespeare is nothing less than gross anachronism."

Not a little of the Shakespearian criticism of this kind that exists is the mere result of an effort to say something fine about what needs no such gilding, no such prism-play of light to enhance or to bring out its beauties. I will not except from these remarks much of what Coleridge himself has written about Shakespeare. But the German critics whom he emulated are worse than he is. Avoid them. The German pretence that Germans have taught us folk of English blood and speech to understand Shakespeare is the most absurd and arrogant that could be set up. Shakespeare owes them nothing; and we have received from them little more than some maundering mystification and much ponderous platitude. Like the western diver, they go down deeper and stay down longer than other critics, but like him too they come up muddier. Above all of them, avoid Ulrici and Gervinus. The first is a mad mystic, the second a very literary Dogberry, endeavoring to comprehend all vagrom men, and bestowing his tediousness upon the world with a generosity that surpasses that of his prototype. Both of them thrust themselves and their "fanned and winnowed opinions" upon him in such an obtrusive way that if he could come upon the earth again and take his pen in his hand, I would not willingly be in the shoes of either. He would hand them down to posterity the laughing stock of men for ever.

Not Shakespeare only has suffered from this sort of criticism. The great musicians fare ill at their hands. One of them, Schlüter, writing of Mozart, says of his E flat, G minor, C (Jupiter) symphonies:

It is evident that these three magnificent works—produced consecutively and at short intervals—are the embodiment ofonetrain of thought pursued with increasing ardor; so that taken as a whole they form a grandtrilogy.... These three grandest of Mozart's symphonies (the first lyrical, the second tragic-pathetic, and the third of ethical import) correspond to his three greatest operas, "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Die Zauberflöte."

Now, I venture to say, that there is no such consecutive train of thought, and no such correspondence. Ethical import in the Jupiter and in the "Zauberflöte," and correspondence between them! Mozart did not evolve musical elephants out of his moral consciousness. But a German professor ofesthetikis not happy until he has discovered a trilogy and an inner life. Those found, he goes off with ponderous serenity into theewigkeit.

I have been asked, apropos of these articles, to give some advice as to the formation of Shakespeare clubs. The best thing that can be done about that matter is to let it alone entirely. According to my observation, Shakespeare clubs do not afford their members any opportunities of study or even of enjoyment of his works which are not attainable otherwise. And how should they do so except by the formation of libraries for the use of their members? In this respect they may be of some use, but not of much. Few books, a very few, are necessary for the intelligent and earnest student of Shakespeare, and those almost every such student can obtain for himself. As I have said, a good critical edition is all that is required; and whoever desires to wander into the wilderness of Shakespearian commentary will find in the public libraries ample opportunities of doing so. I have observed that those who read Shakespeare most and understand him best do not use even critical editions, except for occasional reference, but take the text by itself, pure and simple. An edition with a good text, brief introductions to each play, giving only ascertained facts, and a few notes, glossological and historical, at the foot of the page, is still a desideratum. Quiet reading with such an edition as this at hand will do more good than all the Shakespeare clubs ever established have done. I have seen something of such associations; and I have observed in them a tendency on one hand to a feeble and fussy literary antiquarianism, and on the other to conviviality; a thing not bad in itself, and indeed, withinbounds, much better than the other; but which has as little to do as that has (and it could not have less) with an intelligent study of Shakespeare. There is hardly anything less admirable to a reasonable creature than the assemblage at stated times of a number of semi-literary people to potter over Shakespeare and display before each other their second-hand enthusiasm about "the bard of Avon," as they generally delight to call him. Now, a true lover of Shakespeare never calls him the bard of Avon, or a bard of anything; and he reads him o' nights and ponders over him o' days while he is walking, or smoking, or at night again while he is waking in his bed. If he is too poor to buy a copy offhand, he saves up his pennies till he can get one, and he does not trouble himself about the commentators or the mulberry tree. He would not give two pence to sit in a chair made of it; for he knows that he could not tell it from any other chair, and that it would not help him to understand or to enjoy one line in "Hamlet," or "Lear," or "Othello," or "As You Like It," or "The Tempest." These remarks have no reference of course to such societies as the Shakespeare Societies of London, past and present. They are associations of scholars for the purpose of original investigations, and which they print for the use of their subscribers, and for the republication of valuable and scarce books and papers having a bearing upon Shakespeare and the literary history of his time. We have no such material in this country. Whoever wishes to go profoundly into the study of Shakespearian, or rather of Elizabethan literature, would do well to obtain a set of the old Shakespeare Society's publications, and to become a subscriber to the other Shakespeare society, which is doing good thorough work. Clubs might well be formed for the obtaining of these books and others, for the use of their members who cannot afford or who do not care to buy them for their own individual property; although a book really owned is, I cannot say exactly why, worth more to a reader than one belonging to some one else. But all other Shakespeare clubs are mere vanity. The true Shakespeare lover is a club unto himself.

Richard Grant White.

FOOTNOTES:[9]I. e., gifted, endowed with parts.[10]See "Shakespeare's Scholar,"passim.[11]Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and one of the editors of the Cambridge edition.

[9]I. e., gifted, endowed with parts.

[10]See "Shakespeare's Scholar,"passim.

[11]Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and one of the editors of the Cambridge edition.

