A,tr, l/f 
 
 (1C - '*" Av 
 
 ,-- ^ 1 -.8 
 Len BeeK, Cat
 
 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZA B. SWAN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ONCE A YEAR; OR, THE DOCTORS' PUZZLE." 
 
 'Rising from the barely good to the better and the best." 
 
 -DR. JUDSON. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 
 EGBERT CLARKE & CO. 
 1892.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY ELIZA B. SWAN.
 
 IN MEMORY OF MY SAINTED MOTHEE, 
 
 WHOSE LIFE WAS A CONSTANT INSPIRATION TO HOLY LIVING, 
 
 AND 
 FOR THE SAKE OF THE MASTER, 
 
 " Whose I am and Whom I serve," 
 
 " The great fad is that life is a service; the only question is whom 
 will we serve." FABER. 
 
 (iii) 
 
 2046431
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE. 
 
 The author finds some embarrassment between the desire 
 of presenting the character of Mr. Earle in the stronger lights 
 which his letters would reveal, and the danger of clogging the 
 narrative with irrelevant matter and thus weaken the interest 
 in Miss Archer's career. A correspondence between Mr. Earle 
 and a college friend, Mr. Arthur Doane, is in the author's 
 hands, and the temptation is strong to introduce these letters. 
 But as they treat mainly of his connection with the " Mon- 
 boddo School," and the literary development through which 
 he was passing at that period, it is necessary to content our-' 
 selves with an extract, here and there, from these letters. 
 
 For this same reason (preserving the unities of the story), 
 the history of the eccentricities of the noted teacher, his deal- 
 ings with his pupils, his discussions of the principles of the 
 " literary art," and his methods and suggestions as to the work 
 of teaching, are detached from the story proper, although syn- 
 chronously belonging to it. 
 
 Those interested in the "Monboddo School " will find the 
 lectures ("examinations") of the Professor, as well as the let- 
 ters of Mr. Earle, in Part Second at the close of the volume. 
 
 It-is thought best to reserve the essays referred to in the 
 Preface for another work. 
 
 (iv)
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 DTJKING the author's career as an educator, gradu- 
 ated pupils would come to her for some programme 
 of mental work. After the debut into society (which 
 event as anticipated in school-life was set in a halo 
 of unique, rosy charm) and the "round" of accom- 
 panying excitements, there would come a reaction in 
 which majesty of soul would assert its priority, and 
 the intellect would cry aloud for " something to 
 do ! " Their skilled powers, equipped for earnest 
 endeavor, pleaded for an opportunity to exercise them- 
 selves upon some aim worthy of their devotion. 
 
 It has been a great pleasure to be a guiding-hand 
 to these aspiring ones, who in the auld lang syne 
 were wont to follow whither she led, and to accept 
 with an "abandon" of trust, beautiful to see in gifted 
 youth her estimate of their capacity for every un- 
 dertaking. Thus it has been her high privilege to 
 still aid the dear pupils, when separated from their 
 Alma Mater. 
 
 It is with some such intent that is, a continuance 
 of instruction to those seeking new avenues of intel- 
 lectual exploit, that the present story has been writ- 
 ten. 
 
 In the composition-course outlined by " Professor 
 Monboddo," and illustrated in part by his pupil, Mr. 
 Channing Earle (in the essays at the close of the 
 volume), they will recognize the old landmarks set 
 up for their direction. 
 
 In addition to exercises in narration, description 
 (first of animate, then of inanimate objects), and 
 imagination including both description and narra- 
 
 (v)
 
 v i PREFACE. 
 
 the class was drilled for one year in argumen- 
 tative discourse this also including fact and fancy 
 profound questions in ethics, science, politics, and 
 practicalities, or the lighter queries of humor and 
 imagination. 
 
 After discussions, came dialogues, colloquies, and 
 then the essay proper, the student being now in a 
 condition to handle a subject more in accordance 
 with the approved methods and better able to ap- 
 proximate that high standard with its divisions, sub- 
 divisions, and elaborate inferences and conclusions. 
 
 Reviews of short, choice works in prose and poetry 
 were next in order, after which came the biography. 
 When the class-material would justify the experiment 
 there would be a short excursion into the fields of 
 poetry. History, requiring the utmost fidelity to 
 truth and fact, unwearied patience of research, and 
 the wise discrimination of mature powers as well as 
 a full garner of rich imagery and thought, was the 
 last in the series. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the course successfully 
 carried out through a period of twelve years. 
 
 " Professor Monboddo" now attempts, in this vol- 
 ume, to open the way to the ambitious scholar into 
 the broader fields of " design in literature " whose 
 outcome is the story and the novel. The Professor 
 is an enthusiast some might say, a crack-brained 
 enthusiast : but it is only they who are possessed of 
 a vitality equally intense at the seat of capillary 
 action, whose blood is valuable for transfusion ! 
 
 Let us hope that the soundness of the Professor's 
 methods and their successful development by those 
 whom he attracts, may excuse his eccentricity in 
 imparting the information, and that his fervor may 
 at least produce this one good result, viz. : that of 
 satisfying the restless, tormenting craving for "some- 
 thing to do ! "
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Letter 9 
 
 II. A Peep at Brentville - 16 
 
 III. The Tableau 28 
 
 IV. " Gran " - 37 
 V. The " Season " Opens 51 
 
 VI. Letter to Art on Opal 62 
 
 VII. Letter to Arthur Doane - 74 
 
 VIII. Otto Bresson's Success - - 82 
 
 IX. The Jewels 88 
 
 X. What Did She Mean? - 97 
 
 XI. Sketch I. Childhood's Days 103 
 
 XII. The First Greek Festival - - 126 
 
 XIII. WJiat the " New Era" Said - 141 
 
 XIV. Doubts - 147 
 XV. Summer Touring - 153 
 
 XVI. October's Lesson - - 162 
 
 XVII. The Withdrawal 169 
 
 XVIII. The Legacy - 179 
 
 XIX. Voices from the Village 186 
 
 XX. The Opal League - 197 
 
 XXI. Arthur's Letter and Channing's Confession - 200 
 
 XXII. Channing Reviews the Situation - - 208 
 
 XXIII. Gate of the Saints' Rest - 213 
 
 XXIV. The Surprise - 219 
 XXV. Channing's Fortune - 228 
 
 XXVI. Elise Returns - 240 
 
 XXVII. Elise Crosses the Last Threshold - 2. r >0 
 
 XXVIII. The Pestilence- --259 
 
 XXIX. The Explanation - - 267 
 
 (vii)
 
 viii CONTENDS. 
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Letter to Arthur Donne - - 275 
 
 II. Professor Moliboddo's First ' Examination " Dis- 
 cussion of the Phrase "Ladies and Gentle- 
 men" School for Authors and Journalists - 279 
 
 III. Letter to Arthur Donne - - 290 
 
 IV. Second " Examination "Genius, and Hindrances 
 
 to Its Development - 295 
 
 V. Third " Examination "The Spirit of the Author 305 
 
 VI. Letter to Arthur Doane - 312 
 
 VII. Letter to Arthur Doane - - 314 
 
 VIII. Fourth " Examination "Plots and Development 
 
 of the Novel Study of Character Drawing - 322 
 IX. Letter to Arthur Doane - 337 
 
 X Fiftli " Examination " Novels The Hero and 
 
 the Heroine - 343 
 
 XI. Letter to Arthur Doane - - 353 
 
 XII. Sixth " Examination ' Cultivation of a Good 
 
 Style - - 362 
 
 XIII. Letter to Arthur Doane -307 
 
 XIV. Seventh "Examination " Lack of Incident in the 
 
 Novel - - - 37:1 
 
 XV. Letter to Arthur Doane - 379 
 
 XVI. Eiirhth "Examination" Time and Place for 
 
 Writing Steadiness to Finish Work - 384
 
 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 " GOOD news for you, darling ! " said Mrs. Healey, 
 folding the letter that she had been reading, and 
 replacing it in the envelope. 
 
 The Doctor's eyes brightened as he replied, good- 
 naturedly, "Well, let's have it." 
 
 " But you must guess," his wife replied. " Who 
 do you think is coining to this very town, and going 
 wait, let me see," she said, reopening the letter " yes, 
 going to spend the whole winter here; and perhaps 
 why, can that be possible ? " she inquired of herself 
 dubiously, and turned again to the letter. Having 
 satisfied herself of the truth of the announcement 
 she was about to make, she exclaimed, with a burst 
 of enthusiasm, "Yes, Doctor, perhaps remain." 
 
 " Coming to visit us, Lily, is this incognitum is 
 it so writ in the bond ?" 
 
 Mrs. Healey again referred to the letter. 
 
 " Why, my dear, your memory needs refreshing 
 very often such good news ought to sink deeper 
 than that." 
 
 " I was going to read you the very words," Mrs. 
 Healey explained. 
 
 " But first enlighten me as to the writer of that 
 much-handled epistle ; perhaps I shall not care for 
 it verbatim et literatim when I find out who he or 
 she really is." 
 
 (iz)
 
 10 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " But you haven't guessed," replied his wife. 
 
 " Well, you seem elated ; I guess it's your aunt 
 Esther I think she has most of the 'remaining' 
 qualities of any of your friends excuse me, dear, 
 our friends, I meant to say," he quickly added as he 
 perceived the rising blush on Mrs. Healey 's face. 
 "But seriously, Lily, you do not think of adding 
 her to the family permanently, I hope. I'm fond of 
 my relations, you know," he continued with quizzical 
 gravity, "but there's nothing like keeping each species 
 separate and distinct. Now, in vegetable life, you 
 cannot even mix varieties of the same -species with- 
 out accumulating so much heat that some of the 
 plants suffer." 
 
 Mrs. Healey did not reply. Neither her face nor 
 her manner gave the least clue to her thoughts, and 
 the Doctor was baffled. But he had learned how 
 best to humor his wife, and went on with his mono- 
 logue. 
 
 u But perhaps you are not in a mood to relish 
 botanical metaphors this morning, Mrs. Healey, 
 and, as I am reminded by the garments fluttering in 
 the breeze of an ancient but not forgotten art of 
 housewifery, permit me to quote to you the old 
 adage, * Every tub must stand on its own bottom ' 
 with my amendment, and in its own laundry." 
 
 Mrs. Henley's face had shown signs of increasing 
 mirth, and now she exclaimed, laughing : 
 
 " Well, dear, that homily is lost, for it isn't Aunt 
 Esther, at all. It is an ardent admirer of mine." 
 
 " Aha ! so blows the wind ! All the more reason 
 for my homily, then ; for as master of this domicile, 
 Mrs. Healey, I cannot give my consent to any per- 
 manent arrangement for your old suitors," observed 
 the Doctor with mock gravity. 
 
 " But, dear, you advance too rapidly. I thought 
 only women jumped at conclusions," she added 
 archly, placing herself on a low chair by his side. 
 " But I will release you from Doubting Castle now, 
 as I am sure you would never guess. It is my sweet,
 
 THE LETTER. 11 
 
 darling friend, and your old pet" the Doctor's eyes 
 grew bigger " Elise Archer, who is coming. Don't 
 you. know, she always called herself my devoted 
 admirer ? " 
 
 " And mine too, eh, Lily ? " the Doctor replied 
 with a laugh of satisfaction. "You have indeed 
 good news, wife kin ; it acts like a tonic on me. I 
 shall be invigorated for all day." 
 
 " Just as though you needed any extra stimulant," 
 Lily said, slyly putting her hand in his, "when you 
 have me all prescribed and regulated and labeled 
 according to your own order ; " and she turned a face 
 full of confiding love up to her husband. 
 
 " That's a fact, Lily," the Doctor said, leaning 
 over the curly head and imprinting a kiss upon the 
 fair cheek. " You are my elixir, but she well, 
 you know she is my El-i-za. There is a difference, 
 I admit; and I concede further that the personal pro- 
 noun preceding that proper noun is out of place, 
 for I have no investment in her whatever, and, further- 
 more, renounce what little I ever had. She shall be 
 yours exclusively, Lily, and I will have my Chan- 
 ning how will that arrangement suit?" 
 
 "Channing Eaiie? Why, yes, dear, if you like; 
 but " 
 
 " But what? I did not dream that there could be 
 a negative hypothesis or a doubt where Channing 
 was in question." 
 
 " But I never knew that he had taken a striking 
 fancy to you " 
 
 "Pshaw! What matters that? Likes and dislikes 
 are not so much fruits of fancy as you think. We 
 men don't look at it that way. He is a fine, sensible 
 fellow we are mutually pleased with each other ; now 
 if I conclude to yoke him into a closer d la Damon 
 and Pythias bond of union, it is easy enough to 
 entice him into it. Be lovely to him, and he flies 
 right into my arms, just as the iron filings fly to the 
 magnetized ore." 
 
 " Don't be nonsensical, dear ! Channing is every
 
 12 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 i 
 
 inch a man, young as he is, and not one, you'll find, 
 to go at every one's beck and call." 
 
 "Then I'll pass him over to Elise ; how will that 
 please you?" 
 
 " Why, dear ! " Mrs. Healey exclaimed, in a remon- 
 strating tone, "why do we introduce him at -all into 
 this talk ? Elise is coming, and that is all my heart 
 and mind can hold to-day." 
 
 "Your voice sounds as though your 'foot was 
 down,' Mrs. Healey, so I must even acquiesce like the 
 model husband I am. We will drop Channing. Be- 
 hold him non est! He shall remain in his domicile, 
 and we in ours. Is that right ? Isn't my little woman 
 finical this morning ? " 
 
 " You know that is not what I mean, Doctor. I 
 mean Elise absorbs me, and I don't care about any- 
 body else at present. And there's something practi- 
 cal connected with this subject," she added, seeing 
 the Doctor about to leave the room. " Elise will 
 arrive this evening at " consulting the letter again 
 "at half-past nine ; can you arrange to meet her?" 
 
 " Yes, yes; count on me to serve you and Elise," 
 lie replied, mischievously. " By the way, is she 
 French or German?" 
 
 Lily shook her head, and, without waiting for her 
 to speak, he said, " Why don't they preserve English 
 forms and call her plain Eliza?" 
 
 " Because that is not her name, dear." 
 
 " Are you prepared to avouch in the presence of 
 this assembled witness, Mrs. Healey, that on the 
 christening roll the name stands Elise Archer ? I'll 
 venture a penny that all this Frenchifying is an 
 after-thought, conjured out of the teeming brains of 
 young misses at boarding-school. How I hate affec- 
 tations ! " he exclaimed, vehemently. 
 
 " Well, even if it should be so, dear, " Mrs. Healey 
 said, soothingly, "you will forgive that little piece of 
 vanity in your old pet, will you not? She is so 
 nearly perfect that a little blemish will only be an 
 acceptable proof that she comes from the same fallen
 
 THE LETTER. 13 
 
 angel-stock as the rest of us. She is our charming 
 friend, there is no gainsaying that ; and don't forget 
 to be at the depot promptly at half-past nine." 
 
 The day had been cold for October, and, as the 
 curtains of evening shut out the sun's last ray, the 
 wind whistling through the chimney attracted Mrs. 
 Healey's attention to the fire of bright pine-knots 
 burning low upon the hearth. 
 
 She drew a chair before it, reopened her letter, and 
 read it once more by the blazing light. 
 
 And so her chosen friend was coming to her own 
 home this snug little home, that she had often tried 
 to picture to her in letters. It was too much joy she 
 hardly knew how to contain it all ; in the excess of 
 her transport and desire to do everything and have 
 everything in perfect order about her little household, 
 she could do nothing only sit there in the fading 
 twilight and review the old scenes during the years 
 of her happy authority in her brother's family, when 
 Elise was one of the children that occupied her mind 
 and heart. 
 
 The vivacity that was always triumphant ; the 
 pitiful remorse when condemned by conscience for 
 misdoing; the pleading sweetness of her voice when 
 she cried, "Please forgive me, Lil; indeed I didn't 
 mean to hurt your feelings ! " if in her impetuosity 
 she spoke with the least sharpness ; her winning, 
 caressing fondness during all those years of her 
 blindness ; the meek acquiescence which this mis- 
 fortune developed in her, and the gentler patience 
 which was the very breath of her life during those 
 
 days at M Springs when Death stood waiting for 
 
 his victim all swept like a panorama across her vision. 
 
 Oh, that happy summer! was there ever such 
 another ? That sanctified spot where she was set the 
 lesson of love, and her heart at last acknowledged 
 that she could learn it from only that master; the 
 adventure at the oriole's nest, when the master came 
 and claimed the poor fluttering heart that had been 
 sadly fretting and pining in a self-imposed imprison-
 
 14 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 ment; the betrothal, and the wedding at Mrs. Gray's, 
 her brother's wife and Elise's aunt no shadows 
 darkened the bright picture, and the flitting spirits 
 thronged around her and filled her soul with the soft 
 dreamy languor of a forgotten bliss. 
 
 And that was the last she had seen of Elise. Nine 
 years had folded away their draperies in peaceful 
 silence nine happy years of wedlock. Would Elise 
 think her old and faded ? Would she be as " devoted " 
 as ever to her Lil? 
 
 And Elise, the bright young girl of seventeen, 
 fragile, willowy, delicate, must now be with light 
 let in to those long-darkened eyes, and with the 
 matured development of body and mind which -she 
 learned from a constant correspondence Elise must 
 be all that heart could wish, both to look at and to 
 love. And she was coming ! Oh, the magic of those 
 words ! The kindly engine was fast lessening the 
 distance between the long-parted friends. In Mrs. 
 Healey's mood, everything that contributed to bring 
 about this desirable result became an object of spon- 
 taneous gratitude. 
 
 Would she be changed ? In some respects she knew 
 she must be ; for with her restored sight, there came 
 an eager awakening to all that was beautiful in nature 
 and art, and a rapturous plunging into all the accom- 
 plishments of the modern belle. She had written of 
 her course in the School of Design, and subsequent 
 progress under private masters in drawing and paint- 
 ing of her instructions in the Kensington School in 
 finished embroidery ; and had, indeed, sent Lily dainty 
 specimens of her perfected workmanship. 
 
 " And so," Mrs. Healey mused, "she is no doubt a 
 young lady ' of the period,' with all the isms and 
 fantasies overlaid with bric-a-brac, aesthetics, and 
 Kensington stitches. Ah me ! shall I ever be able to 
 find my Elise?" Then she thought, despairingly, 
 " Will she find me out of the period ? I think mine 
 has only been a dog-trot in this progressive age, while
 
 THE LETTER. 15 
 
 she has been on a full-blootled racer. Well, she must 
 teach me. Ah, it will be glorious ! " 
 
 And Mrs. Healey rose, satisfied with her specula- 
 tions and her conclusion, whispering to herself, " How 
 sweet it is to reverse the process of learning and 
 teaching even at thirty-four ! " 
 
 Now as she began calmly to view the situation, she 
 knew that all was in readiness for her guest's arrival, 
 for, this was Friday, and the whole house had been put 
 to rights ; the guest-room was not only swept and 
 garnished, but scented with the breath of sweet 
 flowers, that curiosity mingled with a zeal for pic- 
 turesque effects had led her to place in some new 
 vases that very morning. 
 
 " Dear, precious Elise ! " she said to herself, as she 
 rang to order a supper for her friend; "poor or- 
 phaned one, you shall never know the want of a 
 mother while Lily Healey breathes the breath of 
 life. My precious child ! " 
 
 She stood motionless for a moment with a far-away 
 look in her soft gray eyes, and then, with a subdued 
 rapture, exclaimed : 
 
 " Yes, you will remain ! "
 
 THE OPAL QUEEN, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PEEP AT BRENTVILLE. 
 
 " QUICK ! Lily, quick ! " cried Elise, standing at 
 the window, and gazing into the street. 
 
 Lily, who was just vanishing through the door, 
 turned to answer the summons ; but the Doctor, being 
 in the immediate neighborhood of the ejaculator, 
 sprang to her side with the subdued alacrity of a 
 veteran of forty, and exclaimed, when he saw the 
 direction of her eyes : 
 
 " Why, that's our Adonis! posing for your special 
 benefit, Elise, I doubt not. What's the fellow doing?" 
 he added, regarding him a little more narrowly, and 
 then, as he spied his glass, exclaiming, "All, yes! 
 He is in a cometic state this evening possibly cos- 
 metic, eh, Lil ? I declare ! if he keeps that rigid, 
 statuesque pose much longer, I shall begin to think 
 he is comatose." 
 
 "Quite up in aesthetics, you see, Elise !" chimed 
 in Lily, now grouped with the others in the bay-win- 
 dow. 
 
 Lily did not know Elise's predilection for aesthetics, 
 and, being herself only slightly tinged, felt at liberty 
 to get what fun out of it she could. 
 
 "It's a handsome bit of humanity, anyway," said 
 Elise, turning now, as she saw the young man slowly 
 recover his walking posture, and with easy self-pos- 
 session saunter down the street. 
 
 "Got your matrimonial cap ready, Elise?" inquired 
 the Doctor. " Set it, if you have ; but I warn you 
 that lie won't deign to look at it unless it 'is high- 
 toned: it must be of neutral tint, gray softly shading
 
 A PEEP AT BRENTVILLE. 17 
 
 into well I don't know exactly what pale, rich, 
 limpid goose-breath ! I guess that's it and lined 
 with old gold of course ! " 
 
 The girls laughed, and he added, " Something 
 amazingly like that, anyhow, isn't it, dear ? " 
 
 Lily, thus invited to supplement her husband's 
 ignorance of his theme, checked her laughter. 
 
 " That will do for a simile, dear. But don't, pray, 
 talk about setting hymeneal caps till we have set our 
 heads together for a little space. Why, we have not 
 seen each other at all yet." 
 
 " Talked from ten till three," said the Doctor, " to 
 my certain knowledge long enough, I should say, 
 to catch a slight glimpse, unless you talked in the 
 dark; and if you did that, you had the mental vision 
 to scan each other's souls, with time enough to ex- 
 amine every square inch of your bodies outside and 
 in." 
 
 " Oh, Doctor ! " they protested. 
 
 " It's a fact ; I have dissected larger 
 
 " Horrible ! For shame ! " they cried in concert. 
 
 The Doctor began a hasty retreat from the impend- 
 ing assault-and-battery gleaming in the eyes of the 
 fair but irate Philistines, running at him with their 
 mighty weapons of warfare; but just as they were 
 close upon him, he turned suddenly and squared 
 himself for the attack they recoiled as if shot. 
 
 " Why don't you. come on?" he cried. " Quite a 
 strong posse of you ! " And then, catching sight of 
 arms bared to the elbow, of the delicate, aesthetic 
 type " What a magnificent stand of arms!" he ex- 
 claimed in a tone of mock surprise and admiration ; 
 "4 humeri, 
 4 ulnse, 
 4 radii, 
 32 carpals, 
 20 metacarpals, 
 56 phalanges, 
 appear to my astonished vision,. Prodigious!" 
 
 -' You forget to curve your phalanges," he called
 
 18 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 out, as they, having plucked up courage, started to 
 renew the attack. 
 
 u I'll come back and let you practice some day," he 
 observed blandly, and pretended to make a frightened 
 exit to escape the damage of their mimic warfare. 
 
 The young man thus introduced to Miss Archer's 
 notice was a cousin of Mrs. Stilz- a young married 
 lady of the village who had stopped to visit her 
 before making his fourth tour abroad. 
 
 At the precise moment when he was sighted by 
 the window-gazers, he was standing, looking through 
 an opera-glass into the space just above the horizon, 
 judging from the altitude of his glass, which was 
 poised a trifle too high for earth-vistas. 
 
 He was of rather striking physique, on account of 
 broad, square shoulders set in a frame proportion ably 
 heavier in its upper part, and of picturesque nglig 
 costume, which hung about him with an easy grace 
 that defied most drapers' arts and measurements for 
 only a choice few had yet been instructed in the con- 
 trasts and correspondencies and curves with sufficient 
 mathematical accuracy to fashion such aesthetic dra- 
 peries. 
 
 Although visiting his cousin, he boarded at the 
 hotel, where, without intrusion or questioning, lie 
 could have his valet and the comforts and luxuries 
 that belonged to his estate as a private gentleman of 
 means, who understood to perfection the high art, 
 the fine art, of living. 
 
 He had been in town just two weeks, and had set 
 it by the ears the day after his arrival. The young 
 ladies who were eligible were in a craze of generous 
 and ingenious rivalry for his favors. 
 
 Little Miss Tete was sure she had just the one 
 thing needful to attract the lion, in her limp, petite 
 figure sucli a dainty bit for a capricious, refined, 
 high-toned appetite. 
 
 Miss St. John prided herself on her Greek profile 
 and bust ; while Miss Stemm knew that her willowy 
 grace would make all his thoughts run to verse, and
 
 A PEEP AT BEENTVILLE. 19 
 
 if of the silent, "blank" kind, so much the better; 
 for then she could do all the chatting. 
 
 Violet Love's complexion, with its creamy tint 
 blushing into the luscious hue of the peach, never 
 failed to enchant the most indifferent and bind them 
 as captives to her train. 
 
 Virginia Smart expected much from her naivete 
 and sparkling humor ; and Gabrielle Bunce was not 
 only a blonde belle, but an heiress who had been pre- 
 sented at court. 
 
 He seemed to have money in abundance and spent 
 it lavishly upon his pleasures and the girls. When 
 Mrs. Stilz was questioned'as to his finances, she re- 
 plied in ambiguous phrases, or gave mysterious hints 
 of a large patrimony received only two years ago, and 
 left the young man and time to settle, or clear, or 
 cloud the mystery. But this much was assured: he 
 had "enough for any man." 
 
 Lily rehearsed this on dit to Elise, and wound up 
 by saying : 
 
 " He puts on airs I think, but is never offensive, 
 and is, I must say profoundly polite and agreeable." 
 
 Elise found the subject of sufficient interest to ask 
 several questions. 
 
 " Does he consider himself an apostle of the Beau- 
 tiful, Lily?" 
 
 " I think he does, Elise." 
 
 "Does he believe that Nature gives us the true in- 
 timations of true beauty and just principles in Art? " 
 
 " No doubt he does, if that is what a genuine 
 aesthete ought to belie-ve ; he goes the whole figure," 
 Lilian replied laughing. 
 
 " If lie burns with a desire to convert others, that 
 shows a certain greatness of mind I do wonder if he 
 belongs to the most pronounced type, and believes 
 that the pursuit of the Beautiful regenerates the 
 soul," she continued meditatively. 
 
 " I hope not," Lilian declared with a severe earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 " I certainly do not, Lil, so dismiss your fears,
 
 20 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 please. But you will grant that it is a necessary 
 means of improvement in society." 
 
 " I grant that it occupies the restless activity of 
 some people to some ends of decoration, but that it 
 will ever do for anybody's sole nourishment I can 
 never believe, Elise," Lilian replied with emphasis. 
 
 " Oh, of course not," Elise said absently. " But 
 what is his solution of the mystery of life ? the 
 strife of necessity against the will, like Sohlegel's, 
 or " 
 
 " Indeed, Elise, you will have to make your own 
 soundings in those deep waters," Lilian answered 
 smiling. 
 
 " Well, how does he get on in the world, anyhow ? 
 do you think," she said archly, "he manages to get 
 all his humors out as he goes along, Lil? " 
 
 " What a saucy girl you are, Elise, to give me such 
 a sly thrust ! Don't be so impatient for the study* 
 of our Adonis ; for I promise you that you shall 
 find out all about him for yourself. I shall invite 
 him to call, and he will surely be here on your recep- 
 tion evening, if not before." 
 
 Elise thought with some secret satisfaction, that 
 it would be a little stimulating to exercise her charms 
 in the field where such imposing rivals had already 
 a fine start in the game. She had not had that kind 
 of excitement in her social life. Travelling and study- 
 ing so much of her time, the company was limited to 
 a few, or swelled to the host of an audience of which 
 she formed not an inconspicuous but a fractional 
 part ; and when in the exceptional periods of social 
 gayety she had been surrounded by her peers among 
 women, the tide of applause and favorable verdict 
 had set in such a strong current towards her, without 
 a thought of hers in the matter by a kind of irre- 
 pressible surging of the male part of humanity, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously driven on to their fate that 
 she had never stopped to question whence it came nor 
 whither it went. She accepted the offerings laid 
 upon her shrine, with an artless composure that be-
 
 A PEEP AT BUENTVILLE. 21 
 
 wilclered the conceited and daunted the daring ; a 
 frank unreserve and direct simplicity that confounded 
 the adventurous and baffled the intriguing ; and a 
 pretty grace and unaffected sweetness that disarmed 
 criticism and conquered all hearts. 
 
 Possessed of the ore-magnet that attracted all 
 filings, she had also the purity which instantly re- 
 pelled all baseness. 
 
 She did not acknowledge or recognize any feeling 
 of rivalry in this new field, in herself. She was only 
 wondering how, under the circumstances, her own 
 personal charms would be rated, and felt a curiosity 
 never before aroused in her bosom, to discover if she 
 would prove a match for this incorrigible, much 
 sought, much coveted Adonis. 
 
 " Let us get our work, Elise, and have a long talk 
 of old times to begin the ' season ' with ; after that I 
 shall be willing to deliver you up to the voracious 
 appetites of the outside world." 
 
 " Dear me ! " cried Elise, " will they eat my hymn- 
 book too, like the cannibals of Timbuctoo?" 
 
 "They will monopolize you, I foresee, and so I 
 don't mean to let them in until I can make up my 
 mind to be contented with a fragment of you now 
 and then. We have a very choice circle here, Elise. 
 I am sure you. will be pleased with the society. For 
 one thing pronouncedly distingue, we have The Mon- 
 boddo School, you know." 
 
 Elise dropped her work, and looked up inquiringly. 
 
 " You must have heard of the new school of design 
 in literature, Elise ? Why, there was. a great talk in 
 the papers about it." 
 
 "Oh! about a year ago? Yes, I remember some- 
 thing about it. Professor came from London, did he 
 not? brought unexceptionable credentials from men 
 in high standing, etc., etc. ? Oh, yes ! I remember 
 it all now; but there wasn't any excitement in 
 the city, only a little evanescent whirr as it passed 
 through." 
 
 " Well, Professor Monboddo settled here, and has
 
 22 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 attracted about him a pupilage of sixty as fine young 
 men as ever you saw. This in turn has brought a 
 good many young lady visitors into the village, and 
 some men of culture drop in occasionally, out of curi- 
 osity. That was one thing that attracted Otto Dres- 
 son, the gentleman we saw sighting the comet." 
 
 " All ! " said Elise. " Did he join the class ? " 
 
 " No ; upon my word, I believe he is too lazy, for 
 there is a deal of hard work in it, the students say ; 
 and then he is opinionated and cesthetic " she pro- 
 nounced this word with a laugh and a sly glance at 
 Elise. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't mind your ridicule one bit. Lil. I 
 rather like it and to tell the truth, that part quite 
 predisposes me towards our street hero." 
 
 "Well, I must not prejudice you; he is clever 
 enough, and a finished gentleman." 
 
 " The Professor himself is quite an original study," 
 she continued, "and succeeds in exciting an enthusi- 
 asm and devotion among his pupils second to no 
 master since the time of Socrates. He is simple, 
 calm, direct in his speech and manner, and of so un- 
 tarnished an integrity that it comes out in rays all 
 over him, and you absorb it while with him, like a 
 vapor or an electricity ! " 
 
 " Say what you may, Lily, it is just that fine feel- 
 ing that I have been telling you about that makes 
 the finished gentleman, and puts society upon its 
 highest plane of refinement. Carlyle well expresses 
 it when he says that it is bringing the individual up 
 to his best level that makes refined society." 
 
 " I agree with you perfectly there, and so does the 
 Professor, only he thinks the foundation should be 
 truth and. love instead of art. But as I was saying, 
 to go on with the current history he requires 
 attendance upon his course for three terms of three 
 months each: after that it is voluntary. He encour- 
 ages the Greek dress it was adopted in fact from his 
 suggestion, taken up with a perfect furore but he 
 does not make it obligatory."
 
 A PEEP A T BRENTVILLE. 23 
 
 " Do they wear the Greek costume ? " exclaimed 
 Elise in a tumult of delight. 
 
 " Oui, ma che're! behold our classic antiques!" 
 
 " Why, I am in the seventh, heaven," cried Elise, 
 rapturously. " And have I lived to see the day the 
 blessed Evangel of art has 
 
 "No, no; Professor Monboddo wouldn't hear a 
 word about its being art's doings ; it's all Truth with 
 him." 
 
 " Well, they are sisters, Lil not consanguineous 
 perhaps in the same family maybe : step-sisters ? 
 adopted ? I haven't worked that out yet," she said 
 with dubious meditation. " But," she continued with 
 eargerness, " there is one thing that I have worked out, 
 or rather a flash of conviction has just shot through 
 my brain I'm going to adopt the Greek costume, 
 Lil." 
 
 " The Monboddoes will be charmed to have such 
 an. advocate, Elise." 
 
 " You see I am already an all-over-dyed-in-the- 
 wool Jaegerite, and " 
 
 "A what!" Lily interrupted. 
 
 "Why, you know I dress entirely in woolen gar- 
 ments, cap-a-pie," she added, indicating with a wave 
 motion of the arm the length of her figure, "and this 
 and this and this," touching each article of dress even 
 to the filmy handkerchief " is pilfered from the sheep 
 and from the camel, and woven. The sheep's robe 
 despoiled and fashioned for me." 
 
 " And you don't look a bit sheepish about it either," 
 Lily slyly interjected. 
 
 " Lily," she continued without noticing the inter- 
 ruption, " why, haven't you heard of Dr. Jaeger, the 
 great inventor and advocate of the sanitary normal 
 clothing for man ? He is a German, a scientist and a 
 physician. He spent years in the investigation of 
 this subject, and at last convinced of the truth of 
 his theory, adopted the dress of woolen clothing and 
 introduced it into his family with the best results." 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I have heard something about it it's a
 
 24 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 kind of mania with him, don't you think? Stock- 
 ings with toes, and night dresses with caps, and all 
 sorts of disfigurations of our established costumes and 
 conventional modes of dress what's the good of it 
 all?" 
 
 " Health, Lily, God's best gift to man. If we were 
 dressed in woolen from our births, we would be as 
 little subject to disease as the animals are." 
 
 " That remains to be proved," and she mentally 
 thought, ''Dear me ! here's another ism.''' 
 
 " Why, don't you know what splendid health the 
 fishermen have? Clad in their woolen garb, they 
 endure sunshine and storm without risk of colds, 
 such a good conductor of moisture and bad conductor 
 of heat is the wool. And look at me, too, Lil. I 
 am a living example of the virtues of the system. 
 Ever since I emancipated myself in Stuttgart and 
 donned the Jaeger costume, I have been in splendid 
 health. I like the camel's hair the best ; and posi- 
 tively, Lil, when I feel its indescribable texture next 
 to my skin, it seems to be a part of my muscular 
 integument, so I am literally the lady that sits in the 
 wool." 
 
 " Well, Elise, I shall not throw cold water on this 
 pet vagary of yours, for your clothes are exquisite, 
 3 r our health is perfect, and so I shall let well enough 
 alone ; mayhap I may^even join you in the innovation 
 only I am afraid it is dreadfully expensive," she 
 said ruefully. 
 
 " But how charming for the Greek draping," said 
 Elise, who had not lost thought of her sudden im- 
 pulse. " I shall get some models at once and set an 
 artiste to work on my dresses." 
 
 " Very well, Elise, but listen to my programme, 
 please, and tell me how you like it. First the 6lite 
 will call upon you ; then there will be parties made 
 for you. Then I wish to wind up with a grand fete 
 *. Greek festival ! " 
 
 * Charming ! " cried Elise, "all of us in Greek cos-
 
 A PEEP A T liRENTVILLE. 25 
 
 tume ? Then I will write to Worth immediately for 
 mine but first I must choose my character.." 
 
 " Yes. Make haste slowly, dear. I want it to be 
 a success, and there's a good deal to study up but 
 Channing will help me," she said meditatively. 
 
 " Such a paragon village ! " exclaimed Elise. 
 " Almost ideal ! Why, the girls in W- would just 
 go wild. One pre-Raphaelite and how many Mon- 
 boddoes, Lil ? " 
 
 "I think Channing said sixty altogether," replied 
 Lily. 
 
 " One pre-Raphaelite and sixty post-Greeks?" 
 
 Lily laughed. " It doesn't sound quite right; you 
 haven't reached the uttermost title yet, Elise ; rack 
 your brain again." 
 
 " Well, Posto-classi co-Greek o ! No? You are fas- 
 tidious, Mrs. Healey. I ghall make but one more 
 attempt to please your critical taste. Post-Socra- 
 tiqnes ! There you have it." 
 
 " Why," laughed Lil)*, "you are getting further 
 and further off! There wouldn't be a young lady 
 left in the village if sixty healthy youths costumed a 
 la Socrates were let loose upon us. My dear, I sup- 
 pose he wasn't a bit more stylish in his dress than 
 they say Greeley was with his imperishable white hat 
 and blue cotton umbrella and slouchy coat. And 
 yon must own that our Monboddoes are up to the 
 highest models of classic art in their dress." 
 
 " I haven't seen them, yon know, but I will take 
 your word for it. But I am not up to it yet, Lil, 
 that's the point." 
 
 Lily looked surprised that one with such decided 
 artistic tendencies should look askance, or with the 
 least disfavor upon the Greek dress. 
 
 "Oh, I admire it vastly of course, Lil, that goes 
 without saying. But what does it typify? Now the 
 costume we uphold has a language. The shortened 
 
 -i- O O 
 
 breeches mean removal of close contact with the dust 
 of earth, the overlying dSbrix gathered here and there 
 that one must rub more or less against, but for this
 
 26 TIIR OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 abbreviation. You see the symbol in that? the 
 withdrawal from low associations in social life. 
 
 "The buckled slippers or pumps and knee-buckles 
 illustrate the girding of oneself for the conflict with 
 all forces arrayed against art. Then, with the right 
 choice of colors in kerchief, necktie, etc., and by 
 blending them in such a manner in the apparel that 
 you feel the charm and the force of harmonious 
 negatives, le tout ensemble is full of the symbolic, and 
 permeated with the mystic. And if there is anything 
 that I am devoted to as a basis for art, it is the com- 
 bination of wisdom and mystery," she exclaimed with 
 ardor. 
 
 " Why, you've got away up in the metaphysics of 
 it, Elise ! The atmosphere is a little too rare for me, 
 and you'll grow thin on it. Better come down from 
 the clouds while you are J^ere with me, dear, and re- 
 establish the old fellow-feeling, my pet," Lilian said 
 fondly. 
 
 " Why ! this cultivates the feeling, Lily. You 
 don't understand. It is just because you do ' feel ' 
 things all through and through you that you become 
 so dreadfully in earnest about aesthetics: it comes 
 from the Greek word meaning ' I feel,' and the 
 thrill and the transport fill you with a delicious 
 music. And after your artistic perceptions and 
 tastes are highly cultivated, you can grade unerringly 
 the rank of objects in the scale of beauty by this 
 nerve-meter test the corresponding intensitj^ of 
 nerve-vibrations that are set quivering in an imper- 
 ceptible, but conscious dance." 
 
 " Are you quite given up to it, Elise ? " Lil} r said 
 in mock despair (for she was now the practical 
 wife and housekeeper), " this sky-soaring and star- 
 sweeping?" 
 
 "I can descend from heaven to earth in no time, 
 Lil or next to none and sweep a room for you 
 this minute, if necessary ! " And she threw herself 
 upon a hassock at Lily's feet, and leaning upon her 
 lap, said, looking tenderly into her face.
 
 A PEEP AT imENTVILLE. 27 
 
 "Don't be discouraged, Lil, there's nothing so very 
 bad in it. I ;un only a student in this science of the 
 beautiful, and love to philosophize and speculate. 
 There is a great deal of real good in it, Lily. Shall 
 we study it together?" 
 
 " We'll see about it, dear. J>ut we must have a 
 play-time first, Elise. There's a whole batch of fun 
 to be kneaded out while you are here. Doctor and I 
 are growing quite prosaic, and you must stir us up 
 into a jingle of some kind, metrical or unmetrical, it 
 matters not; but, for sweet pity's sake, don't have 
 any nerves in it! Let the nerves stay quietly at home 
 in their "own tiny little batteries, and* just answer 
 when we press the knob ! that will be their best 
 service." 
 
 "'They also serve who only stand and wait'' 
 laughed Elise. "Very well, Lily; here's a whole 
 bundle of nerves at your service, ' differentiated ' 
 into a female form known in the species and among its 
 relations as " and she dropped a profound courtesy, 
 "your humble servant, Elise Archer." 
 
 "Complaisant as ever!" said Lily, kissing the 
 satin cheek.
 
 28 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TABLEAU. 
 
 " A maid so lovely that to see, 
 Her smile is to know Italy, 
 Her hair was like a coronet 
 Upon her Grecian forehead set, 
 Where one gem glistened sunnily, 
 Like Venice when first seen at sea." 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. 
 
 IN some respects Elise and Lily had changed places. 
 Elise, while she had lost none of her pliant sweetness, 
 had a gracious dignity worked in by aesthetics that 
 was wanting in her younger days ; which trait, Lily, 
 by the force of circumstances in early life, had been 
 compelled to cultivate and had acquired in excess. 
 But when there were no more children to manage 
 and find in her their pattern of propriety, in the free- 
 dom of her new life with Dr. Healey she had an op- 
 posite side of her nature developed, under the influ- 
 ence of his sunny, contagious mirthful ness. 
 
 Elise had brought a Meissonier gem for Lily, and 
 one morning, in the absence of the Doctor, the t\\<> 
 were seized with a desire to locate it. With the im- 
 pulsiveness of youthful confidence in a compliant 
 strength good /or small emergencies, they agreed to 
 take the matter in hand themselves and not wait the 
 Doctor's opportunity. 
 
 "It may stand here for a month, if we wait, 
 and you know we have no convenient artisans within 
 call here, as you have in the cities. With Bertha's 
 aid I think we can manage the affair nicely," ex- 
 plained Mrs. Healey. 
 
 It was not to be placed very high, and a circular 
 stand for plants that stood on the veranda would 
 make the altitude easilv accessible.
 
 THE TABLEAU. 29 
 
 Elise assured Mrs. Healey that she had an unerring 
 instinct for soft spots in walls and the skill of a smith 
 in wielding the hammer, and declared, moreover, that 
 she was possessed with a frantic longing to climb to 
 that particular pinnacle and "view the landscape 
 o'er." Mrs. Healey was at length persuaded. Elise 
 mounted readily, and began a brisk tapping with her 
 hammer here and there upon the wall, found the stud- 
 ding, and with a few vigorous strokes fastened the 
 nail. Just as she had adjusted the wire and was wait- 
 ing for Lily's verdict as to whether the picture hung 
 straight, the bell rang. It was a remote sound, only 
 discernible by ears accustomed to it. 
 
 Mrs. Healey had sent for the Professor and Mr. 
 Earle for consultation on the subject of her Greek 
 Festival; and perceiving through the corner of the 
 window a gentleman's figure, she glanced at Elise and 
 meditated a coup d'etat. She had informed the Earle 
 household that Elise was coming, but had not sent 
 word of her arrival, neither had she hinted it in the 
 note requesting Mr. Earle to escort the Professor to 
 her house. She was desirous of bringing her two 
 young friends together in some informal way which 
 should prevent embarrassment to Mr. Earle'; for this 
 young gentleman combined with solid worth intel- 
 lectual force and great acquirements a certain re- 
 straint in the presence of ladies that easily grew into 
 stiffness, unless the surrounding conditions were un- 
 characterized by conventionalism or superficiality. 
 She had often wondered at this peculiarity in him. 
 He had a reserve power that she had never exhausted, 
 but she was at the same time conscious that it was 
 not always available to others. Alone with herself 
 he would be bright, communicative, even confidential 
 upon occasion, talking with a gay instruct! veness upon 
 all subjects that never degenerated into twaddle. 
 But in the midst of such easy discourse she had 
 seen him grow as passive and indifferent, in the pres- 
 ence of an incoming beauty or chatty, fascinating 
 young lady, as if he could not recognize, or had no
 
 30 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 susceptibility to, her charms nay indeed, sometimes 
 as frigid as if he had been caught in a sudden polar 
 wave. She had tried to account for this metamor- 
 phosis, and thought she saw a cause in incessant study 
 unrelieved by amusement, combined with youth and 
 natural sensitiveness. Lack of knowledge or con- 
 sciousness of developed strength she knew it could 
 not be ; for she considered him an unusually rounded 
 and developed character for his years, and she could 
 never quite reconcile his full, robust manhood with 
 this seeming weakness and apparent contradiction of 
 it. This shy reserve, mingled with a lofty politeness 
 that mocked the idea of embarrassment, would come 
 over him instantaneously, and never be entirely dis- 
 pelled in the presence of any fair young woman with 
 whom she had yet seen him. 
 
 She recognized the fact that her ruse might be a 
 slight disadvantage to Elise ; but counted upon her 
 natural tact to master the situation and reconcile dis- 
 cordances, and argued that on account of the hap- 
 hazard character of the introduction, Mr. Earle would 
 be at his best, and would get a start in the acquaint- 
 ance which would be likely to push him on success- 
 fully in the race. 
 
 For these reasons she had not apprised him of 
 Elise's arrival, and now as she stood on the rustic 
 pedestal, her long white cashmere robe falling down 
 in folds that might evoke the ad miration of a sculptor, 
 its cascading lace enveloping her in a dainty airy 
 foam from throat to tiny slipper, her half raised ana 
 in the long flowing angel-sleeve that bared it to the 
 elbow, and the graceful unconsciousness of her dig- 
 nified pose her eye took in the artistic completeness 
 of the picture, and she quickly seized it as the 
 strategic basis of her plot. 
 
 "Stand quite still, Elise dear," she said upon hear- 
 ing the bell. " I am going to have your picture taken 
 just as you are," and left the room. 
 
 Elise, who was herself fond of photography, sup- 
 posed that Mrs. Ilealey had gone for her instrument,
 
 THE TABLEAU. 31 
 
 and amused herself with the thought of playing a 
 statue. Siie practiced one or two expressions of 
 countenance, but did not change the approved posi- 
 tion. She heard an unusual movement across the 
 hall, and then Mrs. Healey opened the door saying: 
 
 "Don't change ! they are coming to take it, Miss 
 Archer," and ushered in Professor Monboddo and 
 Mr. Channing Earle. 
 
 At Elise's first glance, a shade of annoyance passed 
 over her face at the ruse, but she made a pretty 
 obeisance, and said, "I shake hands when I'm on 
 earth," and made a motion of descent. 
 
 " That is just where she belongs, gentlemen," 
 laughed Lily, "up in the clouds." 
 