Dying afar in Brittany,The gallant Tristram lay;His gentle bride's sweet ministry,Her tender touch and way,That erstwhile brought the rest he sought,No more held soothing sway.The naming of her tuneful name,Isoude—so sweet to hearBecause its music was the sameWith one long holden dear—Now, like a bell discordant, fell,And brought but mocking cheer.Her eyne so blue, with lids so white,Her tresses from their snood,That rippling ambered all the lightAbout her where she stood,Served only now to cloud his browWho longed for lost Isoude—Isoude, who charmed him once when stormHad blown his ship ashoreOn Ireland's coast; Isoude, whose formBewitched him more and more,As mem'ry came, his love to flame,When hope, alas! was o'er:Isoude, who sailed with him the seaAcross to Cornwall land,To marry Mark, whose treacheryDid Tristram's faith commandTo win her grace for kingly place,And his own heart withstand.On sultry deck becalmed they pine;Careless, their thirst to ease,A philter—mixt for bridal wine—Her lip beguiles, and his:O subtle draught unconscious quaffed!They drained it to the lees—Until in Tristram's knightly formAll joy for her seemed blent;Until her cheek could only warmBeneath his gaze intent;Until her heart sought him apart,Whoever came or went;Until the potion did begetAn all-enduring spell;Albeit Cornwall's king now metAnd liked her fairness well,And claimed her hand, while through the landRang sound of marriage bell;Until, as fragrance from a flower,True love outbrake control,And dropped its sweetness as a showerOf pearls, that threadless rollTo find their rest in some near nest;Her home, Sir Tristram's soul!And he, though frequent jousts he won;Though many a valiant deedOf prowess made his fame outrunThe claim of knightly creed;Though maidens oft their glances softBestowed in tenderest meed;Though Brittany upon him prestA bride, in gratitudeFor service done; and though the questOf sacred grail subduedHis full heart-beat of smothered heat—He loved butQueenIsoude!And now with holy vows all tossedOf fever's frantic sway—As mariner whose bark is crossedUpon a peaceful wayBy winds that lure from purpose pureAnd well-meant plans bewray—He bade a trusty servitorTo Cornwall's queen forthwith."Take this," he said, "and show to herHow great my languor, sithThis signet's round will not be foundTo bear one hurted lith."Say that Sir Tristram prays her aid,And so he prays not vain,Let sails of silken white be made,Whose gleam shall heal my pain,As hither borne some favoring morn,Love claims his own again!"But if she yield no heed to theseFond cravings of love's breath,Then bearing on the burdened breezeLet sail that shadoweth,Of darkest dark, beshroud the bark,A presage of my death."So spake the Lord of Lyonesse,And bode his joy or bale;While jealous of her right to bless,The wife Isoude, grown paleAs buds of light that shrink from night,Made sad and lonely wail:"Alas! all one the loss to me,My lord alive or dead,If life of his by sorceryOf this fair queen be fed."Then adding, "Be her answernay,Hope yet to hope is wed."She scanned the sea. On waves of balmA white sail of rare glowCame rounding to the harbor's calmWith fullest promise—lo!Bleak winds arise, as false she cries,"A black sail enterethslow."Too weak to battle with his grief,Sir Tristram breathed a sigh—"Alack, that Isoude's sweet reliefShould fail me where I lie:Sith not for me her face to see,Is but to droop and die."Black sails are hoisted now in truth!They wing two forms to rest:For Cornwall's queen a-cold, in ruth,Fell prone on Tristram's breast;And Cornwall's knight for kinsman's rightOf shrine had made request.A letter lay upon the bier,And this the word it bare:"O love is sweet, O love is dear,And followeth everywhereWhoso has drained the chalice stainedWith its red wine and rare."O love is dear, O love is sweet,And yet, of faith's decreeWould Honor quench beneath stern feetLove's bloom if that need be.O King, one wills. But Love distilsHis philters fatefully!"Then did the King in penitenceWeep dole for these two dead.Some slight remorse had pricked his senseThat he through wile had wedHis best knight's love; alas, to proveSuch end, so ill bestead!In royal crypt he bade the twainBe laid; and there a vine,O'er which the murderous scythe was vain,Sprang up the graves to twine,Defying death with its green breath:True plant of seed divine!Mary B. Dodge.

Dying afar in Brittany,The gallant Tristram lay;His gentle bride's sweet ministry,Her tender touch and way,That erstwhile brought the rest he sought,No more held soothing sway.

The naming of her tuneful name,Isoude—so sweet to hearBecause its music was the sameWith one long holden dear—Now, like a bell discordant, fell,And brought but mocking cheer.

Her eyne so blue, with lids so white,Her tresses from their snood,That rippling ambered all the lightAbout her where she stood,Served only now to cloud his browWho longed for lost Isoude—

Isoude, who charmed him once when stormHad blown his ship ashoreOn Ireland's coast; Isoude, whose formBewitched him more and more,As mem'ry came, his love to flame,When hope, alas! was o'er:

Isoude, who sailed with him the seaAcross to Cornwall land,To marry Mark, whose treacheryDid Tristram's faith commandTo win her grace for kingly place,And his own heart withstand.

On sultry deck becalmed they pine;Careless, their thirst to ease,A philter—mixt for bridal wine—Her lip beguiles, and his:O subtle draught unconscious quaffed!They drained it to the lees—

Until in Tristram's knightly formAll joy for her seemed blent;Until her cheek could only warmBeneath his gaze intent;Until her heart sought him apart,Whoever came or went;

Until the potion did begetAn all-enduring spell;Albeit Cornwall's king now metAnd liked her fairness well,And claimed her hand, while through the landRang sound of marriage bell;

Until, as fragrance from a flower,True love outbrake control,And dropped its sweetness as a showerOf pearls, that threadless rollTo find their rest in some near nest;Her home, Sir Tristram's soul!

And he, though frequent jousts he won;Though many a valiant deedOf prowess made his fame outrunThe claim of knightly creed;Though maidens oft their glances softBestowed in tenderest meed;

Though Brittany upon him prestA bride, in gratitudeFor service done; and though the questOf sacred grail subduedHis full heart-beat of smothered heat—He loved butQueenIsoude!

And now with holy vows all tossedOf fever's frantic sway—As mariner whose bark is crossedUpon a peaceful wayBy winds that lure from purpose pureAnd well-meant plans bewray—

He bade a trusty servitorTo Cornwall's queen forthwith."Take this," he said, "and show to herHow great my languor, sithThis signet's round will not be foundTo bear one hurted lith.

"Say that Sir Tristram prays her aid,And so he prays not vain,Let sails of silken white be made,Whose gleam shall heal my pain,As hither borne some favoring morn,Love claims his own again!

"But if she yield no heed to theseFond cravings of love's breath,Then bearing on the burdened breezeLet sail that shadoweth,Of darkest dark, beshroud the bark,A presage of my death."

So spake the Lord of Lyonesse,And bode his joy or bale;While jealous of her right to bless,The wife Isoude, grown paleAs buds of light that shrink from night,Made sad and lonely wail:

"Alas! all one the loss to me,My lord alive or dead,If life of his by sorceryOf this fair queen be fed."Then adding, "Be her answernay,Hope yet to hope is wed."

She scanned the sea. On waves of balmA white sail of rare glowCame rounding to the harbor's calmWith fullest promise—lo!Bleak winds arise, as false she cries,"A black sail enterethslow."

Too weak to battle with his grief,Sir Tristram breathed a sigh—"Alack, that Isoude's sweet reliefShould fail me where I lie:Sith not for me her face to see,Is but to droop and die."

Black sails are hoisted now in truth!They wing two forms to rest:For Cornwall's queen a-cold, in ruth,Fell prone on Tristram's breast;And Cornwall's knight for kinsman's rightOf shrine had made request.

A letter lay upon the bier,And this the word it bare:"O love is sweet, O love is dear,And followeth everywhereWhoso has drained the chalice stainedWith its red wine and rare.

"O love is dear, O love is sweet,And yet, of faith's decreeWould Honor quench beneath stern feetLove's bloom if that need be.O King, one wills. But Love distilsHis philters fatefully!"

Then did the King in penitenceWeep dole for these two dead.Some slight remorse had pricked his senseThat he through wile had wedHis best knight's love; alas, to proveSuch end, so ill bestead!

In royal crypt he bade the twainBe laid; and there a vine,O'er which the murderous scythe was vain,Sprang up the graves to twine,Defying death with its green breath:True plant of seed divine!

Mary B. Dodge.

The little town of Dukes-Keeton, in one of the more northern of the midland counties, had in its older days two great claims to consideration. One was a park, the other a sweetmeat. The noble family whose name had passed through many generations of residence at the place had always left their great park so freely open to every one, that it came to be like the common property of the public, and the town had grown into fame by the manufacture of the sweetmeat which bore its name almost everywhere in the track of the meteor-flag of England. But as time went on other places took to manufacturing the sweetmeat so much better, and selling it so much more successfully than "Keeton," as the town was commonly called, could do, that "Keeton" itself had long since retired from the business, and was content to import the delicacy which still bore its own name in consignments of canisters from Manchester or London. During many years the heir of the noble family had deserted the park, and absolutely never came near it or near England even, and everything that gave the town a distinct reason for existence seemed to be passing rapidly into tradition. It had lain out of the track of the railway system for a long time, and when the railway system at length enclosed it in its arms, the attention seemed to have come too late. All the heat of life appeared to have chilled out of Dukes-Keeton in the mean time, and it lay now between two railways almost as inanimate and hopeless a lump as the child to whom the Erl-king's touch is fatal in his father's arms.

The park, with its huge palace-like, barrack-like house, not a castle, and too great to be called merely a hall, lies almost immediately outside the town. From streets and shops the visitor passes straightway through the gates of the great enclosure. Every stranger who has seen the house is taken at once to see another object of interest.

In the centre of the park was a broad, clear space, made by the felling and removing of every tree, until it spread there sharp and hard as a burnt-out patch in a forest. Gravel and small shells made the pavement of this space, and thus formed a new contrast with the turf, the grasses, and the underwood of the park all around. In the midst of this open space there rose a large circular building: a tower low in height when the bulk enclosed by its circumference was considered, and standing on a great square platform of solid masonry with steps on each of its sides. The tower itself reminded one of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, or some other of the tombs that still stand near Rome. It was in fact the mausoleum which it had pleased the father of the present owner to have erected for himself during his lifetime. He lavished money on it, cared nothing for the cost of materials and labor, planned it out himself, watched every detail, and stood by the workmen as they toiled. Within he had prepared a lordly reception-room for his dead body when he should come to die. A superb sarcophagus of porphyry, fit to have received the remains of a Cæsar, was there. When the work was done and all was ready, the lonely owner visited it every day, unlocked its massive gate, and went in, and sat sometimesfor hours in his own mausoleum. He was growing insane, people thought, in these later days, and they counted on his soon becoming an actual madman. So far, however, he showed no greater madness than in wasting his money on a huge tomb, and wasting so much of his time in visiting it prematurely. The tomb proved a vanity in a double sense. For the noble owner was seized with a sudden mania for travel, and resolved to go round the world. Somewhere in mid ocean he was attacked by fever, or what alarmed people called the plague, and he died, and his body had to be committed without much delay or ceremonial to the sea. He had built his monument to no purpose. He was never to occupy it. It stood a vast and solid gibe at the vanity of its founder.

Over the great gate through which the mausoleum was entered were three heads sculptured in stone. One was that of a man in the prime of manhood, with lips and eyebrows contracted and puckered, forehead wrinkled, eyes full of anxious strain, all telling of care, of pain, of sleepless struggle against difficulty, watchfulness to ward off danger. This was Life. The next was the face of the same man with the eyes closed and the cheeks sunken, and the expression of one who had fallen into sleep from pain—the struggle and agony gone indeed, but their shadow still resting on the brows and the lips: and that of course was Death. The third piece of carving showed the same face still, but now with clear eyes looking broadly and brightly forward, and with features all noble, serene, and glad. This was Eternity. These three faces were the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood, and had been for now some years back employed to solve the problem of existence for all the little lads and lasses of Keeton who might otherwise have failed sometimes to see the harmonious purpose working in all things. The sculptor had it all his own way, and took care that Life should have the worst of it. Keeton was in almost all its conditions a place of rather sleepy contentment, and its people could be trusted to take just as much of the moral as was good for them, and not to carry to extremes the lesson as to the discomfort and dissatisfaction of the probationary life-period. Otherwise there might perhaps be a chance that impressionable, not to say morbid, persons would desire to hurry very rapidly through the dark and anxious vestibule of life in order to get into the broad bright temple of Eternity.

Some thought like this was passing through the mind of Miss Minola Grey, who sat on the steps of the tomb and looked up into the faces illustrative of man's struggle and final success. Life had long been wearing a hard and difficult appearance to her, and she would perhaps have been glad enough sometimes if she could have got into the haven of quiet waters which, in the minds of so many people and in so many symbolic representations, is made to stand for Eternity. She was a handsome, graceful girl, rather tall, fair-haired, with deep bluish gray eyes which seemed to darken as they looked earnestly at any one—eyes which might be described in Matthew Arnold's words as "too expressive to be blue, too lovely to be gray"—with a broad forehead, from which the hair was thrown back in disregard of passing fashions. Perhaps it was her attitude, as she leaned her chin upon her hand and looked up at the mausoleum—perhaps it was the presence of that gloomy building itself—that made her face seem like an illustration of melancholy. Certainly her face was pale and a little wanting in fulness, and the lips were of the kind that one can always think of as tremulous with emotion of some kind. This was a beautiful summer evening, and all the park around was green, sunny, and glad. The dry bare spot on which the tomb was built seemed like a gray and withering leaf on a bright branch; and the figure of thegirl was more in keeping with the melancholy shadow of the mausoleum than the joyousness of the sun and the trees and the whole scene all around.