 " I shall be happy to assist so fair a divinity out of 
 cloudland into the land of realities," remarked the 
 Professor, gallantly advancing to her side, and prof- 
 fering the assistance ot his hand and arm in alighting. 
 
 "No! No!" exclaimed Lily, springing forward 
 and detaining him. "She cannot come down until she 
 makes her peace with Mr. Earle." 
 
 Elise blushed like a convicted criminal ; but Mr. 
 Earle struck by this precipitous charge in an unknown 
 tongue, and recognizing its unfairness, grew chival- 
 rous, and quickly covered her confusion, remarking : 
 
 "But, Mrs. Healey, begging your pardon, I object 
 to the ground upon which my opponent stands. Her 
 high plane forbids even the consideration of terms of 
 peace. If you insist upon it, I shall lose my cause. 
 If we are to meet as adversaries, let it be on a com- 
 mon level, I beg, where we can discuss pros and cons 
 and faces, as well as peccadilloes, without an opera 
 glass." Then, with an easy self-possession that more 
 than justified Mrs. Healey for her coup d'etat, he ex- 
 tended his hand to the fair culprit, saying: 
 
 "Pray, what is your transgression, Miss Archer? 
 Come down and settle it, will you not? I'm not an 
 implacable monster in Rhadamanthine gear." 
 
 "If the price of my release is peccavi, I fear I 
 ought to stay," she said laughing, but put one fair
 
 ;{-J THE OPAL 
 
 liaiul in that of each gentleman, and descended the 
 steps to the music of Lily's chant, 
 
 "See the conquering hero conies ! " 
 
 " You have acquitted yourself with credit, my dear, 
 in this picture, which I shall name, The Descent of the 
 Sibyl. Oh ! that Otto had been here ! " she cried 
 with mock enthusiasm, and then deliberately captured 
 the Professor, and bore him off to the library to dis- 
 cuss plans for the Festival. 
 
 " Too bad, Mr. Earle, to enroll me as a foe at the 
 very beginning of our acquaintance," declared Elise, 
 the rich blood glowing in her cheeks "isn't she ag- 
 gravating? " and she turned to him with such a look 
 of amused distress that he said, laughing, 
 
 " That depends, Miss Archer. But if we are to be 
 foes, let us be honest ones. Pray, how have yon 
 offended me? I am anxious to be propitiated, I 
 assure .you." 
 
 She hesitated, and he added : 
 
 " I won't press it. Yes, she is aggravating, if her 
 little plot has caused you embarrassment ; but allow 
 me to say that you were perfect mistress of the mis- 
 chance." 
 
 " May I tell you some other time?" she asked, with 
 nervous sweetness, " and you will not lay it up as 
 some terrible thing? Then," extending her hand, 
 "I am your good friend, Mr. Earle." 
 
 At this very little act, impulsively done, simple as 
 a child's and as natural, Mr. Earle drew back into 
 the reflective shell of whose existence Elise could 
 have had no suspicion from his frank gallantry up to 
 this moment. 
 
 Me took the hand mechanically and expressed 
 thanks for the honor, tlnen inquired gravely how long 
 she had been in the village. Elise was as sensitive as 
 a mimosa ; she felt the change instantly, answered him 
 absently, for she was^con founded by this precipitous 
 descent from the temperate to the frigid zone but 
 quickly rallied and gave an amusing account of her 
 journey and her first view of the pre-Raphaelite of
 
 THE TABLEAU. 33 
 
 the village, which was intermingled with short ques- 
 tions and polite but encouraging remarks on the part 
 of Mr. Earle. 
 
 " I don't take any stock in him," he said, abruptly. 
 ' Perhaps he is no more following an ism than we 
 are," he continued, glancing at his robe; "but by 
 just so much as the Good is superior to the Beauti- 
 ful I rank our views above his." 
 
 Elise had touched upon her esthetic views in the 
 'captivating style all her own, and naturally waited 
 now for a fuller exposition of the sentiments of her 
 gnest. 
 
 He perceived the drift of her thought. 
 
 " You would call me a bore as well as a heretic," 
 he said, laughing, u if I should wheel my platoons into 
 line for that charge, and, as this is my first appearance 
 to Miss Archer, I may be pardoned the wish to 
 escape deserving the titles." 
 
 lie had recovered his balance, and with it his buoy- 
 ancy and fluent tongue. 
 
 Elise inquired archlv, " Shall we postpone this, too, 
 Mr. Earle?" 
 
 " By all means," he replied. " I am now in the de- 
 structive, controversial age of life when one lets old 
 maxims die an easy death. Never put off until to- 
 morrow what you can do to-day, is productive of 
 many an indigestion and night vigil. We Monbod- 
 does, Miss Archer, believe in thorough, not rash work. 
 Pull out the underpinning of every rotten fabric, dig 
 deep for the true foundation, strike sturdy blows 
 while you wield the hummer yes, all this ; but with 
 a tentative purpose that looks ahead grandly, and for 
 the time when the creative spirit of Truth shall im- 
 press and permeate the whole structure." 
 
 And he paused with an inecstatic, devastating con- 
 sciousness sweeping through and through him, that he 
 was a goose ! He knew that while these glit- 
 tering generalities had a breadth and significance to 
 him as representative truths, germs of great possibili- 
 ties, they were as far from Miss Archer's comprehen-
 
 34 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 sion as the sundered poles. He mistook her some- 
 what; but while she did not fathom the depth of his 
 meaning, she understood human nature, and had a 
 woman's tact better sometimes than knowledge 
 and did not hesitate to change a subject upon which 
 she had no thoughts, and into which according to her 
 .surmise which .was wrong he would be likely to 
 sink so deep she could not extricate him. 
 
 She dropped the flower that she had plucked from 
 her belt and had been absently studying during this 
 burst of enthusiasm, and in the diversion produced 
 by the new direction given to his thoughts, she said 
 playfully : 
 
 " Well, there is one thing I don't mean to put off 
 much longer." 
 
 He looked at her inquiringly, for her voice still 
 lingered in a kind of cesural pause. 
 
 "And that is," she continued, " going to see that 
 blessed nonogenarian they tell me you have at your 
 house. Is she really ninety-three years of. age ? 
 What a marvel of preservation she must be ! Will 
 she see company? Can she talk much?" and for 
 the first time in her interrogatories, Elise paused for 
 a reply. 
 
 Mr. Earle was relieved and mentally thankful for 
 the change. Not so much for fear of himself, for he 
 knew that he could explain so clearly that she would 
 understand; but he knew equally that this was not 
 the time nor the place for a disquisition, and feared 
 that he had even now by a false move forestalled the 
 favorable judgment of this bewildering creature, who, 
 though he would not have been willing to confess it, 
 aroused in him a new class of emotions, and stimu- 
 lated a desire for their repetition emotions sweet but 
 vague, and so illusory that they rose and fell with the 
 light of her eye. His thoughts could not have been 
 invited to a more inspiring theme. 
 
 " That blessed gran dam ," he replied, with a min- 
 gling of thankful alacrity and pathetic reverence in his 
 tone, " is one of my idols, tKat I wear right here."
 
 THE TABLEAU. 35 
 
 His hand was near his heart, and if his manner had 
 been less serious, Elise would have suspected a hidden 
 miniature. 
 
 " That is to say," he added, " 1 honor her only on 
 this side idolatry ; as Ben Jonsoii said of Shakspeare. 
 I have grown up under her, you know," he ex- 
 plained, "and she has impressed her personality so 
 strongly upon me that sometimes 1 surprise myself 
 thinking her thoughts and acting her ways. The 
 little woman lias a strong hold on me more than a 
 life-lease I am sure. She stands between the points 
 of a century, Miss Archer, just think of that! talks 
 of the time when the British impressed her husband 
 into their service in the war of 1812. By Dox! but 
 it paralyzes the assumed importance of youth to try 
 to comprehend such a life to confront such an accu- 
 mulation of years ! " 
 
 He understood Elise's little surprised laugh, and 
 hastened to explain. 
 
 " Now that very exclamation which excites your 
 smile illustrates my aforetime speecli about dear old 
 Gran that's what I call her," he said, apologetically, 
 " it's my pet name from babyhood that I shall never 
 outgrow Gran was opposed to my using any sort of 
 exclamation, even Zounds or By George, or Dickens, 
 or any of the so-called harmless ejaculations. Well, 
 I compromised" with her on Dox, having explained to 
 her satisfaction that it was the meaning or name of 
 nothing under the sun, and served as a vent for ex- 
 citement which, if repressed, might burst out in some 
 less commendable form, perhaps a flagrant violation 
 of etiquette. It wasn't so much of etiquette that 
 Gran was thinking, though, as morals. I said to 
 her, ' Dux means a leader, and of course you don't wish 
 me to acknowledge any leadership, or call upon any 
 visible entity or nonentity, so I'll make it Dox* and 
 speak it strong, and the steam will all escape through 
 that safety-valve.' Gran shook her head dubiously 
 and chuckled low, but she has countenanced me in it
 
 36 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 ever since, at least by her profound silence on the 
 subject." 
 
 Mrs. Healey entered with -the Professor, and Mr. 
 Earle rose to join him in leaving. 
 
 " Have you arranged the complicated affair, and 
 brought order out of chaos so soon ? " said Elise to 
 the Professor. 
 
 "The Greek movements and draperies are still 
 models of symmetrical order, Miss Archer," he said, 
 kindly. "Time passes swiftly to the young, and 
 looking at his watch, " we have tarried one good 
 hour, which is not to say " and he turned with an 
 easy grace to Mrs. Healey, "that we would not will- 
 ingly make it two. But each duty must have a frag- 
 ment of attention and I must bid you a happy good- 
 inorning." 
 
 "You will come soon again?" Mrs. Healey said. 
 "But, Channing, why need you go now ?" 
 
 " Miss Archer and myself have still some unfinished 
 business postponed to future meetings, and 1 promise 
 myself a renewal of this visit and perhaps soon, if 
 you will kindly permit me to take Miss Archer to- 
 morrow evening to pay her respects to Gran, who 
 receives visitors between six and eight." 
 
 " We will both go, Channing, that's just the plan. 
 Ask your mother to call to-morrow, and we will go 
 around in the evening. You old folks," she said 
 laughing, "can talk together, and Mrs. Earle and 
 myself will have some matters to discuss that will take 
 up nearly the whole time." 
 
 To the surprise and chagrin of Mr. Earle, when he 
 was fairly on his way down street, he discovered the 
 rose that he had unconsciously raised, all wilting in 
 the unrelaxed grasp of his fingers.
 
 " GRAN." 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Years and sorrow had only worn the noble texture of her heing 
 into greater fineness, the color and tissue still all complete." 
 T. Carlyle, 
 
 THE thought of that purloined flower which he 
 could not return without insult, or keep without 
 hypocrisy, sufficed to impart that tinge of dignified 
 reserve to Mr. Eaiie's manner that was Mrs. Henley's 
 bete noire, when he next met Miss Archer, and ac- 
 companied the ladies to his home. It indicated an 
 admiring interest in its owner, he thought at least 
 that was legitimate inference and laid him open to 
 the charge of being a flirt, or a lady's-man, or a 
 chivalrous knight offices which he had never as- 
 sumed or aspired to. He could not but recognize 
 the fact that Miss Archer's vanity (if she had any, 
 and that he took for the natural inheritance of a 
 beautiful woman) would attribute almost every rea- 
 son but accident for the abstraction of her flower. 
 
 But in the serene presence of Grandma Earle his 
 restraint disappeared like the snowflake in the sun. 
 
 There was in Mrs. Earle an habitually tranquil 
 superiority of manner, caused by the accumulation of 
 years and ripened wisdom, that would have rebuked 
 familiar address by the outside world. But her 
 favorite grandson had inaugurated the title "Gran" 
 in the village, and it Avas lovingly adopted b}" all, 
 who were glad of this opportunity of combining their 
 affection with their reverence, and of escaping the 
 Scylla and Charybdis whirlpool always swirling 
 between the " Young Mrs." and the " Old Mrs." of 
 a partnership household.
 
 38 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 She was a pretty, quaint, faded picture, in her high 
 straight-backed chair, on this her reception-evening, 
 as the ladies entered to pay their respects. 
 
 She had adopted the plain style of dress worn by 
 the Quakers, in early life, and had never changed it. 
 A petite figure etbe realized by ;ige was robed in a 
 drab costume and white kerchief, with a pure white 
 lace cap. She wore no glasses, having her "second 
 sight," and her eyes were black, keen, and even bril- 
 liant. Her features were regular, and her face " the 
 very sweetest old one that eyes ever looked upon," 
 Elise told Channing afterwards. Her language was 
 choice, with the best pronunciation. No peculiarities 
 of diction, no provincialisms, modern slang, or col- 
 loquialisms marred its high tone of refined elegance. 
 She used her hands and particularly her arms in 
 gesturing as she talked. 
 
 Elise drew very near to hear every word. She had 
 a vague feeling that she was sitting in the shadow of 
 the great pyramid, in the presence of these venerable 
 years of which she was quite sure when the voice 
 with its fine, far-away tone broke upon her ear: 
 
 " I have lived in the administration of every pres- 
 ident of the United States, Miss Archer, beginning 
 with Washington." 
 
 She waited a moment for the effect of this declara- 
 tion to subside, as Elise was overawed with a speech- 
 less wonder. 
 
 " He was inaugurated when I was an infant, he 
 had two terms of office, and then I was nine years 
 old. I remember very well the talk about Adams 
 for the next president." 
 
 "Why you must have been born in 1788,". said 
 Elise, who had been silently making a computation. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, "and I was married at seven- 
 teen, and have had eleven children now all married 
 and with their grandchildren," she added with an 
 inimitably quaint chuckle. " I travel to see them 
 once in a while ; but there is one who was in Wis- 
 consin I used to go there who has gone to Colo-
 
 ." 39 
 
 rado ; wasn't- far enough west ! " she said with an- 
 other smudge of laughter "but I don't go there ! " 
 
 Elise was regarding her just now as a veritable 
 historical relic, and felt curious to hear something 
 from an actor in the tragedy of what seemed to her 
 a mythical war, so she said : 
 
 " Then you must remember the war of 1812?" 
 
 "Oli, yes; I had a part in that," she replied. "We 
 were in Canada then, and my husband was impressed 
 into the British service " 
 
 " Your husband was .drafted into their service ! " 
 exclaimed Elise, to whom the romance of history be- 
 came suddenly an astounding fact. 
 
 " You see we had the War of Independence" 
 Gran believed in completeness of outline and pa- 
 tiently began at the beginning "and we whipped 
 the British ; but they weren't willing to acknowledge 
 it altogether, and they insisted upon the right of 
 search when our vessels were on the high sea they 
 would board them to see if there were not some Brit- 
 ish sailors on board," she explained with the simplic- 
 ity of great age that assumes ignorance in youths 
 under sixty, "and sometimes they would make mis- 
 takes and take our men and impress them into their 
 service, and so our people determined to fight them 
 again. Then there was some dispute about the 
 boundary line 
 
 " How strange," said Elise, "that I hear this from 
 one of the dramatis personce, and not as a conned 
 lesson in history ! I cannot realize it, it seems so 
 many hundred years ago ; for one hundred is just as 
 much as two to me." 
 
 " We are indeed," said Channing, " connecting 
 widely-severed links of time ; but with Gran's mem- 
 ory for a viaduct, I take many a run into those old 
 fields which are all a wonderland to me, because of 
 her footprints." 
 
 " And my husband ran away," continued Gran, 
 who wished to preserve the unity of the narrative, 
 and whose powers of concentration were still in vig-
 
 40 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 orous action, "because he wouldn't fight against his 
 country. Yes," she went on, reflectively, "lie left 
 his British equipments with me, and took a boat on 
 the lake to try to get into the United States. I 
 watched him until the boat wasn't larger than a 
 sugar-trough. I afterwards put in a petition for a 
 permit to go through the lines ; there was a good 
 deal of trouble about it, and finally I had to present 
 myself at court." 
 
 " Do tell me about it ! " cried Elise, all enthusiasm, 
 and to Channing, sotto voee, " Oh, isn't she just 
 lovely!" 
 
 Elise had become exclusively absorbed in Gran, 
 whose minutest expression she was carefully watch- 
 ing; and Channing, in the absence of talk of a newer 
 flavor Gran's history to him being an oft-told tale 
 fell quite inadvertently into a study of the picture 
 she presented to him on her low seat, her profile 
 standing out with great clearness in the softened light. 
 
 The creamy, silken tissue of her dress rose in the 
 back into a high stiff collar, whose edge was beaded 
 witli pearls, and it was cut square in the corsage, over 
 which a pearled illusion lay in voluminous folds. He 
 noticed this, because it struck him as a novelty in 
 style which narrowly escaped being Elizabethan, and 
 because it exposed in full relief a throat whose ex- 
 quisite curve from. chin to bust would have enchanted 
 a Hogarth or a Tintoretto. 
 
 It was the changeful beauty of this miraculous 
 curve that he was studying in every varying attitude 
 Elise unconsciously made, when she turned and asked 
 her question. 
 
 In the confusion of ideas, for one vague moment he 
 thought it was the banter of ridicule, so much was it 
 the echo of his own thought, and then was glad that 
 it was one of those purposeless questions carrying 
 with it its own affirmation and consent. He could 
 answer it with his eyes and resume his contemplative 
 study. 
 
 " I went up along flight of stairs," Gran continued,
 
 "G-B^JV." 41 
 
 "and went into the court-room. It was full of men, 
 and I had to walk all alone up to the bar. There 
 was a counter there just like a merchant's counter, 
 and I didn't dare to raise my eyes, for I was the only 
 female, and knew they were all looking at me ; and 
 when General Vincent he was the presiding officer 
 of the military court read out the name, 'Lydia 
 Earle,' and asked me if I came to represent that 
 petitioner, I raised my eyes and said, 'Yes'; and 
 then I was so frightened when he asked me the 
 next question I couldn't answer a word," she 
 looked up here for Elise's vocal sympathy "but 
 I plucked up courage, and I answered him correctly 
 every question he asked, for I knew that if my 
 husband was not engulfed in the waves he was far 
 enough out of their reach on the glorious soil of 
 liberty!" And she joined in the laugh which the 
 triumph in her voice had raised. 
 
 " Considerable altercation took place between the 
 officers of the board upon the propriety of granting 
 my petition, when finally another General stepped 
 up and said low to General Vincent, 'Mr. Earle 
 was a Freemason, General, and this pass must be 
 granted.' " 
 
 She joined in the laugh, with her musical "smudge," 
 and said, " There's been a great deal of talk about 
 the Freemasons, but I always venerate the name." 
 
 "That was the pivotal aot upon which my destiny 
 turned," laughed Channing ; "I much prefer Ameri- 
 can citizenship to Canadian." 
 
 " My husband served all through our war, Miss 
 Elise, to the close. He was in the battle of Sackett's 
 Harbor; I leaned on the door-yard fence and saw the 
 battle, and knew that- my husband was in the fight." 
 
 "But how did you get away from Canada without 
 your husband ?" said Eiise. 
 
 "I put my trust in the Lord, Miss Elise. 'Some 
 trust in chariots and some in horses,' but He furnishes 
 the chariots and horses when they are needed." 
 
 " Gran has a diary of those days which she might
 
 42 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 let you see some time, Miss Archer; she keeps up 
 that journal practice to this day," Charming said 
 absently. 
 
 "Why, can you write?" said Elise to her in 
 astonishment, looking at the wrinkled hand with 
 its attenuated lingers. 
 
 " I used to knit, for I had a family of children, 
 but I gave it up long ago, for I am getting so old 
 that I was afraid it would stiffen my lingers so 
 that I couldn't write" and here she bent the 
 joints of her fingers freely, to prove to Elise that 
 they were still pliable. " If I couldn't write," she 
 said" with emphasis, " it would be a great depriva- 
 tion. There is no use in knitting now-a-davs, 
 when you can buy stockings so cheap, but it wasn't 
 so seventy years ago" and she looked up at Elise 
 with a twinkle in her eye, and laughed her pretty 
 laugh, for she was conscious of the humor by 
 which she seemed to belittle old Father Time, 
 whom every body was expected to venerate. 
 
 "Can you sew, too?" Elise inquired. 
 
 "I make every article of clothing I wear," she 
 replied, "and I 'have my grave clothes all ready." 
 
 Gran spoke of this last sad ceremonial with an 
 easy naturalness that inspired her listener to re- 
 gard it in the same light; she thcM-efore felt no 
 quiver of pain, only a feeling of wonder how she 
 had gained her sublime confidence. She had 
 looked forward so long to the probable event of 
 death that it had the significance but not the 
 terror which it has to the young. She had famil- 
 iarized herself with the thought of it, and spoke 
 of it as freely as she would of going into the next 
 room. To her chastened spirit, that had borne 
 the burden of the flesh for ninety-three years, 
 Death would be but the usher into eternal glory. 
 
 " I have made," she said, " a great many gar- 
 ments, oh ! enough to last a number of years, and 
 I keep them on hand in case I should get old"- 
 here she looked up and smiled " and "feeble, and
 
 " GRAN." 43 
 
 couldn't do it. Nobody will have to do any sewing 
 for me." 
 
 Channing was still engrossed in the inobtrusive 
 study of his fair guest. From the triumphant curve 
 which first attracted him, and which failed to reward 
 his persistent inspection with the minutest hint of 
 angularity, he advanced to the higher stage of 
 physiognomy. He was noting the air of superior 
 breeding, the beautiful, delicate blending of dignity 
 and benignity, and the touch of a true, rare inde- 
 pendence when again lie was startled with the 
 mocking echo of his thought, as Elise turned to him 
 impetuously : 
 
 " What a pride she has in being independent, the 
 dear soul ! " 
 
 Elise was looking at her cap, so fine and dainty 
 " You don't make your caps?" she affirmed inter- 
 rogatively. 
 
 "Oh, yes; I wanted my grave-cap made in a par-, 
 ticular way a little different from this," and she 
 instantly removed her cap, showing the white, white 
 silver of her hair. 
 
 The material was a very fine, stiff bobbinet, with 
 a single border of rufile, hemmed and very prettily 
 crimped. 
 
 " You see I wanted a double lias border here," she 
 said, showing Elise, " not hemmed and plaited on the 
 sides and 'not on the top, so I made it myself to be 
 sure to have it right." 
 
 " But the bonnet, Miss Archer, is the chefcCceuvre ! '' 
 said Channing, who now found his model profile 
 of too elusive a nature to pursue his study with 
 advantage, and condescended to assist in the inven- 
 tory of Gran's wardrobe. " Can I get it, Gran? " 
 
 She consented, and he returned in a few moments 
 with a drab satin, large, very large, Quaker bonnet. 
 
 "No neuralgia in this!" he said, playfully insert- 
 ing Miss Archer's head into the deep crown. 
 
 "That I made forty years ago!" Gran explained.
 
 44 THE OPAL (IUEEN. 
 
 Elise exclaimed (with a sudden, silent accusation 
 of extravagance) "And during half that time I have 
 had at least one hundred and twenty ! " She turned 
 it over and over in her hand. " Why, it is quite as 
 good as new! I guess no one ever sat on it," she 
 added, laughing. 
 
 " This is one of Gran's earthly treasures, Miss 
 Archer ; she has but few ' 
 
 " I suppose you are another," laughingly inter- 
 rupted Elise. 
 
 " And having that distinguished claim," he said, 
 bowing in reply to her supposition, "it would, you 
 must know, have no such common depository as a 
 bandbox! A purified, much-lettered, zinc-lined tea- 
 chest lias been set apart for its especial sanctuary, 
 and so this stray little bit of ' illeganze ' (turning it 
 back and forth upon his hand in ironical admiration) 
 " has come down to us from the remote past un- 
 crushed and undefiled ! " 
 
 Gran never contradicted anyone; and when her 
 grandson tried to beguile the time with a little play- 
 ful talk, she listened with a sweet, silent toleration, 
 regarding it as the foam of the lighter waves which 
 would disappear in deep seas. 
 
 She had never thought it necessary to apologize 
 for her style of dress, but she was willing to explain 
 why she assumed it. 
 
 " I adopted the plain costume, Miss Elise, because 
 I was a minister's wife, and I ought to dress plainly. 
 This covering" she said, pointing to the bonnet, "is 
 not forty years old, I covered it last about ten years 
 ago. At one of our parishes, once they were talking 
 about our coming among them, and they said, k When 
 they had a new minister's wife, she always brought 
 them some new fashion, and they didn't know as 
 they wanted Sister Earle, she dressed so plainly.' 
 They had heard about me you see," she added with 
 another arch look and pleasant chuckle. 
 
 " Gran is one of those pictorial characters, Miss 
 Archer, that have 'claims on the government.' She
 
 " GRAN." 45 
 
 has quite a voluminous correspondence with presi- 
 dents, and secretaries and high officials." 
 
 " Well," replied Elise, " I think the government 
 and every private individual ought to give her a 
 pension for taking the trouble to live so long. I am 
 sure I should want some recompense," she said, with 
 a little weary sigh "neither would gold tempt me 
 to prolong life," she added, after an instant's pause. 
 
 " But to me, this picture of old age is the per- 
 fection of beauty," Channing observed. 
 
 " Yes, this picture," said Elise, reflectively, and 
 left him to surmise that she had been thinking of a 
 desolate old age. 
 
 " Yes," said Gran, " I have a claim of seventy dollars, 
 with the accumulated interest of many years, against 
 the government, on account of the military service 
 of my husband during the war of 1812. I wrote first 
 to the Adjutant-General of this State, and he replied 
 that Congress must settle that claim ; then I wrote 
 to the President, and lie replied through his private 
 secretary, that it had been sent to the Treasurer's 
 office. Then the Secretary wrote me that the State 
 must settle that matter; then I sent the Secretary's 
 letter (I kept a copy of it myself," she remarked with 
 a shy playfulness) " to the Adjutant-General. So it 
 goes back and forth like a shuttle-cock. I told the 
 Adjutant-General that I was now in my ninety-third 
 year, and if I was to get any benefit from it, it must 
 not be much longer delayed ! " 
 
 Elise, amused at her humor, inquired why they 
 didn't want to pay it. 
 
 "They just want to let it slip along until I am 
 gone most all of the old ones who had claims 
 are gone now, soon none will be left. They are 
 making a new State-house in Albany, and I guess 
 they want all the money. That is the only reason I 
 can-think of," she said, whimsically. 
 
 Gran made the last remark in such a manner as to 
 show that she was convinced of the absurdity of it,
 
 4C THE OPAL QUEEX. 
 
 but would try to justify the ''powers that be " in 
 their mighty stretches after economy. 
 
 The more Elise talked with this remarkable old 
 lady, 
 
 "The more the wonder grew 
 That one small head could carry all she knew." 
 
 " A budget of nearly one hundred years' gathering ! " 
 she exclaimed. " Oh, dear, how did you preserve 
 yourself so exquisitely? There I must say it," she 
 said, with a little blush of apology. " Do you drink 
 tea or coffee ? " 
 
 " When I used to go visiting with my husband they 
 thought they must do something nice for the minix- 
 ter's wife, so they gave me very strong te;i, and I just 
 made up my mind that / wouldn't drink tea ! " 
 
 "Cayenne pepper is Gran's favorite beverage," 
 Chan n ing interposed, laughing. 
 
 " There's no disease about me, Miss Archer no 
 infirmity but this slight difficulty of hearing; nothing 
 but the weakness of old age." She turned around, 
 and looking Elise fully in the face, said earnestly : 
 
 "Cayenne pepper is the only natural stimulant 
 that is beneficial to the human system, Miss Archer," 
 and laughed with Elise because slfe knew it was 
 funny. "I will recommend cayenne pepper to every 
 woman catnip-tea, too.< catnip is good good for 
 everything good for biibies as well as for old age ; 
 catnip for the nerves and cayenne for the stimulant ; 
 don't forget that, Miss Archer." 
 
 They had a good laugh at Gran's playful assump- 
 tion of medical skill, and Elise declared she must 
 commence the new regime at once, and begged Mrs. 
 Ilealev, who just then entered with Mrs. Earle, to be 
 sure to furnish her with the desirable article for her 
 breakfast. 
 
 Elise kissed the dear old face, and Gran said, hold- 
 ing her off and looking at her intently : 
 
 . " ^ ou are very beautiful, dear, but don't forget 
 that natural graces adorn the character, but they 
 don't redeem it."
 
 "G/M \." 47 
 
 "I knew you would go into raptures, Elise, over 
 our valuable relic of the past, and Chan's idol," re- 
 marked Mrs. Healey as they were walking home. 
 
 "I don't wonder you idolize her," Elise said to 
 Channing; " why, I should oh! I feel as though I 
 could eat her up ! That's shockingly common," she 
 laughed, "but I have said it now, and gained my 
 equilibrium." 
 
 " Why don't you say that she sinks into the mar- 
 row of your being?" said Lily, who often encroached 
 upon the doctor's metaphorical preserves when hunt- 
 ing for illustrations. 
 
 "Do you know she looks exactly like one of those 
 little nut figures that we dress up in chairs?" said 
 Elise. " What a charming antique! How I would 
 like to have her in my chimney-corner, close to my 
 spinning-wheel, where I could run in and give her a 
 good hug every few minutes ! and then her voice 
 sounds so distant, so high and strained., you try to 
 key yours up to it. But oh ! such a dear, cheerful, 
 beautiful old face, and such an arch expression when 
 she is saying funny tilings about herself!" 
 
 " Yes, she has a keen sense of the humorous," 
 Channing interrupted. "She is now in the deep 
 tranquillity of a serene old age nothing jars or 
 moves her. And her vitality is amazing; she got up 
 at six, and had not rested all day, and yet was talk- 
 ing with you brightly to-night at eight that is her 
 retiring hour." 
 
 " The mellow beauty of the dear old face is the 
 quiet work of a century. 
 
 ' Earth's winter flowers are sweeter far 
 Than all spring's dewy posies,' " 
 
 quoted Elise. 
 
 "Do you believe it? " he asked. 
 
 "Don't you?" she inquired for answer, with a 
 little look of surprise. 
 
 "If I may make one exception," he answered, 
 looking at her steadily.
 
 48 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 This might be a delicate compliment to herself, 
 and then it might not be ; and as he made an awk- 
 ward pause, and her hand was in his 'for the good- 
 night touch, she said earnestly : 
 
 "How much I thank 3*011, Mr. Earle, for this alto- 
 gether unrivalled evening! It will be the ideal 
 classic of memory, an Iliad in prose ! " 
 
 As soon as the door closed upon the fair enchan- 
 tress, Channing had a vexatious cense of his indis- 
 creet admiration. It was not like him, he mused on 
 his homeward way ; was he bewitched, that he must 
 imperil truth upon the quicksands of beauty? And 
 he looked with alarm upon himself that he could for 
 one instant have degenerated into a flatterer. 
 
 It had besides a deeper significance than would 
 ordinarily attach to it; for had he not only twenty- 
 four hours ago declared Gran to be the chief object 
 of his regard? and now, forsooth, under the spell of 
 a belle's fascinations, he must coolly divide the honors 
 of idolship wiih a comparative stranger! He was 
 jealous of this love; why had he dishonored it? 
 Why had he belittled it by appearing to rank with it 
 the whim or fleeting preference of a day? 
 
 Should this ephemeral gust of feeling, even if it 
 did transiently take him off his feet and sweep him 
 silently along, be compared for one instant with the 
 deep and steady tide of love that had been swelling 
 and surging for twenty-three years in his breast? In 
 this access of renewed devotion to his Gran, he felt 
 as though he must make instant confession to her of 
 disloyalty, and hear his pardon from her own lips. 
 He had desecrated her image he had disparaged 
 her claims upon him and, above all, he had again 
 given Miss Archer cause to think that she had made 
 a conquest ! 
 
 And then he was forced to meet that question 
 squarely: "Was she anything more to him than 
 other girls had been ? " 
 
 With a nervous thrill of suppressed emotion, he 
 was obliged to confess that no other being had so
 
 " GRAN.' 1 ' 1 49 
 
 touched, so moved him that she had set chords vi- 
 brating in his soul of whose existence he had never 
 dreamed. Then he. said calmly to himself : 
 
 " If this be so, my fine fellow, there is a double 
 reason for your playing quits ; for you have a career 
 to make, and the possessor of millions is not likely to 
 consider such trifles when she wants a husband. 
 Yes," he thought on, " a career of five good stead } r 
 years of work, before 1 secure that complement of my 
 being they call a wife and during those five years 
 would be sure to find her a superfluous and wordy- 
 supplement." 
 
 He smiled at this tacit, covert disparagement of 
 Miss Archer's merits, as an adroit if accidental be- 
 ginning of the levelling process that he meant to 
 pursue; felt gratified at his responsive will-power; 
 congratulated himself on his victory, and playfully 
 gave himself an approving nod for putting Gran's 
 rival so quickly to flight. 
 
 And he turned the key on his resolutions, and 
 pocketed it. 
 
 But there were others whose pleasure had to be 
 consulted in the matter of his proposed course of 
 renunciation. 
 
 His mother had fallen in heartily with all Mrs. 
 Healey's plans, and promised co-operation to the extent 
 of her ability. She had even gone so far as to sign 
 away Channing's freedom and free agency by prom- 
 ising his unfailing support. 
 
 44 It is only for a little while, dear," she said coax- 
 ingly to him ; 4 ' I feared you might refuse, and tried 
 to excuse you ; told her you were head and ears in 
 work, but she was quite incorrigible, I assure you; 
 insisted upon it that no one in the village could take 
 your place as her counsellor and escort for Miss 
 Archer, You know the Doctor is too much engaged 
 to be counted on ; so I told her at last, after innumer- 
 able dissents, you would not fail them I would vouch 
 for you." 
 
 Channing perceived that he was a victim of social
 
 50 TlIK OPAL 
 
 necessities, and withdrew further opposition, but 
 reserved to himself the right of controlling his own 
 feelings. In submitting to these necessities lie felt 
 a secret triumph in the thought that no one had a 
 prescriptive right over his heart ; he promised him- 
 self the closest surveillance there, and felt securely 
 entrenched for either a siege or a bombardment.
 
 T11E "SEASON" OPENS. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE "SEASON" OPEXS. 
 
 " There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless hand ; 
 She ha 1 youth and she had gold, she had jewels all untold, 
 And many a lover hold wooed the Lady of the Land." 
 
 T. B. 
 
 A PARTY in the village was always a unique affair, 
 on account of the conspicuous absence of bipeds of 
 the heavenly-stork order. The Greek costume witii 
 its colored tunic of flowing folds gave to an assemblage 
 the fantastic appearance of moving statuary, or an 
 antique picture with contemporary types and acces- 
 
 sories. The anachronisms in dress were too sflarino- 
 
 . 
 to cause one to mistake it for a veritable scene in 
 
 Greece and gave it an air wholly original and exclu- 
 sive. A few, very few gentlemen in the tight-legged 
 trousers and conventional swallo \v-tail, the costume 
 which has been the despair of the -sculptor for so man v 
 centuries, were sprinkled among them. Elise had per- 
 suaded most of the ladies to adopt the Greek dress for 
 the occasion and the rest had greatly modified their 
 styles for a better harmony with it; and the sump- 
 tuous fabrics, glittering and gorgeous, which decorated 
 their fair forms, gave an aspect of oriental brilliance- 
 to the scene. 
 
 Mrs. Earle led off ia the evening entertainments, 
 and very happy was Elise, whose daily visits had won 
 Gran's heart, to make her f>ntre<> into the village circle 
 under the roof that sheltered ihe venerable dame. 
 Gran could not be persuaded to appear during the 
 reception, saying, when Chan urged it: 
 " 'The world is a good thing to have under your
 
 52 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 feet, my child ; but if you try to put it on your back 
 or in your pocket it will make even a saint groan.' " 
 
 When Elise arrived in her elegant toilette, Hashing 
 with her opal gems, Mrs. Earle carried her in triumph 
 to her mother's room, exclaiming: 
 
 " See, Grandma, if she hasn't just stepped out of 
 Fairy-land!" 
 
 kw We thought we would bring you some bits of our 
 brightness," Elise said, taking Mrs. Earle's arm and 
 turning her towards Gran. " Isn't this a superbly 
 dressed figure of a woman ! all in satin and point 
 lace, Gran ! Doesn't she set it off regally?" 
 
 Mrs. Earle was blessed with a superabundance of 
 embonpoint, and upon this point (or mass of points) 
 she was extremely sensitive. Although the good- 
 natured adipose had been her constant attendant for 
 twenty years, still she looked upon it in the light of 
 an intruder, pathetically referring to the time when 
 she had .a form that was a form, comparing herself 
 with every new figure of unusual proportions, and en- 
 deavoring to extract whiffs of comfort from the mem- 
 bers of the family by exclaiming, "Now, look! Chau- 
 ning, look! Grandma, am I as large as she?" in so 
 pitiful a tone that their judgment would be perforce 
 strained through mercy's sieve. 
 
 A neighbor said of her that she had "a considerable 
 carriage," which might have been intended for im- 
 pressive or imposing, if you did not know that the pun- 
 ster was a malicious cynic. 
 
 Hhe wore a head-gear that was not large enough 
 for a cap, nor small enough for a head-dress, of a 
 species between the two. It had no strings and did 
 not come far upon the front hair ; was set back upon 
 her head, and extended at the back around her knot. 
 It was either black or white lace with some becoming 
 color to harmonize with the dress. To-night it was 
 white lace with pink rose-buds mixed with delicate 
 lavender knots of clustered velvet, and made her look 
 charming. 
 
 But Gran's admiration, however fervent, was mute :
 
 THE "SEASON" OPA'.VX. 53 
 
 her eyes glistened, but she only said to Elise : ' Not 
 with gold or pearls or costly array, but as becometh 
 a woman professing godliness, with good works. I 
 think you have that adornment, rny child, but take 
 care ! take care ! Gran must sound her warning note 
 once in a while, when the World and the Flesh are 
 blowing their trumpets all the time." 
 
 And she disposed herself for her peaceful sleep. 
 
 " Good-night, dear angel," Elise said softly on leav- 
 ing. " The air is full of them, Mrs. Earle. I know 
 they are hovering around this aged saint." 
 
 The inhabitants of this quiet village had made an- 
 other innovation upon the customs of society. Their 
 cards of invitation read from eight to twelve: this 
 was done with the spontaneous consent of all, and the 
 hours were rarely extended beyond the announced 
 limit. " With even such slight restrictions," they 
 said, "our girls will be robbed of their beauty-sleep: 
 but our seasons are short, and our receptions are 
 separated by recuperating, breathing intervals." 
 
 Now the company was for the most part assembled. 
 On account of this voluntary observance of the 
 rules of their established etiquette, the rooms had not 
 been long in filling. They came in shoals not in 
 straggling ones and twos and bevies, gay, bright, 
 airy, chatting, laughing. The presentation-scene 
 was a drama spectacular in itself, so full was it of 
 bright pictures of youth and vivacity, which are syn- 
 onymous terms it" youth is at its highest level. 
 
 " Upon my word," said Otto Dresson to Elise as 
 they were watching the glittering array, and adding 
 bits of criticism and poetry " Upon my word, Miss 
 Archer, I think I have found my Utopia; all it 
 needed w;is a Queen, and the gods have lent us that 
 treasure," he said with an unblushing admiration 
 visible on his face as he surveyed her radiant beauty 
 from head to foot. 
 
 Elise showed no signs of pleasure at tins gross flat- 
 tery. There was a little touch of defiance and injured 
 nrtdesty in her tone as she said :
 
 54 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 u A nursery rhyme long since forgotten comes to 
 my mind just now, Mr. Dresson 
 
 " ' Praise to the face 
 Is open disgrace.' " 
 
 " Your rebuke is merited," he said, with downcast 
 eyes ; and then beaming upon her " If it would not 
 make you such a conspicuous figure in an unusual, 
 though perhaps effective, tableau, I would kneel at 
 your feet and wait until I was shriven suing in 
 terms of fiery eloquence for your distinguished par- 
 don." 
 
 The inimitable audacity of the contradictions in this 
 speech, arch flattery under the guise of humble words 
 in a lo\v, pleading tone, did not escape Elise; she 
 was much amused, however, and said gayly for 
 there was about her a breezy freshness as well as 
 radiant light 
 
 ' You are granted absolution, Mr. Dresson ; rise 
 from your metaphorical stool of penance ! Perhaps 
 we may yet find some talk upon which we can agree. 
 You know the company, Mr. Dresson ?" 
 
 " Not perfectly, but with the scope of an aesthete 
 who has been studying it for about four weeks, don't 
 you know. My prints, if new, have been favorable, 
 and my study altogether charming. This novel fea- 
 ture of the Greek dress captivated me at the start, 
 and other interesting accessories have filled up a' 
 picture quite unique and creditable to the designers. 
 Not to say that there are not flaws striking ones, too, 
 which," he said benignly, "I shall lend my youth to 
 the eradication of for I am devoted to the interests 
 of art, you know." 
 
 lie noticed the quick look of intelligent sympathy 
 that swept over Elise's face, and quietly decided that 
 he had discovered an assailable spot in this appar- 
 ently impregnable fortress. 
 
 'Art is a divinity of such charming mien, 
 
 To be courted it noeils only to be seen ; 
 
 It can't be seen too oft or become too familiar to our face, 
 
 If at first we endure, we next worship, then embrace.'
 
 THE " SEASON" OPENS. 55 
 
 " That is my parody on orthodoxy." 
 
 " But I am orthodox," Elise pleaded who yet clung 1 
 to the tenets of her faith with a pertinacity mourn- 
 ful to see, because for practical purposes she was 
 only dragging a skeleton by her side. 
 
 " And I, also, in your sense," he quickly added. 
 " Soundness of belief, by all means, don't you 
 know; why should we take a rotten carcass of dead 
 formula} " 
 
 This was a rather startling metaphor for the time 
 and place, which Dresson realized by a scarcely percep- 
 tible shrinking from him on the part of Elise ; but he 
 knew, too, that for his tactics vigorous battle in the 
 line he had entered upon was better than inglorious 
 retreat. 
 
 " I speak against the effete notions of the dead 
 ages," he said. " The orthodoxy of 'cant,' and tight- 
 jacket and screw. The stiff-kneed orthodoxy that 
 can never walk inside a theatre or opera, that would 
 not lend its listening ears to the beauties of the drama 
 or the opera, or enjoy the free air of heaven in a Sab- 
 bath drive, or watch the lyric paces of a noble steed 
 fast flying in the very poetry of motion round the 
 artistic curves of the course because it is a wicked 
 race ! We are on a higher plane of existence now, Miss 
 Archer. Those limitations fitted very well the nar- 
 row creeds of their believers, and perhaps were useful 
 in their generation in the development of muscle ; 
 for it must be clear to you, that in a new country 
 like ours when the Pilgrims landed, the first problem 
 to be met was how best to develop the resources of 
 the country so as to establish a proportion in that old 
 maxim : k Live and let live.' Art was unborn ; com- 
 mercial industries must pave the way for successful 
 art. Narrow creeds made good diggers of granite 
 hills and pine-locked woods, but they culminated 
 artistically in the ' Blue Book' and the Witches !" 
 
 Elise laughed at this iconoclastic outburst, and said : 
 " But here is something that is not a ' dead issue,' but 
 a living personification of truth and loveliness, I am
 
 56 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 sure! Who is she? She lias been introduced, I kno\v, 
 but so many have confused my memory " 
 
 At this instant, there floated by the draperied nook 
 into which Dresson had led Elise from the dance, a 
 petite damsel in fawn-colored satin and creamy roses, 
 with a mysterious suggestion of pink here and there, 
 in obscure plaits and ruffling lace ; having an oval 
 face like a pearl in its purity and sweetness. 
 
 Dresson talked in a low, mellifluous tone that de- 
 spoiled language of its harshness, and Elise found her- 
 self losing sight of the sentiment in the rich, delicious 
 languor that steeped his manhood so that she was 
 impregnated with the vapors. 
 
 His voice was pure and without resonance, like a 
 distant flute, and yet the enunciation was so clear and 
 distinct that its message was artistically complete ; 
 a greater volume of sound, Elise thought, would have 
 been superfluous and oppressive. 
 
 " Miss Tete's figure," he said, " is quite up to the 
 standard of aesthetic perfection slender and grace- 
 ful, like the sapling, and costumed with a plainness 
 that is the elegance of simplicity always some soft 
 and limp fabric with just a suspicion of train a single 
 piece of jewels. To-night I observed she had 
 
 " ' A green tourmaline in a pale turquoise border, 
 On her delicate wrist, just maintaining its hold 
 By the slenderest band of the palest gold.' " 
 
 " And her face was like Raphael's 'Madonna with 
 the Goldfinch,'" said Elise. "How I love to study 
 faces ! " 
 
 " There is Miss St. John," he said. " Her face and 
 form are undeniably fine, you know ; but when you 
 look for the corresponding investment of the 'splen- 
 dor of a deepened poetry,' it isn't there, don't you 
 know. Quite sad, really now, when you look at it 
 
 " Miss Love's face is pretty," Elise said. 
 
 " And when I gaze upon that face," he said pen- 
 sively, " I feel ' flooded with the solemn rapture of a 
 sunset.' "
 
 THE " SEASON'' OPENS. 57 
 
 He paused. Elise was silent, and he continued: 
 
 " There goes Miss Bunce ; her dress is unrivalled 
 in grace of composition and richness of tone, but she 
 -well she is simply idiotic, don't you know." 
 
 "And Miss Smart?" asked Elise. 
 
 "Has unmistakable talent," lie replied, "but lacks 
 sincerity, is full of mannerism, and her dress is always 
 marred by false and sickly coloring; and my cousin 
 Marie Stilz falls little behind in sensational coloring 
 and violent contrasts 'from which I pray daily for 
 deliverance. Those beastly dresses, Miss Archer, are 
 like a horrible nightmare by day and by night." 
 
 His tone was calm and languid, giving no indication 
 of turbid pools of passion, and in fact they were non- 
 existent. He had learned to express himself strongly 
 without imperilling the serenity of his being. 
 
 But there could only be sketchy glimpses of this 
 ravishing "art of dressing," at a feast, where the 
 guest was at once the nucleus and cause of the shining 
 array, and others claimed a share of her attention. 
 Dresson was immensely sought, she thought, as she 
 saw him captured and led into her presence during 
 the pauses of the dance by every pretty girl in the 
 room, and they were all pretty in their furbelows and 
 fussings and saw how eagerly they listened to his 
 aesthetic criticisms on the passing show. 
 
 " For the charm of sweet girlhood hung over it still, 
 And no polar wave of conventional chill." 
 
 She found him attentive to a charm, and so ex- 
 quisitely polite, that, in spite of herself, the image of 
 a devotee offering incense upon the shrine of his 
 favorite divinity was constantly recurring to her 
 mind. 
 