Indeed, there was a good deal of melancholy in the girl's mind at that moment. She was taking leave of the place: had come to say it a farewell. That park had been her playground, her studio, her stage, her world of fancy and romance and poetry since her infancy. She had driven her brother as a horse there, and had played with him at hunting lions. She had studied landscape drawing there from the days when a half staggery stroke with some blotches out of it was supposed to represent a tree, and a thing shaped like the trade-mark on Mr. Bass's beer bottles stood for a mountain. As she grew up she came there to read and to idle and to think. There she revelled in all the boundless fancies and extravagant ambitions of a clever, half-poetic child. There she was in turn the heroine of every book that delighted her, and the heroine of stories which had never been put into print. Heroes of surpassing beauty, strength, courage, and devotion had rambled under these trees for years with her, nor had the new-comer's presence ever been made a cause of jealousy or complaint by the one whom his coming displaced. They were a strange procession of all complexions and garbs. Achilles the golden-haired had been with her in his day, and so had the melancholy Master of Ravenswood: and the young Djalma, the lover of Adrienne of the "Juif Errant," forgotten of English girls to-day; and Nello, the proud gondolier lad with the sweet voice, who was loved by the mother and the daughter of the Aldinis; and the unnamed youth who went mad for Maud; and Henry Esmond, and Stunning Warrington, and Jane Eyre's Rochester, and ever so many else. Each and all of these in turn loved her and was passionately loved by her, and all had done great things for her; and for each she had done far greater things. She had made them victorious, crowned them with laurels, died for them. It was a peculiarity of her temperament that when she read some pathetic story it was not at the tragic passages that her tears came. It was not the deaths that touched her most. It was when she read of bold and generous things suddenly done, of splendid self-sacrifice, of impossible rescue and superhuman heroism, that she could not keep down her feelings, and was glad when only the watching, untelltale trees could see the tears in her eyes.

She had, however, two heroes chief over all the rest, whose story she found it impossible to keep apart, and whom she blended commonly into one odd compound. These were Hamlet and Alceste, the "Misanthrope" of Molière. It was sometimes Alceste who offered to be buried quick with Ophelia in the grave; and it was often Hamlet who interjected his scraps of poetic cynicism between the pretty and scandalous prattlings of Célimène and her petticoaterie. But perhaps Alceste came nearest to the heart of our young maid as she grew up. She said to herself over and over again that "C'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde." She refused "d'un cœur la vaste complaisance qui ne fait de mérite aucune différence," and declared that "pour le trancher net l'ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait." No doubt there was unconscious or only half conscious affectation in this, as there is in the ways of almost all young people who are fond of reading; and her way of thinking herself a girl-Alceste would probably have vanished with other whims, or been supplanted by fancies of imitation caught from other models, if everything had gone well with her. But several causes conspired as she grew into a woman to make her think very seriously that Alceste was not wrong in his general estimate of men and their merits. She was intensely fond of her mother, and when her mother died her father marriedagain, his second wife being a young woman who put him under the most absolute control, being not by any means an ill-natured person, but only strong-willed, serene, and stupid. Then her brother, to whom she was devoted, and who was her absolute confidant, went away to Canada, declaring he would not stand a stepmother, and that as soon as his sister grew old enough to put away domestic control he would send for her; and he soon got married and became a prominent member of the Dominion Legislature, and in none of his not over frequent letters said a word about his promise to send for her. Now, her father was some time dead; her stepmother had married Mr. Saulsbury, an elderly Nonconformist minister, who was shocked at all the ways of Alceste's admirer, and with whom she could not get on. It would take a very sweet and resigned nature to make one who had had these experiences absolutely in love with the human race, and especially with men; and Alceste accordingly became more dear than ever to Miss Grey.

Now she was about to leave the place and open of her own accord a new chapter in life. She had to escape at once from the dislike of some and the still less endurable liking of others. She was determined to go, and yet as she looked around upon the place, and all its dear sweet memories filled her, it is no wonder if she envied the calmness of the face that symbolized eternal rest. At last she broke down, and covered her face with her hands, and gave herself up to tears.

Her quick ears, however, heard sounds which she knew were not those of the rustling woods. She started to her feet and dried her eyes hastily. Straight before her now there lay the long broad path through the trees which led up to the gate of the mausoleum. The air was so exquisitely pure and still that the footfall of a person approaching could be distinctly heard by the girl, although the newcomer was yet far away. She could see him, however, and recognized him, and she had no doubt that he had seen her. A thought of escape at first occurred to her; but she gave it up in a moment, for she knew that the person approaching had come to seek her, and must have seen her before she saw him. So she sat down again defiantly and waited. She did not look his way, although he raised his hat to her more than once.

As he comes near we can see that he is a handsome, rather stiff looking man, with full formal dark whiskers, clearly cut face, and white teeth. His hat is very shiny. He wears a black frock coat buttoned across the chest, and dark trowsers, and dainty little boots, and gray gloves, and has a diamond pin in his necktie. He is Mr. Augustus Sheppard, a very considerable person indeed in the town. Dukes-Keeton, it should be said, had three classes or estates. The noble owners of the park and the guests whom they used to bring to visit them in their hospitable days made one estate. The upper class of the town made another estate; and the working people and the poor generally made the third. These three classes (there were at present only two of them represented in Keeton) were divided by barriers which it never occurred to any imagination to think of getting over. Mr. Augustus Sheppard was a leading man among the townspeople. His father was a solicitor and land agent of old standing, and Mr. Augustus followed his father's profession, and now did by far the greater part of its work. He was a member of the Church of England of course, but he made it part of his duty to be on the best terms with the Dissenters, for Keeton was growing to be very strong in dissent of late years. Mr. Augustus Sheppard had done a great deal for the mental and other improvement of the town. It was he who got up the Mutual Improvement Society, and made himself responsible for the rent of the hall in which the winter course of lectures, organized by him, used totake place; and he always gave a lecture himself every season, and he took the chair very often and introduced other lecturers. He always worked most cordially with the Rev. Mr. Saulsbury in trying to restrict the number of public houses, and he was one of the few persons whom Mrs. Saulsbury cordially admired. He had a word of formal kindness for every one, and was never heard to say an ill-natured thing of any one behind his or her back. He was vaguely believed to be ambitious of worldly success, but only in a proper and becoming way, and far-seeing people looked forward to finding him one day in the House of Commons.

As he came near the mausoleum he raised his hat again, and then the girl acknowledged his salute and stood up.

"A very lovely evening, Miss Grey."

"Yes," said Miss Grey, and no more.

"I have been at your house, Miss Grey, and saw your people; and I heard that possibly you were in the park. I thought perhaps you would have been at home. When I saw you last night you seemed to believe that you would be at home all the day." This was said in a gentle tone of implied reproach.

"Youspoke then of walking in the park, Mr. Sheppard."

"And I have kept my word, you see," Mr. Sheppard said, not observing the implied reason for her change of purpose.

"Yes, I see it now," she answered, as one who should say, "I did not count upon it then."

Of all men else, Minola Grey would have avoided him. She knew only too well what he had come for. She would perhaps have disliked him for that in any case, but she certainly disliked him on his own account. His formal and heavy manners impressed her disagreeably, and she liked to say things that puzzled and startled him. It was a pleasure to her to throw some paradox or odd saying at him, and watch his awkward attempts to catch it, and then while he was just on the point of getting at some idea of it to bewilder him with some new enigma. To her he seemed to be what he was not, simply a sham, a heavy piece of hypocrisy. Formalism and ostentatious piety she recognized as part of the business of a Nonconformist minister, in whom they were excusable, as his grave garb would be, but they seemed insufferably out of place when adopted by a layman and a man of the world, who was still young.

"I am glad to have found you at last," Mr. Sheppard said, with a grave smile.

"You might have found me at first," Minola said, quoting from Artemus Ward, "if you had come a little sooner, Mr. Sheppard. I have only lately escaped here."

"I wish I had known, and I would have come a great deal sooner. May I take the liberty of sitting beside you?"

"I am going to stand, Mr. Sheppard. But that need not prevent you from sitting."

"I should not think of sitting unless you do. Shall we walk a little among the trees? This is a gloomy spot for a young lady."

"I prefer to stand here for a little, Mr. Sheppard, but don't let me keep you from enjoying a walk."

"Enjoying a walk?" he said, with a grave smile and solemn emphasis. "Enjoying a walk, Miss Grey—and without you?"

She deliberately avoided meeting the glance with which he was endeavoring to give additional meaning to this polite speech. She knew that he had come to make love to her; and though she was longing to have the whole thing done with, as it must be settled one way or the other, she detested and dreaded the ordeal, and would have put it off if she could. So she did not give any sign of having understood or even heard his words, and the opportunity for going on with his purpose, which he had hoped to extract, was lost for the moment. Intruth, Mr. Sheppard was afraid of this girl, and she knew it, and liked him none the more for it.

"I have been studying something with great interest, Mr. Sheppard," she began, as if determined to cut him off from his chance for the present. "I have made a discovery."

"Indeed, Miss Grey? Yes—I saw that you were in deep contemplation as I came along, and I wondered within myself what could have been the subject of your thoughts."

She colored a little and looked suddenly at him, asking herself whether he could have seen her tears. His face, however, gave no explanation, and she felt assured that he had not seen them.

"I have found, Mr. Sheppard, that some of the weaknesses of men are alive in the insect world."

"Indeed, Miss Grey? Some of the affections of men do indeed live, we are told, in the insect world. So beautifully ordained is everything——"

"The affectations I meant, not the affections of men, Mr. Sheppard. Could you ever have believed that an insect would be capable of a deliberate attempt at imposture?"

"I should certainly not have looked for anything of the kind, Miss Grey. But there is unfortunately so much of evil mixed up with all——"

"So there is. I was going to tell you that as I came here and passed through the garden, my attention was directed—is not that the proper way to put it?"

"To put it, Miss Grey?"

"Yes; my attention was directed to a large, heavy, respectable blue-bottle fly. He kept flying from flower to flower, and burying his stupid head in every one in turn, and making a ridiculous noise. I watched his movements for a long time. It was evident to the meanest understanding that he was trying to attract attention and was hoping the eyes of the world were on him. You should have seen his pretence at enjoying the flowers and drinking in sweetness from them—and he stayed longest on the wrong flowers!"

"Dear me! Now why did he do that?"

"Because he didn't know any better, and he was trying to make us think he did."

"But, Miss Grey—a fly—a blue-bottle! Now really—how did you know what he was thinking of?"

"I watched him closely—and I found him out at last. Have you not guessed what the meaning of the whole thing was?"

"Well, Miss Grey, I can't say that I quite understand it just yet; but I am sure I shall be greatly interested on hearing the explanation."

"It was simply the imposture of a blue-bottle trying to pass himself off as a bee! It was man's affectation put under the microscope!"

Mr. Sheppard looked up at her in the hope of catching from her face some clear intimation as to whether she was in jest or earnest, and demeaning himself accordingly. But her eyes were cast down and he could not make out the riddle. Driven by desperation, he dashed in, to prevent the possible propounding of another before he had time to come to his point.

"All the professions of men are not affectations, Miss Grey! Oh, no: far from it indeed. There are some feelings in our breasts which are only too real!"

She saw that the declaration was coming now and must be confronted.

"I have long wished for an opportunity of revealing to you some of my feelings, Miss Grey, and I hope the chance has now arrived. May I speak?"

"I can't prevent you from speaking, Mr. Sheppard."

"You will hear me?"

He was in such fear of her and so awkward about the terms of his declaration of love that he kept clutching at every little straw that seemed to give him something to hold on to for a moment's rest and respite.

"I had better hear you, I suppose," she said with an air of profound depression, "if you will go on, Mr. Sheppard. But if you would please me, you would stop where you are and say no more."

"You know what I am going to say, Miss Grey—you must have known it this long time. I have asked your natural guardians and advisers, and they encourage me to speak. Oh, Miss Grey—I love you. May I hope that I may look forward to the happiness of one day making you my wife?"

It was all out now, and she was glad. The rest would be easy. He looked even then so prosaic and formal that she did not believe in any of his professed emotions, and she was therefore herself unmoved.

"No, Mr. Sheppard," she said, looking calmly at him straight in the face. "Such a day will never come. Nothing that I have seen in life makes me particularly anxious to be married; and I could not marry you."

He had expected evasion, but not bluntness. He knew well enough that the girl did not love him, but he had believed that he could persuade her to marry him. Now her pointblank refusal completely staggered him.

"Why not, Miss Grey?" was all he could say at first.