 She confessed that there was a magnetism about 
 him that she could scarcely resist; whether owing to 
 his superb physique in its rococo costume or his calm 
 indifference to persons and their opinions, (a manner 
 that had always a strange fascination for her), or 
 a keen and subtle perception of all refinement and
 
 58 THE OPAL QUEEN, 
 
 beauty which allied itself so strongly with her own 
 aesthetic sense she could not tell. 
 
 " But where was Channing? "she asked herself once 
 during the evening. She had seen him flitting about 
 here and there, but always as the polite host or the 
 attentive escort to some matronly lady. 
 
 Charming had not intended on this evening, when 
 inattention might be conspicuous, to be wanting in 
 his devoirs to Miss Archer. His .position as host 
 would justify, if it did not demand, the careful study 
 of her pleasure. But when with set purpose he turned 
 to join her, and found her surrounded, or apart in quiet 
 tete-d-tete and apparently happy, he resigned his pro- 
 tectorate in Dresson's favor, and devoted himself to 
 neglected wall-flowers of which species there were 
 indeed very few specimens where Superba was mis- 
 tress of ceremonies. She was ubiquitous with her 
 magnificent, inspiring presence, cheerful, bright good- 
 nature and thoughtful kindness to the gay young 
 party, when in the merry pauses of the German she 
 could catch them and hold them long enough to be 
 the recipients of it. 
 
 Channing had not contemplated this probable item 
 in his abnegation of his own desires, and was not pre- 
 pared for the disrelish of its flavor. Without positive 
 ill-will, he had 'always maintained towards Dresson an 
 attitude of lofty indifference mingled with a moiety 
 of contempt, that, because indefinable, he meant 
 to be imperceptible; but he was not always success- 
 ful in concealing it. But since he had voluntarily 
 abjured his own privileges in this race, he asked him- 
 self why he should be surprised, or perplexed, or an- 
 noyed, at the entry of other names on the list; and 
 if the race was open to all competitors of fair and hon- 
 orable deportment, why should a secret and unex- 
 plained antipathy prejudice the cause of any con- 
 testant-. " If Dresson can win her," he said, "I must 
 congratulate him like a man, and have done with this 
 miserable feeling, which, I suspect, is the newly-blos- 
 somed flower of a seed that until now I have not
 
 THE "SEASON" OPENS. 59 
 
 recognized in my heart's soil the bitter seed of jeal- 
 ousy ! " and set himself to play the part of a mag- 
 nanimous hero, but did not find it an agreeable role. 
 
 He escorted Elise to supper as a gentlemanly host 
 should. He had never seen her so brilliant, so happy, 
 so queenly, and he had never been so miserable. 
 He met all her light pleasantries and bright raillery 
 with awkward gallantry and subdued pauses. He 
 knew he was not himself, and the deeper this convic- 
 tion grew, the less he was able to better himself. 
 
 " For a man who is two years beyond his majority," 
 lie said to himself, " this is babyish pusillanimity." 
 But even this cutting rebuke failed to put him en 
 rapport with this iridescent spirit sitting beside him, 
 whose shimmering lights were too dazzling for him 
 to-night. 
 
 He made a desperate effort when he saw her vainly 
 trying to fasten the little boutonniere that came with 
 her satin-painted menu, to a tress of her hair. 
 
 "Can't I help you?" he said ; and then instantly 
 felt the delicate gold wire change in his blundering 
 fingers to a horrid instrument of barbaric torture, and 
 was dumb with surprise when she said, giving her 
 head a little shake to see if it was securely lodged 
 
 " Done with the skill of a lady's maid, Mr. Earle ; 
 can't I engage your artistic services ? " 
 
 "A pre-engage ment to a more arbitrary and exact- 
 ing mistress, Miss Archer, \\i\\ furnish my excuse for 
 declining the honor to enter into any new ones 
 and he felt that he told her a truth, and that under 
 the jest lay his heart -all bare. 
 
 Ah ! could she but have known it then ! 
 
 "Many a fallen spark is quenched, or lives only as 
 a spark which could have been flamed into a cheerful 
 light and flame." 
 
 " Books and things ? " she queried playfully inter- 
 preting his words only according to the surface-mean- 
 ing. 
 
 He laughed at her comprehensive suggestion and 
 was amazed that he laughed.
 
 60 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " Libri et al." he affirmed, "and that includes the 
 height and depth, length and breadth solid contents 
 in other words of Monboddoism and a career!" 
 
 "lam just dying for a career! "she said. " It sounds 
 so grand and autocratic. What could 1 be, I won- 
 der?" She sat tapping her pretty foot on the velvet 
 moss, and shaded her eyes, and thought 
 
 "A Florence Nightingale with them all kissing my 
 shadow a doc tress with a charity-hospital all my 
 own ! " and she raised her head and spread wide her 
 eyes with a spasm of delight as if she had found the 
 coveted wish. She resumed her thinking. 
 
 " Build a model town, a Utopia for the honest 
 poor" again her eyes grew big. k ' Yes," she said, 
 "on the whole, 1 think 1 like that the best. Then I 
 would -study architecture so as to devise the very best 
 plans for sewerage and drainage and ventilage none 
 of my colony should be swept away by terrible epi- 
 demics and arrange for picturesque effects as well 
 as comfortable lodgings. I have a painter's innate 
 faculty for arrangement," she explained, laughing. 
 
 She did not tell him that she was already the 
 patroness of a society of Decorative Art, where the 
 children from nine to fifteen years of age could be 
 trained in industries both useful and pleasant. 
 
 What he said he never knew but in his heart 
 he gave a great gasp, as he thought look on this 
 picture and on that ! all and none ! But there was 
 a reaction of noblemindedness, and he said : 
 
 " With one hundredth part of all that outlay, you 
 couldn't make one man that must be here," lie said 
 striking his breast with unconscious, dramatic fervor; 
 "exoteric, it grows from within outwardly like the 
 woody fibre, and if the germ is not there, the develop- 
 ment of that particular kind is impossible. You may 
 get a flabby array of muscles or even a consolidated 
 muscular integument and the various complex tissues 
 appertaining to the outward form, but the true life 
 will be missing."
 
 T11E "SEASON" OPENS. 61 
 
 "But," said Elise, archly, "I would transplant only 
 those gen n.s into my Utopia 
 
 . "Aii! dreamer: " lie said with a perceptible modu- 
 lation of hi.s voice, "'if I mistake not, you were born 
 for another mission." 
 
 He was looking at her intently but vacantly, and 
 for the life of him could not have translated his own 
 enigmatical words for he was crushing down with 
 a mighty effort the thought of sweet, domestic life 
 brightened by the "splendor of the angel-smile that 
 makes a paradise in the face we love," and whatever 
 else he might have meant, that in the face of his 
 prearranged conduct he could by no possibility have 
 even surmised. So he reasoned; and she why she 
 took it very simply. 
 
 " Something happy and useful and artistic, I hope," 
 she said, "my seer. Does it look variegated like my 
 opals, or tame and sweet like pearls?" 
 
 How they flashed ! how they danced on neck and 
 hair and snowy arms ! 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said, hastily, " both and all. But 
 they are calling you." 
 
 And sure enough, Super ba, who had looked every- 
 where, but in the deep embrasured window, came to 
 the portiere and called Elise to receive the parting 
 salutations of her guests.
 
 62 Til E OPAL (JUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER VT. 
 LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. 
 DEAR AUT: 
 
 "Changes will befall and friends must part, 
 But absence only cannot change the heart; 
 And were I called to prove the assertion true, 
 One proof should serve a reference to you." 
 
 It is just possible that you may not accept Cow per 
 as a mediator between us or his verses, rather, as a 
 peace-offering to. your neglected virtues ; and that 
 you think I assume too much when I count upon the 
 indivisibility and eternity of our friendship. It is 
 also within the range of possibilities, that you are 
 saying, at this very moment, that this same compact 
 (though unwritten and unformulated) implies mutual 
 obligations, one of which is a seemly interest in the 
 daily life of the bondsmen's fraternity, and another, 
 a certain activity in unfolding the part each one acts 
 in this life drama not without, also, certain gushes 
 of confidence, if not a steady stream. Do I worry 
 you by even the suspicion of lukewarmness or resent- 
 ment, because I have failed to put my customary 
 weekly appearance into your Diggery? Know, most 
 beloved of chums and most forgiving of friends, that 
 1 am not without excuse: my attention has been en- 
 grossed, my spare time monopolized by recreative 
 pursuits. "Superba" declared that I was " paling, 
 and thinning, and thinking the social fluid out of me 
 into driblets," so she served an injunction upon me 
 to set aside all writing except what was positively 
 necessary. " There's enough of that, Heaven knows,"
 
 LETTKR TO ART ON OPAL. 63 
 
 she said, " and I will myself apprise Arthur of your 
 intention and explain your silence " (this when I 
 rather emphatically declined to include you in this 
 embargo programme), " a mother's own signature will 
 convince the most skeptical," she added complacently, 
 and but pardon me, I will not reopen the argu- 
 ment so long decided against me. 1 let her have her 
 way, mindful of the adage, " A woman's advice isn't 
 worth much, but you'd better take it." 
 
 So "Superba" immediately set up a new dynasty; 
 not that she in any wise relinquished the sceptre, but 
 she gathered about her privy counsellors of wisdom 
 and renown, and inaugurated a brilliant season of 
 merry-making. Mrs. Healey was her principal coad- 
 jutor in this new departure, having a young friend 
 visiting her for whom she wished to do the honors of 
 hospitality. And a famous bout they made of it 
 dances, teas, kettle-drums, fetes, stag-parties, dove- 
 coteries, Bohemians, art-receptions, musicales, soirees, 
 and even breakfasts swung us round in a circle of 
 gay ety, that might not inaptly be called a maelstrom. 
 Having dared to enter the vortex, I was swallowed 
 up in no time I was much in request and there was 
 never quite enough of me to go round. I wished a 
 hundred, yes, a thousand times, that Arthur Doane 
 was here to piece me out. And not for that, alone, 
 dear chum, but that I might confess to you how ut- 
 terly frivolous and unworthy the whole show seemed 
 to me. 
 
 Illusory I knew it was in my heart of hearts, false, 
 cheaty, and demoralizing; but why should I try to 
 stem the popular current with my shell of a boat, or 
 set myself up for a standard of Pharisaical morality, 
 and raise the howl of reform, when I wasn't so much 
 set against all the tinselry and whirlagigary, as I was 
 profoundly indifferent? But now, having run the 
 race, I am wiser. I have jumped my last " Jack-in- 
 the-box " dance ; henceforth I shall leave the stage 
 to other and more willing puppets. Do not imagine 
 from this conclusion that I am soured, disappointed,
 
 64 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 or about to take holy orders. I expected nothing in 
 the beginning never having had a drawing towards 
 the dissipations of fashionable life, not even the 
 smallest fraction of a "-hanker" and so had no false 
 dreams to burst in the air ; and secondly, acids were 
 at a discount, sweets were " all the go " that is it. 
 I am clogged with the sweetmeats in the market of 
 Vanity Fair ! and all dealt out by the fair hands of 
 lovely forms dwelling there. I feel like the crystal- 
 lized essence of honey, and am thirsting for a good, 
 acidulous drink ! 
 
 " Superba " was in her element planning, devis- 
 ing, conjuring (one almost thought with a magician's 
 wand, so much beauty and order did she bring to 
 light esthetics, they call it), now in a craze for 
 antique furniture, now for keramics, now for deco- 
 rating, and lastly for crewel-work. She has run 
 through them all, and is a devotee of each and all to 
 this minute; has smartened up these old walls, rooms 
 and halls (corridors we call them now having ampli- 
 fied and extended them somewhat), and one can 
 hardly stir in the drawing-room or library for fear of 
 knocking down some bric-a-brac, or damaging some 
 bijou, just finished by the dear maternal fingers. I 
 attempt to read the paper by the student-light in the 
 library and it is as much as my life is worth. "Su- 
 perba" has a dainty rug of her own skill, just before 
 my easy-chair which gets all in a heap, or caught in 
 a leg of the chair, and I cannot find a spot upon the 
 art-heaped table, for so much as my wallet, to say 
 nothing of my arms, which I would enjoy resting 
 there ; then unless I move at just the right angle, 
 some table or other with fancy-ware and fairy gim- 
 cracks gets a tilt, and there's a smash-up! It's Vatican 
 all about so I leave them in their royal grandeur 
 and come up here where I can have room and freedom. 
 Ha ! there's nothing like that, in this planet of ours ! 
 To be cramped, crowded, cornered, how it rouses the 
 internal lion ! Of course during the " season " I had 
 no such furloughs given me this room was haunted
 
 LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. 65 
 
 by my ghost during all the hours that I was not 
 sleeping or dressing. 
 
 Now, however, there is an end or a lull, and I am 
 taking advantage of it. Dear Gran has been sorely 
 exercised during the new reign and the revolution 
 which preceded it ; she cannot quite understand the 
 necessity for changes and innovations, nor see clearly 
 why what has been goud enough for her and her 
 ancestors, is not the thing for her descendants. And 
 yet she does see clearly and sublimely the sic transit 
 yloria mundi, written on all these passing humors. 
 
 "It won't last long, dear/' she said to me more 
 as a quietus to her own misgivings, than to any 
 objections of mine ; for, as before subscribed, I was 
 supremely indifferent "it will run about seventeen 
 years, and then there'll be something else or a 
 quarter of a century, perhaps." 
 
 Dear Gran ! to her ninety-three years, a quarter 
 of a century is hardly worth mentioning a mere 
 bagatelle. 
 
 When she sat one day at the window and watched 
 the elite of the village drive up in their elegant 
 vehicles with liveried servants, and they sitting in 
 rich draperies like queens of beauty (as they were), 
 Gran turned her eyes away, and sighing said: 
 
 u Well, they have their carriages ! " 
 
 " Why, Gran ! " I said (not quite up to her 
 thought, and unwilling to admit even to myself, that 
 my beloved Gran could harbor envy and desirous, 
 too, of correcting what I thought was false logic of 
 the dear old purified mind that is guiltless of an ism, 
 and of eradicating the notion- if that had slyly crept 
 into her that carriages were incompatible with good- 
 ness), " Why, Gran, can they not have carriages and 
 heaven too ? " 
 
 She shook her head sadly. "It's the symbol, dear; 
 it stands for wealth and pomp and parade and self. 
 ' How hardly shall they that have riches enter the 
 Kingdom of Heaven.' ' Solemn as was this view of 
 life, I could not refrain from laughing, and catching
 
 66 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 up the wise little philosopher, I seated her on my 
 lap, holding her in a fond embrace which the old 
 lady's dignity could stand only for one second, even 
 if the transgressor was her grandson. She gently 
 but firmly withdrew to her rocking-chair, and resumed 
 her knitting as tranquilly as if 1 had not burst like 
 a volcano upon her. 
 
 Yes, here was this little Christian anti-gig-man ! 
 without ever having read a line of Carlyle, her spirit- 
 ual insight coincided with his. 
 
 How it all came to me as I sat here reflecting upon 
 her sage exposition of that truth, " Griymanity" 
 " Gran, then, sees it as Carlyle did," I thought and 
 yet, Art, I will not. conceal from you that her utter- 
 ance bears more weight with rne, because, she is a 
 Christian taught by the Saviour whose words they are, 
 the Christ whom Carlyle ignored in those days when 
 this expression, gigmanity^ was the epitome of his 
 convictions on the falseness, hollowness, deceits and 
 shams of fashionable society, and the excuse for his 
 anathemas on its devotees. 
 
 And you should have seen a few moments after. 
 Gran's placid, heavenly look, as, resting her head on 
 the top of her straight-backed Gothic chair, and with 
 folded hands and shut eyes, she said softly (which in 
 her fine far-away treble, sounded like musical breath- 
 ings of her disrobed spirit), 
 
 " From low delights and mortal toys, 
 I soar to reach eternal joys." 
 
 Carlyle thought he was ready to soar at thirty- 
 nine in moments of depression, but he never counted 
 upon imyjoys for with all his trust in God as a wise 
 Father who ruled his destiny, he was not then much 
 of a saint. 
 
 There's a difference, Art, in the spirit of the two ; 
 Gran's is not so much denunciation ;is Carlyle's, more 
 of the "How often would I have gathered you and 
 ye would not!" because Gran's conviction is founded 
 on principle ; for the Saviour, whose declaration this 
 is (Carlyle coined the word but the truth is our .Great
 
 LETTER TO ART tLV OPAL. 67 
 
 Master's), is her model of life in faith and practice. 
 The Devil has many arrows in his quiver; and when 
 one is not possessed of the Holy Ghost, he can easily 
 be deceived as to his own motives. So many are mis- 
 understood, even by ourselves as when tin indiges- 
 tion makes us crabbed and out-of-sorts with the world, 
 there is no sympathy with even its harmless frolics ; 
 and if we have a natural disinclination for society, 
 how apt we are to underrate its forces ; and if, when 
 we do mingle in it, our vanity is not sufficiently 
 ministered to by attentions and salaams and little 
 worshipries, how easy to renounce it, and curse it by 
 hurling defiance at its double-dealing,inconsistencies, 
 and enormities. 
 
 But I must cease moralizing and divulge the rest 
 of the bulletin. Long silence has not rusted the 
 edge of my prolixity, an art in which I take pride in 
 excelling when Doane is the listener. I babble away 
 to you every thought that comes uppermost, trusting 
 in the friendship heretofore mentioned, for the weed- 
 ing out of that which cumbereth the letter. A few 
 items of secondary importance remain to be com- 
 municated. As I have hinted before, you will antici- 
 pate, perhaps, that they centre around the beautiful 
 stranger who has been the cynosure of all eyes and 
 the magnet of all hearts, during our "season" I 
 refer to our friend, Mrs. Healey's guest. 
 
 The fame of her beauty and enormous wealth pre- 
 ceded her, but although expectation was roused to a 
 fabulous pitch, the Opal Queen has not disappointed 
 the majority of the curious. 
 
 This title appears to have dropped, like herself, 
 from the clouds, for altho' the christening occasion 
 was patent to all, no one of us can discover who was 
 the christener. But the name once caught was so 
 palpably fit, that by spontaneousand universal assent 
 it was echoed and re-echoed until set in its die. It 
 came like a flash into existence, and like a flash may 
 go out. Nous verrons. 
 
 For the sake of convenience, she shall be known
 
 68 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 as Belinda (a name by which she has appeared be- 
 fore in this correspondence) a name euphonious and 
 with an air. As it has also the advantage of being a 
 favorite with both of us and standard for our Dul* 
 cineas, it will serve an admirable foil for the over- 
 curious (who, like the " Marchioness," are reduced 
 to key-holes and surreptitious methods of education), 
 and prevent any little awkwardness which might 
 arise in case of unknown and unsuspected contingen- 
 cies. Void mon prudence! Such an amount of 
 caution has not been portioned out to me for many a 
 day. 
 
 You have been told that Belinda is beautiful and 
 a millionairess, almost a billionairess for the present 
 let that sufh'ce as to her personal charms and means 
 of supporting them, while I sketch her from other 
 points of view. For, like every star of the first mag- 
 nitude, she has her phases. 
 
 Belinda attends to her nails. Each nail rises out 
 of its crescent cradle into an almond shaped tissue, 
 glistening with ivory and mother-of-pearl. 
 
 Belinda understands the requirements of the toilet 
 to perfection. She does not believe in being recog- 
 nized by her odor. She does not announce her pres- 
 ence by messengers which enter the penetralia of the 
 olfactories, nor can she be followed through a long 
 line of rooms by the suffocating sweetness of the im- 
 pinging atmosphere. Foxes may be traced in some 
 such way, but Belinda is not a fox, and maintains 
 that the human organism should not be tainted with 
 dead odors. Animals carry them in a bag; nature 
 h;is not provided humanity with such distinctive fur- 
 nishing. If the human wishes to imitate the brute, 
 let him also carry his in something as close an 
 estopped bottle. 
 
 But I digress. Belinda is so delicately scented 
 that you catch only the occasional inspiration of 
 violet or wild rose, now minutely palpable, now 
 caught as in a dream, now vanishing altogether. 
 
 Belinda does not perfume herself at all for the
 
 LETTER TO AUT ON OPAL. 69 
 
 public assemblage, where a sitting audience is con- 
 fined for hours in an ill-ventilated room. She thinks 
 the air foul enough without adding to it the stale 
 and artificial compounds of chemical art, thereby 
 driving her nearest neighbor into a. sick headache or 
 an incessant wielding of the fan (in winter !) in order 
 to blow away the disease-laden atmosphere, and catch 
 a little breath of heaven's pure elixir. 
 
 This matter of fanning, Art, ought to be regulated 
 by sumptuary law it has often been a source of 
 amusement to me, and sometimes, I confess, of vexa- 
 tion. 
 
 Mrs. Bluster is hale, hearty, and fifty. She has an 
 immense palm-leaf under the cushion, and as soon as 
 she is comfortably seated (sometimes before) she 
 makes a dive for it, and the battle begins. To one 
 not acquainted with her tactics, the sole object of 
 the vigorous and wide-spreading charges which she 
 incessantly keeps up, seems to be a bold, vicious 
 attack upon the spinal column of the unsuspecting 
 victim in the ranks just in front of her. Just here 
 at the base of the brain where the fine tissue makes 
 its first development into that delicate, creamy or- 
 ganism with its arbor vltce markings, just here, where 
 exposure to sudden draughts endangers the whole 
 fabric of the nervous system, just here the deadly 
 weapon is plied with scarcely a halt or a break, 
 during the two hours' service. But she does not 
 know ! the Lord will forgive her and so will I. 
 
 But Belinda knows. Her fanning is a fine art a 
 
 o 
 
 hand motion, and confined to the small circumfer- 
 ence of her own face. When she wishes to benefit 
 others, she extends the privilege of her fan, and 
 courageously endures the heat, not so much from a 
 spirit of charity as because she is proper all her 
 actions are en regie. She knows what the correct 
 adjustments of society demand of her she is just, 
 she is high-toned ; she would not let finish in the 
 social structure suffer through lack of her acqui- 
 escence in carrvino- out the minutest detail.
 
 70 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 Belinda is fond of contrasts and correspondencies 
 of tone and color. 
 
 One bright autumn day a day when Nature puts 
 "on her regalia robes in the North, Belinda put on 
 hers (to remind herself, she said, of the dear up- 
 country) and sitting under a many-branched oak, 
 became a part of the landscape. The cardinal and 
 gray and gold of her draperies vied in richness and 
 brilliancy with nature's own pigments. She was 
 writing on a pencil tablet. Her eyes fairly danced 
 with delight as she said : 
 
 "Isn't this a perfect day?" and every word had a 
 soul in it, as she breathed it. "I. love to sit here, 
 where the sky is so blue " (here she looked up with a 
 face full of rapture) "and all nature seems so sweet 
 around me, my foot pressing the sod " (here my 
 attention was directed to the daintiest of chaussure 
 in the way of many-buckled slipper and carmine hose 
 in terraces between the bands), " and my lungs drink- 
 ing in this rich nectar for what so fills the spirit 
 must in a measure nourish this poor clay is it not 
 so?" 
 
 I bowed a quiet assent. " But I am disturbing you 
 you are writing." 
 
 With the sweetest of smiles she replied: 
 
 " Not in the least, I assure you. I just thought I 
 would scribble a little with a pencil to my friend, 
 right here on this rustic seat, with the canopy of 
 clouds overhead, to imprison a breath of the freshness 
 the aroma," she said with emphasis, " of this de- 
 licious autumn day on this sheet of paper. I am 
 aware that a pencil is not d la mode for the paragon 
 letter, but my friend will excuse it, T know, under 
 the circumstances, for the sake of the aroma," she 
 added, laughing. " Beauty is better than precision, 
 and an easy flow of utterance in such a presence" 
 (and she looked like a priestess of nature, so devout 
 was her expression) " than all the stilted eloquence 
 of the schools !" 
 
 Belinda is so transparent that what is the perfect
 
 LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. 71 
 
 simplicity of nature passes for the perfect finish of 
 art; without the least diplomacy she would be 
 brusque if she were not steeped in conventionalism 
 and dyed in etiquette. Like the uranium glass she 
 is both iridescent and transparent. 
 
 Belinda is a good etymologist, entomologist, 
 naturalist, philologist, physicist, etc. In the city 
 where she has been for a time, she was president of 
 the society for the introduction of smoke-consuming 
 chimneys, was untiring in her efforls to discover 
 some practical way of removing this blot upon large 
 manufacturing towns this nuisance to housekeepers 
 and had unearthed the man who had invented an 
 arrangement which she bought and patented and set 
 to work before she left. 
 
 Oh! Belinda! If you could only be as interested 
 in the eternal verities, and have as supreme a sense 
 of the eternal fitness of things what a superb 
 woman you would be! 
 
 Belinda is all sweetness, always in equipoise I 
 would like to see her once fairly aroused. She is 
 literarv and she walks! 
 
 In my next I will try to satisfy the curiosity which 
 I know is literally consuming 3-011, with regard to the 
 action of this new star in our little improvised 
 dramas. 
 
 Don't let it. keep 3*011 awake nights or spoil your 
 case in court. 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 CHANNING. 
 
 P. S. T may not have told 3^011 that one feature of 
 the advanced education inaugurated by Professor 
 Monboddo, is a revival of the ancient Greek festival, 
 to be held at the close of each term. There will be 
 contests in oratory, music, ami athletic sports.. The 
 subject of the oration will be announced in advance, 
 and the field will be open to competition to all in the 
 state the prize, to be as of old, only the simple 
 wreaths of laurel, bay, and olive.
 
 72 THE OPAL QUEEtf. 
 
 The ladies desired to supplement the festival with 
 a supper and dauce in the evening, at the home of 
 one of their number, and as their contribution to the 
 neAV scheme, grace the scene in the antique cos- 
 mmes of the high-born Grecian ladies. Mrs. Healey 
 leads off', Mrs. Stilz will follow, and Belinda hopes to 
 be able to give the third, in her elegant palace now 
 building. 
 
 She has had special reference to such entertain- 
 ments in its construction, and has secured all that is 
 valuable in the plan of an ancient Greek mansion. 
 But "contractors are a slippery genus," and the 
 house, judging from the present rate of progress, will 
 be at that time a magnificent pile of tantalizing u.se- 
 lessness, in which case Belinda has the recognized 
 right to extend her claim to the first term of the next 
 year. 
 
 There is a picturesque arcade built chiefly of stained 
 and pictured glass bridging the distance of seventy 
 feet between this mansion and Doctor Healey's, which 
 secures the privacy of the visiting inmates the Mon- 
 boddoes have mimed it La Q-alerie de la Heine. 
 
 C. E. 
 
 P. S. No. 2. If the "cherub" is not in possession 
 of unadulterated happiness, the "saints" are enjoy- 
 ing an unclouded bliss in the rosy visions conjured 
 out of their fancies it must be, although they affect to 
 see them in the atmosphere that surrounds their 
 "cherub." Perhaps I have not informed 3-011 that 
 this is the coferie-sprache home vernacular of Su- 
 perba. The "cherub," you, who are so Raphaelistic, 
 will recognize without the aid of number or catalogue, 
 as your humble servant, and the "saints" comprise 
 naturally "Superba," "Pater," and "Gran" the 
 first being rigidly excluded by "Superba" herself, 
 but embraced in her son's canonized list. It follows 
 as conclusively as that two and one make three, that 
 the home which shelters their saintships- should be 
 called the " Saints' Rest" to which, old fellow, you 
 are now, as ever, most cordially welcome.
 
 LETTER TO AHT ON OPAL. 73 
 
 When are 3*011 to be temporarily released from your 
 devotion to the "jealous science of the law," soasto 
 give me a happening in propria pers.ona? I am per- 
 suaded that even our little village will afford yoti 
 recreation more healthful and useful than you get 
 not than you could find in the small circle of your 
 life, barren of anything But legal incidents, and en- 
 closed by a circumference of judges, juries and clients. 
 Your legal ability and attainments will, I am con- 
 fident, conquer a success for 3*011, but take care you 
 don't *' vanish into thin air" before you get your 
 laurel chaplet. I will close with Burns's animating 
 words 
 
 " God send you speed 
 Still daily to grow wiser, 
 
 And may you better reck the rede 
 Than ever did the adviser." 
 
 Affectionately, 
 
 CHANNINGo
 
 ?4 THE OPAL 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ART: 
 
 1 have been studying carefully the subject of 
 Fashion, which seems such an engrossing topic in these 
 days and for that matter in what days has it not been 
 a controlling force in public and private life, and a 
 controlling factor in shaping public opinion ? 
 
 I have come to the conclusion that the fashion that 
 has no intelligible principle in it must inevitably 
 change with the caprices and covetousness of the 
 people. If we had sumptuary laws to regulate our 
 dress, as do the Chinese, or some fixed tradition with 
 the authority of law, there would be some hope of a 
 reform in the right direction ; for then all classes 
 would unite in choosing that style representing the 
 maximum of comfort and convenience giving play 
 to their fancy for display, in the richness of material 
 and splendor of the decorations. 
 
 You have not our soft, genial climate, it is true, and 
 it might be doubtful whether in your northern latitude 
 the present weight of the male attire could be wisely 
 diminished but it is also true that the fashion that 
 would simplify ladies' dress by reducing the number 
 of pieces, would be an immense advance. The weight 
 of her clothing is enough in many cases to account 
 for nervous prostration and impaired constitutions. 
 Fancy one of our modern belles, with her draperies all 
 loaded with sewing-machine work and jet trimmings, 
 practising in the gymnasium or contending in the 
 games as the Spartan women did ! 
 
 With fewer and combined garments, ease of move- 
 ment and healthier, because freer, action of the vital
 
 LETTER TO ARTllUlt bOANE. 75 
 
 organs would be secured. Exercise would become us 
 pleasurable and as indispensable as the bath, and the 
 lack of the superabundant clothing would be supplied 
 by the increased activity of the circulatory organs. 
 Woman's color would be inside, in good, rich carmine 
 globules, instead of many voluptuous folds of. the 
 cardinal drapery true, she might have both, but 
 should make sure of the inside first. 
 
 I have a mind to revive your recollection of your 
 college days with an apt quotation. Do }'ou remem- 
 ber, in Aristophanes, how Lys.i.->trate complimented 
 Lam |>i tn, the Spartan lady ? 
 
 " My beloved Lampito, how handsome you are ! 
 Your completion. is so fine and your person so full and 
 health}- ; why, you could strangle a bull." 
 
 "Yes," replies Lampito, u l fancy I could, for I 
 exercise myself in jumping until my heels touch my 
 back." 
 
 Imagine such personal vigor let loose upon the dis- 
 reputable class of bachelors (you may thank your 
 stars, Arthur, that you don't live in Greece !) whom 
 Lycurgus obliged to march in ignominious procession, 
 subject to chastisement by these female gymnasts, 
 because they refused to enter married lii'e. I am irot 
 sure, however, but that it would be a useful indict- 
 ment, resulting in the building of more homes and 
 fewer inebriate asylums. 
 
 By the way, speaking of the costume of women, 
 I come by easy gradation to that of man but with 
 no generalizing intent I wish to hold up to your in- 
 spection an individual specimen of the genus homo, 
 another man who has dared. 
 
 Did you see him? He arrived in your streets fresh 
 from Europe yesterday, so the paper says. He wore 
 trousers fitting like a stocking down to the ankle, of 
 a light green color, with dark green stripes, a very 
 short, light colored vest, and a bottle-green cut-away, 
 snug as a jersey, with long tails reaching to the knees ; 
 black striped shoes with un tanned leather tops, atas- 
 seled cane, and a big English Derby surmounting the
 
 76 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 whole, with a curling brim and heavy crown. Void 
 quelque chose de nouveau I 
 
 This looks as though Fashion, like most everything 
 else, moves in a circle. 
 
 Earnest spirits dart off in a tangent from the ca- 
 nonical curve in pursuit of truth to a proud and safe 
 distance, and there evolve and formulate their creeds. 
 The untiring, restless wheel spins round and round, 
 generating sparks that establish a current to draw 
 them in again, with their new variations of the -old 
 thought ; round and round it spins, and casts them out 
 iu the heat of newer sensations ; round and round it 
 whirls, throwing off one after another its faded lumi- 
 naries, that revolve in their own circles in fair view 
 of the parent light, waiting patiently the electric cur- 
 rent upon whose glowing bosom they shall trium- 
 phantly flow back into the old rim of thought ; new 
 no\v to the travellers of the fleeting day. 
 
 So all ideas of beauty and philosophy have come 
 from the ancient Greeks. Other generations and 
 people demolish or modify as suits their whims. A 
 destructive but equally corrective age like ours ex- 
 tracts the germ and gives it its simple, original pre- 
 eminence once more. 
 
 For example (be patient, Arthur, I am almost 
 through), our ancestors in Britain wore the Greek 
 costume as introduced by the Romans the tunic, 
 the toga which was the Greek himala, and the brac- 
 ca> from which comes our word breeches. Then 
 these modified by the Teutonic genius and afterward 
 by the Normans, produced the trunk-hose. These be- 
 came shortened into petticoat-hose, which again were 
 supplanted by the knee-breeches ; the latter holding 
 their own until the sans culottes inaugurated the 
 modern dress of our generation, intending it as a 
 political stroke in contempt of court usages after the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelites have made a struggle for the 
 knee breeches, and no one will complain if the sense- 
 less petticoat-hose are deservedly skipped in the re-
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 77 
 
 trograde series, and the trunk-hose taken up next in 
 order (as exemplified by the preceding pen portrait). 
 There would then be but one step intervening before 
 you reach the ancient Greek again. There is already 
 a breaking up of formality in costume, which is a 
 good sign. We Monboddoes are anticipating a little, 
 1 know, and have made a prodigious somersault into 
 the past, but if we can give it eclat, we shall forestall 
 public opinion and win the day. 
 
 And now, old fellow, let me close this branch of my 
 subject with a quotation from our beloved humorist 
 and poet-doctor even if you have seen it you will 
 enjoy its reperusal in this connection. 
 
 "Fashions will change the new costume allures. 
 Unfading still the better type endures; 
 While the slashed doublet of the cavalier 
 Gave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer, 
 Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and stick 
 Recalls the semblance of a new-born chick; 
 (To match the model he is aiming at 
 He ought to wear an egg-shell for a hat) ; 
 Which of these objects would a painter choose, 
 And which Velasquez or Van Dyke refuse ?" 
 
 Some one has said that the degree of civilization to 
 which a country has attained is indicated by the 
 quality and quantity of its fashions. I know not 
 whether yon will accept the principle that fashion is 
 the exponent of progress, but is not the reflex action 
 of an educational process markedly observable in the 
 costuming art? This was illustrated in the case of 
 Wagner, whose musical education and instincts forced 
 him into the velvet coat and breeches, black silk stock- 
 ings and fine lace at neck and wrist, that he might 
 be a living symbol of the dramatic power of music. 
 Styles for both sexes are devised, published, hailed 
 with delight by the ardent votary of Fashion or im- 
 posed upon the one who follows her afar off by the 
 artful and autocratic costumer. There is no longer 
 any sncji thing as individuality of taste in dress , the 
 professional designer and the designing costumer 
 combine to cheat us out of our birthright privilege
 
 78 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 in a monopoly of the field. They are the " Master " 
 and " Mistress of the Wardrobe " of the nineteenth 
 century ; but when I think of the willing slaves and 
 cheerful imitators of their highnesses, I am inclined 
 to the belief that there is more monkey than man in 
 the most of us. 
 
 " Belinda," of all her companions, dares not "to be 
 a Daniel," for I fear she is far from considering that 
 standard worthy of her imitation but to be true to 
 her refined instincts in her apparel. She has a rare 
 perception of fitness and harmony, and although she 
 does not for a moment consider herself independent 
 of her dressmaker, I know to a certainty that she 
 designs her own styles and is guiltless of the posses- 
 sion of a Revue du Monde, or any of its companions. 
 But while she has the culture-craze in its various 
 departments of art and literature, she spends little 
 thought on the artistic decoration of her person. But 
 this is no virtue in Belinda, for if she had not an in- 
 fallible instinct to guide her in the selection of the 
 required draperies this power of psychologizing 
 dress, as it were she would be among the foremost 
 in cultivating it, for she is a born aesthete. 
 
 And now I hear you howling with despair, that I, 
 the sagacious youth whom you have dubbed a severely 
 practical and unsusceptible mortal, should have one 
 word to say about anything so heavenly but so unfit 
 for earth's needs, as a modern aesthete ! 
 
 But wait a moment. Give yourself time to cool 
 off ; or better, I will benevolently waive the subject 
 until you are at regulation heat. 
 
 Dr. Healey made a fly ing business-trip to the Queen 
 City of the West last week, and by his invitation a 
 select party of us accompanied himself and wife. We 
 had a rare time. For one thing the foliage was in 
 the height of its autumnal glory, and gave us views 
 of nature not obtainable in our more uniform climate. 
 
 I tell you what it is, Art, if the mystery of spring 
 with its rich freshness and delicate tones thrills me
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 79 
 
 with delight, these autumnal masses of iridescent 
 splendor quadrille me through and through. 
 
 Perhaps, now, you are inclined to criticise the verb 
 by which I have expressed this seasonable sensation ; 
 but reflect before you commit yourself so rashly, that 
 1 am nothing if not etymological, and be content 
 when I assure you, on the authority of Earle's latest 
 edition, that it is not necessary to lay instant and 
 challenging hands on the "Unabridged" at your 
 elbow. For oh ! my astute law-grubber, is not the 
 word derived from quadrus, and am I not dissected, 
 as it were, into four pieces and scattered to the four 
 winds of heaven, in my effort to take in the whole of 
 my horizon of prismatic loveliness ? Or, again, Nature 
 provides a sea of color to entrance my eyes ; she also 
 distils from her alembics a narcotic, which steeps my 
 senses while I am gazing, in a delicious languor, and 
 I am in a maze compared with which the airy motions 
 of the fleet-footed dancers, as they thread their way 
 through the windings of the quadrille, are but a feeble 
 imitation ! I repeat it, sir. I was quadrilled through 
 and through ! And with it all, I had a feeling of 
 rapturous gratitude that I was alive to take it all in ! 
 This one thing may be said in poor Eve's favor, that 
 we owe the autumnal decorations of nature to her 
 misconduct under the apple-tree. Decay, in this one 
 instance, is a garment of beauty. Without the death 
 of vegetation, we could have no autumnal glories, 
 and we must take our fill of them here, as there are 
 none in the promised land witness the lines: 
 
 " Sweet fields stand dressed in living green." 
 
 This suggests a conundrum which you may puzzle 
 over at your leisure. Why is England like heaven ? 
 But as you are a proverbially bad guesser, I beg 
 you not to postpone your reply to this letter until 
 you have solved it, or you may find in the insane 
 asylum, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHAN.
 
 80 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 DHAR CHAN: 
 
 Here is a go! A most contemptibly cool piece of 
 business, I Ciill it, in my once sagacious friend to as- 
 sume "heat" in his auditor, because, forsooth, he is 
 in a flame himself, when that auditor has heard noth- 
 ing, as yet, in the recital of dressmaking to start his 
 pulse one beat beyond its normal action and then 
 summarily to leave him, ostensibly to recover, but 
 really to find a cure for his own frightful disorder 
 and feverish pulse ! 
 
 I will accept your letter with all its palaver, if you 
 give me the privilege of an amendment. Strike 
 out " quadrilled " and substitute grilled. Pray who is 
 the syren that is cooking your heart on her red-hot 
 gridiron ? For seriously, Chan, you have never be- 
 fore given such positive proofs of love-sickness. 
 
 Roaming the streets and woods, idly sauntering 
 and losing yourself in dreams and vagaries, talking 
 about " seas of color," while, no doubt, your face 
 takes on a chameleon hue. Now you stand by the 
 ocean and reflect its blue, now by a mountain in 
 crimson and gold and you are colored like a lobster, 
 now upon the emerald grass and you grow every mo- 
 ment more verdant! Pia}^ who is the fair creature? 
 Have you addressed a sonnet to her fairy nails? 
 
 "A guilty conscience needs no accuser," my dear 
 Chan, and now since you have (perhaps uncon- 
 sciously) defined your position, can't you let a fellow 
 still farther into the secret? Is she a blonde, and do 
 you lof her? as saith our Italian friend. Haf you 
 yet make her acquaintance, or haf you just met her 
 on the Rialto? 
 
 Those asseverations, " Iknow to a certainty" etc., do 
 not by any means deceive me as to your intimacy. 1 
 know to a certainty that my transparent chum has 
 not been holding this secret in the recesses of his 
 being, until he is hand in glove with the fair damsel. 
 There are other avenues of information open to a 
 man who possesses a charming Superba, and a chatty,
 
 LETTER TO CH ANN ING. 81 
 
 bewitching grandma, the delight of all the girls in the 
 
 village. 
 
 And glad enough I am that you are only near the 
 precincts of the enchanted land ; for, as your best 
 friend and counsellor, I warn you not to cross the 
 border-! Beware ! Beware ! She is fooling thee, 
 even thee, Charming Earle ! with which poetical 
 alarum I, too, will beat a hasty retreat and go to 
 a more serious " courting affair.'' 
 
 Yours affectionately (but, candor compels me to 
 say, not sympathetically^), 
 
 ARTHUR.
 
 82 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OTTO DRESSON'S SUCCESS. 
 
 " Art became the shadow 
 
 Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes." 
 
 E. llulwcr Lytton. 
 
 OTTO DKESSON was not slow to avail himself of the 
 privilege of cultivating con amore so charming a. per- 
 son, and one so altogether to his taste as Miss Archer. 
 And he saw now in the idle life hitherto tolerated 
 with dignified impassive calm, the cradle of a new 
 bliss. Mr. Dresson was never ecstatic ; but the soft, 
 lunar atmosphere that had suffused his being was now 
 heightened by brilliant auroral flashes that dazzled his 
 nights and gave a new and richer tone to his life. 
 
 And he knew secret avenues to Cupid's most en- 
 trenched citadel. "It is a dangerous thing to be 
 courted you know," he had often said, to the young 
 girls, to whom his attentions were not ministered in 
 quantities sufficient to suit their appetites, and who 
 were constantly outlining an array of special induce- 
 ments as a decoy for his visits, insinuating by this 
 superlative egotism that they would die of broken 
 hearts if he did not marry them. 
 
 It soon became apparent that the dangerous ground 
 had Miss Archer for its very luminous center, who, by 
 no means so unsophisticated as to be unconscious of 
 the danger, deliberately chose to ignore it and take 
 what the gods sent without question or hindrance, 
 especially when the gift came in the shape of a culti- 
 vated young man of imposing personal appearance, 
 refined taste, and a " patrimony sufficient for any one." 
 
 This might be great or small according to the point
 
 OTTO DBESSOlfS SUCCESS.. 83 
 
 of view, bat Elise had a magic faculty, happy but 
 illusory, of resolving the unknowable into the definite 
 shape of her desires, and so swam smoothly along on 
 the rosy breakers of what would sometimes prove a 
 swamping sea; and with an easy-going confidence in 
 those who made her little world, the thought of dis- 
 puting, questioning, or investigating other people's 
 concerns never came into her happy head. It seemed 
 so natural to be supplied with a sufficiency of life's 
 wherewithal, that she never discounted the so-called 
 fortunes of rumor. 
 
 Doubting was foreign to her nature on all subjects. 
 She believed heartily in people and things, and this 
 was the culminating charm of her presence. Having 
 a freshness of faith, a "stainless trust" which the 
 years had not been able to impair, it was never 
 necessary to assume that deference to the wish or 
 opinion of others upon which hangs all the skill of 
 genial converse, and which preserves from friction the 
 wheels of the social universe. It was not so much 
 what she said, it never is with a charming woman, as 
 the way in which she said it, that attracted and mag- 
 netized her listeners and gave her the imperishable 
 title to their favor. But with all her iridescence, her 
 sweet depreciation of self and flexibility of tempera- 
 ment, she never compromised the truth. 
 
 Dresson soon rose from his self-appointed position 
 of tutor extraordinary in the art and science of aes- 
 thetics to the successive ranks of admirer and suitor 
 for her hand. He saw the diminishing force of as- 
 pirants with unkindling eye and unabated compo- 
 sure ; but with something akin to a sensation of the 
 narrow delight of a refined triumph, he noted the re- 
 doubtable Channing slowly vanishing to the rear. 
 
 The contest had not been sharp there was a show 
 of crossing swords, but no real encounter. Chan- 
 ning did not for a time abandon his promised duty as 
 escort, and faithfully conducted Elise to the pro- 
 gressive entertainments. He had acquired a brave 
 mastery over the little initial temptations to fall in
 
 84 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 love with his fair protege", " which," he said to him- 
 self, "even if it should prove temporary is useful, and 
 may he renewed in the same furnace where it was 
 forged." If he had miseries, lie veiled them, and 
 maintained the noble and frank bearing for which 
 he had been distinguished. He was never more fe- 
 licitous in the exhibition of scholarly attainments and 
 manly virtues than when measuring lances with 
 Dresson in argument, or in the social banter called 
 forth in the frequent meetings at the house of their 
 mutual friend. 
 
 Dresson, who really had art ideas, was tenacious of 
 them to a degree which he called worship, and as far 
 as he was capable of an enthusiasm, was enthusiastic 
 for their popularization, 
 
 He had been a devout student of Schiller and 
 Goethe, Ruskin, and the pre-Raphaelites, and classified 
 himself in that illustrious division of mankind's bene- 
 factors. 
 
 Charming thought him a kind of dreamer with as- 
 pirations for reform, but with a disgust for the minu- 
 tiae of practical development and a disposition to be 
 satisfied with the outward show of things while pro- 
 posing only vague remedies for the evil. 
 
 Mrs. Earle declared laughing that the best thing 
 she could think of for him was a good dose of arti- 
 chokes and she believed she would send him a bushel, 
 and even Grandma said that nothing much better 
 than weeds ever came out of the hot-bed of idleness. 
 
 Mrs. Healey found his conduct irreproachable, but 
 was yet secretly alarmed lest Elise, who was too ami- 
 able to discourage an agreeable visitor, might in the 
 end prove too amiable to resist his fascinations. 
 
 Meantime Elise was in the vortex. 
 
 There were drives and promenades, nosegays, bil- 
 let-doux, and all the paraphernalia of small arms and 
 ammunition available to the love-warrior. 
 
 Elise would scarcely have been human if she had 
 not felt a certain pride in the new grant of monopoly 
 thus voluntarily surrendered by Dresson.
 