"Because, Mr. Sheppard, I really much prefer not to marry you."

"There is not any one else?" he asked, his face for the first time showing emotion and anger.

The faint light of a melancholy smile crossed Minola's face. He grew more angry.

"Miss Grey—now, you must tell me that! I have a right to ask—yes: and your people would expect me to ask. You must tell methat."

"Well," she said, "if you force me to it, and if you will have an answer, I must give you one, Mr. Sheppard. I have a lover already, and I mean to keep him."

Mr. Sheppard was positively shocked by the suddenness and coolness of this revelation. He recovered himself, however, and took refuge in unbelief.

"Miss Grey, you don't mean it, I know—I can't believe it. Why, I have known you and seen you grow up since you were a child. Mrs. Saulsbury couldn't but know——"

"Mrs. Saulsbury knows nothing of me: we know nothing of each other. Ihavea lover, Mr. Sheppard, for all that. Do you want to know his name?"

"I should like to know his name, certainly," the breathless Sheppard stammered out.

"His name is Alceste——"

"A Frenchman!" Sheppard was aghast.

"A Frenchman truly—a French gentleman—a man of truth and courage and spirit and honor and everything good. A man who wouldn't tell a lie or do a mean thing, or flatter a silly woman, or persecute a very unhappy girl—no, not to save his soul, Mr. Sheppard. Do you happen to know any such man?"

"No such man lives in Keeton." He was surprised into simple earnestness. "At least I don't know of any such man."

"No; you and he are not likely to come together and be very familiar. Well, Mr. Sheppard, that is the man to whom I am engaged, and I mean to keep my engagement. You can tell Mrs. Saulsbury if you like."

"But you haven't told me his other name."

"Oh—I don't know his other name."

"Miss Grey! Don't know his other name?"

"No: and I don't think he has any other name. He has but the one name for me, and I don't want any second."

"Where does he live, then—may I ask?"

"Oh, yes—I may as well tell you all now, since I have told you so much. He only lives in a book, Mr. Sheppard; in what you would call a play," she added with contemptuous expression.

"Oh, come now—I thought youwere only amusing yourself." A smile of reviving satisfaction stole over his face. "I'm not much afraid of a rival like that, Miss Grey—if he is my only rival."

"I don't know why you talk of a rival," the young woman answered, with a scornful glance at him; "but I can assure you he would be the most dangerous rival a living man could have. When I find a man like him, Mr. Sheppard, I hope he will ask me to marry him; indeed, when I find such a man I'll ask him to marry me—and if he be the man I take him for, he'll refuse me. I have told you all the truth now, Mr. Sheppard, and I hope you will think I need not say any more."

"Still, I'm not quite without hope that something may be done," Mr. Sheppard said. "How if I were to study your hero's ways and try to be like him, Miss Grey?"

A great brown heavy velvety bee at the moment came booming along, his ponderous flight almost level with the ground and not far above it. He sailed in and out among the trees and branches, now burying himself for a few seconds in some hollow part of a trunk, and then plodding through air again.

"Do you think it would be of any use, Mr. Sheppard," she calmly asked, "if that honest bee were to study the ways of the eagle?"

"You are not complimentary, Miss Grey," he said, reddening.

"No: I don't believe in compliments: I very much prefer truth."

"Still there are ways of conveying the truth—and of course I never professed to be anything very great and heroic——"

He was decidedly hurt now.

"Mr. Sheppard," she said, in a softer and more appealing tone, "I don't want to quarrel with you or with anybody, and please don't drive me on to make myself out any worse than I am. I don't care about you, and I never could. We never could get on together. I don't care for any man—I don't like men at all. I wouldn't marry you if you were an emperor. But I don't say anything against you; at least I wouldn't if you would only let me alone. I am very unhappy sometimes—almost always now; but at least I mean to make no one unhappy but myself."

"That's what comes of books and poetry and solitary walks and nonsense! Why can't you listen to the advice of those who love you?"

She turned upon him angrily again.

"Well, I am not speaking of myself now, but of your—your people, who only desire your good. Mr. Saulsbury, Mrs. Saulsbury——"

"Once for all, Mr. Sheppard, I shall not take their advice; and if you would have me think of you with any kindness at all, any memory not disagreeable and—and detestable, you will not talk to me of their advice. Even if I had been inclined to care for you, Mr. Sheppard, you took a wrong way when you came in their name and talked of their authority. Next time you ask a girl to marry you, Mr. Sheppard, do it in your own name."

He caught eagerly at the kind of negative hope that seemed to be held out to him.

"If that's an objection," he began, "I assure you that I came quite of my own motion, and I am the last man in the world to endeavor to bring any unfair means to bear. Of course it is not as if they were your own parents, and I can quite understand how a young lady must feel——"

"I don't know much of how young ladies feel," Minola said quietly, "but I know how I feel, Mr. Sheppard, and you know it too. Take my last word. I'll never marry you. You only waste your time, and perhaps the time of somebody else as well—some good girl, Mr. Sheppard, who would be glad to marry you and whom you will be quite ready to make love to the day after to-morrow."

Her heart was hardened against him now, for she thought him mean and craven and unmanly. Perhaps, according to her familiar creed, she ought rather to have thought himmanly, meanness being in that sense one of the attributes of man. She did not believe in the genuineness of his love, and in any case no thought was more odious to her than that of a man pressing a girl to marry him if she did not love him and was not ready to meet him half way.

There was a curious contrast between these two figures as they stood on the steps of that great empty tomb. The contrast was all the more singular and even the more striking because the two might easily have been described in such terms as would seem to suggest no contrast. If they were described as a handsome young man (for he was scarcely more than thirty) and a handsome young woman, the description would be correct. He was rather tall, she was rather tall; but he was formal, severe, respectable, and absolutely unpicturesque—she was picturesque in every motion. His well-made clothes sat stiffly on him, and the first idea he conveyed was that he was carefully dressed. Even a woman would not have thought, at the first glance at least, of howshewas dressed. She only impressed one with a sense of the presence of graceful and especially emotional womanhood. The longer one looked at the two the deeper the contrast seemed to become. Both, for example, had rather thin lips; but his were rigid, precise, and seeming to part with a certain deliberation and even difficulty. Hers appeared, even when she was silent, to be tremulous with expression. After a while it would have seemed to an observer, if any observing eye were there, that no power on earth could have brought these two into companionship.

"I won't take this as your final answer," he said, after one or two unsuccessful efforts to speak. "You will consider this again, and give it some serious reflection."

She only shook her head, and once more seated herself on the steps of the monument as if to suggest that now the interview was over.

"You are not walking homeward?" he asked.

"I am staying here for awhile."

He bade her good morning and walked slowly away. A rejected lover looks to great disadvantage when he has to walk away. He ought to leap on the back of a horse, and spur him fiercely and gallop off; or the curtain ought to fall and so finish up with him. Otherwise, even the most heroic figure has something of the look of one sneaking off like a dog told imperatively to "go home." Mr. Sheppard felt very uncomfortable at the thought that he probably did not seem dignified in the eyes of Miss Grey. He once glanced back uneasily, but perhaps it was not a relief to find that she was not looking in his direction.

Miss Grey remained in the park until the sun had gone down and the stars, with their faint light, seemed as she moved homeward to be like bright sparkles entangled among the high branches of the trees. She had a great deal to think of, and she troubled herself little about the mental depression of her rejected lover. All the purpose of her life was now summed up in a resolve to get away from Keeton and to bury herself in London.

She knew that any opposition to her proposal on the part of those who were still supposed to be her guardians would only be founded on an objection to it as something unwomanly, venturous, and revolutionary, and not by any means the result of any grief for her going away. Ever since her mother's death and her father's second marriage she had only chafed at existence, and found those around her disagreeable, and no doubt made herself disagreeable to them. She had ceased to feel any respect for her father when he married again, and he knew it and became cold and constrainedwith her. Only just before his death had there been anything like a revival of their affection for each other. He had been a man of some substance and authority in his town, had built houses, and got together property, and he left his daughter a not inconsiderable annuity as a charge upon his property, and placed her under the guardianship of the elderly and respectable Nonconformist minister, who, as luck would have it, afterward married his young widow. Minola had seen so many marriages during her short experience, and had disliked two at least of them so thoroughly, that she was much inclined to say with one of her heroes that there should be no more of them. For a long time she had made up her mind that when she came of age she would go to London and live there. She still wanted a few months of the time of independence, but the manner in which Mr. Augustus Sheppard was pressed upon her by himself and others made her resolve to anticipate the course of the seasons a little, and go away at once. In London she made up her mind that she would lead a life of enchantment: of delightful and semi-savage solitude, in the midst of the crowd; of wild independence and scorn of all the ways of men, with books at her command, with the art galleries and museums, of which she had read so much, always within easy reach, and the streets which were alive for her with such sweet and dear associations all around her.

Miss Grey knew London well. She had never yet set foot in it, or been anywhere out of her native town; but she had studied London as a general may study the map of some country which he expects one day to invade. Many and many a night, when all in the house but she were fast asleep, she had had the map of London spread out before her, and had puzzled her way through the endless intricacies of its streets. Few women of her age, or of any age, actually living in the metropolis, had anything like the knowledge of its districts and its principal streets that she had. She felt in anticipation the pride and delight of being able to go whither she would about London without having to ask her way of any one. Some particular association identified every place in her mind. The living and the dead, the romantic and the real, history and fiction, all combined to supply her with labels of association, which she might mentally put upon every quarter and district, and almost upon every street which had a name worth knowing. As we all know Venice before we have seen it, and when we get there can recognize everything we want to see without need of guide to name it for us, so Minola Grey knew London. It is no wonder now that her mind was in a perturbed condition. She was going to leave the place in which so far all her life literally had been passed. She was going to live in that other place which had for years been her dream, her study, her self-appointed destiny. She was going to pass away for ever from uncongenial and odious companionship, and to live a life of sweet, proud, lonely independence.

The loneliness, however, was not to be literal and absolute. In all romantic adventures there is companionship. The knight has his squire, Rosalind has her Celia. Minola Grey was to have her companion in her great enterprise. It had not indeed occurred to her to think about the inconvenience or oddness of a girl living absolutely alone in London, but the kindly destinies had provided her with a comrade. Having lingered long in the park and turned back again and again for another view of some favorite spot, having gathered many a leaf and flower for remembrance, and having looked up many times with throbbing heart at the white, trembling stars that would shine upon her soon in London, Miss Grey at last made up her mind and passed resolutely out at the great gate and went to seek this companion. She was glad to leave the park now in any case, for in the fine evenings of summer and autumnit was the custom of Keeton people to make it their promenade. All the engaged couples of the place would soon be there under the trees. When a lad and lass were seen to walk boldly and openly together of evenings in that park, and to pass and repass their neighbors without effort at avoiding such encounters, it was as well known that they were engaged as though the fact had been proclaimed by the town-crier. A jury of Keeton folk would have assumed a promise of marriage and proceeded to award damages for its breach if it were proved that a young man had walked openly for any three evenings in the park with a girl whom he afterward declined to make his wife. Minola did not care to meet any of the joyous couples or their friends, and even already the twitter of voices and the titter of feminine laughter were beginning to make themselves heard among the darkling paths and across the broad green lanes of the park.

From the gates of the park one passed, as has been said already, almost directly into the town. The town itself was divided in twain by a river, the river spanned by a bridge which had a certain fame from the fact of its having been the scene of a brave stand and a terrible slaughter during the civil wars after Charles I. had set up his standard at Nottingham. To be sure there was not much left of the genuine old bridge on which the fight was fought, nor did the broad, flat, handsome, and altogether modern structure bear much resemblance to the sort of bridge which might have crossed a river in the days of the Cavaliers. Residents of Keeton always, however, boasted of the fact that one of the arches of the bridge was just the same underneath as it had always been, and insisted on bringing the stranger down by devious and grassy paths to the river's edge in order that he might see for himself the old stones still holding together which had perhaps been shaken by the tramp of Rupert's troopers. On the park side of the bridge lay the genteeler and more pretentious houses, the semi-detached villas and lodges and crescents of Keeton; and there too were the humbler cottages. On the other side of the bridge were the business streets and the clustering shops, most of them old-fashioned and dark, with low, beetling fronts and narrow panes in the windows, and only here and there a showy and modern establishment, with its stucco front and its plate glass. The streets were all so narrow that they seemed as if they must be only passages leading to broader thoroughfares. The stranger walked on and on, thinking he was coming to the actual town of Dukes-Keeton, until he walked out at the other side and found he had left it behind him.