 OTTO BRESSON'S SUCCESS. 85 
 
 It gradually became a settled thing that Dresson 
 should accompany her everywhere; and while there 
 was still a random and desultory pursuit by numbers 
 of the Alonboddoes, it was with the prima facie evi- 
 dence of being nonsuited. Dresson was in possession 
 of one commodity that gave him unrivalled possession 
 of the field, and that was time in its bulk, in its es- 
 sence, in its purity ; they had but fragments for rec- 
 reation and found, or rather could not find the little 
 dents they made in the fortress the elastic walls 
 under Dresson's skilled generalship having resumed 
 their natural shape before they got around again with 
 their battering-rams. 
 
 But Elise's triumph, if triumph it was, was to be 
 measured by the disappointment' of her sex at the 
 loss of their conventional beau, the handsome knight 
 of the fanciful figure. Triumph it certainly was not 
 in the sense that she had worked for it, planned for 
 it, or even heartily desired it and it would have been 
 less had it not been the signal defeat of so many of the 
 beautiful girls of the village. And it is not strange 
 that, whirled along as she was by the excitements of 
 days and weeks, she should give this a prominence 
 which added zest to her conquest. It was really noth- 
 ing new to be admired and to be sought, but she 
 had never before been pitted against so many rivals 
 never before felt the fascinating ambition of outri- 
 valling her competitors. Not that she acknowledged 
 this openly to herself, but somehow, without word or 
 comment, or wish to analyze or care to know, down 
 deep in her heart, under all the hubbub and the glare, 
 she felt the hidden glow of this invisible force. She 
 was always happy she was happy now in her choice 
 because she idealized her lover, and thus uncon- 
 sciously supplied his every lack. 
 
 He called her, " My Queen," with a tender grace, 
 discoursed charmingly on keramics and archaeology 
 and Grecian art. 
 
 As a lover, Elise thought him quite Japanese and 
 distingue, because he preserved always that supreme
 
 86 THE OPAL QUEEN, 
 
 deference to etiquette that did not venture beyond 
 her finger-tips for a kiss, or nearer than her hand for 
 a caress. He was minute in hie attentions and antici- 
 pations of her most feathery wish. He sat, enthralled, 
 by her music, and pronounced every u bit of por- 
 celain " that she decorated " a gem, and quite the 
 correct thing you know," in his languid, mellifluous 
 flow of complimentary torrent. He gratified her 
 vanity and it was "so nice" to be adored, and her 
 heart filled with such a gracious pity when she found 
 him likely to be "the most collapsed of men" at the 
 prospect of losing her, that she finally granted his 
 petition ; saying to herself " a feeling so akin to Love 
 will not be long in reaching its stature." 
 
 " I have alwftys had a feeling," she said to Lily, 
 " that my chevalier should make a brave onset and cap- 
 ture me in spite of myself; there is something very 
 fascinating about 'dash' in this matter." 
 
 " But what if the wrong knight should make a 
 brilliant, desperate charge, Elise?" 
 
 " But I think, Lil, Otto is the true knight," she 
 replied demurely. 
 
 Lily made an exclamation of astonish me-nt. 
 
 " I just couldn't bear to see him in such dispirit- 
 ment so wan and prostrate the grand pre-Ra- 
 phaelite at my feet in tears ! Why, Lil, you know 
 I am not an icicle, and if I had been, was not that 
 enough to dissolve me into penitence and recan- 
 tation ? Any how, like the early martyrs, I did re- 
 cant and like Cranmer what a pathetic antique that 
 scene makes, Lil I said, bending over him, "'This 
 right hand hath offended, take it and do what you 
 will, my lord!" 
 
 Lilian was gazing at her in mute surprise, and 
 Elise went on : 
 
 "I don't always use such stilted language, you 
 know, but somehow at the very sight of Otto my 
 thoughts march into pre-Raphaelite file, and I ad- 
 vance on that line without budging to right or 
 left."
 
 OTTO fiEESSON'S SUCCESS. 87 
 
 " Oh, fie ! Elise, to cany your dramatics into such 
 a reality ! What a useless sacrifice ! What an in- 
 fatuation for you to be oblivious of the outcome of 
 all this! " then she realized her harshness, and be- 
 sides, that in her disappointment she was over-step- 
 ping her bounds 
 
 " There is something besides aesthetics in marriage, 
 you must know, Elise," she continued kindly, "and 
 you better commence with the* practical, the common 
 sense now 
 
 *' Common-sense is at a discount, dear. Every 
 stupid that comes along claims an over-stock of it." 
 
 " Elise," said Lily, feeling that now, if ever, she 
 must speak a deciding word, and }"et shrinking lest 
 by an unguarded speech she should lose the influence 
 she now possessed, "do you know that there are 
 depths in your heart that have never been stirred, 
 no, not so much ;is ruffled?" 
 
 " Then why don't my hero come along and stir 
 them ? " she replied gayly. " Haven't I been wait- 
 ing here like a harp well strung and bright, all ready 
 tuned, for, lo ! these many years, only waiting, waiting 
 for somebody to get the music out of me ! Some 
 master-hand, Lil, that can sweep over the chords and 
 captivate me, body and soul! There's music in me, 
 I think, deep, deep down in the recesses of my being. 
 I hear its low, sweet singing sometimes in the dark, 
 and it sounds like far-away marriage-bells." She 
 paused and then said with a sigh, " But maybe after 
 all it's only a dirge a sad, soulful dirge, Lil ! " They 
 were silent a moment, and then Elise said abruptly: 
 "But what are we talking about? The man is ac- 
 cepted I I can't repudiate that contract, you know, 
 and I am ready for congratulations, Lily, not remon- 
 strances ! If you were not just my very, very dearest 
 friend," she said, twining her arms about her, " I think 
 I should scold you a little, for so disregarding ' the 
 proprieties,' and for putting me out of tune with my 
 self. I hate discords! But never mind, Lil," she 
 went on in her old coaxing way, "I'll forgive you, for 
 you know I am devoted to you ! "
 
 88 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE JEWELS. 
 
 "This southern climate's quare, Biddy, 
 A quare and bastely thing, 
 Wid winter absent all the year, 
 And summer in the spring." 
 
 O. C. Kerr. 
 
 THE river upon which Brentville is situated is from 
 a mile to two mites wide, and runs its majestic course 
 through two degrees of latitude, and then through 
 several " narrows " enters the mighty deep. Or rather, 
 as it is properly only an estuary, the sea has worn its 
 way through these " narrows" and swept northward. 
 
 A narrow peninsula in one place only thirty yards 
 wide divides it from old ocean's raging billows on 
 the east, and ministers to the health and comfort of 
 the river residents. The invigorating salt air sweeps 
 across this narrow belt and comes to them softened 
 and laden with the healing balsam of the spruce and 
 pine. 
 
 The seasons lose their count, the months forget their 
 names, in this climate of perpetual spring. They do 
 indeed come and go after a fashion ; but Dame Nature 
 lias withdrawn the barriers in production that fence 
 it around in the " up-country," and the sowing is fol- 
 lowed by the reaping, the planting by the fruition, 
 without discrimination of times and seasons. To be 
 sure, there are some best times for all kinds of hus- 
 bandry ; but Nature begins her work at an}' time that 
 the husbandman chooses to confide lus treasures to 
 her keeping. 
 
 Villas scattered all along the banks of the river form
 
 THE JEWELS. 89 
 
 a continuous suburb to the villages that lie between. 
 Doctor Henley's residence enclosed ten acres and was 
 a quarter of a mile from the village. He called it 
 Bay Terrace, for the "sea has taken a bite right out 
 of the land here," he said. 
 
 The mode of transit is Venetian ; yachts are the 
 carriages and sails the horses that conduct the inhabit- 
 ants from point to point ; and it is as easy to step from 
 the beautiful white beach or the private pier into one 
 of these aquatic carry alls, as from Fifth Avenue steps 
 to the wheeled landau. 
 
 Marine sports give vigor to the frames of girls and 
 boys, as well as to the manly Monboddoes training for. 
 their regattas or trolling for their bass. The silvery 
 mullet, those agile gymnasts of the deep, are the vic- 
 tims of gun or cast-net, and the remarkable variety of 
 crabs kindly end (or begin, perhaps) in the propitious 
 horse-shoe. 
 
 The evenings on the river, when its waves were 
 hushed into a mirrored stillness, and great floods of 
 gold and crimson mantled the boundless horizon, or 
 deep belts of pale, blending mauves and pinks and 
 salmons rilled air and rigging with a softened splendor, 
 or a rosy flame with its pulsing, fading shades suf- 
 fused the sky and was repeated in the water such 
 evenings, melting into a fleeting twilight and then into 
 bright starlight or moonlight, were the pride and the 
 delight of the denizens on the glorious river. 
 
 Bresson had fitted up a yacht right royally for his 
 " Queen," and here, with the sunset calm sinking into 
 her soul and his melodious voice hushing every dis- 
 cord into peace, Elise felt as if she had indeed found 
 her paradise, and gave herself wholly to the happy 
 present and bright anticipations for a future as serene. 
 
 Excursions by day and by night were frequent 
 on this tideless sea ; sometimes there were picnics 
 suddenly extemporized, and these generally proved 
 more enjoyable than those planned to order. 
 
 The Doctor's practice was in two villages and up ' 
 and down the river for twenty miles. He had a fast
 
 90 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 sailing craft, and with a fair wind could make the 
 distance in easy time. 
 
 This morning there came a call from Nassamee, 
 ten miles away, and Mrs. Healey, who always ac- 
 companied her husband on his long trips, sent out 
 messages to her/riencls to form a fleet for a moonlight 
 excursion. 
 
 They gathered from near and from far. 
 
 "See, Elise," she cried, as they were descending 
 the flowery terrace to the beach, and spied through 
 the vistas the white sails glistening, " what a fine 
 convoy I have ! The Dove, the Idler, the Eagle, the 
 Nonsense, the Arrow, the North-Star, and the Cleo- 
 patra. What a gay time we will have ! " 
 
 Bat Elise did not respond. She had grim fore- 
 bodings from the fractious condition of her head that 
 the " gay time," was not for her. 
 
 Dresson had gone for Miss Love, and was the last 
 to arrive, coming up to the pier just as they stepped 
 upon the beach. 
 
 Elise sank upon the cushioned bench, overcome 
 with what she thought a momentary sharpness of pain. 
 
 Dr. Healey led off in the Dove, and the others, soon 
 following scattered wide or in pairs dotted the blue 
 with their snowy rigging. They had made but a 
 short distance when Elise said faintly : 
 
 " You must take me back, Otto ; this dancing water 
 makes me sick." 
 
 " 'Pon my word, Elise, that is too bad ! Can't do 
 it very well, you know Miss Love here, and the 
 party expecting us. Take that distant palmetto, now, 
 for a point of view, and just balance like this, you 
 know 
 
 " I am afraid I can't, Otto," Elise interrupted, mak- 
 ing a desperate effort to smile. 
 
 "Can't I give you some brandy now?" he asked, 
 bringing out a flask from the locker. " Won't hurt 
 you one bit, you know improve your tone and 
 color " 
 
 But she shook her head despairingly.
 
 THE JEWELS. 91 
 
 "Well, it is a pity, you know, but if you say so, 
 we'll head for shore." 
 
 Dresson .sounded his couch, and Bertha soon ap- 
 peared. 
 
 " But you are not to stay with me, Otto ! " Elise 
 protested, as he proceeded to anchor. " No, Otto, I 
 beg ! " she said, as he still persisted. " You must go 
 on with Miss Love I would not for anything disap- 
 point you of your pleasure." 
 
 " But don't you need help, Miss Archer?" asked 
 Miss Love ; " do let me stay." 
 
 " Oh, no, dear, thank you. Bertha i.3 here and I 
 feel better even now away from that giddy water," 
 she replied, smiling. 
 
 They demurred, but Elise at last persuaded them 
 to rejoin the fleet. She sat on the beach and watched 
 them out of sight. The increasing coolness of the ah* 
 renerved her, and the comforting steadiness of old 
 Mother Earth's bosom was never so prized before. 
 Under these influences, she soon became herself 
 again. 
 
 " Well, Bertha, I must make out an evening some 
 how," she said as they stood upon the verandah to- 
 gether. ' I guess I will have a jewel night. Bring 
 me all my jewels, Bertha," she added, fumbling 
 for her key in the deepening twilight as she entered 
 the library door. 
 
 It was her favorite room, quaint and cozy, with a 
 mullioned bay-window in front. The drapery of the 
 plush-embroidered cover hung over the center-table in 
 rich folds to the floor. There would be ample space 
 upon it, she thought, for her treasures, and she would 
 sit here and examine and rearrange them. Some 
 stones were lost, some were loose, some needed polish- 
 ing, others were out of repair, and for some she de- 
 signed new settings. 
 
 "I will give them a careful scrutiny, "she observed, 
 as Bertha returned, "and shall not need you for some 
 time. The butler has this evening out, and James 
 must take this note for me to Widow Herman, two
 
 92 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 miles on the road to Dumfrey. Cook begged so hard 
 to go and see her old-country cousin, just ' come over,' 
 tliiit Mrs. Ilealey gave her permission ; so you remain 
 within call, Bertha, and if you feel like it, go on with 
 your portiere, as I am anxious to have it finished for 
 the fete. Now draw down the shades and bring 
 lights, Bertha,; you may illuminate, to-night, sconces 
 and all, to give me full blaze on the stones." 
 
 She was thinking of what Otto had said to her that 
 morning, and automatically opening every casket 
 only partly conscious of the movements of her fingers 
 extracted the shining gems and placed them in a 
 glittering heap before her. Even then, as they lay 
 there throbbing with prismatic hues, she did not cease 
 her reverie. She leaned her head upon her elbow. 
 It was a rich, warm night in April, and "the breeze 
 gently dallied with the window-hangings in satin and 
 lace which Otto had called a nocturne in color 
 and softly touched her fair cheek. She caught np a 
 diamond aigrette and held it listlessly before her, but 
 her eyes were not on it, and her mind was far away 
 in the sweet, illusive dreamland. 
 
 The rising wind came with a delicious freshness to 
 her brow, as she sat there pondering on those words 
 full of a vague mystery and sweet significance. Now 
 the curtains gently flapped with monotonous regular- 
 ity, and Elise lazily glanced from them into the mir- 
 ror opposite the table. Her attention was arrested 
 for an instant lay the brilliant picture of herself and 
 surroundings, but on swift wing it flew away and left 
 her still " in maiden meditation fancy free," until a 
 sharp swirl lifted the table cover, and oh! horror! 
 was she mistaken? Could it be the crouched form 
 of a man that for one vanishing instant crossed her 
 retina ? All the color fled from her face then she 
 thought : 
 
 "What a silly fear! My imagination is vivid to- 
 night, I know, and my fancy lias conjured out of 
 these antique carvings a human figure." 
 
 She made an effort to feel gay, but was now thor-
 
 THE JEWELS. 93 
 
 oughly aroused and sensible of the danger of her 
 position. 
 
 " Come, O friendly JEolus ! lift up these heavy 
 draperies once more blow this phantasm away, and 
 prove to me that I have a bewildered vision to-night." 
 
 Still, although she assumed nonchalance, she did 
 not, could not, stir her eyes were riveted on the 
 mirror. 
 
 " Oh ! will it never rise again ? Why did I let 
 Bertha go ? " She was paralyzed, although clear- 
 headed and outwardly calm. Now there came a 
 great gust, and yes, her worst fears were realized. 
 
 " Cover him up O friendly ^Eolus ! G^ve her 
 time to think to think ! Cease your whirling dance, 
 disturb not one more fold, and give her time to 
 think ! " 
 
 She plucked up a desperate courage and deliberated 
 with palpitating heart, while she lightly fingered the 
 precious stones. 
 
 If she rang for her maid, the robber might spring 
 upon her, or snatch some of the jewels and flee 
 through the open window. Even if lie did not in- 
 terfere with her summons, how could Bertha help 
 her? 
 
 If she pleaded indisposition, postponed the ex- 
 amination, and sent the jewels back to her room and 
 followed Bertha, he might secrete himself in some . 
 other part of the house ; or, suspicious of discovery, 
 this might precipitate an attack upon them for that 
 robbers make light of murder she well knew and if 
 he did not hurt them, with the stern logic of pistol 
 and oaths, he might hold them there while he gath- 
 ered up the jewels and fled. 
 
 She had herself communicated the intelligence of 
 the absence of her household staff, and if the robber 
 was not apprised of this before, and sought the oppor- 
 tunity, he certainly knew it now, and the tremendous 
 advantage of acting at once. 
 
 Now she remembered,' too, that she had mad vert-
 
 04 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 eutly mentioned to Bertha in the robber's hearing 
 that her linest set, the opals, were at the jeweller's 
 and if they allowed him to escape, he might make 
 the jeweller his point of attack. Every second was 
 precious, for it was not likely that the bold intruder 
 would hesitate to use violence, and two timid females 
 could be easily silenced. 
 
 "Two are better than one," she gasped mentally. 
 " Something must be done ! " Hardly knowing her 
 own purpose, she arose from her chair, she walked to 
 the bell and summoned her maid. That Rubicon 
 was safely passed the robber did not stir. 
 
 Bertha came promptly good Bertha. 
 
 "Bertha!" she said with a forced calm that per- 
 mitted no visible agitation, and the data for a plan 
 that instant flashed into her mind. " My finest set 
 i.->, you know I told you, at the jeweller's I have 
 a fancy for seeing my jewels all together to-night. 
 Suppose you run over there it will not take more 
 than fifteen minutes at the most, will it? and no 
 one will disturb me in that time. But stop ! I will 
 write him a note, for they are very precious, you 
 know, and he would not give them to anyone, he 
 told me, without an order. Bring my escritoire, 
 Bertha ! " She hastily wrote : 
 
 MR. BARTON, 
 
 My maid, Bertha, will hand you this note and ask 
 you for my jewels, but do not give them to her. For 
 Heaven's sake, send help instantly to my house I A 
 robber has entered my dwelling is at my feet, this 
 moment, under the table as I write ! Not a soul but 
 myself in the house ! Say nothing to the maid of the 
 robber. If I fall a victim to his greed in her absence, 
 God have mercy upon me ! Heaven speed you to 
 the rescue. 
 
 ELISE ARCHER. 
 
 "I will be back in ten minutes, my iady, for I am 
 fearing to leave you alone."
 
 THE JEWELS. $o 
 
 Elise tried to smile and said " Fly, then, my good 
 Bertha love lends wings, you know." 
 
 Now indeed was the crisis of her fate. She had 
 not stopped to consider the wisdom of the action, but 
 followed the guiding impulse as it rose and fell, for 
 thought and execution had been simultaneous pro- 
 cesses-. Now, however, in this interval, he had time 
 for reflection. She questioned whether her course 
 had been prudent, for now she was completely at the 
 mercy of the wretch at her feet, should he seize this 
 opportunity to snatch his prize. She knew that her 
 motive had been to tempt him with a larger bait, 
 although at the moment she did not recognize it, and 
 she still hoped that on Ids part he was meditating 
 no violence, no denouement, but quietly waiting for 
 the midnight hour, when, as they were hushed in 
 sleep, he might secure and make way with his booty. 
 
 " Or perhaps, after all," she reasoned, " his ambi- 
 tion is only for the table silver. Oh ! how gladly I 
 would give it ! " and debated whether she should not 
 make the proposition to him. But her courage did 
 not rise to tjie occasion, and she doubted, too, its pro- 
 priety. Her nerves were now wrought up to the 
 highest pitch, and it seemed as though she should die 
 with the strain. Every moment was an age, every 
 breath of wind sent the stagnant blood back in great 
 floods to her heart, every sound beat upon her ear 
 like a trumpet yet still she sat there like a marble 
 statue, idly fingering her gems, with a show of ab- 
 sorbed occupation. 
 
 Her head became dizzy, her brain numb " Oh 
 God ! " she thought, "if I faint I am ruined, for then 
 I will be in his power ! Why does she tarry so long?" 
 She glanced at her watch three minutes more to 
 wait could she endure the suspense, the crushing 
 strain? But now she heard the cheery sound of 
 steps in the distance, and felt that her deliverance 
 was at hand. "But oh, they must be so cautious ! " 
 she thought, "for he might fire and kill us all," 
 
 She heard Bertha mount the steps
 
 96 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 "Mr. Burton brought them himself, my lady, and 
 he is just outside waiting your permission to enter." 
 
 " Very well, Bertha," Elise tried to say calmly, 
 but her voice was so low and indistinct that Bertha 
 hesitated. Fearing that her agitation might have 
 been perceived, she spoke again, with a sharp reso- 
 nance. 
 
 " Certainly, Bertha, I am very glad he came, as I 
 wish to consult him about some work he is doing for 
 me." 
 
 Mr. Barton entered, and now Elise felt assured 
 that there was no escape for the robber. She did 
 not know what plan Mr. Barton had set on foot to 
 arrest him ; she felt so relieved to shift the responsi- 
 bility of the capture upon stronger and abler hands 
 that she could let him take his own time. 
 
 So they chatted of her jewels and the necessary 
 repairs and readjustments, cleansing and polishing, 
 and Mr. Barton discovered so many irregularities 
 that he concluded to take most of them back with 
 him. 
 
 Elise assented to, everything, satisfied .that he was 
 playing his game wisely, which " assurance became 
 doubly sure " when two gens cTarmes entered the 
 room and quickly and adroitly dragged the prisoner 
 from his snug shelter, before the blazing lights. 
 
 " This is the first tramp, Miss Archer, that has ever 
 been seen upon our river," Mr. Barton whispered as 
 he gently led her from the room. 
 
 But Elise mused, " This is my April happening ! "
 
 DID Silt! MEAN? 9? 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHAT DID SHE MEAN ? 
 
 "WlLL you wear your opals with it, Elise?" in- 
 quired Mrs. Healey as they were examining the Greek 
 costume just arrived from Paris. " They will fit it 
 beautifully, unless," she said thoughtfully, "you think 
 the effect would be a little too prononce for the 
 fond Alcestis character. But I am not very familiar 
 with her history, and leave it to you entirely. I would 
 not wish to decide." 
 
 " But there was also a royal dignity about her that 
 thought itself not unworthy every personal adorn- 
 ment. The opals are in antique settings, I suppose 
 you have observed, and of a style that belongs to this 
 very period of Grecian art so at least Cesnola in- 
 formed me, after a careful examination." 
 
 " Charming ! How well they will complete the cos- 
 tume! They are becoming, too," Lily said, clasping 
 on the necklace, to catch the effect upon the face. 
 
 " I am never so happy as when wearing the dear, 
 precious stones," Elise, said gathering them into a 
 confused heap and pressing them to her bosom, while 
 gently passing her fingers over their polished faces. 
 "To me, Lily, they are the epitome of love, parents, 
 home, and sisters. I never look into their dancing 
 eyes without feeling a new devotion to the memory 
 of the lost ones. Every hue reflects a joy, every 
 diamond-flash a past exhilaration, every sparkle a 
 love-message. It is a veritable rosary quite ortho- 
 dox, Lil, don't look so alarmed for here are strung 
 in a shining row all the blessings of my childhood, 
 chief of which I count my mother's blessing and
 
 98 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 prayers, and these, I assure you, are more sacred to 
 me than those of any long-robed priest with his mum- 
 bles and genuflections." 
 
 She shook the folds out of the lace and satin and 
 finest cashmere mystery (chiton, peplum, and veil all 
 complete) held it out at arm's iength and mechani- 
 cally set it a-going in the motions of the Greek dance 
 but her thoughts were not on the dress. 
 
 Stopping abruptly, she exclaimed : " What could 
 that creature have meant who accosted me at the 
 station just before I went to Europe?" And she 
 stood in deep thought. 
 
 " Beg pardon," said Lily, after a suitable interval 
 had elapsed for the speaker to throw a little more light 
 on the subject, "did y^ii ask me a question?" And 
 then, as there was no response from Elise, she rat- 
 tled on : "I couldn't think of telling you until I knew 
 whether the creature was savage or civilized, male or 
 female, black or white, or have at least a few acces- 
 sories to the picture." 
 
 " And you are wiser than I think, if you interpret 
 her then, for it was a female, Lil, a nondescript, gypsy- 
 like somebody with a baby. A select party of my 
 friends made up an escort to the station, and as we 
 waited there, we chatted idly on this and that, for- 
 getful or rather indifferent to the secret or spoken 
 comment of on-lookers. You know how it is at such 
 times ; you fancy that there is a security in numbers, 
 which will disarm criticism, and that buoyancy of 
 animal spirits is as propitiatory as it is contagious. 
 Well, I suppose that my opals must have been men- 
 tioned, and I know that I told Helen Fronde that I 
 was born in October, for she and I were discussing 
 our ages, and had to come out with the records to settle 
 the question. 
 
 "The bell rang, the door opened, and the buttoned 
 and Libelled official who takes the responsibility of 
 'speeding the parting guest' popped his head in the 
 door, and called out: ' All aboa.rd for New York ! ' 
 and we started.
 
 WHAT DID SUE MEAN? 99 
 
 " I had made just two steps forward, when some one 
 pushed hard against me, and on turning 1 to look at 
 the transgressor, I heard, coming from the mouth 
 of this same fantastic and uncouth compound I was 
 telling you about, with an expression all aghast as 
 she said it, and the poor, pitiful baby with its face 
 all drawn up just ready for chromatics: 
 
 " ' You were born in October ? And you wear 
 opals ! ' 
 
 " Of course I simply stared at her for a second, and 
 then turned my head away. She did not speak loud, 
 just in a tone between a hiss and a groan. 
 
 "Mr. Elvard, perceiving me trembling on his arm, 
 inquired if I was ill. I assured him that nothing 
 was the matter, and in the pleasant excitements of 
 our travel abroad I forgot the incident for a long 
 time, and then all at once it came to me with fright- 
 ful distinctness, and ever since those two apparently 
 chance interrogatories lie down deep within me like 
 a weird, n^sterious melody to which all my life is 
 the accompaniment." What could she have meant, 
 and what business had anybody to insinuate danger 
 or impropriety? You needn't laugh, Lily. I am 
 sorry if there's anything bad about it, but I am as 
 helpless in the one case as the other. I vowed the 
 night mamma put the opals on my neck that I would 
 defy the superstition, and so impatient was I with 
 ignorance and folly, when this incident that I have 
 been relating came to me again that day in Nice, I 
 declared I would defy the October business, too! " 
 
 " Bravo ! " shouted Lilian. "Yon will 'live above 
 it,' I suppose, .as Doctor in the easy cant of health 
 sublimely advises me to do with my headaches, and 
 'break up the chain of morbid action ! '' 
 
 "That shaft was well aimed, Lil, and hurts more 
 than you think." 
 
 Lily protested. 
 
 "Of course you are surprised, and you will be still 
 more so when I tell you that I actually closeted my- 
 self with the Sisters for six months to try and ' break
 
 100 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 up that chain of morbid action ' you so jestingly allude 
 to, totally unsuspicious that your Elise ever had any 
 of its links around her was indeed fast in the 
 stocks !" 
 
 kk Oh ! Elise ! " cried Lily in a tone of pitiful con- 
 demnation. 
 
 " Well, that is hyperbole I admit, but perhaps you 
 will not wonder or think me weak when you have 
 heard the whole story." 
 
 " Poor darling ! " said Lilian, quickly relenting 
 ' why should I doubt your courage ! " 
 
 " Yes, poor me ! to be involved in such a mysterious 
 net. If I were a Mahommedan heathen, I should say 
 '/ate,' Lil." 
 
 " Where is the mystery? Are you then a convert 
 to the superstition?" 
 
 " Not at all. I am fighting it, battling with it still, and 
 I am not discouraged or daunted, much less crushed 
 but I am bewildered mystified ! the seasons come 
 and go so fast that I seem to be perpetually dodg- 
 ing, but I never avert my fate ! My life so far has 
 been an enigma, and I verily believe now mark me, 
 for I am speaking deliberately that the up and down 
 beats in its music will strike hardest in the future 
 just as in the past, in the months of October and 
 April ! I cannot explain it, Lily, but you will see that 
 it will inevitably be so. Sometimes I feel like the 
 old Greeks in the Trojan horse, girt about with sworn 
 enemies with glittering swords and fiery tongues, and 
 I dare not so much as peep out for fear a plot may 
 burst upon me. Of course that is an exaggerated 
 figure, and you must make allowances for my vivid 
 imagination," she added, laughing. ' 
 
 '* It is a pretty, blue-vaulted, star-gemmed canopy 
 inside that ' horse ' then, you dear child, or you could 
 never be so sunnjV interrupted Lilian. 
 
 "But there are times and times you know, Lil." 
 
 Lily was quiet for a moment and then added, 
 reflectively, " Isn't there just a tinge of superstition, 
 Elise, that it is your duty to uproot? "
 
 WHAT DID SHE MEAN ? 101 
 
 " You cannot be more imperative in your advice, 
 Lily, than I have been with myself, and I have been 
 faithful to duty, but I have also been observant of 
 providences and times and seasons. It does not fos- 
 ter doubt in me, because I seem to see this plan as a 
 part of a harmonious whole although it is not in 
 accord with my sensibilities and what comes to 
 others irregularly comes to me with the stated pre- 
 cision of the equinoxes. It is no doubt very beauti- 
 ful in its absolute design, but not in harmony with 
 my personal predilections, and so cannot be very beau- 
 tiful to me. 
 
 " Channing said, when I was telling him about it, 
 that it gave my life the ' air of a perpetual romance' 
 he did not seem to blame me." 
 
 " And what remark did Dresson make?" inquired 
 Lily, who had noticed of late a tendency in Elise to 
 quote Channing. 
 
 "Otto! Why, I don't think I have said anything 
 to Otto about it," she answered slowly, paused, and 
 then added with a gay nonchalance as though she 
 had taught herself to think his indifference quite the 
 correct thing: 
 
 " Oh, I don't believe Otto cares how the heart of 
 me goes, he is abundantly content with the surface 
 ripples ! " 
 
 " Well, dear. I know just the thing for our nerves 
 noiv, and that is a good, brisk, breezy walk to Sun- 
 set Hill so no more moody fancies for the present." 
 
 " But I am not moody, Lil." 
 
 " But the fancies are, Elise. I admit that you seem 
 to soar above them and from a serene height look 
 down upon them as belongings that ought to be 
 foreign to you, but for all that, such thoughts are 
 not nourishing to healthv purpose you will acknowl- 
 edge that, Elise ? " 
 
 " I agree with you now, and always, Lily, dear," 
 she said, embracing her. " Command me for a walk 
 or what not be my sweet mentor and guardian as 
 you were in the auld lang syne I'm twent} r -six,
 
 102 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 Lil, but I need as much as then your sisterly over- 
 sight; this time for my mind, Lil, which sometimes 
 gets on the ' rampage,' " she added, brightly. 
 
 She referred to the time when Lily had been eyes 
 to her and feet for her, in the days when she had 
 only that little pitiful vision.
 
 CHILDHOOD DAYS. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SKETCH I CHILDHOOD DAYS. 
 
 THAT the reader may better appreciate Miss Arch- 
 er's feelings and understand her idiosyncrasy with 
 regard to there being two pivotal months upon which 
 her destiny turned, it will be necessary to relate some 
 incidents in her previous history. In " Once a Year" 
 there is an account of. one summer of her life, and a 
 few sketches will now be added. These few marked 
 incidents are naturally impressive, but would not of 
 themselves have been sufficient to give color to the 
 theory, had she not observed, as time went on, that 
 semi-annually in her history there was a climax to 
 some more or less important event. And yet at this 
 stage of her life she could not be said to be in any 
 sort on the watch or making calculations, either with 
 desire or dread, upon this unique regularity in the 
 distribution of her life epochs. For the most part 
 the coincidence would come to her retrospectively, 
 and it was with a certain shy curiosity mingled with 
 an inward protest and some vague misgivings not 
 fear, for that was alien to her nature that she grad- 
 ually noted these singular markings, and began at 
 last to yield a kind of tacit, reluctant consent to the 
 idea that there was such an arrangement in the order- 
 ing of her life-plan. 
 
 A little group sat by the fireside listening to the 
 father's pleasant stories of travel, after several months' 
 absence from home. Among other events of interest 
 Avas the account of his visit to an astrologer, who at 
 Mr. Archer's request had cast the horoscopes of each 
 member of the family. Mary and Belle were bending
 
 104 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 over these papers, and regarding with curious inter- 
 est the singular characters traced so delicately and 
 precisely in red and black ink, and covered with mys- 
 terious symbols, while the lather explained the differ- 
 ent " houses," and when they would enter each in 
 their journey through life. To their comprehension, 
 it was little more than a jargon of familiar astronomi- 
 cal terms, combined with some that were very abstruse 
 or to them unknown, in which were confusedly blended 
 "conjunction," "aspect" of the planet (now "sextile," 
 now " trine"), " astrolabe," " e ccentricity," " aphelion " 
 and " opposition " ; only this was clear to them, that, 
 according to astrology, their destiny depended upon 
 the relative position of the planets at their birth. 
 
 With an equal obscurity was the life itself pre- 
 sented. The girls were anxious to know when they 
 were to be married, every other wish was subordinate 
 to that. But the father seemed not to heed their 
 eagerness ; either desirous of expounding the art in a 
 methodical way, or for some special reason unwilling 
 to gratify their curiosity, he continued to delineate 
 their passage through the different " houses," gravely 
 spoke of wealth and rank, sickness, friends, enemies, 
 and the " upper portal." 
 
 " ' Upper portal ? ' That's death, is it, papa ? Well, 
 we don't care about that, but when am /to be mar- 
 ried ?" inquired a bright, rosy girl, the pet and joy of 
 the household, looking up from the saucer of beads 
 over which her head was bent while busying herself 
 with a fringe for her toilet-cushion. And as her 
 papa did not immediately reply, she repeated, "Say, 
 papa, when am I to be married?" 
 
 The father turned over his paper, muttered some- 
 thing half audible, about " conjunction with Mars in 
 October and April," and replied, drawing his daughter 
 fondly to him and laying her head upon his breast, 
 "You, my daughter, are to be a great traveller." 
 
 The child clapped her hands with delight, and cry- 
 ing, " Oh ! I'm so glad," slipped down again to her 
 work.
 
 CHILDHOOD DA YS. 105 
 
 She did not notice in her childish innocence that 
 her father had not answered her question, or perhaps 
 quietly took the declaration as the alternative of 
 marriage subject to her own choice and convenience ; 
 to her mind, as she was in the midst of the institution 
 and surrounded by its benefits and delights, marriage 
 was as much a fiat as birth itself not one of the 
 possibilities, but one of the inevitables. 
 
 It seemed reasonable that she should also be a 
 great traveller and go alone if she wished, but lying 
 in shadowy vagueness was the outline of a protect- 
 ing husband, as a matter of course and of necessity. 
 Young as she was, she put no faith in the prophecy, 
 for her religious convictions were strong, and she 
 knew that there was no truth in astrology that it 
 was all foolish conjecture, jumbles of ancient lore 
 and possible or probable futurities, the fruit, in this 
 age, of some mercenary mind. Her mother had so 
 taught her ; had explained to her that it was once 
 cultivated with the honest belief that there was some 
 connection between the position and movements of 
 the planets and the habits and pursuits of those born 
 under them, but that nothing had been really accom- 
 plished by it, even in its palmiest days, in the way of 
 divination, and that astronomical discoveries had ex- 
 ploded its notions and reduced it to the level of a 
 delusive aiwl forgotten science. 
 
 Her father did not contradict this, but while he 
 acknowledged it to be nonsense, it had a strange 
 fascination for him, and he permitted himself the 
 weak indulgence of gratifying his curiosity for the 
 mysteries of the future, by studying it when a good 
 opportunity presented. 
 
 The little interlocutor, still stringing her beads, 
 was called " Sunbeam," on account of her win- 
 some sprightliness and uniform elasticity of spirits. 
 The day had yet to be marked in the calendar that did 
 not shine with her vivacity and sweet amiability, and 
 the family thought no group complete without the 
 bright presence of their fairy " Sunbeam."
 
 106 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 And so when later in the evening the mother 
 brought in her casket of magnificent opals (embrac- 
 ing a complete set of those brilliant stones interlaced 
 with diamonds, including the tiara and necklace), de- 
 claring that for some reason she felt inclined to make 
 an assignment of the valuable heirloom, this very even- 
 ing, to one of her daughters, the unanimous choice 
 fell upon " Sunbeam." 
 
 "But, Mary," remonstrated " Sunbeam," "you are 
 the oldest." 
 
 " But you are the brightest, little witch, and they 
 will become your iridescence," interrupted Mary. 
 
 "But Belle is brilliant ; see her red cheeks and 
 flashing eyes !" said "Sunbeam." "I am sure she 
 would set them off." 
 
 " Thank you, dear, but I want you to have them 
 because they are in harmony with your birth. 
 October is the opal month, you know, and so they 
 naturally belong to you; Mother Nature must have 
 designed them for you ; and then, to tell the truth, 
 if you wished to give me a bushel of the finest opals 
 in the world I would not accept them as a gift ! " 
 
 " Why, my daughter ! " exclaimed the mother, " are 
 you so tinctured with superstition? These opals 
 have been in our family for four generations, and a 
 more happy and honorable family in all its connec- 
 tions than the Merediths it would be difficult to 
 find." 
 
 "What is it, mamma?" inquired "Sunbeam," 
 " what is the superstition ? " 
 
 The mother glanced at the horoscopes on the cen- 
 ter-table and then said, "Why, father! did you show 
 the girls these?" Having entered with the fixed 
 purpose in her mind of parting with the jewels, she 
 had not observed the occupation of the group, and 
 seemed for a moment bewildered ; then she said 
 calmly : 
 
 " It is a little strange that two superstitions should 
 cross each other to-night. I thought you had forgot- 
 ten or given up all your astrological predilections and
 
 CHILDHOOD DAYS. 107 
 
 fancies, Gerald, I hope you have not been inoculat- 
 ing these girls with any of that foolish venom." 
 
 Upon the general and spontaneous outcry from the 
 children, that the father had insisted upon it that no 
 credence must be placed in it, she said: 
 
 " I should have known it, but the surprise of this 
 conjunction of affairs, bewildered me, unsettled my 
 confidence for an instant. They say, 'Sunbeam' 
 (and this is that ubiquitous and omniscient they that 
 never makes mistakes, you know) that the opal is the 
 harbinger of an unequal fortune to its possessor ; her 
 life will not be enriched with a calm, steady flow of 
 blessings, but with leapings like a cascade from ledge 
 to ledge ; and sometimes it will be stagnant like a pond 
 without an outlet ; that the one who wears them 
 will be subject to great vicissitudes in life, trials 
 some great trials, and heavy disasters with only 
 flashes here and there of the rosy life that young girls 
 love to picture as their natural inheritance and un- 
 disputed destiny." 
 
 " Oh ! 1 am not afraid ! " said the brave child. "If 
 Mary and Belle really don't want them, and you 
 really wish to dispose of them, mamma, I will take 
 them ; but don't you think you'll be sorry, mamma 
 dear?" she said twining 'her arms about her mother's 
 neck. " Then I'll take the opals and I'll wear them 
 too I Just as if any mischief could be in these" beauti- 
 ful gems ! " she said, gently caressing the long pen- 
 dants that lay in dazzling beauty upon her snowy 
 neck. 
 
 " Mamma, won't you be proud of me if I defy the 
 superstition ? " 
 
 " More than proud, my brave daughter, because it 
 will prove that yon have what I trust you will show 
 in your life, a well regulated faith in Christian prin- 
 ciples; and these teach that there is a loving Father 
 who orders the events of our lives, and never yet has 
 He intrusted that oversight to the Opal!" 
 
 But the father did not smile.
 
 108 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 Two.weeks from that hour, the family were gathered 
 around the bedside of the dying " Sunbeam." The 
 light was fading, flickering it must soon go, the 
 despairing ones said. 
 
 Malignant scarlet fever raging in epidemic form 
 through the town was taking for its first victim the 
 beautiful young child. 
 
 But when the morning dawned, life was still feebly 
 holding on, and fluttering hope was in flattering as- 
 cendancy once more in their hearts. The days wore 
 on in anxious vigilance while every hour was weighted 
 with tender solicitude and earnest pra}-er for the 
 loved one's life. And their prayer was answered. 
 Life conquered at last in that supreme struggle, but 
 when the crisis was past and the throbbings of a new 
 vitality quickened her pulse, she could not see the 
 opal splendors of that glorious October day " Sun- 
 beam " was blind ! 
 
 The months glided on, and Elise, pale and fragile 
 she was too wan for a sunbeam now and had crept 
 back into her christened name was still the pet of 
 the house, tenderly cared for by all, living in the midst 
 of a generous rivalry of ministry to her wants and 
 pleasures. 
 
 When the cold March winds were gone, and the 
 bursting buds of a new creation gladdened all hearts 
 with the hope of an early spring, when Nature shook 
 off the thraldom of winter began her music in the 
 air and her painting in the fields and, renouncing 
 her monochrome, resumed her art decorations in 
 variegated colors, Elise was invigorated by its balm 
 and nourished by its sunshine ; the rose returned to 
 her cheek and the ruby to her lip, and with a faint 
 vision, just one step beyond blank darkness, she grad- 
 ually assumed her wonted cheerfulness. 
 
 But now the mother's overtaxed powers began to 
 droop. Always delicate, the feeble constitution could 
 not resist the strain of many months, and she faded 
 and fell in the beautiful spring time died clasping 
 Elise in her arms and tenderly moaning as if in clari-
 
 SCENE OX LAKE ERIE. 109 
 
 fied vision the brilliant darkness of the child's future 
 burst upon her 
 
 " My Opal ! Oh ! may God help my poor, blind 
 Opal ! " 
 
 A thrill of terror ran through her frame, convulsed 
 with sobs and tears. The opals ! the last gift of love 
 to innocence ! they were lying in forgotten grandeur 
 in the drawer to which she had consigned them the 
 night of the bestowal ! What recalled them to the 
 mother's memory in the dying hour? And wh} r , in 
 i he baptism of the cold, cold flood, did she drop the 
 new name upon her darling? 
 
 In the year following this crushing sorrow, the 
 father and both daughters followed the mother to an 
 untimely grave, and Elise, stricken and helpless, but 
 with a boundless fortune, stood alone in the world. 
 
 Oh ! the brilliant darkness ! Poor, blind Opal ! 
 
 After the summer at M Springs, where Elise's 
 
 vision was restored, she went with her Uncle and 
 Aunt Gray, on a western tour. They returned by 
 the way of the lakes en route for Canada. 
 
 Leaving their steamer at Cleveland, they tarried a 
 few days in that umbrageous city, resplendent with 
 the gorgeous hues of the late October, and then re- 
 sumed their passage by water to St. Catharines and 
 other Canadian cities. The captain of the propeller 
 in which they secured places was especially recom- 
 mended to them as a skilful navigator a model 
 captain with twenty years' service in a well ordered 
 career for his record. 
 
 The evening was spent on deck pleasantly chatting 
 and laughing, for the captain had a fund of anecdotes 
 of a refreshing hydraulic type quite novel to the ladies 
 of the part}'-. They sat there in the bright starlight 
 until nearly midnight and then went to their state- 
 rooms. 
 
 Elise had previously discovered a queer bit of 
 mechanism, composed of square pieces of cork en-
 
 110 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 closed in canvass, with bands and strings attached, 
 which answered fairly well to her preconceived ideas 
 of a life-preserver. Without attempting to adjust it 
 upon her person (being in that state of easy indiffer- 
 ence to imaginary dangers and fears, which she cul- 
 tivated as part of the aesthetics of her being), for all 
 it looked so enigmatical, she concluded it " would 
 work," and no doubt be highly satisfactory in case of 
 need, trusting probably to instinct or direct revela- 
 tion for the management of it. 
 
 She had just removed her hat and was about to un- 
 fasten her dress, when there came a tremendous crash 
 which shook the vessel from stem to stern, jarring 
 and overturning every movable object on board, in- 
 cluding .Elise, who was violently pitched against the 
 window. It was something like an electric shock 
 in its effect upon the nerves she was jarred but not 
 hurt. 
 
 The next instant Mrs. Gray came to the door, and 
 in a voice with a death-ring in it, hoarsely whispered, 
 " Elise, they say we'll go down in five minutes ! " and 
 then, above the confusion and uproar of the shouting 
 crew, frantically rushing hither and thither and drag- 
 ging ropes over the deck, flying from point to point 
 to try to stem the flood above all, rose that fearful, 
 soul-thrilling cry, appalling in the stricken hour 
 when life hangs in the balance 
 
 " To the life-preservers ! " 
 
 Elise had grasped hers with an involuntary motion 
 when her aunt first spoke, and now rushed with it 
 under the spell of that instinctive dread of meeting 
 death alone, which simultaneously moved all the pas- 
 sengers- -into the cabin. 
 
 Oh ! the trembling group collected there ! Pale 
 faces, and ashen lips tightly compressed, deep breath- 
 ings, nervously hurried and spasmodic movements, as 
 each one essayed to panoply himself with the armor 
 he hoped would float him on the watery deep but 
 not a sound ! It was a crushing, momentous stillness, 
 big with hollow whispers from the grave. And when
 
 SCENE OX LAKE ERIE. Ill 
 
 Mr. Gray, in a voice clear, but vibrating with an 
 emotion just perceptible under the strong control, 
 dared to break the silence, it seemed sacrilegious 
 boldness, 
 
 " I will arrange yours for yon, Emily." he said, see- 
 ing his wife's helplessness, "in a moment, as soon as 
 I get this string tied." 
 
 "Ah, me! who will adjust mine?" Elise was 
 thinking, for in that supreme hour another instinct, 
 that of self-preservation, was uppermost in each mind 
 when there came floating in to them a cheery 
 sound 
 
 "The immediate danger is over! " 
 
 But they were not so easily satisfied, and knew that 
 this message was designed to quiet their fears. It 
 did relieve the tremendous pressure of the thought 
 that their next step would be a plunge into the cold 
 wave, and they gathered a little courage to ascertain 
 the extent of their danger and damage. The cause 
 was patent to the senses without proclamation they 
 had collided with another vessel. 
 
 All night long every man on board worked dili- 
 gently at the pumps, and in calking and bailing a 
 night between two eternities the boundless over- 
 arching heavens above and the boundless waters 
 beneath, fitting symbols of their vastness and incom- 
 prehensibility ! 
 
 All night long Mrs. Gray and Elise watched and 
 waited and hoped and feared. What an agony of 
 suspense ! They were told that they were not far 
 from the canal, and if they could hold their own until 
 morning, might see some friendly craft that would 
 assist them. They were at last persuaded to take a 
 little rest, if not sleep, and when after a few uneasy 
 snatches of slumber, they opened their eyes upon the 
 gray mist of the morning, they discovered that they 
 were being towed along by a staunch vessel, and fast 
 approaching the canal. 
 
 " We can't sink in the canal, you know," the cap- 
 tain said, by way of encouragement.
 
 112 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 But they were puzzled to know how it was possible 
 for such an accident to have occurred on a bright 
 starlight night. It seemed incredible that any hu- 
 man being could be so hardened as to deliberately 
 initiate and recklessly execute a diabolical plan, in 
 which the lives of a hundred fellow beings would be 
 jeopardized and yet it was rumored among the pas- 
 sengers that jealousy was the cause of the disaster. 
 
 The first-mate was a fine, stalwart fellow, the ad- 
 miration of the crew. The second-mate was also of 
 commanding physique, but of an ugly, vicious tem- 
 per that had provoked many enemies, and he was 
 justly disliked by all. It was his watch, and with 
 consummate baseness and malice prepense, he, when 
 close beside the oncoming vessel, gave an order which 
 would inevitably produce collision and engulf one 
 or both vessels, in the boiling waves ! But a blessed 
 Providence averted such a calamity. 
 
 On the instant preceding the shock, the captain, 
 all unconscious of danger, was moved to cross the 
 threshold of his cabin door ; he arrived upon the 
 deck in the perilous moment, countermanded the 
 fatal words, and prevented the horrors of death amid 
 the ruins of a drowning wreck. 
 
 "If," said he, "the point of collision had been three 
 feet farther away from the stem, nothing under 
 heaven could have saved us." 
 
 The second-mate should have been discharged on 
 the instant, but his villainy was not then quite ap- 
 parent there was to be another revelation. 
 
 But the saddest thing of all, after the rescue was 
 tolerably assured, was the face of the poor captain. 
 He looked death-struck-- so haggard, so pale, so taci- 
 turn, so rigid were the muscles of his face sternly 
 saying, while they endeavored to vindicate him, "It 
 was his watch, but I was responsible" 
 
 The passengers tried to convince him that no com- 
 pany would convict him, when the fault was so pal- 
 pably another's, and that he would be exonerated 
 from blame. But again and again the dejected man
 
 SCENE ON LAKE ERIE. 113 
 
 would reply with a shake of the old head, grown gray 
 in the service, " I was responsible" 
 
 As he was making up his log next day, Elise said, 
 " Is that the first accident it has been your misfor- 
 tune to record, captain ? " 
 
 " The first, Miss Archer, in twenty-five years." 
 
 "Surely they (the owners) will consider all that 
 in making their decision in the case, and give you 
 compensatory justice justice tempered with mercy." 
 
 But a silent shake of the head was his only reply. 
 
 Slowly they floated along until they entered, with 
 thankful hearts, the safe waters of the Welland. 
 
 Elise and her aunt, scarcely recovered from the 
 nervous anxiety attending the collision, and the long 
 strain of suspense before reaching the canal, were in 
 that excited state of apprehension that exaggerated 
 every danger, and made it possible to their fears to 
 sink even in twelve feet of water. But there was a 
 diversion in the hubbub into which they were now 
 precipitated, that Mr. Gray declared equal in dramatic 
 interest to the best features of the Stock Exchange. 
 
 A crowd of steamers and swarms of smaller craft 
 were moving, snail-like, in the same or opposite direc- 
 tions, to the accompaniment of vociferatory, yelling, 
 tangled voices, the clatter of dragging ropes and 
 clanking irons, the rushing of many impetuous feet 
 hither and yon, in what to the uninitiated seemed 
 dire confusion each vessel struggling like a sentient 
 being to make its passage with next to no space to 
 do it in ! 
 
 They were sitting on deck near the pilot-house, 
 curiously observant of the novel scene. 
 
 " ' The mountain labored and brought forth a 
 mouse ! ' " said Elise. u What a contradiction of ex- 
 pectation ! With all the fuss and flurry and the, no 
 doubt, purposeful activity of this whole crew, we do 
 not make one step in the advance." 
 
 " Do see the steamers pass right by us and go 
 through ! " she cried to her uncle. " What does it 
 mean? Are we on a- sandbar?" Mr. Gray smiled at
 
 114 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 this ignorance, but confessed himself unable to solve 
 the enigma. 
 
 Upon arriving at the entrance of the canal, the 
 captain had pushed on, by land, to make arrange- 
 ments for repairs at St. Catharines. ' The first-mate, 
 now acting-captain, issued and reissued a certain 
 command with a wearisome repetition : 
 
 " Throw out that stern line ! " 
 
 Hearing his order so often reiterated, their thoughts 
 began to center with a certain lively interest upon 
 the trifling item of a stern line, for apparently either 
 the order was not heeded although the running and 
 hauling were sufficiently vocal to float a hundred 
 stern lines, one would think or an indefinite number 
 were required for their transit. But then again the 
 emphasis of the singular that, precluded that suppo- 
 sition ; so they gave it up and sat silent and per- 
 plexed. 
 
 But now the patience of the temporary captain 
 was exhausted. They had indeed caught angry mut- 
 te rings, at intervals, slightly flavored with impreca- 
 tions, but now there came a fearful oath, coupled 
 with the threat 
 
 "I'll go down and pick the head right off him ! " 
 
 " It's that second mate again," whispered Mr. Gray. 
 
 And the man started, with the tiger in his eye, and 
 the springing motion of a wild beast about to leap 
 upon his prey. He rushed past them to the gang- 
 way. 
 
 Elise was at that moment so impressed by the mag- 
 netism of a justly indignant human rage, that pick- 
 ing oft 7 people's heads seemed as logical and easy as 
 in the days of the mythical Hercules, and indeed 
 quite a natural and proper thing to do under the 
 provocation ; but at the same time so criminal and 
 ghastly with its accompanying terrors, that moved 
 by a sudden impulse born of heaven to try to pre- 
 vent bloodshed by her puny voice or she knew not 
 how she sped on irresistibly after the infuriated 
 man. And as if to stamp the act with the sanction
 
 SCENE AT ALPNACH. 115 
 
 of wisdom and authority, Mrs. Gray, following 
 equally her benevolent instincts, cried out with wild 
 unreasoning fervor. 
 
 " Don't let him go, Elise ! Don't let him kill him ! " 
 
 Girded with superhuman nerve, Elise just reached 
 the gangway as the mate was at the bottom of the 
 steps. She instantly stooped, and reaching low, laid 
 her hand upon his shoulder. The gentle touch ar- 
 rested him he turned and confronted the pleading 
 face. 
 
 " Look here ! We think too much of you to have you 
 do that /" she said in a voice of thrilling earnestness. 
 
 " To have you do that ! " Soul searches soul at such 
 pregnant moments, and the ireful man well knew the 
 forceful meaning of the enigmatical word. 
 
 He glanced again at the pure sweet shining in her 
 eyes, and one shade of anger lifted from his brow 
 but he rushed on. 
 
 The suspense was terrible. Intently listening for 
 direful sounds, they heard no scuffling, no uproar, 
 and when in a few moments he returned, he said 
 quietly in passing them the face all calm now 
 
 "I discharged him." 
 
 " He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he 
 that taketh a city," commented Mr. Gray. 
 
 " What a beautiful control ! " Elise whispered to 
 her aunt. 
 
 And the stern line was thrown out. There were 
 no more tugging and higgling and useless veerings ; 
 order was restored, and they passed on through the 
 lock. 
 
 The Grays and Elise were abroad. 
 
 England had been a microcosm of quaint and 
 happy surprises, France a whirl of aesthetic delight, 
 Brussels an instructive chapter in Renaissance, the 
 Rhine an exquisite storied panorama, but to Elise, in 
 the novitiate of foreign travel, Switzerland was 
 nourishment.
 
 116 THE OPAL <JUEEN. 
 
 Her physique rounded out on its bread and honey, 
 and her soul grew on its scenery. Her spirit throbbel 
 and swelled with a newness of life in the presence of 
 its majestic mountains those snow-capped " needles " 
 glistening in the sunlight or rosy with the after-glow, 
 embosoming ice-bound torrents- and emerald valleys 
 its mirrored lakes and its delicious air. 
 
 The exhilarating excursions in and about Lucerne 
 caused them to extend what was to have been one 
 day's visit into four. The car-ride up the Righi, from 
 whose top the landscape of the Bernese Alps was 
 viewed as in a mirror, the visit to the chapel of 
 William Tell, the Thorwalsden lion cut in the rock 
 over the sleeping pool, the circuit of the lovely lake 
 the chalets and villas on the margin, gave them feast 
 after feast of purest pleasure. 
 
 One breezy morning fresh with the newly-scented 
 fragrance of spring, they took a steamer en route for 
 Interlachen through the Brunig Pass. 
 
 k ' Oh, here they are, Aunt Em ! " Elise exclaimed 
 in a transport, as they were sitting on the deck of 
 the little steamer which was carrying them across the 
 lake to Alpnach. 
 
 The ambiguous " they ! " 
 
 Mrs. Gray gazed- all around her, expecting an in- 
 undation of friendly Americans, perhaps, or a shoal of 
 strange fishes or some such wonder, but perceiving 
 nothing to excite her surprise, turned and looked at 
 Elise whose eyes were fixed upon the distance while 
 she was slowly repeating : 
 
 " The hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun." 
 
 " Here, in slatue-like repose, an old wrinkled mountain rose, 
 With its hoary head in snows, and wild roses at its feet." 
 
 " Bryant must have seen the Alps to use such 
 imagery, don't you think so, Aunt Em ? How like 
 giants with ribs of rock they do stand ' to sentinel 
 the enchanted land ' and the unguarded sleeping 
 waters ! I could float forever on this liquid green ! 
 but instead of any such prospect our sail is ending
 
 SCENE AT A LPNA CH. 1 1 T 
 
 now all too soon, 'for see the straggling village of 
 Alpnach ! " 
 
 And then there was the hurry and scramble for 
 the diligence. The eye of caution perceived many 
 passengers and few vehicles, and the overcast sky 
 threatening the frequent April shower boded no 
 good for stranded travellers. But the tickets had 
 been secured, and after some delay Mr. Gray suc- 
 ceeded in convincing a charioteer that he was entitled 
 to three places in his diligence. 
 
 Just after they were fairly packed in, Elise dis- 
 covered that one of her bracelets was missing. It 
 was a large pansy of diamonds with rare setting ; and 
 as she remembered seeing it on her arm just after 
 she left the boat, she knew it must have been lost on 
 the way up the slight elevation, only a few rods to 
 the diligence-stand. 
 
 The Too-too Mute (so Elise afterwards dubbed 
 the driver for his obstinacy) had shut the door with 
 a bang, adjusted the curtain, for a heavy shower was 
 beating down, and was springing for his seat on the 
 box, when Elise called him back and informed him 
 of her loss. She requested him to open the door that 
 she might alight and search for the missing jewelry. 
 
 He assumed ignorance of her meaning, at first slyly 
 pretending not to understand her French. Elise re- 
 peated her request, but before Mr. Gray could inter- 
 fere, shaking his head and muttering faint thunder, 
 out of the echoes of which was slowly evolved some 
 time after his departure, " 11 ny a pas de temps" he 
 sprang to his elevation, sounding out his coaxing, 
 quickening signal to the well-trained horses iv-li-u-p ! 
 aspirated sharp and fine, which is the musical incen- 
 tive used by the Swiss drivers to urge on their lag- 
 ging steeds and they were off. 
 
 He succeeded in getting into the van ; by bold 
 strikes and shrewd management he had acquired a 
 quasi leadership of the caravan ; and to think he would 
 yield this for the slight consideration of a thousand 
 dollar bracelet was presumption indeed ! So Elise con-
 
 118 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 eluded as they whirled in front of all competitors. 
 She had offered him a reward, and he seemed not the 
 least moved by it. What were a few Napoleons to 
 the man who headed the stately march over the Ber- 
 nese Alps and through the " Brunig Pass " ? " Thy 
 gold and silver perish with thee," was no doubt the 
 scornful anathema of the sturdy Swiss for Miss 
 Archer's insinuation that the manly integrity of a 
 van-leader could be bribed to sell his hard-earned 
 position. 
 
 "I saw a woman pick up some shining thing out 
 there on the bank," said a lady-passenger, after they 
 had travelled some distance, by way of comforting 
 intelligence. 
 
 " Why did we permit that driver to override us 
 that way, uncle? Did the woman look poor? They 
 ;ill look poor though ; you can't tell by that. Well, 
 I must be philosophical ; perhaps she needed it more 
 than I. What w r ill she do with it, I wonder? I wish 
 her joy of it anyhow, and pray that it may be the mar- 
 riage dowry of her beautiful daughter, who, my pro- 
 phetic vision tells me, lias been waiting long fpr this 
 happy moment. Three cheers for the bride with the 
 pansy bracelet ! " 
 
 " Son jour, Mademoiselle ! " shot from the mouth of 
 a slim figure making sail through the corridors as 
 Elise left her room the next morning after the party 
 arrived at Lausanne. 
 
 Elise returned the salutation, given by the tasseled 
 cap and Hying study-gown with that imperishable air 
 of courtesy that is the natural inheritance of the race. 
 Every morning she met this phenomenal tramp, and 
 the resounding monotony of his well emphasized and 
 sonorous " Bon jour, Mademoiselle /" hard and cold as 
 it seemed, delivered automatically, sharply, like a 
 business-prelude for the day's activities, vibrated on 
 her ear all day long. 
 
 The little man was a Frenchman who had some-
 
 SCENE AT LA USANCE. 119 
 
 thing to do (an anomaly), and a stern temper for the 
 doing of it, also anomalous in the mercurial French- 
 man. He performed the double duty of landlord of 
 the mansion and Professor of Geography in a neigh- 
 boring school ; he \vas also skilled in the tongues and 
 had private classes in the dead languages an austere 
 man who never smiled, and, with the exception of the 
 customary salutation of the day, which was born in 
 him, preserved an intense and unapproachable silence. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gray went to Rome, Elise preferring 
 to remain with 'her maid in this picturesque Swiss 
 village during their visit. Mrs. Gray indulged her 
 niece in this whim, for the double reason of gratify- 
 ing her and preventing her taking the risk of a Ro- 
 man September. She did not tell Elise of the hazard 
 they were inclining in this visit, lest he,r pleasure 
 might be marred by anxiety for them. She felt that 
 it was wise not to take her, and was glad that the 
 solution of what might have been a difficult problem 
 was rendered easy by her own volition. 
 
 Elise was very fond of her maid, who was an intel- 
 ligent German with aristocratic tendencies, connec- 
 tions, and ancestry. 
 
 They scoured the little town from end to end, from 
 height to height; for it was on not simply seven 
 hills, but hills ad infinitum, Elise thought, as at every 
 turn a new inclined plane started into light, ambi- 
 tiously scorning the level. "'A city set on a hill,'" 
 she wrote to her aunt, "is comely in a picture or in 
 the distance, because it is founded on absolute mathe- 
 matical laws ; it makes a pretty Bible simile, too, 
 but in point of fact it is more useful for purposes of 
 rhetoric and aesthetics than convenient for pedes- 
 trians and exhausted tourists." 
 
 But they "did the town" notwithstanding, in 
 strict accordance with American principles ; visited 
 all the ruins, climbed to the tops of some adjacent 
 Jura peaks for views, which they took in artistic 
 fashion, making a circle of their arms and looking 
 backward through them ; and then Elise sketched
 
 120 THE OPAL QUEEN, 
 
 them in her portfolio, and on rainy or inclement clays 
 touched them up in water-colors. She found her char- 
 coal sketches remarkably satisfactory, the materials 
 being so simple and easy to carry. 
 
 The laurel leaves were so suggestive of classic lore 
 that she could not pass them without picking up 
 great handfuls. They chose one day when the ground 
 was strewn with their tawny verdure for they were 
 parti-colored, half cuivre and half green, to gather 
 the most beautiful they could find for chaplets. It 
 was her intention to press them, and then decorate her 
 sculptured antiques of the renowned worthies whose 
 brows were crowned with them during life. 
 
 She became interested and excited to such a degree 
 that they worked at noonday under a spread um- 
 brella to shield them from a scorching sun that was 
 bent not so much on browning Elise as maturing 
 the luxurious vineyards which crowned the hill-tops, 
 adorned the slopes, and clasped the valleys of this 
 charming region the purple vintage gleaming even 
 now in the genial rays of the late September sun, 
 steeped in the essence, of nourishing heat. 
 
 In the evening when they returned, Elise felt too 
 ill for supper, and lay upon her couch full of an in- 
 describable pain. 
 
 " It is all over me," she said, to Bertha, her maid " t 
 guess we have had too much of this mountain elixir. 
 But don't worry " (for Bertha was regarding her 
 anxiously), "a night's rest will surely retone me." 
 
 So Bertha was not permitted to call a physician, 
 but could not be prevented from watching her mistress 
 all night. She was troubled to see how restless she 
 was, groaning and moaning in a broken sleep, or lying 
 awake in a dull pain, and could hardly wait for 
 morning to dawn, so convinced was she of the im- 
 perative need of medical aid. And her fears were 
 not groundless the Doctor implied, by the active 
 remedies he at once administered, that his patient 
 was in danger. 
 
 The pain now in every member of her body was
 
 SCENE A T LA US ANNE. 121 
 
 indescribably intense ; a raging fever was burning her 
 up ; and after a hot bath into which she was lifted 
 like an infant, in and out, she had not once stirred, 
 the pains were so aggravated by the slightest motion. 
 
 Medicine was given in vain ; the weak, inflamed 
 stomach refused to receive it. 
 
 " Ice ! ice ! Give me ice," was all she moaned, and 
 Bertha sat by her side faithfully administering it with- 
 out intermission. 
 
 A telegram was sent to Mr. Gray, and Elise hoped 
 soon to have the soothing ministrations of her aunt. 
 A professional nurse was summoned who was known 
 to be competent and faithful. 
 
 When Elise saw that no help could be derived 
 from medicines, she said to the doctor : 
 
 " Under God, Doctor, everything depends now 
 upon you and the nurse." 
 
 Day after day she lay there motionless, speechless, 
 with the exhausting agony which racked her pros- 
 trate form. 
 
 " Shall I read the Bible to you, Miss Archer ? " said 
 the daughter of the landlord, w.ho came in one day to 
 tender her assistance, thinking that Elise was passing 
 through her final illness and ought to have the con- 
 solations of the Gospel. Ignorant, too, of her spirit- 
 ual condition, she had the charitable intent of dis- 
 covering if the soul so near the dark river was ready 
 for the plunge. 
 
 " Thank you, no," Elise said faintly, and clasped 
 her hands over her breast. She knew that even if 
 heaven was conditioned upon any effort of hers at 
 that moment, she must inevitably lose it; she could 
 not make the feeblest attempt it was all she could 
 do to endure the terrible pain. 
 
 " Surely this must sunder soul and body," she 
 said to herself " there can be no greater agony." 
 Thought and feeling were submerged in physical 
 distress. Her sensibilities were numbed; her intellect 
 was indeed not dull, but under the control of the grim 
 monster, Disease, could not choose its subject of
 
 122 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 thought ; and except a fleeting wonder why her aunt 
 did not come, no emotion was stirred in her heart 
 at her absence, so all-absorbing was her bodily an- 
 guish. 
 
 For eleven days without food, without sleep, with- 
 out change of position, she lay there slowly wasting 
 away, but with niind undimmed and courage un- 
 daunted ! 
 
 "Oh! si maigre! si maigre!" said the femme-de- 
 cliambre, who had been excluded from the room (as 
 had all but the nurse and Bertha until the crisis was 
 past), when at last she was permitted to look at her. 
 
 Careful nursing would now restore her, although 
 the return to health might be a long and weary road. 
 
 When convalescence was fairly established and her 
 appetite was normal once more, 
 
 " What shall I eat?" she asked the doctor. 
 
 " You eats anytings you likes, Mademoiselle, only 
 it is better you eats many tings, Miss Archer, one 
 variety; and you may eat oh, so much!" describing 
 a circumference of ample dimensions " so only you 
 eat varieties." 
 
 " Then may I have cauliflower? You Swiss know 
 how to cook it, and I have learned to like it here." 
 
 " Perfectly, that is good ; without doubt you may 
 have the cauliflowers. You eat what you likes now, 
 Miss Archer." 
 
 When the dinner was served, the coveted dish was 
 missing. 
 
 " Monsieur lets me not have the cauliflower," 
 Bertha explained. 
 
 Elise's face showed the surprise she felt that Mon- 
 sieur should presume to countermand her orders, but 
 she only said quietly 
 
 " Tell Monsieur, Bertha, that I send you for it." 
 
 Bertha returned in a moment in a confusedly ex- 
 cited state, followed closely by the irate Monsieur 
 livid with rage. He advanced, shaking his finger as 
 he came, and crying out to Elise in harsh and meas- 
 ured staccato
 
 SCENE AT LAUSANNE. 123 
 
 " You will not eat that cauliflowers, Mademoiselle" 
 and by this time he was so near that his threaten- 
 ing finger almost touched her face " I gives you not 
 that vegetable at all" His tone was an explosion of 
 scathing denunciation as he flung out the last sen- 
 
 o o 
 
 tence like a defiant battle cry. 
 
 " The doctor has given his consent," Elise urged 
 with a quiet dignity in striking contrast to his bel- 
 ligerent attitude. She was trembling from head to 
 foot with the violence of this sudden assault, yet 
 bravely determined to assert and maintain her rights. 
 
 " The doctor is one fool ! " was the heated rejoinder. 
 " You think ive haf you to die herein our house, Mad- 
 emoiselle ! No ! No ! I gives you not that vegetable." 
 
 So here was the terrible secret of Monsieur con- 
 stituting himself a Board of Control over her diet, 
 Elise thought as she silently stared at him in a daze. 
 
 " The doctor is one fool! " he repeated, still shaking 
 in her face the defiant ringer. Monsieur's command 
 of English was small, but he had hit upon a terse ex- 
 pression, and even had he possessed the vocabulary 
 with which to change or enrich it, it is doubtful 
 whether he could have selected a word better fitted 
 for the accomplishment of his purpose. 
 
 " You eat no cauliflowers, Mademoiselle, here in my 
 house!" he repeated in the somewhat modulated but 
 still sharp imperative of authority, while heavily 
 striding from the room. 
 
 In the weak state of her nerves, Elise could illy 
 support such a scene and sank back upon her pillows, 
 pale and fainting, overcome with the sudden excite- 
 ment and nervous shock. The daughter came in 
 and vainly attempted to apologize for the stern Mon- 
 sieur, but Elise, while willing to forgive, was thrown 
 back several days in her recovery. 
 
 One night during the height of her illness, in the 
 midnight watches whose dim silence was hourly melo- 
 dious with the half concerted chiming of six clocks 
 in the " flat," Elise, who had been partially raised up 
 by the nurse, was lying, exhausted, her half audible
 
 124 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 groans penetrating the stillness with a weird, un- 
 earthly sound, when Monsieur, who had an adjoining 
 room, stalked in \vithoutwordorsign, and demanded 
 of the nurse that he should be permitted to summon 
 the doctor. He looked at Elise steadily and, as she 
 thought with commiseration, and in the midst of her 
 pain she said to herself, "The grave little man can 
 be touched with a feeling of sympathy after all. I 
 thought lie was only a wooden man I am sorry that 
 I misjudged him." 
 
 But now she saw the animus of that midnight 
 visit, which was unannounced, unexpected, just like 
 this. The prudent Monsieur was thinking not so 
 much of the suffering invalid as of the probabilities of 
 a funeral. " You think we haf you to die in our 
 house," was the pious motive that winged his feet 
 and tasseled cap to her bedside. 
 
 " Poor little man ! " Elise mused, " to care more for 
 his own comfort than for the distress of the sick. 
 Has he a superstition about sheltering a dying for- 
 eigner, I wonder ? More's the pity." Then with a 
 touch of her old buoyancy she continued : 
 
 " Pass on, Monsieur ; since Death has not yet 
 claimed me, Monsieur shall not defeat my intentions 
 in the line of progressive health. Exit, Monsieur 
 Gignaud ! I had almost said Allez-en ! but I will 
 not be rude even to his wraith." 
 
 " Snow on all the mountain tops ! " exclaimed 
 Elise, one bright morning, catching glimpses from the 
 window no longer darkened. 
 
 " Yes, my lady, it snowed all night." 
 
 " Why, isn't it early for snow, Bertha ? Where- 
 abouts are we in the calendar ? I have lost the track 
 of old Time's footprints." 
 
 " It is twenty-first of October, my lady ; you have 
 been sick three weeks and four days already." 
 
 " October almost gone ! my opal month ! its 
 splendors all unseen, its delicious air, which one can 
 take deep draughts of ' without a cask to bore or a 
 spiggot to turn,' all unsipped by this bunch of bones
 
 SCENE AT LA US ANNE. 125 
 
 strung into what they call Elise Archer ! Ah, me ! " 
 " But you'll soon be rosy again, my lady, and in 
 the South, where we go soon, the air is delicious, just 
 so as this."
 
 126 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FIRST GltEEK FESTIVAL. 
 
 THE roses shook out their petals in the clear De- 
 cember air on the memorable morning when the Greek 
 Games were to be celebrated by the students of the 
 Acudemia della Crusca. And as if conscious of 
 the significance of the day, Lilian's pet turtle-dove 
 winged its feet to the laurel, and the cardinal-bird 
 sang high in the green branches of the bay just in 
 front of her window. 
 
 The exercises lasted from eleven in the morning 
 to three in the afternoon, but the pure air out of which 
 the vigorous athlete extracted, his inspiring oxygen 
 furnished also an exhilarating tonic for the endurance 
 of sight-seeing. There were many contestants for 
 the prizes. Achilles bore off the honors of oratory, 
 Clito of music and Critobulus of the athletic games. 
 
 At four o'clock the village, or such part of it as 
 was interested in the movement, was dining ; and at 
 the innovating hour of seven, sixty as fine youths as 
 ever laid claim to manhood donned their robes, some 
 purple and some white, and walked in a procession 
 headed by Prof. Monboddo and his staff, to Doctor 
 Healey's residence, accompanied by players upon 
 flutes and pan dean pipes. 
 
 Professor Monboddo was a curio of the. first water 
 in domestic and social archaeology. Having for many 
 years been a devout student of the same, he had 
 collected for his own use many valuable bits of Greek- 
 furnishing which, after various hesitations, Mrs. 
 Healey had been persuaded to scatter about her 
 rooms. A tripod here, there a portiere of damask
 
 THE FIRST GREEK FESTIVAL. 127 
 
 and gold from Athens, a vase with a painted Artemis 
 in an embroidered petticoat, another with a repre- 
 sentation of the taking of Troy, and some tapestries- of 
 her own embroidery gave a classic air to the apart- 
 ments and obviated the startling effect of too wide 
 anachronisms between the guests and their surround- 
 ings. 
 
 " Isn't it about time forDresson ? " said Dr. Healey, 
 restlessly pacing the floor during the nervous inter- 
 val preceding the arrival of the guests. " You two 
 Greek damsels, or, to be proper, I suppose I must say 
 dame and maiden put me quite out of my era. Dres- 
 son would be a link between the centuries something 
 to bridge this tremendous chasm, standing on the 
 dizzy verge of which makes a fellow feel mighty 
 uncomfortable ! " 
 
 " You know I begged you to wear the costume. 
 Doctor, if you could only do it for a few moments, 
 while we are receiving our friends. I imagined you 
 would feel odd 
 
 " And you know," he interrupted, " that I politely 
 declined to make the investment for the whim of an 
 hour, and send Mrs. Histeriah speeding on her 
 angel-flight before her time to boot for she would be 
 sure to take me for a messenger from Hades in all 
 that white-robed botheration." 
 
 "Now, Doctor," laughed Lily, "how foolish you 
 are ! You know yon could have changed it." 
 
 " Possibly, Mrs. Healey ; Mrs. Histeriah might 
 obligingly postpone her little illness, while I paid 
 devout worship to the muses and goddesses of the 
 mythological proprieties ; and moreover, to a young, 
 sprightly person like myself lying on the shelf all 
 day, a sudden diversion of that kind would no doubt 
 be salubrious, refreshing ; but you forget my time- 
 honored motto, Mrs. Healey, semper paratus, upon 
 which so far has hung the staff of bread and water 
 contributing so largely to our domestic felicities." 
 
 Lily was too much disappointed to enjoy the 
 humor, and sat demurely quiet.
 
 128 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 It was unfortunate that the Doctor introduced a 
 subject upon which there had been much discus- 
 sion, with strong pleadings to offset the Doctor's 
 good-natured obstinacy. For Lily, it was the one 
 bit of vexation, the only uncheerful item in the whole 
 management, that she had encountered. Every- 
 thing else had yielded to her energy and her skill 
 and she was proud of her husband and naturally am- 
 bitious that he should support her new rdle with his 
 manly dignity in the same. 
 
 But now Dresson entered, arrayed in his ordinary 
 costume, pre-Raphaelite cut, with unusual distinction 
 in its tone and coloring. 
 
 "My swallow-tail salutes your knee-breeches!" 
 said the Doctor, profoundly bowing, as Dresson 
 lightly touched his hand in greeting. 
 
 " ' Pon my word, ladies, I acknowledge myself in an 
 eclipsed condition as far as our costumes are concerned 
 barring the color-scheme in my own, which in sober 
 richness excels, you know"- glancing up and down 
 his fine person as far as the optic law permitted ; 
 " but, my Queen," he said, taking Elise one side, the 
 dancing admiration of his eyes finding vocal outlet, 
 "is all my queen for a' that. By Jove ! you're every 
 inch a queen, Elise," he exclaimed, turning her round. 
 She revolved slowly that he might study the parts 
 in detail as well as in combination. " I consider 
 your costume," he remarked with profound emphasis, 
 having stood off, viewing her through his single glass, 
 " the expression of a notable intelligence and a line 
 imagination." 
 
 " The ancient Greeks and Mr. Worth are duly grate- 
 ful for your appreciation of their work," she assented 
 with a dainty courtesy. 
 
 " Is that a part of the evening's entertainment?" 
 the Doctor called out. 
 
 " Spin ! Lily. I am not going to have you out- 
 done by that giddy Archer girl. Why don't you spin 
 and make your ' cheese ' ? What is the next in order 
 on the programme, eh, Dresson ? Well, here goes for
 
 THE FIRST GREEK FESTIVAL. 129 
 
 a pirouette ! " he said, flinging himself high in air 
 and nimbly twirling in fantastic measure. "Now, 
 Dresson, for your * pigeon wing' 1 eh? that belongs to 
 your period, my man haven't you acquired the ac- 
 complishment yet?" 
 
 " This is hideously chromatique," Dresson observed, 
 smiling savagely, who had a too attenuated refine- 
 ment for fun that required agilit} r . 
 
 " I always refrain from the startling or discordant, 
 you know," he said, grimly. 
 
 " ' Pon my word, Doctor, you are as uncompromis- 
 ing in your treatment of the ladies and myself, as 
 you have been in the starched primness of your get- 
 up," he continued in a tone of slight irritation. 
 
 " Good ! " said the Doctor, who enjoyed more 
 than the best Burgundy a spree of choice pre-Ra- 
 phaelite tantalization. " That's right, Dresson, cham- 
 pion the ladies ! You may have to go in to the death 
 before the war is over." 
 
 " For shame, Doctor," cried Lily and Elise. 
 
 " Oh, the beautiful music ! Listen ! " exclaimed 
 Elise, " they are coming." 
 
 A concord of melodious sounds, pure as the breath 
 of Heaven, from flute and obiole came singing 
 through the walls. Nearer and nearer swelled the 
 crescendo, till a full burst of rich harmony, followed 
 by a loud blast from the martial trumpet, announced 
 the arrival at the gate. The door opened as by in- 
 visible hands, and Professor Monboddo led in his 
 marshalled array. 
 
 " My dear," said the Doctor to Lily, and then 
 turning to the Professor, who was by his side, " if 
 the Professor will kindly act as my substitute during 
 the rest of the reception ceremonies, I will "beg you 
 to excuse me for an hour." 
 
 " I regret the necessity, but if the Professor is will- 
 ing," Lily replied. 
 
 The Professor was a bachelor ; and although a man 
 of that inimitable politeness which springs from cul- 
 ture and a sincere and universal kindliness of spirit
 
 130 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 was totally unacquainted with the conventional 
 punctilios which govern society. 
 
 lie exhibited a real diffidence mingled with a 
 genuine candor in meeting the difficulty, that cap- 
 tivated them both and disarmed any suspicions Lily 
 might have had as to his eligibility. 
 
 " It is, indeed, deeply to be regretted that the 
 master of the mansion must absent himself from any 
 part of the delightful time we anticipate, but as a 
 guest in your house, Doctor Healey, I must not seek 
 to escape the honor of your confidence." 
 
 He bowed low to both, and then continued pleas- 
 antly : 
 
 " ' The back shall be fitted for the burden,' so I read. 
 All my available vigilance and courtesy, Mrs. Healey, 
 are cheerfully dedicated to your service. Bach- 
 elors have not lost the art of smiling, and Mrs. Healey 
 is rarely gifted with smooth phrasing, so we may 
 perhaps steer the ship in your absence, sir," he 
 said blandly, waving his hand as the Doctor made 
 his exit. 
 
 " What do you think of it, Otto? " inquired Elise, 
 as they were walking through the gay throng after 
 one of the Grecian movements. 
 
 " It is immensely brilliant," he replied " an un- 
 equalled success." 
 
 "But I mean the costuming, specially?" she 
 explained. 
 
 " Well," he replied with a slow, drawling circum- 
 flex accent, " let me see.! " adjusting his eyeglass 
 and glancing over the company, including Elise. 
 "The present style of apparel, and by that I mean 
 the prevailing modern style, is too rigid and exact 
 in its outlines, you know, too set and determined 
 in its form there are no delightful spaces for im- 
 agination to revel in, all is compact, close, severe ; 
 this style," again scrutinizing those within easy-view- 
 ing distance, " is well, it touches the opposite ex- 
 treme, you know, in the utter neglect of definite form ; 
 the handling is feathery and the color is unrefined
 
 THE FIRST GREEK FESTIVAL. 131 
 
 not quite the correct thing, you see ; " then, perceiving 
 her disappointment, he added, " but it is rich and clear 
 .in tone and excellent in justness of values, and might 
 be modified to advantage." 
 
 The merry music rang out for the next dance, and 
 Channingcame to claim Elise. 
 
 Dressou sought Miss Love. 
 
 Elise was as full of the poetry of motion as her 
 dress was of poetry of color, and with light and fairy 
 step hastened to her place in the dance. 
 
 " I shall need your assistance in detecting these 
 characters," Elise remarked to Channing, as they 
 were sitting upon an antiquated rockee which had 
 for upholstery a veritable bear-skin thrown over it and 
 pendent at the back, sides and front. 
 
 " They were announced by their Greek names and 
 not by their characters. Some, I think, I ought to 
 recognize, as, for instance, AtlienS with her helmet or 
 owl, and Demeter with her grain and bushel-crown, 
 Juno with her dove, and so on." 
 
 " The Greek art is so diversified in its delineation of 
 the different mythological characters," Channing re- 
 plied, " that there are many representations and sym- 
 bols for the same goddess. I ought perhaps to make 
 this modification of the statement, that there is also a 
 universally acknowledged identifying symbol for each 
 goddess." 
 
 " This lovely Miss Tete ! " exclaimed Elise, "so deli- 
 cate, so ethereal do you see her with her veil and 
 girdle, her white himation embroidered in flowers of 
 gold?" 
 
 " ' The nymph's fair head a veil transparent graced ; 
 Her swelling loins a radiant zone embraced 
 With flowers of gold ; an under robe, unbound, 
 In snowy waves flow'd glittering on the ground.' 
 
 he quoted for answer in deep, rich tones, with eyes 
 closed, calling up the musical strains of Odyssey. 
 
 "That brings up the lovely Nausicaa " 
 
 " She was announced as Heliodora" interrupted 
 Elise.
 
 132 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 ' " With veil, a work partaking of the spider's web?" 
 "Yes," assented Elise, "quite diaphanous." 
 " That lady with the saffron robe 
 " There are several," he interrupted " with the 
 circling sandals, do you mean? " 
 " Yes ; that is Miss Stilz as Enyo. 
 
 " ' Who sits dressed out with flowers and blazing robes 
 Of saffron hue, and richly broidered o'er 
 With loose Cimmerian vests and circling sandals.' " 
 
 And then bending, as he saw Elise playfully drawing 
 her veil over her face, and whispering low, he said : 
 
 " ' O'er her fair face a snowy veil she threw, 
 And softly sighing from the loom withdrew.' " 
 
 "Shall I go ?" she asked, laughing. "You are the 
 machine in motion just now, so I must e'en take you 
 for the loom to carry out the figure." 
 
 But he gently detained her, and then, as he saw her 
 color rising, quoted again : 
 
 " ' And veiled her blushes in a silken shade ; 
 Her hair's fair ornaments the braids that bound, 
 The net that held them, and the wreath that crowned 
 The veil and diadem, flew far away.' 
 
 May your fate be brighter than poor Andromache's ! " 
 he said absently. 
 
 " Why, I shall dream I am walking in the midst of 
 the Iliad to-night!" she said; " my mind is stepping 
 in the march of it now." 
 
 " That you have earned a victorious rest a rest 
 without dreams the success of this marvellously 
 brilliant entertainment abundantly attests," he re- 
 marked with a sudden access of enthusiasm. " Mrs. 
 Healey and Miss Archer should be canonized at once 
 for inaugurating this grand movement. But are you 
 very tired?" he inquired, with a suggestion of linger- 
 ing tenderness in his tone, observing a slight droop- 
 ing of her figure. 
 
 " I wish to compliment Miss Archer upon her skil- 
 ful reproduction of the charming toilet of Aphro-
 
 THE FIRST GUEEK FESTIVAL. 133 
 
 dite" said the Professor, at that instant approaching 
 "On my first \ie\v, I bore a resemblance to the 
 brave Anchises, for like him all my senses were 
 
 " ' With wonder stricken ; and high taken heeds 
 Both of her form, brave stature, and rich weeds. 
 For for a veil she shine.l in an attire 
 That cast a radiance past the ray of fire, 
 Beneath which, wore she girt to her a gown 
 Wrought all with growing rose buds reaching down 
 T' her slender smalls which buskins did divine 
 Such as taught T/ieti^ silver feet to shine. 
 Her soft, white neck rich carcanets embraced 
 Bright, and with gold in all variety graced 
 That to her bust let down, lay there and shone 
 As at her joyful full the rising inoon.' 
 
 But, Miss Archer, I beg pardon for this display of 
 Greek literature ; upon any other occasion it might 
 justly be considered pedantic, but may I not hope 
 that the novelty of a genuine Greek Festival in this 
 American village will be a sufficient excuse for what 
 was permit me to assure you a spontaneous out- 
 burst?" 
 
 "Homer is in the ascendency to-night, Professor," 
 laughed Channing. "I have been indulging myself 
 in some spouting, and have caught occasional snatches 
 of the divine melody from Critobulus over there, and 
 Menelaus jnst passed quoting it in IphigenicCs ear. 
 Trust the Monboddoes for airing their Greek to-night, 
 sir!" 
 
 "It is quite in keeping with the scene, I am sure," 
 observed Elise. " I can speak for myself when I de- 
 clare that its rare music penetrates my very soul. I 
 was saying to Mr. Earle just now, Professor, that I 
 should dream of figuring in Homeric scenes to-night, 
 and now to you I confess that your poetry has made 
 me feel like a harp that old ' harp of a thousand 
 strings,' " she added, laughing, " every one of which is 
 vibrating to the rhythmic cadence." 
 
 " And that will perhaps be the effect upon Crito- 
 bulus' friend, you think? I must try it," he said. 
 " Is it not a laudable undertaking ? It is well worth
 
 134 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 while to set such harps a-going invisible music pro- 
 duces tangible results will you bear me out in that, 
 Achilles ? " 
 
 "Undoubtedly," replied Channing, "but how about 
 the effect when the perpetrator undertakes his deed 
 with malice prepense ? " he inquired, laughing. 
 
 " Oh ! " replied the Professor good-naturedly, 
 " this time I mean to be the ideal artist, not the real 
 istic, and after I have produced my effects, I shall 
 confess the little plot for the truth's sake Justitia 
 fiat ruit ccelum ! " 
 
 Something in the flowing folds of her dress as they 
 sat there reminded Channing of the day they first 
 met. 
 
 " Isn't it about time for you to fulfil your promise, 
 Miss Archer ? " 
 
 Her look gave no* sign of an intelligent comprehen- 
 sion, and he explained : 
 
 " J was to be enlightened with regard to a passing 
 mystery 'some other time ;' and meantime, I was 
 not to misconstrue the action or treasure up spite 
 against the actor ; having faithfully complied with 
 the conditions, I claim the guerdon. I am ready to 
 prove, if necessary," he continued, perceiving that she 
 had no clue to his meaning, "that the appointed period 
 for the disclosure lies just in this present moment 
 between the two eternities." 
 
 Elise assumed her favorite thinking posture. 
 This necessarily involve'd Channing in the study 
 of her fingers and the top of her head, without, how- 
 ever, interfering with his philological ramble. 
 
 " And still it doesn't come," she said, looking up 
 with a perplexed air. 
 
 " The moment is propitious," he went on, tantaliz- 
 ingly. "No Professor of the Literary Art is within 
 hearing ; even Mrs. Healey has conveniently vanished. 
 That we are 
 
 " I must be intrinsically stupid. What can it be ? " 
 Elise interrupted, still with head bent and eyes closed, 
 vainly challenging the inner light.
 
 . THE FIRST GREEK FESTIVAL. 135 
 
 "As I was remarking, 1 ' he continued, provokingly, 
 " that we are now living in time will, I suppose, com- 
 mand your fullest assent; that it may be divided 
 into three distinct parts, each claiming a specific juris- 
 diction, is, I think, equally clear this, that, and the 
 other; the last mentioned being the most remote from 
 the time of the action say three months which is, 
 you must admit, sufficient to constitute qualification. 
 That point of time has now arrived ; many others 
 equally entitled to the name have intervened, but 
 because the parties were not upon the ground to fix 
 them with the desired impression they departed un- 
 encumbered by the strain." 
 
 " I am afraid that is more than I shall be, if this 
 goes on much longer," Elise said, laughing and look- 
 ing up. " Was it about you or me or ? " 
 
 " The dark horse ? " he suggested. " I imagine the 
 latter ; at all events it is enveloped in clouds of black- 
 ness at the present moment it might possibly have 
 been the Trojan horse, but that, according to the 
 best authorities, wasn't dark." 
 
 Darting through the innumerable convolutions of 
 association that proved the cue to the riddle 
 
 " Ah ! I dimly see ! " she cried, and then as the 
 whole flashed upon her. " Oh, is that all ? " she 
 asked, brightly. " Why, I have been thinking of all 
 sorts of formidable things to solve your mystery. 
 The word ' Trojan' is eminently suggestive of Greek, 
 you know." 
 
 " I see before me a statuesque figure draped in 
 soft, flowing white," he interrupted, in a dramatic 
 tone. 
 
 Elise laughed and put out a deprecating hand, 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! I see at last. I have often wondered 
 that you didn't ask me to explain, and then again I 
 forgot it entirely. If you will pardon my delinquenc}', 
 your mind shall be at once relieved; and really your 
 patience deserves a more choice bit of intelligence 
 than I have to offer, for it wasn't anything at all. 
 It was only about your costume. Lily and I had been
 
 136 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 talking about it, and she thought I spoke disparagingly 
 of it. That was a great while ago," she said, in an 
 explanatory tone, " and I didn't know } r ou, and hadn't 
 studied the Greek costume." 
 
 " But just what was it ? Your method of throw- 
 ing light is wonderfully effective, I confess, in render- 
 ing the shadows more conspicuous," he laughed. 
 
 "Well, I thought that the pre-Raphaelite costume 
 had the advantage in symbolism." 
 
 Channing was intently regarding her. " Don't -you 
 admire the dress? " he asked, with surprise. 
 
 " Yes, I admire the dress, but I don't admire the 
 inconsistency ! " 
 
 "Upon that principle, you necessitate my admira- 
 tion of Miss Archer." 
 
 She looked at him with a blushful protestation. 
 
 " ' Consistency is a jewel,' " he replied to her eyes. 
 " So saith tlie poet." 
 
 There was a pretty mingling of innocent frankness 
 and modest confusion in her manner, as she said, a 
 little thoughtfully : 
 
 " The inconsistency does come though in flashes, 
 just like the gleam of the opal." 
 
 " Don't let that mystery becloud your bright life," 
 he said kindly. 
 
 She had removed her necklace and placed it in her 
 lap: she lifted the flashing gems as suddenly as she 
 had displaced them, and said, with bright resolution: 
 
 " Well, here goes ! " clasping them around her 
 neck. "I'll wear the opals and bear the blame of 
 being born in the most beautiful month of the year ! " 
 
 " Quite right you are. Opals cannot kill you 
 cannot hurt you." 
 
 " How could they hurt me ? I am living it down, 
 Mr. Earle." 
 
 " The superstition? " he inquired. 
 
 " Yes," she replied absently. " I discard in toto the 
 idea of their being the harbinger of evil, or ominous 
 of misfortune or failure in life, and yet some queer 
 things have happened," she said, looking intently on 
 vacancy in the distance.
 
 THE FIRST GREEK FESTIVAL. 137 
 
 " I judge, from what your confidence has imparted 
 to me on this subject, that 3*011 have inherited a scrap 
 of love of the marvellous," he said, "but your good 
 sense must confirm your affirmation that opals can- 
 not be portentous of evil. This 'noble opal,' withits 
 delicate rainbow tints, is only a rare variety of silica, 
 one of the most abundant minerals in the earth's 
 crust." 
 
 " Yes, I know," she interrupted. " I have studied 
 the subject thoroughly. Beautiful little innocents ! " 
 she said, resting her cheek upon a cluster gathered 
 in her hand. " It is a shame to abuse you so." 
 
 But there was a touch of sadness in her voice, and 
 Channing, who had unwittingly led her thoughts 
 into this current, made haste to dispel the shadow. 
 
 "But to return to the previous question," he 
 said, smiling. " You see I am not getting that ille- 
 gally-postponed information. You were so good as to 
 label me. Miss Elise, will you also kindly explain 
 me the class?" And straightening himself to his 
 fullest proportions he called out, indicating his mean- 
 ing by graceful pantomime : 
 
 " Class number one, now in order for the lec- 
 ture ! " 
 
 Elise dismissed her forebodings, and accepted the 
 bantering challenge with her usual spirit. 
 
 " This is it, you see .' You adopt Greek costume 
 that implies a discipleshipto Greek manners and Greek 
 thought. But you talk and act like a man of the nine- 
 teenth century and you haven't the Greek plausible- 
 ness the Greek strategy the 'Greek-honey' " 
 
 " That is hard on a Monboddo," he interrupted, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Nor the Greek art of dissimulation," she con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " More flattering to me than to the model Greek, 
 I find after all, is your picture." 
 