Minola Grey crossed the bridge, although her own home lay on the side nearest the park, and made her way through the narrow streets. She glanced with a shudder at one formal official looking house of dark brick which she had to pass, and the door of which bore a huge brass plate with the words "Sheppard & Sheppard, Solicitors and Land Agents." Another expression of dislike or pain crossed her handsome, pale, and emotional face when she passed a little lane, closed at the further end by the heavy, sombre front of a chapel, for it was there that she had even still to pass some trying, unsympathetic hours of the Sunday listening to a preacher whose eloquence was rather too familiar to her all the week. At length she passed the front of a large building of light-colored stone, with a Greek portico and row of pillars and high flight of steps, and which to the eye of any intelligent mortal had "Court House" written on its very face. Miss Grey went on and passed its front entrance, then turning down a narrow street, of which the building itself formed one side, she came to a little open door, went in, ran lightly up a flight of stone steps, and found herself in dun and dimly lighted corridors of stone.

A ray or two of the evening lightstill flickered through the small windows of the roof. But for this all would seemingly have been dark. Minola's footfall echoed through the passages. The place appeared ghostly and sad, and the presence of youth, grace, and energetic womanhood was strangely out of keeping with all around. The whole expression and manner of Miss Grey brightened, however, as she passed along these gaunt and echoing corridors. In the sunlight of the park there seemed something melancholy in the face of the girl which was not in accord with her years, her figure, and her deep, soft eyes. Now, in this dismal old passage of damp resounding stone, she seemed so joyous that her passing along might have been that of another Pippa. The place was not very unlike a prison, and an observer might have been pleased to think that, as the light step of the girl passed the door of each cell, and the flutter of her garments was faintly heard, some little gleam of hope, some gentle memory, some breath of forgotten woods and fields, some softening inspiration of human love, was borne in to every imprisoned heart. But this was no prison; only the courthouse where prisoners were tried; and its rooms, occupied in the day by judges, lawyers, policemen, public, suitors, and culprits, were now locked, empty, and silent.

Minola went on, singing to herself as she went, her song growing louder and bolder until at last it thrilled finely up to the stone roofs of the grim halls and corridors. For Minola was of that temperament to which resolve of any kind soon brings the excitement of high spirits, and she sang now out of sheer courage and purpose.

Presently she stopped at a low, dark, oaken door which looked as if it might admit to some dingy lumber-room or closet; and this door opened instantly and she was in presence of a pretty and cheerful little picture. The side of the building where the room was set looked upon the broadest and clearest space in the town, and through the open window could be seen distinctly the glassy gray of the quiet river and even the trees of the park, a dark mass beneath the pale summer sky. Although the room was lit only by the twilight, in which the latest lingering reflection of the sunset still lived, it looked bright to the girl who had come from the heavy dusk and gloom of the corridors with their roof-windows and their rows of grim doors. A room ought to look bright, too, when the visitor on just appearing on its threshold is rushed upon and clasped and kissed and greeted as "You dear, dear darling." Such a welcome met Miss Grey, and then she was instantly drawn into the room, the door of which was closed behind her.

The occupant of the room who thus welcomed Minola was a woman not far short probably of forty years of age. She was short, she was decidedly growing fat, she had a face which ought from its outlines and its color to be rather humorous and mirthful than otherwise, and a pair of very fine, deep, and consequently somewhat melancholy eyes. These eyes were the only beauty of Miss Mary Blanchet's face. She had not good sight, for all their brightness. When any one talked with her at some little distance across a room, or even across a broad table, he could easily see by the irresponsive look of the eyes—the eyes which never quite found a common focus with his even during the most animated interchange of thought—that Miss Blanchet had short sight. But Miss Blanchet always frankly and firmly declined to put on spectacles. "I have only my eyes to boast of, my dear," she said to all her female advisers, "and I am not going to cover them with ugly spectacles, you may be sure." Hers was a life of the simplest vanity, the most innocent affectation. Her eyes had driven her into poetry, love, and disappointment. She was understood to have loved very deeply and to have been deserted. None of her friends could quite remember the lover, but every one said that no doubt there must have been such a person. Miss Blanchet never actually spoke ofhim, but she somehow suggested his memory.

Miss Blanchet was a poetess. She had published by subscription a volume of verses, which was favorably noticed in the local newspapers and of which she sent a copy to the Queen, whereof Her Majesty had been kindly pleased to accept. Thus the poetess became a celebrity and a sort of public character in Dukes-Keeton, and when her father died it was felt that the town ought to do something for one who had done so much for it. It made her custodian of the courthouse, entrusted with the charge of seeing that it was kept clean, ventilated, water-besprinkled; that when assizes came on, the judges' rooms were fittingly adorned and that bouquets of flowers were placed every morning on the bench on which they sat. This place Miss Blanchet had held for many years. The rising generation had forgotten all about her poetry, and indeed, as she seldom went out of her own little domain, had for the most part forgotten her existence.

When Minola Grey was a little girl her mother was one of Miss Mary Blanchet's chiefest patronesses. It was in great measure by the influence of Minola's father that Miss Blanchet obtained her place in the courthouse. Little Minola thought her a great poetess and a remarkably beautiful woman, and accepted somehow the impression that she had a romantic and mysterious love history. It was a rare delight for her to be taken to spend an evening with Miss Blanchet, to drink tea in her pretty and well kept little room, to walk with her through the stone passages of the courthouse, and hear her repeat her poems. As Minola grew she outgrew the poems, but the affection survived; and after her mother's death she found no congenial or sympathetic friend anywhere in Keeton but Mary Blanchet. The relationship between the two curiously changed. The tall girl of twenty became the leader, the heroine, the queen; and Mary Blanchet, sensible little woman enough in many ways, would have turned African explorer or joined in a rebellion of women against men if Miss Grey had given her the word of command.

"I know your mind is made up, dear, now that you have come," Miss Blanchet said when the first rapture of greeting was over.

Minola took off her hat and threw it on the little sofa with the air of one who feels thoroughly at home. It may be remarked as characteristic of this young woman that in going toward the sofa she had to pass the chimney-piece with its mirror, and that she did not even cast a glance at her own image in the glass.

"Mary," she asked gravely, "am I a man and a brother, that you expect me to change my mind? You are not repenting, I hope?"

"Oh, no, my dear. I have all the advantages, you know. I am so tired of this place and the work—dear me!"

"And I hate to see you at such work. You might almost as well be a servant. Years ago I made up my mind to take you out of this wretched place as soon as I should be of age and my own mistress."

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