 "But if adoption of a costume implied imitation of 
 the character from which it was borrowed, the ladies 
 would all be transformed into the senseless beauties
 
 138 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 of the harem with their suspicions and intrigues." 
 
 Elise looked puzzled but incredulous. 
 
 " The fascinating bung in which ladies revel (by 
 the way, yours has kindly caught a delicate wave) is 
 after the Turkish pattern," he said, with an amused 
 smile at her bewilderment, "and the insidious bangles 
 are borrowed from the Orient ! " 
 
 " But Ave don't pretend to like those Orientals or to 
 consider them our models," she said quickly. " We 
 only wear them because it is the fashion and they 
 ' become ' us." 
 
 " We confidently expect Fashion to catch up our 
 dress as a delicious novelty before veiy long and 
 make it the rage : that it is ' becoming ' is the unan- 
 imous verdict of the ladies, and it goes without say- 
 ing that it is comfortable and convenient as well as 
 picturesque." 
 
 " But ought not our dress to be symbolic?" she 
 urged. 
 
 " It would be charming to carry out the idea of a 
 moral significance, Miss Elise, but that has not been 
 exactly my view," he replied. "That it has a power- 
 ful dramatic quality, enhancing or marring the value 
 of scenes on life's stage is strikingly apparent and 
 universally conceded. Fancy a dandy masquerading 
 as a teacher, or a bespangled and beflounced belle as 
 a housewife, or a starched divine as a gymnast, or a 
 tinkling zany as a priest ! Cleopatra dressed in rags 
 would not have captured Cresar, and Henry Eighth 
 would have found some difficulty in overawing his sub- 
 jects in a plain jersey and trunk-hose. Magnificence 
 and richness of dress, in each case, was a potent factor 
 in arriving at the product of servility. The one could 
 outrival Antony's lavish expense on a dinner by swal- 
 lowing a dissolved pearl, and the other severed the 
 papal connection and established himself ' Head of 
 the Church ' by velvet and cloth-of-gold vestments, 
 with diamond, ruby, and pearl fastenings. 
 
 "Suppose, Miss Elise, we commence our reforma- 
 tion with the bangs," he said, laughing. " Are you
 
 THE FIRST GEEEK FESTIVAL. 139 
 
 ready to sacrifice that precious adornment and keep 
 the hair long, as the Scriptures ordain, declaring that 
 it is your glory? You know how Isaiah berated the 
 Jewish maidens for their crisping-pins and the wimples 
 and head-bands, and tablets, and mufflers 
 
 " But I would look frightful ! " she said, laughing ; 
 " you wouldn't like it." 
 
 "It has taken some time," he said, "to elevate 
 ourselves up to the standard of supreme and bewitch- 
 ing dishevel me ut of the front hair now in vogue, and 
 doubtless we should part with our visions with a sigh 
 but in time, we could be reconciled to a noble 
 showing of brow, I fancy." 
 
 "Oh! oh!" she laughed, "you are turning the 
 whole thing into ridicule. It is a serious matter, isn't 
 it, when it begins at home ? But truly, if there was 
 any principle involved in the hair-management 3-011 
 see I have not said one word about your Olympian- 
 locks I would abandon my style ; but there isn't, 
 is there ? " 
 
 He was looking critically at the top of her head, 
 that to liis view had never looked so queenly, and as 
 he did not immediately reply, she continued: 
 
 " Unless you expressly object to my wearing a bang,. 
 I will leave that reform to the next generation ! 
 They take up ne\v things easily." 
 
 What a melody was singing in his heart; her 
 eyes had a wonderful softness as she looked into his. 
 Did she then really care foi 1 him? But the ecstatic 
 thrill of the moment was succeeded by a forced calm, 
 as he replied with a doubtful 
 
 " Well permit me, Miss Elise," turning her 
 face round to view the profile effect of the Grecian 
 knot and brow and then added gently, " What you 
 wish is also my decree* Yes, we will leave it to the 
 next generation ! But there are some burdens that 
 we of the present generation must carry, you know, 
 the chief one of which I consider a banishment from 
 your presence," he said, as he saw Dresson approach- 
 ing.
 
 140 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " But why need you go ? " she urged. " I am not half 
 through my lecture," she added, laughing. " I wanted 
 to say that it is a shame that women cannot be reform- 
 ers in anything, not even in the matter of their own 
 dress. Doctor Carpenter expatiates before the Sani- 
 tary Congress in New Castle on the sinful absurdity 
 of tight stays and shoes with high heels and pointed 
 toes, and Count Ziegler is another agitator, and Mr. 
 Roberts still another, on the enormities of modern 
 costume ; but we can't eradicate the comfortable 
 superstition from our sisters' minds that we are in 
 possession of the ideal costume else why do they 
 cling to it so ? " 
 
 Her utterance had been rapid and her tone had in 
 it a kind of smothered impatience with women in 
 general and Mr. Earle in particular, as she paused 
 suddenly and turned to greet Dresson. 
 
 " There is the evangel of the Divided-skirt, you 
 know," Channing said upon leaving; " perhaps your 
 friend would advise that championship."
 
 WHAT THE "-NEW ERA" SAID. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WHAT THE " NEW ERA " SAID. 
 
 THE next day there appeared flaming accounts of 
 the Fe*te in the morning and evening dailies, and in 
 the New Era the organ of the Academia della 
 Crusca tliere were the following notices in the 
 society-column : 
 
 " Dr. Healey's well-appointed mansion was the 
 theater last evening of a phenomenal display, which 
 in point of artistic elegance, classic aestheticism and 
 radiant personnel has perhaps rarely been equaled 
 certainly never upon this continent. 
 
 All the 6lite of the village were present, besides 
 an importation of foreign celebrities. The occasion 
 was the inauguration of the Greek Festival, the first 
 of a series, and Mrs. Healey and her charming friend 
 have had a triumph in the brilliant success of their 
 elaborate scheme. The whole scene was marked with 
 an Sclat that will not soon be forgotten by those who 
 had the honor to be present. 
 
 " With the exception of a few straggling trousers, 
 which were as ornamental in that picturesque gather- 
 ing as leafless forked twigs in a garden of flowers, 
 the scene was pre eminently pictorial a moving tab- 
 leau of the refined historic period in Greece, when 
 the elaborate richness of material and of embroidered 
 draperies that characterized the costumes of the 
 Homeric age was supplanted by the more subtle dis- 
 tinctions of a cultivated taste. ' Archaic rudeness and 
 rustic extravagance became refined grace and classic 
 harmony.' Instead of he battle scenes and animal 
 figures of the Homeric age for embroidery-subjects,
 
 142 THE OPAL QUKKtf. 
 
 the simpler designs of flowers were in vogue, and the 
 decorations in great measure confined to the borders 
 of the garments ; and the fancy and skill of the 
 wearers were exercised in the various ingenious modes 
 of making the peplum form 'grand and contrasted 
 draperies.' 
 
 " As this garment was seldom fastened by clasps or 
 buttons, it was kept upon the shoulders by the intri- 
 cacy of its involutions ; this arrangement, together 
 with the picturesque kolpos, or hanging corners of the 
 loose ends of the chiton, produced those bewitching 
 classic folds in drapery which are the passion of every 
 sculptor. 
 
 " The material used in the dresses last evening was 
 chiefly cashmere, albatross or some soft, warm mate- 
 rial, which would admit of flowing lines in that 
 pleasing art of costuming which drapes but does not 
 conceal the form. 
 
 " Did our space permit, we would gladly indulge in 
 individual mention of an assemblage characterized by 
 harmony without a blemish, where all were stars, 
 but a few may be mentioned as types of the others. 
 
 "The bewitching Miss Starr personated Athene in 
 the diplax. This, we will explain for the benefit of the 
 uninitiated, is a himation or outer garment (called 
 sometimes peplum), folded double, and so arranged 
 over the chiton or tunic as to give the effect of two 
 overskirts ; the upper and shorter one hanging down 
 in a point in front, and the other end of it falling 
 gracefully over the bosom or on one side like a wide 
 scarf. A small downy collar of the albatross, worn 
 low around the neck and fastened with a Gorgon- 
 headed brooch, and a helmet and sandals completed 
 the simple but elegant costume. 
 
 " Pre-eminent among the shining throng stood the 
 charming and accomplished hostess, Mrs. Heale} r , in 
 the fascinating garb of Hygeia^ with white cashmere 
 himation partly twisted round the body as a girdle, 
 a diadem, and 
 
 ' A veil of richest texture wrought she wears,'
 
 WHAT THE "NEW ERA " SAID. 143 
 
 hanging from it over her shoulders nearly to the 
 ground. The chaste and refined elegance of this cos- 
 tume \vas universally admired. We fancy we seethe 
 Doctor's ruling in the admirable choice, and if Mrs. 
 Ilealey should succeed in making it fashionable, the 
 village would maintain the pair in luxury, as its just 
 debt for stealing the Doctor's now lucrative practice. 
 "But the Queen of the evening, as also the Queen of 
 love, whom she so fittingly represented, was the bril- 
 liant Miss Archer as Aphrodite. The wool chiton- 
 spun like gauze reaching to the feet was embroidered 
 in rosebuds through its whole web, and an ex- 
 quisitely embroidered iridescent peplum hung in 
 bewitching folds around the body, and then passed 
 over the head as a veil. We can imagine Miss 
 Archer in the restoration of those long forgotten pro- 
 cesses of the toilet, so glowingly described by the 
 greatest epic poet : 
 
 " ' Thus while she breathed of heaven, with decent pride 
 Her artful hands the radiant tresses tied ; 
 Part o'er her head in shining ringlets rolled, 
 Part o'er her shoulders waved like melted gold. 
 Around her neck a heavenly mantle flowed, 
 That rich with Pallus 1 labored colors glowed ; 
 Large clasps of gold the foldings gathered round, 
 A golden zone her swelling bosom bound, 
 Far-beaming pendants trembling in her ear, " 
 Each gem illumined with a triple star. 
 Then o'er her head she cast a veil more white 
 Than new-fallen snow and dazzling as the light. 
 Last, her fair feet celestial sandals grace.' 
 
 " The elegant Miss Love wore garments of saffron 
 hue ; her clasp-fastened chiton was richly embroi- 
 dered down the front, and a veil fell from her tiara 
 back over her shoulders to the ground. The Greek 
 poets hint of the ' overwhelming effect ' of this 
 colored robe in fascinating men ; that it was not lost 
 upon the moderns we may judge by the admirers 
 that thronged around the fair wearer. Have we not, 
 indeed, a rude homely rhyme repeated by our grand- 
 mothers as extant in their day which recognizes the 
 same truth?
 
 144 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " ' Red and yellow 
 Catch a fellow.' 
 
 " As one of the proofs of- the influence of the color 
 in Greece, in one of the Greek plays the poet repre- 
 sents the father-in-law of Euripides disguising him- 
 self as a woman, in a saffron-colored robe, in order 
 to plead for the tragic poet at the Thesmophoria. 
 
 " Miss Smart's profusion of cropped ringlets served 
 her well in the character of Electra. She wore a 
 mauve velvet tunic embroidered in single flowers 
 throughout, clasped on the shoulders and girded at 
 the waist ; her peplum with decorated border was 
 disposed gracefully about her person. 
 
 " Miss Bnnce figured admirably as a Bacchante with 
 her thyrsus. She wore a chiton with an embroidered 
 border overgirt with a diploidion, also decorated with 
 bands ; the short sleeves were gathered into a band, 
 and had also bands running lengthwise like insertion. 
 A long gauze scarf with embroidered ends and silken 
 stars all through it, part floating, part draping her 
 with a matchless grace, completed this airy costume, 
 which was the nearest approach to the modern of 
 any style represented. 
 
 "Miss Sternm, whose willowy figure is the very 
 poetry of moti-on, wore the dress of a ' flute-player '- 
 a cream-colored tunic and peplum the latter dis- 
 posed loosely around her body and caught up in 
 front, with stars all through it, and a rich border 
 in scrolls and points a deeply effective, graceful 
 costume. 
 
 " Another pleasing type was Artemis, with tunic let 
 down to the ground, so arranged as to present the 
 appearance of sleeves, by bringing the folds of the 
 chiton together on the shoulders, and fastening them 
 down to the elbow with buttons or agraffes, so that 
 at intervals the naked flesh showed between ; she wore 
 a decorated girdle and a long veil falling down behind 
 in many folds, and fastened with a diamond rose, by 
 the two narrow ends in front on the bosom. This 
 distingu^ costume appeared upon Miss St. John.
 
 WHAT THE " NE\V ERA " SAID. 145 
 
 " For matronly ladies there were some elegant and 
 appropriate modes : one of great simplicity was the 
 double chiton or diploidion, having the effect of a 
 loose sacque. It was embroidered around the border 
 and the himation was carried upon the arm in case 
 of need. 
 
 " Another very plain but effective drapery was the 
 long-sleeved chiton with himation forming a diagonal 
 overskirt and falling over the chest in loose folds. 
 This appeared with or without a veil. 
 
 " The himation worn around the body and over 
 the head as a veil, sleeves of the chiton down to the 
 elbow, the two sides linked together by agraffes, was 
 another popular style for middle-aged ladies. 
 
 " Athene wearing the goat's skin was a favorite 
 figure ; the tunic with short, unadorned sleeves had 
 the under part pulled up through the girdle two 
 legs of the skin crossed in front over the bosom with 
 a clasp, and the other two fell down at the sides over 
 the body. The whole was confined above the hips 
 with a zone, and made a very picturesque costume. 
 
 " The dressing of the hair was of the pure Grecian 
 type ; it was braided or curled and bound by bands, 
 it was Ornamented with rows of beads, wreaths of 
 flowers, ' nettings, fillets, skewers, and innumerable 
 gewgaws.' The head was adorned with the bushel- 
 shaped crown or the crescent-shaped 'diadem. The 
 sandals were tied by strings ' disposed in a variety of 
 elegant ways across the instep and around the ankle.' 
 Some wore shoes or half-boots laced before and lined 
 with fur. Earrings, necklaces, and bracelets in the 
 form of hoops or snakes for the upper and lower arms 
 were in endless variety and profusion. 
 
 " White, with variegated embroidery, was the pre- 
 vailing color for the robes, and the diamond was the 
 prevailing stone. It was a glittering, unique, ever- 
 to-be-remembered pageant. Dr. Healey, the honored 
 and genial host, proclaimed, to the infinite amuse- 
 ment of the guests, that those who were too classic 
 to partake of a substantial modern refection, would
 
 146 THE OPAL QtfEElf. . 
 
 find lilies and sunflowers and orations and poetry set 
 out d la mode in the library. 
 
 " It is needless to say that there was ample justice 
 done to the sumptuous banquet by real, vitalized 
 Americans, who proved to be Greeks only as to their 
 dress. 
 
 " We say nothing of the costume of the gentlemen, 
 as the Monbodd'oes have made our reading public 
 familiar with it. It was characterized by the usual 
 good taste, with a sprinkling of white in the midst of 
 the conventional purple. 
 
 " Conspicuous among the brilliant throng of 
 gentlemen was our distinguished townsman, Chan- 
 ning Earle, Jr., as Anchises. 
 
 " ' A robe of military purple flowed 
 
 O'er all his frame ; illustrious on his breast 
 
 The double-clasping gold the king confest. 
 
 Fine as a filmy web beneath it shone 
 
 A vest that dazzled like a cloudless sun. 
 
 The female train, who round him thronged to gaze 
 
 In silent wonder, sighed unwilling praise.' 
 
 "After this compliment to the phenomenally modest 
 youth, we may as well arrange our private affairs and 
 prepare for the traditional editor's bullet."
 
 DOUBTS. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 " Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning 
 Oh ! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest 
 mourning." 
 
 Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " SEE, Lily, what Otto has brought me ! " said 
 Elise, gliding into the room where Mrs. Healey was 
 sitting, and holding up great bundles of the clero- 
 dendron. " It seems like wrenching one of nature's 
 pretty secrets out of her bosom to tear it away from 
 its rocky hiding-place so soon. Quite enterprising, 
 wasn't it? I suppose he had a good hunt for them." 
 
 It was early for the graceful blossom, and the deli- 
 cate clusters had a fine expressiveness to Elise, as 
 she busied herself with their arrangement in vases. 
 
 " k Quite a hunt ' ! " said the Doctor, who had been 
 apparently absorbed in his newspaper, "pretty tough 
 on his pre-Raphaelitism. Why, he had to go all the 
 way to Grand and Albemarle, before lie found the 
 traditional 'small boy,' who is wonderfully effective, 
 Miss Elise, in supplementing one's own work, you 
 know, in such matters. To Hunt the boy and pay 
 the let me see ! " he said, massing the bunches to- 
 gether again "yes, that is just about what they 
 cost him, a couple of dollars that is the hard part; 
 the trifling matter of gathering them is not worth 
 mentioning." 
 
 The rose faded out of Elise's cheek which the 
 thought of her lover's devotion had heightened, for 
 the Doctor had not spared his banter of late on 
 Dresson's laziness, and Elise, though keenly sensitive
 
 148 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 to his disparagement, had usually accepted it in the 
 light, jesting way it was given. 
 
 But to-night she was not quice up to the Doctors 
 pitch of expression. 
 
 She could not tell why, but she felt weary, un- 
 strung. Bresson had spent the entire evening with 
 her, and she found herself every moment growing 
 duller. She tried to arouse herself, and manufacture 
 a sympathy in his discourse to brighten up, but 
 she felt as though she was in the weary round of a 
 treadmill. Dresson had given her no time for sup- 
 plementary study on his enunciated art views, and 
 she had worn her own knowledge threadbare on the 
 fruitful science of aesthetics. She had travelled with 
 him from Frankfort-on-the-Oder through Germany 
 and England into America, following in the wake 
 of the much-bulletined Oscar. She was familiar 
 with the theories of Schiller, Kant, Fichte, Cousin, 
 and the moderns, Ruskin, Rossetti, Millais, Holman 
 Hunt, and wandered through the regions of decora- 
 tive art under the guidance of " Morris & Co." 
 
 She had usually enlivened the discourse and given 
 it freshness and novelty by her fantastic comparisons, 
 symbolical interpretations (for she was a devout 
 admirer of Ruskin), or unexpected sallies into other 
 fields. She had done it without effort, because she 
 had been her free, unrestrained self. But the monot- 
 ony of the thing was wearing on her. The tine play 
 of nerve required to preserve her balance on high 
 ground with frequent somersaults into the plains 
 was taxing to the nervous energy ; and when it became 
 the settled routine of a " season's " campaign, the 
 continued strain in the endeavor to hold the mind 
 up to its best impressions on a subject partly appre- 
 hended through the refinements of an instinctive taste 
 and perception, was simply disastrous the damage 
 had been creeping in stealthily, but it was sure. 
 
 She was conscious of inspiring a certain calm en- 
 thusiasm in her lover, but this was no part of her 
 conscious effort; what she really desired was to
 
 DOUBTS. 149 
 
 establish an atmosphere of true congenial happiness. 
 
 Dresson's quietly delicate attentions were as un- 
 remitted, his canticles of praise to her beauty as 
 numerous and delicious, us in the early courtship; 
 he still managed the arsis and thesis of his voice with 
 irresistible musical languor, and called her " My 
 Queen " with a winning deference but his uncompro- 
 mising treatment on art lines was not rewarded with 
 a rapturous ovation. The spontaneity of her nature 
 was continually chilling from the conventionalism of 
 his. He attempted to kindle a flaming love-heat 
 with the frosty stick of elegant artificialities, and was 
 successful in smothering the original sparks. 
 
 The Doctor, somewhat taken by surprise not to 
 hear the usual playful assertion or mild defense from 
 Elise, said brightly: 
 
 " He has about all he ought to do, to take care of 
 you properly. I used to think so; eh, Lily?" 
 
 Lily laughed and said, " I think you made fewer 
 pills in those days. You remember, Elise, he was his 
 own druggist at M Springs. " 
 
 At the mention of the dear old days, Elise easily 
 dismissed the annoyance caused by the playful assault 
 on Dresson, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Butoh! you tantalizing mortal ! you came pretty 
 near losing her didn't he, Lil? And I was your 
 valiant champion. Lily will tell you so ! " 
 
 "Yes, she has told me," he remarked, dryly. "I 
 get a rehash every anniversary, and a little= Irish 
 is it, dear? steiv thrown in between, on days when 
 I am particularly contumacious alarming, and she 
 wants to bring me to the stool of repentance." 
 
 " Now, Doctor," Lily laughed, "Elise will think 
 you are a tyrant, an unmanageable Benedict, dissat- 
 isfied with affairs." 
 
 " Quite right ! and so I am, a tyrannical husband 
 that eats the bread of diligence, and compels his wife 
 to grow fat on the same diet." 
 
 "Compels?" protested Lily, laughing. 
 
 " That is what I said, dear. Did you never hear of
 
 150 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 the power of example that forces people right out of 
 their boots on to the plane of the exemplar? That's 
 the way I force my wife. Why, I have drawn more 
 lambrequins and screens and tidies and " glancing all 
 around the room "everlasting decorations out of her 
 unwilling fingers than I could make in a life-time ! 
 Nothing like it, you see! Hold your wives up to 
 your own high mark, if you appreciate harmony in 
 the household. Eh, Lil? ain't I a first-class Boss?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, you are a good-for-nothing despot, 
 fighting for harmony and squabbling for peace." 
 
 "Now there's Dresson," continued the Doctor, 
 "you'll escape all that with him, Elise. What you 
 will chiefly require in those halcyon days will be 
 ears to hear and eyes to see his lordship.; and if you 
 fall short in either particular, don't forget that I am, 
 besides my other numerous and varied offices, a first- 
 class aurist and oculist, graduate of seven schools 
 and professor in three " he looked at his watch 
 " with which consoling remark for your future 
 happiness, Miss Elise, I bid you a respectful good- 
 night." 
 
 " Doctor," said Lily, " I hope you don't have to go 
 out to-night again." 
 
 " Only a short distance of ten miles, my dear, 
 which to the disciple of the D. D. duty and diligence 
 is the merest of trifles." 
 
 " Lily," said Elise, after a pause, in which her 
 success in dismembering the clerodendron petals was 
 distinctly marked, "how did you feel when you were 
 engaged ? " 
 
 Lily laughed outright. 
 
 " Yes, I mean it ; " said Elise, as Lily looked 
 searchingly into her face. " I would like to compare 
 experiences with somebody, and you will tell me 
 the truth, I know." 
 
 "Why, I felt like a bird, dear a gay, uncaged bird 
 that carols all day and I felt like a pet lamb that 
 wanted to follow him everywhere I felt like yes, 
 just like an angel, dear, so full of love to everybody,
 
 DOUBTS. 151 
 
 and yet like a frail piece of humanity, too, but with 
 an ark to run into. There ! . Is that explicit enough ? 
 Have I illustrated to your satisfaction the different 
 phases of my feelings? Are you pleased with the 
 exhibition ? But that is only for you, dear ; I wouldn't 
 make a peep-show of my heart for any one else." 
 
 " And did you 'feel rested ? " said Elise, plaintively. 
 
 Lily nodded " Rested and refreshed always ! " 
 
 " Well, perhaps, it isn't always so but I thought 
 it would be," Elise said, meditatively. "I thought 
 that in the union of two loving hearts there would 
 be an indefinable peace and a kind of heavenly joy 
 do you think I am selfish, Lil ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 " Quite the reverse, dear." 
 
 " You see I have wanted a love "- -- she paused a 
 little, but Lily did not interrupt her thought "to 
 love it. Do you understand ? To serve it, to think 
 for it, to do for it, to spend my energies for it and 
 Lil, perhaps you will be surprised, but I know I could 
 die for it ! " 
 
 " Well ? " said Lily, showing unabated attention, 
 and thus quietly urging her on. 
 
 'But there's nothing to do for Otto!" She folded 
 her hands in her lap, and wore a look of resigned sad- 
 ness such as had never before gathered on her sunny 
 face. 
 
 " I have been excited and brilliant, when with him, 
 I mean that he has inspired me to try and match 
 his flights, and my success has been really phenom- 
 enal I must say, Lil, quite beyond my conception of 
 my own powers " 
 
 " I have observed it with admiration," interrupted 
 Lily. 
 
 "But somehow lately, the talk drags, seems wintry 
 it isn't vapid, just stale, that is all. Do you think 
 it is my fault, Lily ? " she asked, with such as weet 
 humility and pathos, that Lily felt hot tears stealing 
 into her eyes as she said tenderly : 
 
 " I think you expected something more, dear, and 
 are a little disappointed. But you are all tired out,
 
 152 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 thutisthe chief trouble. I have been thinking for 
 some time that the reaction must come. Doctor must 
 give you a tonic, and he will insist upon more rest 
 and quiet, I am sure, and if he don't, I shall ; and 
 with our combined treatment, you'll come up to your 
 normal standard, and then you can better judge 
 whether your chosen 'rest' is just the rest you need " 
 she emphasized the word and Elise knew what she 
 meant. "-Dark thoughts, like hawks, are apt to turn 
 out in the night, and now do you know it is past 
 midnight? In the morning, quite likely you will 
 wonder that you could have imagined you were tired." 
 And so it seemed to be. Sleep knit up the few 
 tangled threads of her care and left no sign of miss- 
 ing stitches, and when she awoke her eyes had taken 
 
 "That hyaline lustre, dewy, deep, 
 Of violets when they first awaken."
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 
 
 " Let me deem that 
 
 Some unknown influence, some sweet oracle, 
 Communicates between us, though unseen, 
 In absence, and attracts us to each other." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 DURING the oppressive heat of the early May, 
 Elise sought the more northern latitude of her Aunt 
 Gray's home. Dresson did not follow her. He pre- 
 ferred a run across the Atlantic and a skimming 
 flight on the Continent during the months that Elise 
 would be gone, and then with propitious fate, which 
 he hoped for he would bend all the energies of his 
 genius to the consummation of his hopes. He had 
 been seeking since the betrothal for the privileged 
 moment of her acquiescence to this event, and had 
 been rewarded with a view of its vanishing point in 
 the dim perspective. He faintly perceived a shadowy 
 disinclination on the part of his betrothed to the mar- 
 riage scheme, but with the complacency of egotism 
 had ignored this veiled indifference, ascribing it to 
 the natural hesitation of a beautiful, independent 
 woman to divide her dominion or resign any part of 
 her own sweet will for Dresson had views original, 
 as well as aesthetic, on the just " values " obtainable 
 in the marriage relation. 
 
 It was an arrangement for mutual convenience, and 
 the best development of the harmonious sphere of 
 each. He was a believer in Scripture to this extent, 
 that the man is the head of the woman, and the oracle 
 which (when she desires to enlighten her 'ignorance) 
 she is privileged to consult in the privacy of her own
 
 154 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 home. Her wish should be subordinated to her lord, 
 and she would find her chief happiness in polishing 
 up the shining light of his character, and be never so 
 charming as in the reflected luster of modest and sil- 
 very radiance derived from the occupation. "Soft- 
 ened gleams, not dazzling brightness," he was wont 
 to say, ''should glow like a halo around the Queen of 
 the Household." 
 
 He had not in his monologues on these points to 
 Elise used the word " obedience " to indicate what he 
 considered the normal relation between the contract- 
 ing parties, and he had carefully avoided any show of 
 disagreement with her stated opinions. He perceived 
 that while she was a woman with strong convictions, 
 when she loved she could be governed perfectly 
 through her affections, and what might go for techni- 
 cal obedience was only the spontaneous gift of a heart 
 on fire with the sacrificial flame. He did not fear 
 any real cessation of daily and hourly offerings upon 
 the altar of his divinity, although he sometimes 
 fancied there was an abatement. 
 
 Elise had entered into the engagement with all the 
 ardor of her enthusiastic, loving nature, and, revelling 
 in its wealth, suffused with the atmosphere of her 
 own rosy joy, was happy in the possession of an ideal 
 love. It hung around her like an aureole, it gave her 
 a perpetual beatitude, and it glorified all in her pres- 
 ence. She did not realize for many weeks the lack 
 of spontaneity on the part of her lover, or suspect 
 that his moderated and elaborated punctiliousness of 
 devotion was anything less than a genuine love in 
 many thicknesses of wrapping nor stop to think that 
 the more numerous the envelopes the smaller the 
 treasure when once it was fairly liberated from its 
 waxen cerements. It had been sweet to love thus ; 
 but the reaction had given .faint tokens of appearance 
 when the pleading heart asked to be loved in equal 
 measure. 
 
 So she was drifting on the sunless sea of her own 
 faithfulness ; her natural buoyancy and transcendent
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 155 
 
 hopefulness always lifting her above depressions or 
 sharp crags of disappointment along in the smooth 
 current of loving endeavor. This seeming good had 
 been sent to her she would make the most of it. 
 
 Something for better or for worse was sure to come 
 in October, the month of fateful happenings, an 
 inner whisper suggested, and she could wait why 
 should there be unseemly haste to take such a mo- 
 mentous step ? And she thought, too, that Dresson 
 would miss her when they were parted, and come to 
 her with a new devotion which would be the expo- 
 nent of a more earnest purpose in a real life-plan, and 
 a truer, deeper, and more comprehensive sympathy 
 with what was best in her nature. 
 
 They summered quietly in a lovely Wisconsin wild 
 doubly charming because it was comparatively 
 unknown to pleasure-seekers, and had not yet been 
 overrun by the enterprising tourists who draw into 
 their wake the elaborate modernized structures which 
 encroach upon primeval simplicity, and finally convert 
 it into the artificialities of modern device, elaborate, 
 costly and valueless ; hideous to the lover of country- 
 life struggling to free himself from art-decorations 
 for a brief, happy space, and refresh himself with 
 rustic, picturesque, unconventional nature. But the 
 march of improvements had halted three degrees to 
 the east of them, and they were safe, for this season, 
 from the levelling axe and the intruding hammer. 
 
 Doctor and Mrs. Healey joined the party in Au- 
 gust, and they had also a Hying visit from Channing, 
 who was exploring a part of the great and growing 
 West. 
 
 " Have you really settled down like shining toads 
 in a mud neap?" was his rather ungracious inquiry 
 upon arriving on a liquid evening in August, after a 
 drive in a box-wagon through the roadless, miry clay. 
 "I had a suspicion that Miss Archer was amphibious, 
 but thought she would by her theory of 'natural 
 selection' choose some less glutinous element," look- 
 ing ruefully at the boots covered with the slimy inud 
 up to the ankle.
 
 156 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " But we are eating dirt growing fat laying it 
 up for winter. Our porcelain got too fine, 'twas be- 
 coming quite transparent a slight infusion of good, 
 rich dirt will improve the color and cohesion of the 
 particles as well." 
 
 " Good ! " he said, laughing and doffing his be- 
 drabbled coat, "you shall have my share, too. But 
 truly I can find no fault with any kind of diet that 
 builds up such Hebes ; for even Mrs. Healey has 
 stolen a delicate blush, to distance the lily which 
 graces her name and her nature." 
 
 They were "camping out" with all the conve- 
 niences implied in the modern use of the term. 
 
 And then there were rides through the pretty 
 bridle-paths along the brook, and days of unalloyed 
 iov, sauntering through the umbrageous woods, fish- 
 ing in cool streams abounding with the mountain 
 trout, hunting their venison steaks with the Doctor's 
 favorite setter, and delicious rowing on the embow- 
 ered tiny lake in an imported fairy cockle-shell which 
 the Doctor had christened ' ; The Cygnus." 
 
 Channing Earle went into all these sports with the 
 zest of an amateur, succeeded in keeping his balance 
 in the free and unrestrained intercourse which was 
 now possible in Miss Archer's society, and added 
 daily to the stature of his magnificent manhood. 
 
 "Don't lean out so far, you will lose your balance, 
 Mr. Earle," she cried one evening in their sunset row 
 on the brook. The oars were resting in the locks, 
 and as they glided gently with the current, they 
 picked the water lilies within easy reach. 
 
 Channing succeeded in capturing the beautiful 
 pink blossom which he had coveted, without capsiz- 
 ing the boat. 
 
 "You have the distinction, Miss Archer, of being 
 the only lady who honors me with that title." 
 
 The} r had been chatting with an innocent gayety, 
 and Elise looked at him steadily, not quite catching 
 the tone of his mind. He continued ; 
 
 " I have grown up in the village as ' Channing '
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 157 
 
 that you might naturally expect; but every visiting 
 stranger has quickly availed himself of the privilege 
 if.it is one," he said, laughing, "of my christening. 
 And yet I am in no sense familiar with any of the 
 girls, as you may know ; my student-life and my 
 natural inaptitudes preventing anything more than 
 courteous intercourse 
 
 " The habits of childhood are not easily conquered," 
 Elise interrupted; "and for all I know, you may 
 have been a rollicking boy, championing the girls 
 and scrambling for their kisses and favors 
 
 " Quite the contrary, I assure you," he exclaimed, 
 suddenly, smiling at the abnormal picture of himself 
 " always shy, reserved, and dodging their sweet gifts." 
 
 " Well, they still think of you as Charming ; you 
 can't help that, and 
 
 " And wouldn't if I could," he interrupted. 
 
 " And hearing 1 vou so called continuallv bv your 
 
 O > ( i- f ' J 
 
 mother and grandmother, it keeps the familiar name 
 before them 
 
 " But how does that account'for the newcomers?" 
 
 " The newcomers, I opine, have probably been 
 gay young girls, not standing much on dignity or 
 etiquette, who fell easily into the prevailing mode. 
 Perhaps, Mr. Earle, I have the advantage of those 
 giddy girls in a few steadying years. I may not be as 
 young as I appear." She was looking at him with 
 a polite, simple composure. 
 
 "Just as you sit there," he remarked, with a 
 strange irrelevancy, "the deepening blue above you, 
 the background of the fading sunset splendors, and the 
 foreground of the pink and white lilies, you make 
 an ideal picture. May I take it for the figure-head 
 to my life-boat, Miss Archer ? " 
 
 His voice betrayed a depth of meaning apart from 
 the simple words, by its rich intonation of respect- 
 ful heart-full deference and longing, and Elise was 
 puzzled by his thoughtful manner for a suitable reply. 
 
 Had he dashed it off with a brisk cordiality and 
 offhand, careless air, she would have replied on the
 
 158 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 instant in the same vein. She was unaccountably 
 sobered, almost frightened, with his grave eyes fast- 
 ened upon her so patiently and yet so abstractedly, 
 as though he was saying one thing and thinking of 
 something quite remote. 
 
 " But you need not reply," he said in another 
 moment. " I perhaps have transcended my limits in 
 the request." 
 
 But Elise hesitated to take advantage of a release 
 which might wound her friend. It was with an im- 
 perceptible nervous agitation that she said presently : 
 
 " I sometimes take pictures without as much as 
 saying ' By your leave.' r 
 
 " Thank you for the suggestion," he said mildly, 
 and then with a certain reckless defiance : 
 
 " I intend to prove myself a lawless renegade 
 and smuggle my pictures into memory's storehouse. 
 I shall doubtless enjoy them more than if I was pro- 
 tected by license, for I can gloat over them with all 
 the satisfaction of a privateer who knows their full 
 cost." 
 
 The party left the camping field together, but 
 Channing was first on the home ground, and Doctor 
 and Mrs. Healey followed. Elise with her uncle 
 and aunt made their way leisurely toward the East, 
 stopping at the noted watering places en route. 
 
 After their arrival, Mrs. Gray pre-empted a visit, 
 and then they were involved in the whirl of shop- 
 ping for Elise's new home. There was so much to see, 
 so much to buy, so much elegant bric-a-brac to be 
 collected from miscellaneous and widely separated 
 quarters, to give the charm of individual taste to her 
 new dominions, that Mrs. Healey found it necessary 
 to write several importunate letters to bring her to 
 her own threshold. And it was sweet to rest under 
 her own roof-tree her very own. She enjoyed the 
 thought of what was equally her strong tower of 
 refuge and her flowery bower of peace a bower, too, 
 it proved to be, where, unlike Bunyan's typical Chris- 
 tian, she re-read her " roll," and got from it a new 
 meaning.
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 159 
 
 Built in a conglomerate style for there were bits 
 of so many " orders " that Elise considered indispen- 
 sable it was yet a marvel of beauty and skill. Some 
 of the furniture had been made expressly for her in 
 Paris, but an eminent New York firm took the lead 
 in the furnishing and decorations, and when she 
 looked around upon the finished work, she was 
 abundantly compensated for the outlay. 
 
 " Otto will pronounce it a gem," she said thought- 
 fully, " for I have carried out some of his suggestions 
 and he will recognize them, and, perhaps (this, a 
 little doubtfully), give me credit for some originality 
 of design and executive talent." 
 
 Her Greek room was her bijou, her pride and 
 delight. 
 
 And Dresson came. 
 
 " Upon my word, you have made a distinguished 
 success," he said, with so much emphasis that Elise 
 was in a transport of renewed affection. " Your color 
 scheme is faultless delicate in sentiment and effect- 
 ively carried out." 
 
 " And how is my color scheme?" inquired Elise, 
 holding up her sun-browned, rose-tinted face to his, 
 with eyes that glowed with the rapturous meeting. 
 
 " I cannot say fair, and I am loth to say rich. It 
 is full of freshness and charm, that goes without 
 saying, but it is a trifle overdone gives it an appear- 
 ance of trickiness and chic not quite the correct 
 thing, you know. You couldn't tone it with a fine 
 powder? Too deucedly bright! you see." 
 
 He had never ventured that expression in Elise's 
 hearing before, and when she looked up at him with 
 a' little surprise, he said: 
 
 " That's what a fellow gets from mingling with those 
 English cockneys but it wears off soon, you know." 
 
 " How do you like your Jason ?" he inquired, as 
 they were viewing the frescoed walls. I saw Wil- 
 liam himself in London, and told him of your chef 
 d'ceuvre, and he volunteered to work up the designs 
 himself from scenes in his poems, you know. lie-
 
 1GO THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 chercht ! I must say," he continued, as he stood off 
 looking through his single eyeglass "minute in 
 detail but broad in touch ! By thunder, that man is 
 a genius !" 
 
 " Why, dear," said Elise, laughing in spite of her- 
 self, in a slightly remonstrating tone ; "is that only 
 fruit-bloom too?" 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," he replied, " you must get over 
 these little affectations of prudery ; " then laughing, 
 " Thunder never hurts, you know, and the atmosphere 
 is always clearer after the shock ; " but secretly con~ 
 scious that he must recover his ground, he drew her 
 lightly to him in a fond embrace. 
 
 " And you are sure there won't any lightning come 
 with it?" she asked with playful seriousness, cling- 
 ing to his arm in a gentle confidence. " The light- 
 ning scorches, you know, and it is sure to be around 
 about when there's thunder, even if it doesn't show." 
 
 Dresson had the easy swagger of a hunter that has 
 bagged his game, as they sauntered leisurely through 
 the sumptuous apartments of which he was the pro- 
 spective master. He had dismissed, as henceforth 
 useless, the habitual caution and prudence of speech 
 which the unrestraint of her absence had gradually 
 but unconsciously diminished during the period of 
 his irresponsible^existence abroad, and made what to 
 Elise was a swift descent, as he reassumed the part 
 that by nature he most relished. 
 
 Parrying skillfully her question, " I haven't an 
 overstock of admiration for lightning myself," he re- 
 marked with adroit reticence, "it's a trifle too too 
 deuced alert, you know, for a modern SGsthete ! " and 
 indulged in the solace of light whistling as they con- 
 tinued the grand tour of the rooms. 
 
 " It appears to me, Elise, that yon have superfluous 
 closet-room. Now, here," he said, " should have been 
 a niche for landscape-views, curtained and warmed, 
 where one might lounge and get sky-effects." 
 
 " Oh !" said Elise, " we have views all over the 
 house, and Just glory in closets. I wanted oh ! 
 a houseful of them."
 
 SUMMER TOURING. 161 
 
 " There is nothing that so mars the effect of a 
 room as one or two useless closets," he continued 
 gravely, looking desperately at the inoffensive doors 
 of the condemned apartments. " They impair the 
 symmetry of the wall, and the unity of the design, 
 and are so many avenues for draughts and stale 
 odors. Their doors interfere with the harmonious 
 arrangement of furniture, and they are suggestive of 
 disorder and uncleanliness." 
 
 " But what would you do ? " said Elise, falling 
 from her seventh heaven of glory into the icono- 
 clastic arms of her lover. 
 
 " Furnish with wardrobes for the immediate neces- 
 sities of the occupant, and arrange the closets outside, 
 in some less privileged space." 
 
 "Would you block them up?" she asked, with 
 rueful sweetness. "It seems a pity. They are so 
 nice. I am sure I shall enjoy them ever so much. 
 See here ! " and she persuaded him to look while she 
 opened the various drawers and explained the patent 
 or hidden mission of each. 
 
 Dresson had an abstracted gaze during the process. 
 
 " Now a wardrobe," he said, turning away, " is a 
 thing of beauty with its antique carvings and 
 mirrored door 
 
 " But do see the mirrors, dear, " she interrupted. 
 
 " ' All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace 
 Self to right hand, self to left hand, self in every place.' " 
 
 "And its cosy compactness," he continued without 
 change of posture or notice of the interruption. " Yes, 
 upon reflection, I think you would better remove 
 this blemish upon your artistic work."
 
 162 TUE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. . 
 
 OCTOBER'S LESSON. 
 
 " October! Heaven's delicious breath, 
 When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, 
 And suns grow meek, and the meek sun grows brief, 
 And the year smiles as drawing near its death." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 " A GENTLEMAN wishes to see you, my lady." 
 
 " Ah. yes," said Elise, glancing at the card ; " he is 
 my lawyer." 
 
 " He is in the old-gold reception room, my lady, 
 and he says he will wait your convenience," said 
 Bertha. 
 
 " Well, Bertha, that puts an end to my ' coaching ' 
 the screen decoration this morning," said Elise, as 
 she pushed away the framed golden-rod and spikes 
 of the cardinal flower. " Mortgages and bonds are not 
 much to my fancy, but nevertheless they must be 
 attended to." 
 
 Bertha had been well trained in the harmony of 
 colors, and chose a receiving-room for the guest which 
 would suit her mistress' toilet. The cardinal silk 
 robe, daisy-painted, would have a fine setting in the 
 old-gold tapestries, and was of charming effect any- 
 where tin's bright October morning, when art had 
 such a brilliant rival in nature. 
 
 " Mr. Drew is very fond of daisies, Bertha. I am 
 sorry not to have the real ones," Elise observed, fasten- 
 ing an artificial bunch in her belt. 
 
 Mr. Drew, although past sixty, was still susceptible 
 to the charms of a beautiful young woman, whose 
 only fault seemed to be that she had nothing to do'. 
 Blessed with a flourishing family, Mr. Drew and wife
 
 OCTOBER'S LESSON. 163 
 
 found the days too short for the manifold activities 
 required for its upbringing. And so when lie en- 
 tered this Palace Beautiful, where art reigned trium- 
 phant and the priestess of it was the hostess sacrificing 
 her beauty and her time to learn its mysteries, he felt 
 it to be a veritable " Castle of Indolence " which 
 acted like an anaesthetic on his whole frame, narco- 
 tizing his vitality. 
 
 But he was ready to forgive many things more 
 glaring and heinous than supreme devotion to art in 
 the daughter of his old friend, Mr. Archer. And 
 although she was now a radical and ultra-cult devotee, 
 she never quite lost in his eyes the na'ivet e and sweetness 
 which had characterized her girlhood, and even a 
 professional visit to her left him in a glow of renewed 
 youth and quickened sensibility; the fine charm of 
 her delicate grace penetrated his soul as a subtle odor 
 does the senses, filling him with a diffusive warmth 
 and exaggerated notion of the importance of trifling 
 courtesies and social overtures. He did not under- 
 stand the secret of her charm, but was conscious that it 
 touched a spring in him that set all the music in him 
 going as an accompaniment to the melody of her 
 presence. 
 
 Since her travels abroad, while he could complain 
 of nothing in her treatment of him for it was 
 friendly in the last degree and while she was more 
 attractive than ever in her full-blossomed beauty, he 
 missed the playful banter, the spontaneous vivacity, 
 which had never been constrained by rule, because it 
 was the finished grace of nature acting through gen- 
 erous and loyal instincts of the laws of truth and 
 kindness; and found her weighted with a superin- 
 cumbent stratum of formulae a stratification founded, 
 no doubt,' on absolute mathematical laws of symmetry 
 and proportion, but too complicated, too compact and 
 rigid for his unrestrained nature, and presenting 
 social features to which he had not found it necessary 
 to adjust his own environment. His periodical visits 
 to Elise were, however, beginning the education of his
 
 164 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 culture in that direction, and he recognized with a 
 wondering amusement that the more he saw of her the 
 more reconciled he became to her superlatives and 
 heavenly harmonies, her aerial career midway between 
 heaven and earth, with its sky-glancing, cloud-envel- 
 oping possibilities.- 
 
 She was always gracious, always winning, and he 
 always yielded to her unsuspecting blandishments 
 in spite of himself, and then shook it off in the outer 
 air or in the realistic abode over which Mrs. Drew 
 presided, where order was discounted and free and 
 easy manners prevailed au naturel. The heaven of 
 the "Palace Beautiful" required too great a stretch 
 of wing, and the earth of Mrs. Drew's mansion, was, he 
 confessed, a spice too grovelling somewhere midway 
 between these extremes would have been thoroughly 
 acceptable to him were it only in the calendar of 
 possibilities; but failing that, among the certainties 
 he could always count on Mrs. Drew and the romp- 
 ing six. 
 
 But there was more on his mind this morning than 
 life's pomps and vanities, more even than the fright- 
 ful inequalities in rank and fortune. He had not to 
 consider problems in eesthetics or even ethics, but 
 hard, grim mathematics, and, worse than all, the de- 
 pressing fact of loss and failure. It was a sorry 
 task, and the Satsuma vases and Pompeian tripods, 
 the tapestries and laces and lacquer cabinets around 
 him, did not help him any they added so many more 
 figures to the computation. 
 
 Mr. Gray well knew of the disaster, but had trans- 
 ferred the burden of disclosure to the financial agent 
 of Miss Archer's property the steward who by 
 rights was accountable for its management. 
 
 Mr. Drew had pondered the subject for several 
 hours this morning without being able to fix upon the 
 exact method of approach. How should he communi- 
 cate the doleful tidings to the charming Miss Archer, 
 the favorite of his youth, the beloved daughter of his 
 tried friend, the petted child of fortune, whose millions
 
 OCTOBER' 1 S LESSON. 165 
 
 had been entrusted to his care ? Her gossamer-tintings 
 seemed born for an atmosphere of ideal luxury and 
 ease, from which his imagination could not extract her 
 and set her on the hard ground of reality and econ- 
 omy a plane where a moderation so strict would 
 have to be maintained, that to her, he doubted not, it 
 would be the galling chains of poverty. 
 
 Elise noticed his abstracted manner, and rallied 
 him. 
 
 " The fact is, Mr. Drew, you have too much on your 
 hands ; my business interests have assumed such 
 large proportions, that for your better fulfilment of 
 them I have decided to establish a special clerkship 
 for your assistance." 
 
 Here was just the opening wedge for the hard- 
 pressed lawyer. , . 
 
 "At present, Miss Elise, I am not oppressed with 
 work, and your kindness is appreciated but declined." 
 
 Contrary to his purpose when he began, he was 
 edging farther from the subject instead of striking 
 the wedge in deeper. He felt that it would be more 
 difficult to retrace than disclose at once, but lie 
 dreaded the effect of abruptness, and looked away 
 from Elise to the hands clasped upon his walking 
 stick. 
 
 This was a demeanor so unusual for her cordial, 
 bustling friend, that Elise quickly divined some over- 
 hanging trouble. 
 
 " Are they all well at home, Mr. Drew ? No illness, 
 I hope, in your family disturbs you this morning? " 
 She thought of his friends, of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and 
 of everyone but herself, so securely enthroned upon 
 her pinnacle of wealth and happiness that dislodge- 
 ment was impossible. 
 
 " Not so, Miss Elise ; my great and only concern at 
 present is the sad fact that I shall no longer be able 
 to serve you." 
 
 For this ambiguous phrasing there was but one 
 interpretation to the unsuspicious mind, and Elise 
 replied :
 
 166 THE OPAL 
 
 " But, Mr. Drew, I cannot release you. My father 
 trusted and honored you and confided me to your 
 charge. I am willing to grant you a handsome 
 annuity, Mr. Drew indeed,- 1 am pained that you 
 have been so severely taxed, and would gladly have 
 relieved you had I known it, but that you shall not 
 have the supervision of my affairs I can never, never 
 permit. Can you not secure a sufficient corps of 
 assistants ? " 
 
 " Money will secure all things, Miss Elise, but " 
 he hesitated and his eyes were dim witli the thought 
 that this spirit of generosity which was the breath of 
 her life must be snuffed out so ignominiously. 
 
 " And had I but one tithe of my present income, 
 Mr. Drew, no sacrifice would be too great to secure 
 your comfort. The money will hold out, I sup- 
 pose ! " she laughed, with the easy banter of indis- 
 putable assurance. 
 
 "It is your -money affairs that distress me, Miss 
 Elise." 
 
 " Are they in such a very bad condition ? " she 
 asked, with the same smiling unsuspicion. 
 
 This was torture ; would she never surmise the 
 truth ? He looked her keenly, sorrowfully in the face 
 while he said resolutely: 
 
 " Bad, very bad absolutely and unconditionally 
 bad ! So bad, Miss Elise, that they can be no worse ! ' 
 And he rose abruptly, leaned his elbow upon the 
 mantel, and stood stonily gazing at her. 
 
 " Am I then a bankrupt, Mr. Drew ? " she said 
 dreamily, with a sweet tenderness, as though she 
 would bestow her fullest sympathy upon so pitiable 
 an object. 
 
 " Everything has been swept away by the fire, ex- 
 cept this house and lot." 
 
 " But my bonds and mortgages, Mr. Drew sure- 
 
 J 
 
 " Arc in the hands of the defaulting clerk who has 
 robbed the bank and eludes all search." 
 
 With a white calm that was touching in its lofty 
 serenity, she said gently :
 
 OCTOBER'S LESSON. 167 
 
 "If there is no hope of arresting the fugitive, Mr. 
 Drew, you are indeed the bearer of heavy tidings." 
 She bowed her head upon her hands, and Mr. Drew 
 stood silently regarding her. " But this house did not 
 burn, Mr. Drew," she said, looking up, " and it is 
 mine still, you say so I am not yet a wanderer upon 
 the face of the earth I Penniless, but not homeless ! " 
 she added, with a kind of cheerful despair. 
 
 " And shall never want a home or friend, Miss 
 Elise, so long as walls shelter me and hands can earn 
 my daily bread." 
 
 " My generous, noble friend, I shall go to none 
 sooner than to you, but Uncle Gray will make some 
 arrangement for me, I dare say. But you, what will 
 you do? Have you not given your whole time to 
 my business and lost what practice you might have 
 acquired in all these years ? This is indeed an over- 
 whelming stroke I must help you 
 
 But she paused. To wish had been to do, but 
 what could she give now! Her charm against all 
 distress had been a bank check, and for a moment 
 she stood bewildered with the thought that the foun- 
 tain had ceased its supplies, and she had not the 
 ready solace for his woes. Other methods had never 
 been appealed to. What available resources were 
 locked up within her? Could her accomplishments 
 be called into the account for real use? Her heart 
 beat, her eyes glowed with a new fire ; she silently 
 rehearsed her stock-in-trade her capital for work. 
 Ah ! here was an idyl ! life would have a new mean- 
 ing ;" the uses of beauty !" she had often thought 
 of that, and now she would adjust the relations 
 between the ideal and the actual, she would put her- 
 self in harmony with her realistic sphere. And she 
 smiled with her conception of this lofty, ideal life 
 the beautiful drama in which, she would play the 
 heroine and be the star. She had not looked so 
 much herself for years since the long ago, Mr. 
 Drew thought as he watched the changing expression 
 of her face, and knew that she was with lightning
 
 1G8 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 rapidity tracing out a practicable course a career. 
 She had settled it to her satisfaction she beamed 
 upon him now : 
 
 " We will see what a silly girl can do, who loves 
 her paints and her keys with an artist's true devotion. 
 Ah ! you are incredulous? but wait ; you shall 
 see ! Miles of decorative and resonous art lie right 
 in these fingers-tips ! " and rising as she spoke, she 
 came over to him and folded those hands in loving 
 benediction upon his head. He seized them and 
 pressed them to his lips. 
 
 "And you are not distracted, crushed ! Look at 
 me, my noble girl, that I may surely know that 3-011 
 are in possession of your senses that you are not 
 cherishing the delusive freaks of insanity! Dear 
 child ! the mother's endurance and the father's will- 
 power center here," he said, placing his hands upon 
 her head. " You have infused new life into me, Miss 
 Elise; we will see if anything can be saved from the 
 wreck even a moiety would not be scorned now." 
 
 Though not sanguine as to the results of her ambi- 
 tious designs, Mr. Drew was too wise to sweep away 
 the rosy vision of voluntary self-help and check her 
 enthusiasm for a new career by the hint of failure ; 
 too considerate to discuss what he considered her 
 fallacious theories, or to show any appearance of 
 frustrating her noble purpose. 
 
 " Keep up good heart, my little girl." Though 
 Elise was taller than he, this was his affectionate 
 diminutive in addressing her. "Your father's old 
 friend isn't dead yet, and the good God is overhead ; " 
 and he hastened from the room that she might not 
 see the tears stealing to his eyes.
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 
 
 " Better the soberest, prosiest life 
 Than a blasted home and a broken heart." 
 
 J. T. Trowbridge. 
 
 "WHY should I feel so lonely?" thought Elise, 
 as the door closed upon Mr. Drew, "there is nothing 
 gone but money. What makes it seem so cold and 
 dark?" 
 
 This consciousness of wealth had been a ubiquitous 
 presence, a kind of rosy sea in which all her powers 
 disported themselves. Her nature in all its ramifica- 
 tions, had found so many points of support in this 
 elastic element that she had been incessantly buoyed 
 up by it. With no outside pressure from social ob- 
 structions or economical exigencies, and with the 
 grave and severe realities of life mostly excluded 
 from her crystal habitation, like the "radiant matter " 
 in a uranium glass tube, life was a spectacular pageant 
 in which there was abundant room for the free play 
 of the unduly expanding and ecstatically brilliant 
 molecular particles; the song, the dance, the stage, 
 the colors, the crayons, the crewels art was luminous, 
 glorified ! 
 
 If she could live in this exhausted receiver, she 
 mused, with its sea of color, with mind engaged upon 
 artistic work, she might still be happy. But how to 
 keep her establishment without an income to support 
 it? But to work at art unsurrounded by the crea- 
 tions of art, in the cold, hard atmosphere of realism, 
 with nothing but four blank walls to get inspiration 
 from, this would smother all idealistic perceptions 
 and instincts. But how to keep the place ? She was
 
 170 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 
 
 engaged to be married might not this be the time 
 for the consummation of the vows ? But now with 
 startled sensibility she realized that this first thought 
 of Otto since the knowledge of her disaster brought 
 with it no joy his image bewildered instead of re- 
 lieved the thickening embarrassment. 
 
 She was shocked at this development. The 
 thought of her future husband shoukl have been 
 like a refuge, a strong tower into which to flee from 
 the fury of the storm. But she could extract neither 
 comfort nor help from the thought of Otto. The 
 heart that was still in her, all untouched by his art, 
 pronounced this verdict and her judgment rebelled 
 against the sacrifice. Have I any right to add myself 
 to the man with whom, in such an hour as this, I do 
 not unite, whose spirit does not soothe me, in whom 
 I find no strength to sustain me ? And now while 
 the light was focusing on her lover she began to see 
 signs of indifference in his never ardent nature that 
 had made no impression, upon her in her entrenched 
 position. Perhaps he would be influenced by the 
 change in her fortune ! If she had been pierced by a 
 dagger, the pain of that suspicion could not have 
 been more keen she was stung to the quick in the 
 citadel of her pride. But why should she do him 
 this injustice? She would dismiss the dishonorable 
 imputation. 
 
 To will was easy, but the haunting ghost kept 
 within tormenting distance. The loss of a friend 
 was more than the loss of fortune, she had always 
 said. What inconsistency was this that found it diffi- 
 cult to recognize even an ardent friendship for her 
 loyer? She had never stopped to examine her heart, 
 had never tested her love; but the undoubted existence 
 of a supposed love in some remote corner of her be- 
 ing she had assumed as a necessary and indisputable 
 fact. But now she was obliged to confess that if her 
 suspicions were true, wiien time had extracted the 
 sting from her pride, she would be the same Elise 
 her heart had not been touched ! On the other hand,
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 171 
 
 if nuclei' his apparent coldness, Otto had a real devo- 
 tion to her, what a cruel blow she would impart if 
 she renounced him ! 
 
 " No ! no ! " she said, " I will never be so unkind, so 
 heartless ! Better suffer myself and through a long 
 life do penance, than mar his calm by such inhar- 
 monious contradictions of myself ! Better go on in a 
 dull symphony of married life than wake up the 
 allegrettos of his undisturbed soul, now calmly lying 
 in the peaceful nocturne of my supposed love and 
 tenderness." 
 
 " He shall decide it no word of mine shall betray 
 the discovery I have made. He shall be the arbiter 
 of our destinies." 
 
 And she was almost gay at the prospect of sacrifice 
 to the high, idealistic impulse of virtue and magna- 
 nimity that had taken possession of her the royal 
 self-abnegation in it won the applause of her aesthetic 
 judgment. " Art is worthy of the sacrifice," she 
 went on musing ; ' ; the harmony of our lives can be 
 rounded out in their separate spheres even in matri- 
 mony. Their orbits will be in concentric but not 
 identical circles, and so we shall secure some variety 
 in union not in unity." 
 
 There was an unusual glow upon her cheek from 
 this sublime mood as her lover appeared in the door- 
 way. Half concealed by the portiere, he paused a 
 moment, but only a moment, for Elise advanced, cor- 
 dially extending her hand for the usual greeting. 
 
 " Ah?" said he, with an inquiring glance at the 
 carmiue in her cheek. " Then the savage storm has 
 not prostrated to the ground this blooming rose and 
 scattered its fair petals on the breeze." 
 
 " And if it had," she replied, in the same playful 
 vein, "might not the delicious odor still linger in the 
 air, and cling to the calyx ? " 
 
 "But so widely different, Elise. Where would be 
 my ownership? And a lover of the beautiful may be 
 pardoned for wishing for something a little more sub- 
 stantial than a scented calyx."
 
 172 TJtE OPAL QUEEtf. 
 
 " But that's all I am, Otto, and I am not one bit 
 in the mood to apologize for my attenuated figure, for 
 although my fortune is scattered to the four winds, 
 I am not broken, Otto! There's just as much of me 
 as there was before, and more. My soul never rose 
 to such heights nor glanced into such depths as it has 
 been spanning since I knew my fate." 
 
 Dresson did not reply. He had heard the rumor 
 of the loss, but was not satisfied without confirmation 
 at the seat of authority. He imagined no failure in 
 his tactics having pre-arranged plans for attack or 
 defense according to the stress of the situation when 
 lie appeared in the field. 
 
 He had understood Elise's gentle compliance with 
 his slightest wish as her tribute of homage to his 
 superiority, and clearly foresaw a tragedy awaiting 
 him, for with a set purpose to cut the tie, he antici- 
 pated entreaties, plaints, and even tears of remon- 
 strance. He was prepared for paleness and fainting 
 even upbraidings and scorn but not for the ap- 
 pearance of heroic resolve and sublime indifference 
 which his tragedy-queen now exhibited. This had 
 been left out of the data. 
 
 "I suppose you have heard, Otto, of the loss of all 
 my property ? " Elise, inquired softly. 
 
 Dresson looked up and bowed ; folded his arms in 
 a placid resignation ; looked up, looked down upon 
 the brown moss-heap decoration in the carpet just 
 touched by a glinting sunbeam ah ! here was his 
 deliverance ! Art should save him ! They could 
 meet on that neutral ground. 
 
 " Art is long and time is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts tho' stout and brave, 
 Still like muffled drums are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave," 
 
 he solemnly quoted in musical cadence, leaving her 
 to choose out of its suggestions the interpretation 
 suited to the exigency of the case. 
 
 Elise, who had been wont to humor his abstractions 
 and try to key herself up to his pitcli of thought and
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 173 
 
 follow on melodiously, did not at this moment relish 
 the chase, and found it impossible to make the effort. 
 
 " Have you not some warmer tone for me this 
 morning, Otto ? Art seems cold in the face of this 
 black misfortune." 
 
 " The outline of the thing is so harsh and ragged 
 it lacks color." 
 
 " What thing, Otto ?" 
 
 " The thing they term bankruptcy a something 
 that has dared to set -up its horrid front before the 
 eyes that have beamed so bright on me ! " 
 
 " But I have not lost my eyes, Otto, and they are 
 not dim unto tears, nor dull with headache. Bodily 
 I am all strung and tuned." 
 
 "Mentally, I am all unstrung," whispered Otto, 
 faintly. 
 
 " But don't be so disturbed for me, darling," Elise 
 could not help saying, full of her old sympathy now. 
 " I am going to be very brave. Why, you don't know 
 there's no end to things I can do yes, I think we 
 can have a very exalted life." 
 
 " Sell your art for money, Elise !" for he caught 
 the significance of Elise's unspoken purpose. " Be 
 ranked with the hireling, and work and slave under 
 the mercenary inspiration of gold! Never would I 
 have you prostitute your talent to such base ends ! " 
 
 "But what shall I do, then?" Elise pleaded. It 
 was a tumultuous moment in her poor heart, waiting 
 for the kiss or the blow. One word would put an 
 ocean of space between them, or link for life incom- 
 patible hearts. 
 
 " I I cannot exactly see the background of your 
 future, Miss Elise (the formality had begun), the 
 foreground is frightfully clear and barren " 
 
 The language of the diplomat and not of the lover 
 she thought he might have spared her such a patent 
 disclosure. 
 
 She felt the blow, and yet because she knew that 
 while she had not been mercenary, she had not been 
 really won, and felt guilty of what she now saw was
 
 174 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 a masquerade of love on her part she could not be 
 severe upon her recreant lover with a baser motive 
 neither would it have been her nature to recriminate 
 or denounce him for false vows or hypocritical pre- 
 tensions. 
 
 But she would not convict him hastily he seemed 
 in an abstracted mood ; that little prefix to her name 
 might have been the outcome of a respectful tender- 
 ness, s.o she said kindly: 
 
 " My uncle, you know, is able to provide for me ; 
 not only will he never- permit me to suffer, but I 
 think he may do something handsome for me." 
 
 Bnt this awoke no enthusiasm in Dresson ; so she 
 went on : 
 
 "And after all, money, while I must say it lias 
 made me very happy, because I have so enjoyed 
 giving it away 
 
 Dresson looked at her with doubtful admiration. 
 
 ' Yes, that is what 1 have really enjoyed I have 
 taken a satisfaction in gratifying my own wishes for 
 art and luxuries ; but when I wanted a bit of solid joy 
 I built a school-house or set up a milliner in trade," 
 she .said, with an emphasis excited by his distrust. 
 
 Dresson again regarded her with a pleased and 
 incredulous surprise. 
 
 " Oh, I am aware that you did not know it. I have 
 not trumpeted my deeds to the world these pictures 
 have been my sacred treasures that I gloated on like 
 a miser by myself. I take true artistic delight in 
 contemplating a family rescued from want, surround- 
 ing a bountiful table, and children gathered from 
 lanes and by-ways into a well-ordered school-room." 
 
 " Was she a priestess of religion as well as art ? " 
 Dresson thought, and then dangling his watch-chain, 
 he said listlessly : 
 
 " Your beneficiaries will miss you and and so shall 
 well not the least of whom, Miss Elise, is your 
 humble servant," he remarked, looking her steadily in 
 the eye. 
 
 "But Otto I have not left you I have yet much 
 to give you."
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 175 
 
 A transient gleam shot across his pale serenity, but 
 he did not speak. 
 
 " I have myself, Otto, with all my unmined pos- 
 sibilities, all my untried faculties ! I feel them rising 
 within me with the force of a giant like a host for 
 battle ! Something will be heard of me yet, Otto Dres- 
 son, of which you as well as the world will be proud." 
 
 How regal she looked as she towered above him 
 from her heights of noble planning; she had risen 
 in her ardor and was walking up and down the golden 
 Moquetaire Aubusson tapestry. 
 
 He caught something of her enthusiasm. 
 
 " You, of yourself, Miss Elise, are a sufficient dower 
 for any living mortal, but with a suppressed treasury, 
 love would fly out of the window, don't you know." 
 
 " Such a transient and fugitive love better never 
 enter the window, Otto." she said, with patient calm- 
 ness, and then after a pause she inquired, with gentle 
 dignity : 
 
 " Are we parted then, Otto ? " 
 
 While Dresson had premeditated this very act, he 
 had not contemplated such precipitation ; a gradual 
 cessation of his attentions would have been according 
 to his notions of dissolution. After the instant's 
 surprise, which, however, was not observable, he con- 
 cluded to embrace the opportunity thus offered, par- 
 ticularly as in the form now presented he could adroitly 
 assume that it was her own choice. 
 
 "It disturbs me, Miss Elise, more than I like to 
 acknowledge, to recall the proposition I once made to 
 you, under circumstances more propitious to us both. 
 In doing this, I feel that I am moved by the highest 
 regard for your good the greatest chivalry for your 
 happiness. I should interfere with that life of higher 
 consecration of which you give me glimpses - " 
 
 "Could you not join me in it?" Elise interrupted. 
 
 " Such noble purposes are best evolved in silence 
 and solitude fitting scenery must accompany a heroic 
 picture." 
 
 " Ah, Otto ! I have indeed mistaken you but I will
 
 176 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 not hold you. To preserve my established values of 
 self-respect and pride, I could not intrust me to your 
 keeping. I thought you were a hero I find you 
 a pigmy ! " 
 
 Her indignation was becoming, as with sparkling 
 eyes and just a tra'ce of hauteur she seemed to wave 
 him into the distant obscurity. 
 
 " By Jove! " he said to himself, " she is a queen ! 
 Perhaps I do wrong to drop the game so soon." 
 
 With more excitement than he had shown, he said : 
 " But do not let us act rashly, Miss Elise. Per- 
 haps there may be some compromise with for- 
 tune " 
 
 She interrupted him, now fully convinced of his 
 avaricious spirit : 
 
 " I can never meet you upon your ground, Mr. 
 Dresson it is too much of the earth, earthy ; too 
 shining with the mammon. That is plain, I know it 
 but you have not been equivocal. Have I perhaps 
 misunderstood you ?" she asked, with a voice full of 
 pathos, once more under the strain of her quick 
 sympathy, fearing she had wronged him. 
 
 Again the sign of weakness on her part and devo- 
 tion to his will aroused the god in him, and he went 
 back to his throne. 
 
 " My objections," he said, with a deep and tender 
 gravity, " may seem trivial and unphilosophical, but 
 I feel that they are founded on absolute mathemati- 
 cal laws and must ultimately command your assent. 
 There are conventional and arbitrary limitations of 
 my sphere rendering it quite impossible for me to 
 step over the clear and fixed boundary-line between 
 celibacy and matrimony. I put to myself this ques- 
 tion : Are there, or are there not, constant qualities 
 which make what we call matrimony desirable ? Does 
 connubial peace arise from anything inherent in 
 these, or does it depend upon accidents in us, the 
 complex and numberless phenomena of our separate 
 interests? I ask further: Should there not be in a 
 household presided over by worshippers of Art who
 
 THE WITHDRAWAL. 177 
 
 have susceptibilities touched by artistic arrange- 
 ments, a discernible principle of order and fitness 
 throughout 
 
 Elise, who had not quite thought of herself as a 
 worshipper of Art, here put in a protest : 
 
 " 1 worship God, Otto. I have never yet substi- 
 tuted Art as an object of my supreme spiritual de- 
 votion ;" and even while she said it, she felt a sharp 
 cut through her spirit for the neglect of God's wor- 
 ship in its truest sense. 
 
 "But this is the central point, Miss Elise. Might 
 there not be too often coarse effects, don't you know, 
 resulting from these limitations, so intense and pun- 
 gent as to exhaust our sensibilities and mar our calm ? 
 Abstractly considered, a lily-dinner or a sunflower- 
 dessert may fill one's aesthetic nature ; but such 
 objects, you will permit me to say, while they may 
 enter into the scale of our physical and sensual enjoy- 
 ments as accompaniments, can't furnish blood, brain, 
 and muscle, don't you know ? But beef and eggs and 
 all that class of edibles belonging to the sesthetics 
 of the useful are reached through a commercial ex- 
 change pence and shillings without which neces- 
 sary basis of support, I fear, Miss Elise, it would be 
 impossible to remove the fatiguing accompaniments, 
 tone down the exciting influences, and refine those 
 coarse effects I hinted at." 
 
 Elise queried inwardly what had become of his 
 "patrimony," but was silent. 
 
 " I am quite confident that I have an adequate 
 apprehension of the harmony and perfection of your 
 being. I look upon you as the objective embodiment 
 of my idea of physical beauty a beauty which will 
 be to me an eternal aspiration and to which I shall 
 ceaselessly approximate." 
 
 He arose and offered his hand in parting. Elise 
 silently placed hers in his. He swept the curtains 
 aside, seized his hat and paused, for Elise had 
 followed, and stood resting her elbow upon the 
 newel.
 
 178 THE OPAL 
 
 The triumph and clear shining purpose on her 
 face bewitched while it puzzled him. Was she 
 indifferent to his charms? Was she consenting with 
 secret pleasure to the dissolution of the bond? 
 Was the spell of his presence lost upon her? For 
 one second there shot a hot gush through his heart. 
 The dart had struck ; he was nearer the edge of the 
 volcano than he relished on the dizzy verge of love's 
 abyss another such glance and he would be utterly 
 submerged. Not an instant must be lost. 
 
 He was mechanically smoothing his beaver, but 
 now recalled to himself, kept on the line of his pre- 
 arranged movement. 
 
 " And if, Miss Elise, in after life, sitting among the 
 cold, gray ashes of Memory, as I recall my past sen- 
 sations and sympathies, I shall wish to bind niy 
 thoughts to one firm spot and embody them in a fit- 
 ting memorial suggestive of my devotion to Art, it 
 will be the visible temple of your soul as I see it to- 
 day ; for in this shrine dwells, as I have often said to 
 you, Platonic perfection of sufficiently comprehen- 
 sive design to influence the whole range of Art. And 
 I shall look upon my finished work this artistic 
 form delivered from the cold marble, and I shall 
 gaze and gaze, and yearn " 
 
 And he was gone.
 
 THE LEGACY. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE LEGACY. 
 
 As Mr. Drew entered the library next morning, his 
 face showed that he ' was greatly encouraged in his 
 view of the situation. 
 
 " I have a matter of some importance for you to 
 consider, Miss Elise, which I didn't mention yester- 
 day because you were too wrought up. This subject 
 requires clear-headedness, and I staid over night to 
 see what effect a night's rest would have upon you. 
 Not quite up to the standard yet, I see," he said, 
 glancing at her sunken eyes. 
 
 " Sleep had rather a sorry time in trying to ' knit 
 up the tangled threads of care ' last night. The snarl 
 was too intricate for his lordship but something lias 
 nerved me this morning, for I feel fresh as as any- 
 thing ! " 
 
 " Good ! Well, then, let's to it. It has been 
 pushed into the background by its specific limitations, 
 and lost sight of, but fortunately just come to my 
 attention," Mr. Drew observed, taking a. long docu- 
 ment from his vest-pocket. 
 
 "In turning over your legal papers I have brought 
 to light this fragment, which I think," looking keenly 
 at her over his spectacles, " is one of those veritable 
 apples in old-gold that we read about and I hope 
 that you will say that it is a ' fitly spoken word ' for 
 this very time, October eighth, anno Domini eighteen 
 hundred and so forth." And Mr. Drew gave the 
 paper an emphatic slap upon the table. 
 
 " I know what it must be from your graphic 
 description, Mr. Drew, for only this morning it came
 
 180 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 into my own mind. You refer to the clause in 
 my grandfather's will settling upon me a marriage 
 portion, do you not?" 
 
 Elise smiled, but she had not caught his transient 
 enthusiasm, and he thought he recognized an inaud- 
 ible quiver in her voice. She looked pale but resolved, 
 and scarcely knowing why, his ardor was somewhat 
 dampened. 
 
 " It occurred to me, Miss Elise you will pardon 
 an old man for what looks like pry ing into your love- 
 affairs, since his only object is to put you on your 
 feet again ? " 
 
 He looked at her with a quizzical bewilderment and 
 paused. 
 
 Elise gave him a look full of happy trust that dis- 
 armed his fears. 
 
 " I was thinking, you know, that perhaps you 
 might set an early day for your marriage to Mr. 
 Dresson, and so come into immediate possession of 
 this little fortune ; only a drop in the bucket to be 
 sure, compared w-ith what you've lost, but for a little 
 fortune it is really quite a handsome thing." 
 
 " I have forgotten the sum, Mr. Drew," Elise re- 
 marked, absently. 
 
 "Fifty thousand," he replied, briskly, and with a 
 suppressed chuckle, as if in some indefinable way his 
 emphatic alertness would increase its valuation com- 
 mensurate to her needs. 
 
 " But I am unable to comply with the conditions 
 of the will that is, at present, Mr. Drew." 
 
 " No special hurry, you know, Miss Elise stay at 
 your Aunt Gray's or here," he said, glancing around, 
 " no one to molest you here, house secured and in- 
 sured, and all quiet and nice here just as you have 
 always had it say four weeks? Wife tells me that 
 a lady can step into New York, and spend a day or 
 two, and leave with a wedding-gear fit for a queen." 
 
 But he halted in his speech, for Elise was not hear- 
 ing him, he knew, by the bewildering dreaminess in 
 her face and the prolonged gaze of her eyes, centered
 
 THE LEGACY. 181 
 
 upon her mother's hanging portrait on the opposite 
 wall. 
 
 The abrupt pause broke her reverie, and she said, 
 with melancholy sweetness : 
 
 " Mr. Dresson is nothing to me now, Mr. Drew." 
 
 This was ambiguous, and Mr. Drew, upon the 
 point of exclamation, checked himself, perceiving 
 that Elise might have dismissed her lover, and not 
 have been jilted. 
 
 She went on in the same quiet vein : 
 
 " I released him yesterday, just after you left." 
 He started, and she continued, answering his keen 
 glance of inquiry, " at his own implied request." 
 Every word was cut with a clean distinctness of 
 emphasis that carried its deepest meaning. 
 
 Mr. Drew rose to his feet, and came over to her in 
 a state of irritation and annoyance he tried in vain 
 to conceal. But again he checked the rising indigna- 
 tion to inquire : 
 
 " Did you not first throw him over, Miss Elise ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. He withdrew his proposi- 
 tion " 
 
 ' ; The confounded scoundrel," interrupted Mr. 
 Drew. " How can a man take back that kind of a 
 thing ? Better have withdrawn his own beastly 
 carcass before he ever set foot in this town ! " Mr. 
 Drew was going beyond the bounds of refinement. 
 He felt it and apologized, saying: 
 
 " You must overlook my roughness, Miss Elise, 
 I am so cut up about this thing. For your sake, to 
 tell the truth, I am glad the man is off your hands, but 
 I thought we had such a fine plan for your comfort. I 
 saw your gold-lined nest just ready for you to step into 
 again. But the presumption of the fool is something 
 enormous to have the audacity condescension, per- 
 haps the snob called it (excuse me, Miss Elise, I 
 know the fellow) to ask for such a prize, and then 
 the cool impudence to hand it back when the gold 
 falls off it ! The contemptible puppy ! Withdrew 
 his proposition, you say? Withdrew his fiddle- 
 sticks ! "
 
 182 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 Elise could not resist laughing at the blustering 
 denunciations of her quondam lover, and it was con- 
 tagious enough to dissolve the ominous frowns in- 
 creasing to an alarming extent on Mr. Drew's face, 
 but he could not stop. 
 
 " Playing fast and loose with marriage vows is 
 not to my liking, Miss Elise. A pre-Raphaelite, I 
 think you call him. Humph ! If this is the out- 
 come of aesthetics, deliver me from such whim- 
 whams ! The retreat was no doubt very artistic ; 
 ' withwrawing ' is rather the part of an actor on 
 the stage ; he probably thought no more of breaking 
 this tie than he would of brushing away a cobweb ! 
 I can see him now, with his hat in gloved hand, bow- 
 ing and scraping the cowardly, pusillanimous, dis- 
 honorable, exquisite fop ! " 
 
 He threw himself into a chair and looked vacantly 
 into the wood fire with its shining andirons. 
 
 "Perhaps he has not been altogether to blame," 
 said Elise, realizing that while she herself would not 
 have dissolved the bonds of engagement, she had pro- 
 tracted them beyond his wish because she could never 
 fully get her own consent to take the irrevocable step, 
 and knowing now, what she only dimly guessed then, 
 that it was because he did not possess her heart. " I 
 think I entered into the contract a little too hastily." 
 
 "But you expected to marry him, did you not?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Elise, with the doubtful accent of 
 the circumflex replying truthfully and yet mislead- 
 ing him without intention ; she knew it was as to the 
 real state of her heart. " But I didn't know when 
 the spirit would move me. And " for Mr. Drew's 
 face was lighting up as with a new revelation 
 " well, the fact is, Mr. Drew, I think I shall come 
 out unscathed," she said, with a bright smile. 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed Mr. Drew. " That pleases me, 
 but ' and he once more resumed his study in the 
 polishing of andirons. 
 
 lie looked up suddenly. " Does Dresson know of 
 this bequest?"
 
 THE LEGACY. 183 
 
 " I have not mentioned it to a living soul," she re- 
 plied, " and as you and I are its only custodians, he 
 cannot know it." 
 
 " We'll keep it sacredly trust me there. If that 
 fellow got inkling of this he would march up here 
 double-quick with his countersign his * withdrawal ' 
 would become instantly abbreviated into a d-r-a-w-1 
 on the woes of the rejected. He would no more 
 mind setting aside that insignificant 'with' than 
 crushing a mosquito, and would probably convince 
 you, before he was through the artful, designing 
 rascal that the whole business was a ruse on his 
 part, an artistic plot, purposely contrived and play- 
 fully executed to test your sincerity ! Ha ! I know 
 him a crack-brained do-nought-in-the-world, into the 
 bargain ! " 
 
 But Elise looked grave ; she could not so soon un- 
 idealize her lover. 
 
 " But I am disappointed to lose him, I don't see 
 why we can't be good friends and 
 
 " Never try that, Miss Elise. Once a lover always a 
 lover, remember that ; and if it is only a sham-love, 
 why, the fewer pretenders you have about you, the 
 better." 
 
 " Then I confess that I am mortified my pride is 
 hurt, and I am all unstrung." 
 
 "Never mind all that; with a sound heart you'll 
 string up again in no time ; and a little wounded 
 pride, Miss Elise, may lift up the virtue of humility, 
 and so give you a better balancing, and you'll then 
 be adjusted more according to the heavenly mathe- 
 matics eh ? " 
 
 " Why, there's no pride in the scales with heavenly 
 weights ! " said Elise in a surprised exclamation. 
 
 "That's just as you say, Miss Elise," said the old 
 gentleman absently, and then : 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! What am I saying? Of course not. 
 I'll keep my similes within range of Blackstone, I 
 think, hereafter. I never had the least talent at ser- 
 monizing ; always get lodged in some impossible
 
 184 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 ethics from which an ox-team can hardly extract 
 me ! " But his face shone as a father's does when 
 caught in an accidental blunder by an astute child. 
 There was a gleam of satisfaction mixed with this 
 benevolent pride, as he said: 
 
 " I'll pass that field over to you, Miss Elise, and 
 stand ready for the sermon most any day." 
 
 " But this is far from the subject on my mind. 
 How can we make available the fifty thousand ? that's 
 the proposition for you to tackle now. You know 
 when yon came into possession of your property, and 
 told me as your executor that it was your desire to 
 have me keep to myself that bequest ' 
 
 Ci Because you know it was for a special purpose, 
 and I didn't care about publishing it it would be 
 like a bait to draw a husband," Elise interrupted. 
 
 " Quite right. I agreed with you, and have not 
 imparted the secret even to my wife ; women are for- 
 getful, you know, but I beg pardon 
 
 " And gossipy," laughed Elise, " oh, yes ! very 
 well, anything else ? " 
 
 " I'll not add one more count to the indictment," he 
 replied. " Let that pass. I am open to discussion 
 only on one subject. You can't very well step up 
 to the man of your choice and say, you are ready for 
 the ring I know that. You can't collar a man and 
 manipulate his knees into the posing, proposing, ador- 
 ing lover's I know that and you wouldn't if you 
 could. You are on the voting side, but you can't 
 ' put the question;' and so you modestly wait for 
 the chairman to put it. Of course, that is right. But 
 meantime the thought is suggested to me that your 
 benevolent ancestor would undoubtedly put this 
 money into your hands to-day, if he were standing 
 on this carpet, and why ought not we to devise some 
 way of putting it there? " 
 
 " The conditions are unequivocal, are they not, 
 Mr. Drew?" 
 
 " It reads that the whole sum is to be laid out upon 
 your wedding paraphernalia and accessories. I think
 
 THE LEGACY. 185 
 
 you are too sensible a girl to spend fifty thousand on 
 your trousseau, and this wording is no doubt wisely 
 chosen to enable you to buy a house and lot if you 
 chose, or some substantial article of which your 
 domestic life should stand in need. A good many 
 things could come under the head ' accessories.' " 
 
 " I would rather keep to the letter of the will, Mr. 
 Drew. I prefer not to make over or mar the pro- 
 visions in any wise; Grandpa was old enough to 
 know his own mind, and clear-headed enough to make 
 wise provisions for me or at any rate if he erred in 
 his judgment, as many a good man has, he had a 
 particular fancy to have that sum go just in this pre- 
 scribed way. You may call it a freak, and perhaps 
 it was, but it was his freak and it was his money, and 
 he had a right to proportion them as he chose, and 
 I have no right to interfere with the legitimate out- 
 come of his intentions." 
 
 Mr. Drew rapped his pencil nervously on the 
 table, but said nothing, evidently pondering every 
 word and movement. 
 
 " And since you say you came to consult me about 
 this, let me tell you now and for always, that if I 
 never marry, I shall never put forth one finger to- 
 wards the fifty thousand. If it were lying at my 
 feet I would not touch it except to replace it where 
 it belongs." 
 
 " Then it goes to the Grays " 
 
 " And my grandpa's will is also mine. I should 
 wish to see it go there." 
 
 "Are you quite inflexible, my little girlie?" he 
 said, putting his hand on her arm as he walked to 
 the door. 
 
 " I am a Mede on my father's side and a Persian 
 on my mother's," she replied, laughing. 
 
 " But consider your destitution." Elise's face fell. 
 " Ah ! that is a sad, hard word ! " He bowed his 
 head, and then abruptly raising it, he cried with a 
 pathetic fervor : 
 
 "God bless my soul, what is left for me to do for 
 you? " and rushed into the street.
 
 186 TlIE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 
 
 A QUICK and touching sympathy for the beautiful 
 " Opal Queen " throbbed as with one pulse through 
 the village, when the dire account of her double loss 
 shot from house to house. What would become of 
 her? How did she bear it? What did she say? 
 How did she look ? These and other pertinent in- 
 quiries formed the theme of gossiping discussion in 
 all ranks. Neither did they all stop with specula- 
 tions on the mischance and the probable chances. 
 There were offers of help and cheery words of en- 
 couragement, besides the universal tide of sympathy 
 that set in like a flood. 
 
 " An' shure, if there is anything I can do for you, 
 Miss, it's not the loikes o' me that'll be a refusin' on't," 
 said old widow Flinn, who had gained an audience 
 with Elise and stood with one corner of her apron 
 wiping her eyes, as she said afterwards to her little 
 circle of friends, " to see her standing there so swate 
 and pale loike, an' zhust as calm, shure, loike no storm 
 had never crossed her bosom, and she knew zhust 
 where to lay her finger on anither gold pile zhust as 
 good foreby. 
 
 " Ye haven't seen our Opal Queen ? " she asked of 
 one of the company, a stranger. 
 
 "Will ye be tellin me now what they does be afther 
 callin her the Opal Queen for? Is it some island that 
 ye mane? Wasn't she born in Ameriky ?" rapidly 
 interrogated the stranger. 
 
 "Why, for shure," replied Bridget "it's the shpar-' 
 kle in them sumpchis orbs and the white an' pank in
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 187 
 
 her complexion, shure. Oh, mother ov Moses ! I wish 
 ye'd seen her now I" And here Mrs. Flinn straight- 
 ened herself into rigidity, and looking out into space, 
 outlined with the quick precision of an etcher who 
 is seizing his first impressions of the figure she seemed 
 to see there. 
 
 " She was tall, an' she was beautiful, an' she was 
 dressed all in white an' the folds hung down, an' she 
 had the look of an angel on her face, an' as though 
 she was say in' her prayers all the time, an' oh ! " here 
 Mrs. Flinn paused to take breath and gave a great 
 gulping sigh "she had such a good shmell on her ! " 
 
 Mrs. Flinn little realized her precipitate descent 
 from the sublime to the ridiculous, and as her visitors 
 were blessed with the same dull perceptions, the last 
 member of the series formed, to their original minds, 
 the appropriate finish of the climax. 
 
 " An' shure, didn't she send me all the gowns an' 
 things that the children wears, an' all the mate we 
 wanted iver since she come ? an' wasn't she a'most 
 a-giievin', shure, an' put out wid me, 'cause I was for 
 thankin' of her an' callin' down the blessin's of all 
 the saints on her swate face ? 
 
 " 'An' shure,' " she sez, 'Bridget, ye knows yerself 
 an' the Lord He knows, an' we won't zhust mind noth- 
 in' about the rest on 'em ; an' the saints are full o' 
 business loike up in the hivvens, so we'll zhust be 
 for kapin' it a bit shly betwixt us. If I was a suffer- 
 in',' sez she, ' its loike enough ye'd be fer comin' 
 round to help, forenenst someo' the grand folk, shure 
 foreby.' 
 
 " An' shure, Miss, sez I the tears all standin' in 
 the corners o' my eyes ye shall niver want while 
 Bridget Flinn's above ground to put oyes on yer 
 bonny face an' h's got the flesh an' bones to work 
 wid fur ye ! " 
 
 So far, Bridget had run her train at locomotive 
 speed without breaks. She heaved a deep sigh and 
 sat down, bending over and crossing her arms in her 
 lap. The audience was silent now, but fully in accord
 
 188 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 with the speaker, as had been proved by the occa- 
 sional sympathetic groans or interjected exclamations 
 of assent and encouragement from the enthusiastic 
 and irrepressible members during the eulogy. They 
 were at this present moment occupied with the prob- 
 lem of how Bridget Flinn, now that the crisis had 
 really come, could make good her promise how she 
 would find the means to take care of her six little 
 ones (who were now comfortably disposed in various 
 laps or squatted on the floor in picturesque rags) and 
 the Opal Queen into the bargain ! But they waited 
 for the solution ; partly from the shock of the tidings, 
 from which ignorant minds do not easily rebound 
 even when they are not the victims of the disaster, 
 partly from a vague suspicion that there was more to 
 come from the same oracular source, and partly from 
 a certain native restraint which stood them for polite- 
 ness. 
 
 But one buxom dame, a trifle more venturesome 
 than the rest, suggested faintly that Mrs. Flinn could 
 not have been supposed to imagine even that the ca- 
 lamity was so imminent, when she made the uncon- 
 ditional pledge. 
 
 But Mrs. Flinn was equal to the occasion. 
 
 "An' shure," she said, with a ring of defiant indig- 
 nation in her voice, rising and standing with arms a- 
 klmbo, "y'er thinkin now that I'll be for goin' back 
 on my promise, an' that shows, faith, that ye don't 
 know Bridget O'Brien Flinn! that's meself, shure, 
 that's come from the dacent shtock o' the O'Briens 
 an' I zhust want ye to know now that the O'Briens 
 is honest ivery one o' them to the marrow, an' niver 
 desayves a friend ! " 
 
 But without unfolding the exact line of her pro- 
 gramme or disclosing any part of the. benevolent 
 scheme which should prove her true to her ancestry, 
 she turned upon the offender. 
 
 "An' who got your baste of a man out of the jail 
 last winther an' gave him dacent employment right 
 in her own primises when she was a-buildin' her pal-
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 189 
 
 ace, slmre? An' who shingled your shanty whin the 
 rain was comin' in fit to drown ye an' yer brats while 
 yer old man was servin' out his time, arrah! An' 
 was afther givin yerself many a day's job as I'm 
 comin' to know ! It's the Opal Queen that's bin the 
 stickin' friend to ivery one on us," she said glancing 
 around; "some on us would 'a gone clean out into 
 the next world if it hadn't been for the Opal Queen, 
 shure ! " and she sank into her chair, sobbing and 
 crying, all broken down now at the remembrance of 
 her nearly fatal illness after Mr. Flinn's death, when 
 Elise sent good old mother Crady to nurse her. 
 
 Not one in the company but had experienced some 
 kindness from the Opal Queen, and they were loud 
 now in their protestations of regard and devotion ; 
 they rehearsed these deeds in their hearty vernacular, 
 and descanted glowingly on her merits and her 
 beauty. 
 
 But Mrs. Flinn had inherited something besides 
 loyalty to friends from the rare O'Brien stock ; a fine 
 streak of diplomatic talent was also imbedded in her 
 composition, and in this interval of rest which the 
 others were loudly vocalizing, she worked out a 
 policy to establish her line of defense adroitly 
 shifting the burden of proof upon an organization, 
 as it were, of her fellow countrywomen, who stood 
 committed now as the acknowledged recipients of a 
 bounty almost if not quite equal to her own. 
 
 " It's foine open countenances, ye hev," she said, 
 now restored to a tolerable composure, "mebbeit's 
 honest ye air troth, an I don't think ye'd be a desayv- 
 in' of me. An' faith, what air ye goin' to do about it ? 
 Sittin' there a whimperin' an' braggin' an star-in,' 
 when loike as not the swate sowl hasn't a coal in her 
 bin nor a perater in the barrel. An' ye'd zhust best 
 be a thinkin' about it for shure now, pretty lively, 
 an' come in an' acquaint me wid yer intentions for 
 the loikes o' the' brave, beautiful sowl that's loike an 
 angel from hivven ! Och ! is it there ye air, ye ras- 
 cal, a' pokin me in the ribs to make me laugh?
 
 190 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 what is ye after inniway?" and she snatched up 
 the youngest scion of the noble O'Biien stock, with 
 a series of vigorous gymnastics that set the cherub 
 into the normal and indignant protestations of out- 
 raged babyhood, and at the same time was a signal 
 to the visitors that their conference so far as Mrs. 
 O'Brien Flinn was concerned had come to an end. 
 
 But Elise's playful and figurative disparagement 
 of her friends, according to Mrs. Flinn's version, was 
 not borne out by the facts. ' The " Saints' Rest " 
 turned out en masse, even dear old Gran feeling that 
 she must give her bit of sympathy to the stricken 
 child ; and Charming was not put to the grim neces- 
 sity of holding more secret councils with himself on 
 the possible and the impossible, the probable and the 
 improbable, as Superba constituted herself a com- 
 mittee to institute the proper ceremonies, and invested 
 herself with arbitrary authority. She was accus- 
 tomed to manage her forces with the skill of a field- 
 marshal without suggestive hints from the male 
 portion of the household who were not expected, 
 according to her view of the relative duties of the 
 sexes, to understand nice points of etiquette and was 
 able to rally them without preliminary argument into 
 an impromptu onset upon the palace to contribute 
 their spoken assurances of cordial fellowship. 
 
 Others succeeded rapidly as the days of the first 
 week rolled on, with the profuse offers of assistance 
 that fall from ready lips like the worm-eaten fruit 
 before maturity without the remotest conception on 
 their part that promise meant fulfillment, and who 
 would be routed and utterly put to flight should their 
 gilded pledges be rated at full valuations. 
 
 The airy dew of a false sympathy that is all ! Just 
 a little fragrant so-called moisture to keep the flower 
 from utterly wilting in this Sahara of misfortune! 
 Just to let her see, you know, that we think of her 
 and feel kindly towards her! Heroic little souls ! 
 Well even for such there is a mission ! and sometimes 
 in the squeeze for the one glistening drop, the long-
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 191 
 
 pent fountain bursts and sends out a stream of real, 
 active benevolence. But they came and went away 
 disappointed they expected to meet a weeping 
 Niobe, and found a noble Spartan soaring far above 
 the vicissitudes of life in the serene atmosphere of 
 her own sunny content. Conduct so entirely out of 
 rule" must be reprehensible could not be above 
 reproach even if their keenest scrutiny could not 
 detect the flaws ! "She must have other means of 
 support!" or "We'll see her 'flat out' at last I" 
 were the secret comments of these suspicious hypo- 
 crites. 
 
 This was the crowd. There were still left the ap- 
 preciative few whose speech was standard gold, every 
 sentence of which was a promissory note bearing in- 
 terest for time and running into eternity, if neces- 
 sary. 
 
 "I will tell you what I have thought of," said 
 Miss St. John to a company of her friends informally 
 gathered in Miss Love's drawing-room. "You know 
 Miss Archer was intending to have the next Festival 
 and all the beautiful plans she carried out in her 
 house to produce it with the best effects. Well, I 
 have quietly ascertained that she has given up the 
 idea. Now why shouldn't we impress herself and 
 her house right into our service for the occasion 
 take the whole management off from her hands, sup- 
 ply the feast the 'goodies,' you know I mean, she 
 said, laughing "ourselves and leave her only (he 
 office of a sinecure and well ? yes ; critic in par- 
 ticular and general mistress extraordinary of the 
 whole affair?" 
 
 There was a pretty little confusion of enthusiastic 
 admiration of the plot and the plotter, in the midst 
 of which Miss Tete said : 
 
 " And may I be aide-de-camp to this Mistress Ex- 
 traordinaire ? " 
 
 " Why, mavoureen !" replied Miss St. John, " we 
 shall need every mother's child of you in the forces 
 of the assaulting brigade."
 
 192 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " And there's something else occurs to me," said 
 Virginia Love. " You know Miss Archer was just 
 about to order her dress from Worth's now why 
 couldn't we all combine and make it for her? " 
 
 "Charming," exclaimed Miss Bunce ; "then we 
 shall prove our love." 
 
 And the arch-plotters grew merry over their shrewd 
 device, and put their sage young heads together in 
 the planning, contriving and, above all, the vigor- 
 ously discussing of how to apprise Miss Archer of 
 the intended assault. Some were for carrying the 
 whole affair on secretly and then springing it upon 
 her like an old-fashioned surprise party ; but the 
 majority thought this overwhelming generosity might 
 be crushing in its denouement, and they finally settled 
 into the decision of a formal announcement of their 
 plan and a request for her co-operation by consent- 
 ing to its development. 
 
 Meantime Elise had been visited by her uncle and 
 aunt Gray, who begged her to return with them and 
 share the shelter of their roof and comforts of their 
 home. 
 
 It grieved Elise to hold out in a seeming obstinacy 
 against their urgent wishes. She had indeed given 
 it some thought, before their arrival, but Mrs. Healey 
 had also extended to her the same privilege, and she 
 could not bear so soon to give up her beautiful home 
 to which she had so long been looking forward as a 
 refuge and bower a "bower of ease" then, but 
 now a bower of independent comfort. 
 
 " I have thought it all out, dear aunt," she said ; 
 "independence is my life you know I have always 
 been my own chief and if you take that away, you 
 will change my nature : I shall droop and pine and 
 die. You think this wild talk, but wait let me tell 
 you what I have evolved out of the chaos of my 
 brain. Now, listen, this is the oracular response of 
 the Pythia; and true to her dramatic instincts and 
 irrepressible native humor, she seated herself upon a 
 tripod, dishevelled her tresses, and proclaimed : "
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 193 
 
 " Elise Archer, the spoiled favorite of the gods and 
 men (that is the generic term for everybody, auntie," 
 she said demurely sotto voce), " by reason of her many 
 unused endowments and accomplishments is hereby 
 decreed to put the same into active use for a space 
 and half a space and six moons ! She shall make use 
 of her new house for this worthy purpose, converting 
 it into halls and studios where the ancient arts of 
 embroidery and painting and carving may be carried 
 on in their beauty and perfection. She shall thus 
 preserve her fingers from stiffening and her mind 
 from rust and her heart from vanity. So saith the 
 Pythia by the order of his most oracular majesty, the 
 Great Apollo ! " 
 
 Having announced this decree with a " wildly im- 
 pressive look laden with resolution, affection, and 
 prophetic vision," she rushed over to her -aunt's 
 arms who was overcome with mingled grief and 
 laughter at the enthusiastic bravery and undaunted 
 mirthfulness that could enact a scene in the very 
 teeth of Misfortune, and heroically laugh in his face. 
 
 She was touched with her niece's happy ignorance 
 of the many rebuffs that were awaiting her encounter 
 with the stern, hard world, and her buoyant trust in 
 the virgin untried wares which she was about to 
 offer in its market. 
 
 Her eyes were bright with unshed tears as she 
 said: "Well, it will keep you busy, and that is more 
 than half of life, and of course your uncle and I will 
 keep an eye on you, and a pretty close one, too, dear," 
 she added with a kiss. 
 
 Elise sought Gran soon after the blows fell, as be- 
 ing the one person nearest the heaven which seemed 
 all so dark to her now, and best able to open for her 
 rifts of light in the clouds. Standing so near the 
 threshold of that impenetrable mystery, she thought 
 she must have caught glimpses and had messages of 
 the scheme by which the affairs of our little earth 
 were conducted. It seemed so all-mysterious to Elise 
 that everything should go and she found herself 
 
 13
 
 194 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 wondering what she had done to merit such punish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh ! " said she, lifting her head from the dear 
 old lap as she was seated low by G-ran's side, "if I 
 had only known it ! I would like to have done so 
 much more with it made so many people happy 
 but we never know." She paused and mused with 
 her head again down. 
 
 "But I want to know now, Gran, about present 
 duty so as not to be sorry, when this October-wheel 
 turns round again and lets me out somewhere else, 
 that I have not come up to the standard of my 
 privileges. This is an inscrutable providence, of 
 course ; nobody can comprehend the why or where- 
 fore probably I deserve the punishment.' 1 
 
 If Gran heard the allusion to Elise's month-of- 
 mystery, she doubtless thought she misunderstood, as 
 her hearing was slightly defective; when the mean- 
 ing was tolerably clear she never asked for a repeti- 
 tion of speech, but answered according to her com- 
 prehension of it. 
 
 "But, my child," said Gran, "it isn't always pun- 
 ishment that we require^ but a little discipline now 
 and then, or perhaps a very severe stroke. If it would 
 comfort you any, my child," she said, laying her 
 emaciated fingers on the dear bowed head, "you may 
 think of it as discipline. All children require that, 
 and in eternity we shall think none too severe, if it 
 is the price we must pay for entrance yonder," and 
 she raised her eyes, and pointed with a rapturous look 
 to the upper spheres. 
 
 " Don't understand me to mean," she continued, 
 "that we are purchasing heaven by submitting with 
 resignation to the discipline, but that we are like the 
 obedient child who fulfills his Father's conditions, 
 while he is waiting with a loving, trusting spirit to 
 be restored to his Father's home knowing that 
 they are working graces in him that will make him 
 meet for that inheritance which his Saviour has already 
 purchased for him. You must talk with your Saviour
 
 VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 195 
 
 about it, dear child ; perhaps you have been neglect- 
 ing Him of late. For you know, DO matter how 
 much you do for Him that is all good, of course, 
 and I don't want to undervalue it but He never 
 wants you to be so busy that you can't come and 
 have some little talk with Him about yourself and 
 what you've been doing and want to do. Would 
 your mother be satisfied, do you suppose, if you were 
 in the same town, and so full of ministries to the 
 poor and destitute, and your own pleasures, that 
 you never even peeped into her chamber to get her 
 counsel as well as her caress and warm expressions of 
 parental love ? " 
 
 Thin allusion, so full of the tender memories of the 
 past, so choked Elise's utterance that she could not 
 reply. 
 
 " Perhaps you haven't been to the audience-room 
 the consecrated closet where at the mercy-seat, 
 you may talk with your Divine Master and see Him 
 and hear His gracious voice ? " 
 
 Elise kissed the dear withered hands, but was be- 
 yond speech. 
 
 "You believe it is all for the best, my child?" 
 grandma interrogated. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't care for the money ! " Elise burst 
 out impetuously " I never did care for money in 
 the sense of lovinar it neither do I care for Well, 
 
 O 
 
 Gran," she said, looking up into her face with a 
 sweet bewilderment "Oh! I don't care for anything 
 that has happened; that is, I am not oppressed by it, 
 but I don't understand it, and if there is anything 
 wrong about me I want to correct it. And I would 
 like, too," she said, musingly, "to know just what I 
 am going to do. The Lord has a place for me, hasn't 
 he, Gran ? " 
 
 Gran was looking at her tenderly ; she opened her 
 arms as if to receive her, and then said with a sweet, 
 deep earnestness, so like a heavenly voice in the far- 
 away tone : 
 
 " ' He will carry the lambs in His bosom ' there's
 
 196 1'titi OPAL 
 
 no better place on earth or in heaven, my child ; " 
 and she closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair 
 with folded hands and still breathing, broken by an 
 occasional faint, choking sound arising from sup- 
 pressed emotion. A solemn stillness fell upon them, 
 for Gran's pleading soul was committing this helpless 
 one into the arms of Infinite Love with a faith that 
 trusted fully in His infinite tenderness. 
 
 But to Elise this was not a practical solution of 
 the difficulty; her spiritual apprehension was not yet 
 so quickened as to produce in her .anything more 
 than a dreamy, vague comfort which was not born 
 of a living faith a kind of soothing false rest which 
 she felt she had somehow appropriated because it 
 was so eminently fitting and orthodox. 
 
 But Elise was not left to her solitary shifts in her 
 undertaking. Indomitable as she appeared, her ex- 
 perienced friends knew that contact with the world 
 in search of the desired avenues for her talent might 
 prove a disheartening and bitter mockery. 
 
 Good Mr. Drew made another attempt to induce 
 her to accept her grandfather's legacy, but she 
 continued inflexible in her resolution, and he then 
 turned his attention in the direction in which hers 
 was fixed, endeavoring to enlist pupils for her. 
 
 Bertha would not desert her mistress, and being 
 herself skilled in needle-work, lace-making and em- 
 broidery, immediately set about turning the product 
 of those accomplishments into the common fund. 
 
 Through Mrs. Gray's agency, a New York firm 
 agreed to take all her work in woolen and fancy 
 goods, so that the outlook was promising, and Elise 
 said cheerfully to Bertha one. day : 
 
 "We never knew before how valuable we were, 
 Bertha! Surely more than our weight in gold we'll 
 prove to be yetthat ideal phraseology isn't such a 
 fabulous amount after all, for you are only witch's 
 weight and I am not much beyond ! " 
 
 Elise's ideas were still those of a millionaire. 
 
 Dr. Healey fully endorsed her plan, and was quietly 
 doing much to further it.
 
 THE OPAL LEAGUE. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE OPAL LEAGUE. 
 
 " Every day 
 
 A little life, a blank to be inscribed 
 With gentle deeds, such as in after time 
 Console, .rejoice, whene'er you turn the leaf 
 To read them." 
 
 Rogers. 
 
 ELISE was much moved when her young friends 
 disclosed to her their plan for conducting the next 
 Greek festival. 
 
 " Dear, sweet things ! " she said, with eyes all shin- 
 ing as if with tears behind them, and putting her 
 arms around as many as she could enclose, as they 
 were all standing in a bunch in her library. 
 
 " You know you are our ' Opal Queen ' just as 
 much as ever," said little Miss Tete, stealing her 
 hand around the Queen's waist. 
 
 " And we are more loyal than ever," declared Miss 
 Smart, " for the greatness of our fallen Queen com- 
 pels our homage." 
 
 She had commenced bravely, but as she spoke, as 
 though crushed herself with the sudden comprehen- 
 sion of the appalling disaster, she only insinuated her 
 meaning in the rest of her sentence, sunk almost into 
 a whisper, and an instantaneous hush fell upon the 
 silently sympathetic group. 
 
 "Never mind, dear," said Elise tenderly, "I must 
 learn to talk about it why not? It isn't like a 
 crime, you know, and see what good it has done al- 
 ready, in uniting us into a real sisterhood ! I am not 
 sure," she said, laughing, " but you better reconsider 
 the voluntary service, get absolved from your alle*
 
 198 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 giance to tins 'fallen Queen,' for I foresee," she said 
 pathetically, " weary wanderings for her followers 
 through untrodden paths ! " 
 
 " If we take it on a march," said Minnie Love, 
 " and in a body, who's afraid ? not I ! " 
 
 "Nor I! Nor I ! " echoed jubilantly through the 
 room. 
 
 "Three cheers for the Opal League!" shouted 
 Miss Smart. " How do you like the christening, 
 Miss Archer?" 
 
 "I could tell you better if you remembered that I, 
 too, once had a christening," she replied, smiling. 
 
 The barriers of formality were broken all down 
 now, and a new era began in their friendship. It 
 was the beginning of what proved an effective work- 
 ing organization for contact with the suffering poor 
 of the village. And in their meetings, plannings, 
 discussions, these girls developed faculties all lying 
 dormant and fallen quite useless before. : 
 
 Elise thought that all their desires could be better 
 realized by postponing "our entertainment," as she 
 called it, until the spring. 
 
 " Miss Love would like it now," she said. 
 
 Miss Love protested. 
 
 "I know you give me the precedence, dear, but 
 you would take it, would you not, if we all agreed it 
 was best ? " 
 
 " Sans doute" she replied, " as a loyal member of 
 the Opal League is bound to do." 
 
 " Bien ; attendez, mesdemoiselles de la League 
 Opalique ! " 
 
 At this impromptu introduction, inspired by Miss 
 Smart's sally into a foreign language, there were 
 shouts of laughter, and a confused mingling of "Bien, 
 beaucoup bien. C'est un bonne chose, ce nomme-ci, si 
 drolle n'est'ce pas ? " etc., etc. 
 
 " What I was going to say," resumed Elise, after 
 some quiet was obtained, "is just this: My last win- 
 ter's dress will answer for another festival." 
 
 A blending of voices, ejaculating deprecatingly,
 
 THE OPAL LEAGUE. 199 
 
 " Oh ! Oh ! No ! No ! No, indeed ! " followed this pro- 
 clamation. 
 
 Elise touched her bell, and Bertha appeared. She 
 whispered an order, and Bertha vanished, and then 
 reappeared with the rejected costume. 
 
 Elise shook it out before their eyes, saying gayly : 
 
 " I mustn't be proud and extravagant as well as 
 poor that is too much for one personality ! I should 
 be immensely ashamed of myself now" she added 
 with a spirited dignity, "if I refuse to wear so good 
 a dress. I know well your feeling for me. You 
 think it might indicate to some weak-headed sister 
 excuse me," she said, " that is harsh, but the plain 
 truth an impoverished wardrobe. That it is such a 
 symbol in this particular case has nothing to do with 
 it. Once, I would not have worn it again, not be- 
 cause I didn't dare, but because getting new ones 
 was easy, and the correct thing, you know, and I 
 liked it. /was one of those (she made a bow over 
 her left shoulder as if to some dismissed parties in 
 the background) I spoke of. 
 
 There was a gentle murmuring of voices as heads 
 were put together again in consultation, and then 
 Miss Love said : 
 
 " We quite agree with you, Elise, if we may trans- 
 fer our good intentions to tke spring suit, which is to 
 be for field sports, and made a la Diana, you know." 
 
 " Your goodness is very touching," Elise said, in a 
 subdued tone, which they interpreted as an unquali- 
 fied assent; and after various bits of talk, in which 
 the new costume was conned from illuminated plates 
 in the library, the Opal League adjourned sine die.
 
 200 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ARTHURS LETTER AND CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 
 
 DEAR CHAN, 
 
 If it is your purpose to serve upon me that 
 forbidden law, lex talionis, or in plain English 
 " tit for tat," I shall cry out for " quarter," for, be 
 the spirit never so willing, the time is absolutely 
 wanting. My case, as you know, is to come off next 
 quarter-sessions, and requires every moment for prep- 
 aration. I have given it the emphasis of the singu- 
 lar, for the importance it assumes in my own mind 
 and is likely to arouse in others will cause it to rank 
 pre-eminently as the case of cases. 
 
 I have just a moment for a word of warning, which, 
 as you have not written for a long time, may now 
 indeed be inapropos ; for if you have been ensnared 
 by some fair one (as I half suspect), the slight en- 
 chantment may be now outgrown or lost sight of. 
 
 But nevertheless I must give you the best proof 
 of my friendship by finding a little fault with you. 
 
 You appear to be manufacturing, of late, a new con- 
 diment for the dish of chat with which you generously 
 favor me. There is a suspicion of sarcasm in your 
 pen-portraits of Belinda, which, as it is foreign to 
 your nature, must have had some recent provoking 
 cause. I cannot, consistently with my theory of love, 
 attribute it to that passion, and am equally at a loss 
 when I hypotheticate a disappointment in love ; for 
 the heavens may fall, but Channing Earle, never, 
 from the grace of the ladies. I confess to being 
 puzzled, and beg you to return to that easy abandon
 
 CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 201 
 
 of confidence with which you were wont to grace 
 your epistles while opening your heart to, 
 
 Yours anxiously, 
 
 ART. 
 
 P. S. After all, Chan, my perceptions may be 
 overwrought, my digestion at fault, or my eyes 
 hypercritical in which case I plead guilty and am 
 beforehand assured of your pardon. 
 
 Faithfully, 
 
 ART. 
 DEAR ART : 
 
 Nerves, unlike the muscles, cannot be dared, 
 intimidated, or bullied into action. They must 
 be coaxed and flattered ; nourish them, pet them 
 and put them in as good trim as you do your 
 favorite racer, and they will make as good time. 
 Now I confess to you, best of chums, that my nerves 
 have been sadly out of trim, and that may account 
 for the acidulous flavor you mention in my last letters. 
 You are kind enough to say that it is very slight 
 the merest suggestion and to even hint at want of 
 perception or preternatural perception on your own 
 part. I declare in all honesty that I was not aware 
 of it, and must attach the blame, if blame there is, to 
 the out-of-sorts condition of this human machine I 
 am undertaking to run. 
 
 I am conscious of spasms of a vague good-for- 
 nothingness that subtract much sweetness from me, 
 and the remainder might naturally be a little tart. 
 
 You refer to an unusual reserve, and beg me to 
 return to my "old abandon of confidence " in our 
 correspondence. I confess to a neglect of this privi- 
 lege, which might have proved a tonic as well as 
 safety-valve. But, as I wrote you, time has been at 
 the highest premium, and I could not buy, beg, or 
 steal any more than my natural allotment, which 
 was not by one quarter enough for my own use. 
 The lectures, the studies, the essays, the social allure- 
 ments " ay, there's the rub ! " The insane attempt 
 to add these to a budget already overfull is the rock
 
 202 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 upon which I split! But it is over now, and the 
 lesson has not been without its uses, one of which I 
 may truly say is that it has driven me back to you 
 with a purer and warmer friendship, if that were 
 possible. There are reciprocal obligations implied 
 and understood in all true friendships we require 
 of our friends a complete and ready sympathy, we 
 owe them a perfect love and trust. It becomes the 
 duty of the highest friendship to explain mysteries 
 in conduct or language that might legitimately be 
 withheld from the curious and the remote in affection. 
 
 It is, I think, equally our duty to assume the high- 
 est and purest motives in connection with those mys- 
 teries to us inexplicable it is here that the love that 
 trusts, trusts still in the dark. 
 
 But you did not expect a homily, and I doubt very 
 much if you are prepared for a confession, notwith- 
 standing your flattering jest about " disappointment 
 in love," etc. ; and I venture to say that you cannot 
 possibly divine it, for while I am not the only living 
 type of the kind of manhood now under considera- 
 tion, as far as my observation goes I am in the 
 glorious minority. Carlyle says :" Life goes all to 
 ravels and tatters where self-denial is not." 
 
 This, then, is my confession I have been practic- 
 ing the magnanimous art of self-denial and saving 
 my life from those " ravels and tatters." It is un- 
 doubtedly a satisfaction to know that one's life is a 
 whole piece of webbing and not in fragments. I 
 cannot speak with any great degree of confidence of 
 the beauty of the present web, but I think it strong 
 so far as finished. If the colors are grave, we will 
 call it that sober richness of soft grays which is the 
 ambition and the delight of the modern aesthete. 
 
 But I hear you say, "How you run on without 
 giving a fellow one lucid idea ! " Yes, that is my forte 
 and my necessity when you get me into these fits of 
 "abandon " that you have been clamoring for; more- 
 over the weigh ter the document, the longer the pre- 
 amble, you know. You, who are offering your devo-
 
 CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 203 
 
 tions at the shrine of Themis, ought to appreciate a 
 little scientific dodging of the point at issue, to gain 
 time to present the case in its most favorable aspects. 
 But my witnesses are all in, the clerk has announced 
 the hearing, the judge eyes me calmly and wisely 
 from the bench, and the prisoner is before you col- 
 lecting evidence, which, as he is his own counsel, he 
 will now present to this high and secret tribunal. 
 
 Belinda came, she saw, she conquered! old as 
 Csesar and true as gospel and where there is ac- 
 knowledgement of the cause of arraignment there 
 need be no comment.. The case would stand ad- 
 journed sine die, if that were all but there is a slight 
 addendum. 
 
 With the nerve of a Brutus or a Manlius (who 
 caused his own son to be slain because he disobeyed 
 military tactics), I trained myself to fight the des- 
 perate battle of self-denial. I knew I had a chance, 
 fc/r she was too noble-minded to be influenced by my 
 poverty. I saw that in the beginning but I would 
 not sacrifice my career on the altar of love. I could 
 not stand calmly by and see it burn to ashes, and Pater 
 and Superbaand Gran (either in heaven or on earth) 
 brushing away silent tears incontinently shed, for 
 whose existence I was responsible. I could not im- 
 peril rny manhood by touching a full purse that I had 
 not earned. Golden booty. Perish the thought ! I 
 should abhor myself ! I deliberately chose my 
 bachelorhood and independence. What say you, 
 was I right ? I would rather be rir/ht than the treas- 
 urer of any belle's millions ! But the end's not 
 yet, there is a tale to unfold the sequel has the savor 
 of romance. Light is dawning, hope is rising, the 
 abjured star may yet be my star ! She still lives, 
 and I live and what may come of it, time and God 
 alone can tell. I speak reverently in this juncture, 
 for I must acknowledge the Providence that rules 
 over the destinies of men, and leave all to his 
 supreme arbitration. 
 
 One crisis in my history I can safely count as past;
 
 204 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 when the others may come, and how I will acquit 
 myself, the Infinite Judge alone can tell! 
 
 Why, Art, there were days and nights when life 
 was an intolerable burden, and death would have been 
 a messenger of sweet relief, for not only were the 
 passions of my souls haken, but the foundations of my 
 faith. In that blind chaos I would have been glad 
 to have had Divine Help, for no human help could 
 avail in such a fearful struggle. Theoretically, I w;is 
 a Christian I knew that there was a so-called 
 " mercy-seat "to which sinners and saints and all poor 
 bruised and battered mortals were invited to come 
 and make known their wants ; I knew that there was 
 divine authority for the belief that I would be heard, 
 in the Scripture that said, " Call upon me in the day 
 of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt 
 glorify me." But in the supreme hour of conflict, 
 even the Bible WHS a compendium of " cunningly de- 
 vised fables," and the whole scheme of redemption a 
 mythical fraud. I grew old in a day I seemed to have 
 passed from youth to age, and I shall never again look 
 through a magnifying glass upon this little drama of 
 existence. Pigmies are we all in the light of the 
 infinite, and yet pigmies of value. I admit it, for no 
 spark struck from divinity can be anything less than 
 divine. 
 
 The flesh succumbed in this wearisome ever-recur- 
 ring, never-ending warfare. My appetite failed, my 
 muscle bolted, my eyes looked hollow, and I joked 
 when I could and prayed when I dared ! " Oh 
 Heavens! " I cried, "if! had a God, I would go to 
 Him." I had always been morally observant, but I 
 lacked the ingrowing principle. Gran often said that 
 I was not far from the kingdom of heaven but I 
 felt that I was just far enough to be shut out ! 
 
 It was in some such state as this that I went to 
 the breakfast one morning, after a sleepless night. 
 Gran, whose eyes are keen as a hawk's, detected my 
 vigils and whether she had been having her own 
 speculations as to the cause, or whether by direct
 
 CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 205 
 
 inspiration I know not, but she looked at me and 
 said, with a sweet tenderness and in her far-away 
 tone it sounded like a voice from the throne with 
 bells of heaven all ringing. " Channing, ' He that 
 trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but he that walk- 
 eth wisely shall be delivered.' I have proved that 
 promise for seventy years my child, do you think it 
 has been tested enough for you to try it? " 
 
 What a blessed word ! How it dropped like a 
 healing balm on the lacerated wound ! and I tried 
 it. Art, and I found it true, and I took what do you 
 think ? What can an infinite God give that man 
 cannot take away ? I took from that sanctified 
 altar of suffering, peace the " peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding." 
 
 And then I was on my best level again. 
 
 But the sequel are you impatient for the denoue- 
 ment ? But it is no such thing as you imagine, in 
 one sense it is full of a pyramidal woe but as I said, 
 there is light in the darkness, and a light whose beams 
 fall on two who are growing very dear to each other 
 but I anticipate. 
 
 What think you ? The money, the millions, vanished 
 in a night, fire and robbery swallowed them ! And 
 the lover she had taken to herself renounced her 
 next day ! 
 
 And now I am suddenly conscious that, since you 
 say I have failed to indite my weekly post, you are 
 ignorant of some of my allusions in this letter. There 
 is much incoherence and ellipse about my confession, 
 I know, but have patience, Art ; it is unfair to expect 
 a stream that has been cascading, suddenly to mean- 
 der with the gentle proprieties of a mountain rivulet, 
 or the steady, even flow of the majestic river with 
 pictured banks. The river and banks are all there, 
 but you must wait for the subsidence of the flood. 
 
 But now for the enlightenment as to the lover. 
 
 . Otto Dresson is a full-blooded specimen of not 
 
 overly young manhood my senior by seven years. 
 
 He is called a young man of fortune, and known to
 
 206 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 be a fortune-hunter so a quiet rumor affirms. He 
 was the lion of a village already overstocked with 
 rare specimens of that noble beast. The girls petted, 
 the mothers fawned, arid the father acquiesced with 
 a suspicious eye slightly turned outwards. 
 
 He captured the " Opal Queen," and the world 
 our little one said that it would be a match of ex- 
 ceptional fitness in the harmony of spheres and 
 the aesthetic cosmos " quite the correct thing, you 
 know." They seemed to be very happy. The " Opal 
 Queen " was still every inch a queen, and drew 
 around her a loving train of followers. And now 
 let me say, once for all, that whatever of satire you 
 saw, or thought you saw, must have been caused by 
 my point of view and the green-colored glasses -that 
 were somehow astride my nose. When I say that 
 she is, and has been, as near perfection as frail 
 mortality can reach, you will absolve me from the un- 
 intentional but contemptible sin of slander. 
 
 The u Opal Queen " has a fearless and independent, 
 genial, loving nature, blended with a refined modesty 
 and rare exuberance of spirits and grace of manner. 
 She is self-reliant, without arrogance ; impulsive, 
 without impetuosity ; and she is all truth, white- 
 souled truth and purity. On account of her social 
 status, beauty, and immense wealth, she has received 
 adulation and homage enough to make rockets of 
 her, if she was of combustible material. She expects 
 it, she receives it, she does not value it, consequently, 
 but this she does not know. She seems invincible 
 by the loss of money, but touched at the loss of 
 friend ; was the victim of a considerable shock when 
 Dresson treacherously deserted her. But she is 
 wonderfully elastic, has a rich vitality of fancy 
 and impulse that makes her almost visionary mind, 
 I say almost, for her sound judgment steps in always, 
 even if at the last moment, to control the purely 
 ideal. Her mind is tinged with a " mild superstition 
 which gives to her life the mystery of a perpetual 
 romance." She belongs to the aristocracy of wealth,
 
 CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 207 
 
 while I, me judice, am enrolled in the aristocracy of 
 honor, which includes education, moral principle, and 
 correct manners, according to Pater's definition. 
 
 Dresson probably claimed both and bore escut- 
 cheons on his shoulder. But now his claims are 
 trailed in the dust of the ground. He preserves a 
 fine affectation of annoyance, and says plaintively, in 
 the words of St. Remis to Clovis : " Henceforth we 
 must burn what we have worshipped and worship 
 what we have burned," but into his heart I have no 
 doubt the motto is seared, Operce pretium non est! 
 (the labor would cost more than it comes to). In- 
 stead of regulating his conduct by his art-divinity, he 
 seems suddenly to have left her for the shrine of 
 mathematics, conforming his actions to the axiom, 
 " The addition of a negative quantity is equivalent to 
 the subtraction of apositive." Carlyle says "A small 
 proportion of intellect will serve a man's turn, if all 
 the rest be right; " but the trouble with Dresson is 
 that all the rest isn't right. Perhaps this pressure 
 may be the indurating agency which will convert the 
 sandstone, mud, and clay of his being into the con- 
 glomerate, but a trifle more substantial, shale! But 
 I am hard on him, and who knows but his egregious 
 blunder (to put it very mildly, for he has undoubtedly 
 committed the crimen falsi) may be my triumph. 
 
 I say it to myself very softly, just venturing a hope, 
 but. mulier semper mutabilis, and woe unto that man 
 who attempts to predict the end from the beginning 
 in such matters.
 
 208 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 
 
 " All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 IF Charming was in a dilemma before the sudden 
 access of misfortune to Elise in the loss of her mil- 
 lions and the inglorious collapse of her lover, after 
 these disasters, his own peculiar interest in the altered 
 cosmogony of her being seemed complicated four- 
 fold. With all its sinuosities and temptations, the 
 way had hitherto been blocked up. His condition 
 was that of a traveller within sight of the land of his 
 hopes, without the necessary passport to cross its 
 border. 
 
 But now he hesitated to enter the open way ! A 
 sudden advance might be deemed impertinent to one 
 likely to require a space for readjustment to her new 
 sphere ; and yet now, if ever, her friends should rally 
 around her with sympathetic, encouraging words. 
 
 The duty of respectful and genial condolence, 
 however, was not the problem that occupied his 
 thoughts, but how to follow up the glittering pros- 
 pect of success opened up by Change, the mighty 
 conjurer, before his dazed, still incredulous eyes ; and 
 it was not so much the how he trusted his practical 
 sagacity for that as the cui bono, the expediency of 
 the pursuit, that perplexed him. He thought himself 
 wound up in the threads of a fate too intricate for 
 disentanglement, for here once more his heart was at
 
 CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 209 
 
 war with his judgment. Should he be guided by 
 the former, he would rush into her presence with the 
 fervor of an enraptured lover, and while bewailing her 
 loss, beg her to permit him to be her solace evermore, 
 to fill the breach with himself, his heart for the trai- 
 tor's, his prospective life-work, with its capital of 
 brains, for the sunken fortune. But he felt that 
 the rebound of hearts is not always in the direc- 
 tion of easy transfer, and while he trusted in the 
 sustained buoyancy of Elise's nature for his proph- 
 ecy that she would not be crushed, he felt that 
 impetuosity would give it another shock and im- 
 peril the elasticity of its spring for a new object of 
 affection. He doubted, indeed, whether he had made 
 any lasting impresson upon her. And now he fell 
 into lonely, quiet, reviewing moods of their whole 
 parallel history. 
 
 He could summon it all from the chambers of a 
 tenacious memory furnished with the supplementary 
 aid of a quickened sensibility through a jealous eye. 
 And in the intervals of fragrant musings with friendly 
 cigars, he held up the bygone scenes in retrospec- 
 tion, for study charts they were, by which he could 
 navigate his course on this great sea of a coveted love- 
 possession. Every act, every word, seemed photo- 
 graphed on his heart he lived over again the mo- 
 ments of bliss and of agony, without catching any 
 inspiring gales for launching his craft on the troubled 
 sea. He remembered gentle words of praise or of 
 confidence, but they were the pretty phrases of her 
 polite womanhood the small coin passing current in 
 the jingling show of life to accelerate the nimble- 
 footed dancers. He found most encouragement from 
 her moments of thoughtful silence. But what right, 
 he inquired, had he to infer from these that there 
 was an unguarded spot in her heart's citadel, through 
 which he might enter ? He did not know, he only 
 felt; he had experienced at these times a certain 
 magnetic vibration, that he had not cared to explain 
 because it had no right of birth, and to question 
 
 14
 
 210 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 might encourage a repetition to check was the duty 
 of the moment. He remembered with a thrill of 
 keen delight the unconscious submission of her taste 
 to his on the evening of the first Greek festival the 
 pretty abandon with which she acknowledged her- 
 self compliant to his wishes in the matter of dressing 
 her hair, and the implied renunciation of Dresson as 
 her critical arbiter and adviser, and the temporary 
 enthronement of himself. What did she mean? 
 He did not know. He only knew that for one deli- 
 cious moment she seemed to be in his arms, and he felt 
 the pride of ownership. But that Dresson was not 
 then under an eclipse of her favor or the slightest 
 shadow even, he had indubitable proof, when, later, she 
 sparkled with the unmistakable love-glance that fell 
 upon unanswering eyes and fondly extended her 
 hand to draw him to her side. 
 
 But if he should prove victorious in the chase, 
 would she be willing to wait? he inquired. Would 
 it be just to her to suffer the lapse of time that must 
 intervene before he could maintain her in accordance 
 with the luxurious tastes and habits now her second 
 nature ? Was she fitted for a poor man's wife -would 
 she be able to endure the strain ? 
 
 If Channing had not possessed a logical, judicial 
 mind which, originally premature in judgment, had 
 taken a great leap into the thoughtful deliberation of 
 age during his great mental crisis when he was striv- 
 ing to elude his misery, in a life full of a portentous 
 solemnity beneath the shining film he would not 
 now be weighing the pros and cons of the propriety 
 and wisdom of courting a beautiful woman to whom 
 his heart was already heavily mortgaged. He had 
 denounced the transaction and abjured the payment, 
 and yet with unflagging pertinacity the shadowy 
 creditor returned, girded with the power of an in- 
 spiration. 
 
 But that struggle had also intensified his naturally 
 cautious spirit and made him hesitate, where before 
 he dared.
 
 CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 211 
 
 But introspective inquiry had the customary end- 
 ing. There is a certain fatality about these little 
 private entertainments that a besieged hero, strug- 
 gling to get free, orders up for his refreshment or 
 invigoration in a certain line of pursuit hitherto 
 pretty fairly decided upon. They stimulate like 
 champagne and end as most such suppers do, in put- 
 ting him in rosy conjunction with himself and the 
 object of his desires. 
 
 And so he found at the end of his much prolonged 
 investigation of les affaires du cceur during which 
 Elise had appeared and reappeared at" least a hundred 
 times in answer to h^s summons, with the same be- 
 witching smile and courtly grace of manner that it 
 was a fixed tiling, of course, that he should address 
 
 Miss Archer, and then- ? Why then with the 
 
 easy confidence of youthful ambition backed by indom- 
 itable emergy and marked attainments in scholar- 
 ship somehow, in the near future why should they 
 not marry as thousands of other had done, and live 
 happily, as they perforce would, on what the good 
 providence of God should send them ? 
 
 And he visited Miss Archer. 
 
 It was near the time for the graduation of his class 
 at the Accademia della Crusca ; the thesis was all that 
 would claim his attention at present, so there would 
 be time for the cum dulce addition to his daily routine 
 of the utilc. 
 
 The Professor permitted rather than approved this 
 final exhibition of his pupils, being won over by the 
 associate professors and the prevailing sentiment in 
 the village. 
 
 He expressed a wish that the Greek impromptu 
 style of eloquence should be closely followed, but 
 did not insist upon this realizing probably the 
 infeasibility of the plan with youths who had been 
 only nine months under training but hoped that 
 they would have such knowledge of their subjects 
 and pursue such an exhaustive treatment in its study
 
 212 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 that they might closely approach this standard, if 
 they did not re^ch it. 
 
 The young men concluded to do both to study 
 and write, and also to trust to the inspiration of the 
 moment for those flights of eloquence that often 
 only kindle under the magnetism of an appreciative 
 audience.
 
 GATE OP " THE SAINTS* &EST." 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 GATE OF " THE SAINTS' REST." 
 
 "And hope to joy is little less in joy 
 Than hope enjoyed." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 CHANNING found occasion to make frequent visits 
 at the palace. Superba became suddenly afflicted 
 with serious misgivings about Elise's health and 
 daily comforts, and discovered that the only relief 
 for her anxious fears was to dispatch Channing with 
 tender messages and solicitous inquiries, or with a 
 summons for her appearance immediately at the 
 Saints' Rest, so that Gran might have the sight of 
 her own eyes as assurance of her well-being. 
 
 " It's almost worth while to make the plunge from 
 every tiling to nothing, since I have fallen into the 
 arms of so many friends and didn't get the knocks. 
 I have only had a little vigorous shaking up, such as 
 the Freshman used to get in the blanket, and who 
 knows but it may be the making of me }'et,'' Elise 
 said, laughingly, holding up her gloved arm and an 
 indefinite number of buttons for Channing's perusal. 
 
 " No one but ourselves can compel us to be idle," 
 he observed, gravely, while studying his task. 
 
 " But something outside of ourselves may compel 
 us to be industrious; and since the inward propelling 
 force was heretofore absent, I suppose I ought to be 
 immensely thankful for my losses." 
 
 "If you are a student of Christian philosophy, un- 
 doubtedly. 'Diligent in business,' you know, is one 
 of the apostolic maxims."
 
 214 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " But I did not use to think I was idle," she said, 
 reflecting doubtfully, and paused. 
 
 But Channing did not put in an expected dis- 
 claimer or by delicate insinuation imply the reverse. 
 
 "As far as you were doing good work for eternity, 
 you bear a clear record," he remarked, still bent over 
 his problem. 
 
 " It might be questionable whether dainty finger- 
 work for personal adornment or home embellishment 
 is fulfilling the great ends of life, or," he continued, 
 thoughtfully, "simplifying the problem of the world's 
 wretchedness. Don't understand me to underrate 
 your benevolences, Miss Archer. I know that they 
 have been wide and judicious 
 
 " Not always," she interrupted. 
 
 " But what the world needs most just now is not 
 so much organized benevolence as organized love 
 the one gives money, the other gives heart a lifting 
 up of the degraded or hope-ridden mind to a plane 
 of bright endeavor and active self-support. 4 The 
 destruction of the poor is their poverty.' Did you 
 ever think of that, Miss Archer?" The wise philos- 
 opher who had an inexhaustible treasury must yet 
 have studied pictures of absolute want and squalor, 
 or he could never have written that sentence. It is 
 always a pity when a fashionable furore and a spirit 
 of rivalry combined are -permitted to squander and 
 misdirect energies that the world still needs, and will 
 need so long as poverty and crime hide in cellars or 
 stalk in our streets. 
 
 " But I beg a thousand pardons," he said, looking 
 up, having run the gauntlet of her arm, "for drop- 
 ping into such a deep veiiu I am not sure," he 
 added, "but it was a subtle suggestion of thrs dark 
 blue one, just here," laughing and outlining the 
 current on her arm. 
 
 " No, don't change the subject," she pleaded, reso- 
 lutely. " I have often thought about it myself, but 
 I get perplexed with the intricacies of the great 
 question of art as a useful factor in human lives ;
 
 GATE OF " THE SAINTS* ItEST." 215 
 
 honestly there comes over me, sometimes with over- 
 whelming power, a feeling that nothing is right, no 
 action worthy, but direct immediate contact with 
 human worry and human suffering " 
 
 " ' How can they sing and paint when they do not 
 see and know?' is the pathetic wail from Carlyle's 
 great, burdened heart," he interrupted. 
 
 " Perhaps," he added, gracefully, " it will be your 
 mission to be a reformer or philanthropist. There is 
 undoubtedly a good germ within you but the time 
 is not yet," he continued, thoughtfully. "Carlyle's 
 denounced field of painting and singing is just now 
 open for you, and you are just now equipped for the 
 sallying in it and exploring of it. That way Provi- 
 dence leads we must do the duty lying next us, 
 you know the path is clear. Sometime your Leader 
 may open up a nobler field, but, I think " and lie 
 turned as they were walking, drew the arm within 
 his own more closely (attracting her glance), and 
 regarded her steadfastly as he said, with an intensity 
 of meaning in his deep clear gaze: U I think there's 
 something to come first." 
 
 " Something more ! " Elise gasped in an awe- 
 stricken whisper, for she was unaccountably wrought 
 up by the fascination of his manner. Then rallying: 
 "What more can come? And will it break my 
 heart?" she said, in an arch, airy way. "It seems to 
 me, Mr. Earle, that 1 have gone through everything 
 yes, everything ! " 
 
 " There remains another threshold to cross," he 
 said, with quiet pathos. 
 
 Elise was consciously subdued, and they walked 
 on in silence. 
 
 " I suppose it will come in April then," she said 
 at length demurely. " My destiny hinges on those 
 two points, October and April." 
 
 "The time is immaterial," he replied, "if one is 
 only ready when the gate swings, so as to step aside 
 and not get jarred." 
 
 As they were at the moment about to enter the
 
 oifl THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 gate of " The Saints' Rest," he gently drew her one 
 side, and she said with winning sweetness, all uncon- 
 scious of the deep significance to him : 
 
 " If 3'ou are only there to give me the same assist- 
 ance, I may possibly escape." 
 
 " I expect to be there ! " he replied in the same 
 gravely pathetic tone. 
 
 There was a fascination in this mystery of language 
 and deportment that gave Channing a new interest 
 to Elise. She wondered if it had not assumed a 
 magnified importance, as she tossed restlessly that 
 night, still under his spell, reviewing his looks and 
 his words, and pushing out vain inquiries of his' 
 probable meaning. 
 
 What was the solution of the prophetic utterance ? 
 The solemnity of his manner forbade questioning at 
 the time, and led to vague suspicions that in some 
 way it was connected with herself and him. But 
 just how he could be the sanctifying cross to her 
 soul, she failed to comprehend. But while it was not 
 possible to come to a satisfactory conclusion, she was 
 conscious of a quickened pulse when he was asso- 
 ciated with her thoughts, and wondered secretly if 
 she was feeling the buddings of a genuine, ideal love, 
 such as she had dreamed of and still believed attain- 
 able even on this mortal sphere. The sweet thought 
 soothed her, and she forgot for the moment the dread- 
 ful cross that overshadowed it, spreading out baleful 
 arms to enclose her even while the sunlight of love 
 was bathing her head. And when the thought did 
 obtrude itself, she said cheerily: 
 
 "Ah! lie shall be a false prophet. Nothing any 
 worse can happen, and my buoyancy will survive the 
 perils." 
 
 Channing's treatment of Elise had been unre- 
 strained and full of a certain cordial sympathy, ever 
 since the reverses; it had intensified at that critical 
 moment, and she conceived it as representing the 
 general feeling towards her, and symbolic of a deep- 
 ened friendship, and when it continued without in-
 
 GATE OF " THE SAINTS' REST. 1 " 217 
 
 terruption and abatement, she still attributed it to 
 the same motive, and did not look for the larger in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 He felt the disadvantage of this. He was con- 
 scious that Elise regarded him only as a warm friend 
 and counsellor. Yes, he was glad to admit that she 
 honored him with that proof of regard and he had 
 been vainly hoping, for a time, that some accident 
 might impress upon her the deeper coloring of the 
 tone of his friendship. 
 
 He found himself wondering if she was perversely 
 blind and then blamed himself for the suspicion, 
 because he knew well her transparent truthfulness. 
 Half the girls in the village would have interpreted 
 his attentions favorably to themselves under the same 
 circumstances, and counted it an implied engagement. 
 
 But Elise was so intrinsically unsuspicious that he 
 was puzzled to know how to awaken her. Absence, 
 after unremitting attentions, might reveal to her his 
 love, but he was not ready to absent himself without 
 a pledge of her troth. And to precipitate a proposal 
 no\v would be fatal to his hopes. 
 
 He had gained by this little maneuver, which 
 sprang out of the subject, and was with no intent of 
 his a diplomatic feat, but nevertheless the fruits of a 
 skilful policy accrued to him. 
 
 He perceived that she was more gently deferent to 
 his wishes, if that were possible, even quietly antici- 
 pated them ; not that there had been any perceptible 
 lack before, but now there was a touch of that inex- 
 pressible something, that mysterious witchery of a 
 softened manner that an awakening love infuses. 
 The elegant deportment steadied a little, the articu- 
 late gayety balanced more evenly in his presence. 
 
 "Ah ! ' he said, in a transport of happiness as he 
 watched these growing symptoms, "am I indeed her 
 master, and can I give her rest?" and then was in 
 a whirl of alarm, lest the next day or the next might 
 dispel the rosy illusion and leave him a handful of 
 ashes instead of a living love.
 
 218 THE OPAL 
 
 He had wisely pondered the whole subject in the 
 long period of his discipline ; for more than a year 
 now the weary, rushing strain had been endured, 
 with its ebbs and its flows, audits long, long sinking 
 in a sea so deep he meant to submerge it forever. 
 And he was wisely ready to seize his prize when he 
 could see the white flag of surrender. 
 
 That it was possible for him to win her had never 
 been admitted to doubt. The sunken fortune re- 
 moved, there could be no barrier to his suit, if there 
 had been one because that Elise was not affected 
 by the visible sign of wealth and pageantry was as 
 clear as the noonday sun ; that she leaned not one 
 iota from the perpendicular of independence in a 
 cringing servility to rank and so-called aristocracy, 
 was equally clear she was as likely to salute with 
 unqualified sweetness of deportment her chimney- 
 sweep, as the Professor, Bridget Flinn, as Her Grace 
 the Countess of Stockbridge. She seemed to see 
 none of those subtle distinctions which create a 
 Chinese wall around the contracted dominions of 
 pigmy upstarts and shoddy Lilliputs. 
 
 That his chances for her favor were as great before 
 her reverses as now, he well knew, for he was aware 
 that she never sought fortune in a lover but there 
 might be a shade more of embarrassment attending a 
 present suitor, as failure in the one decision would 
 insure more caution in the next. 
 
 But he was encouraged when he made the quiet 
 discovery, that she would never wed until she felt 
 the deep responsive " Amen " in her heart, and he 
 was absorbed in the all-engrossing pursuit of awaken- 
 ing it by mastering its vibrations. There should be 
 nothing suggestive of a bargain or compact a " just 
 because, you know," motive was all-sufficient to 
 account for this sweet, inevitable happening that 
 comes in perfection but once in a life-time.
 
 THE SURPRISE. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV\ 
 
 THE SURPRISE. 
 
 UNDER her pall of sorrow, Elise was glad to avail 
 herself of the relief which etiquette afforded of escap- 
 ing from miscellaneous visits and the "madding 
 crowd," and the connecting dwellings (with visits to 
 Gain) were the theatre of the winter's quiet social life. 
 
 In the "palace " there were delightful voluntaries 
 from Lilian, who skipped through La Galerie de la 
 Reine at all hours, "just to break up the train of 
 morbid action," she said ; and melodramatic farces 
 from the doctor, with impromptus from Channing in 
 both houses. 
 
 Elise was so full of her plans and projects, which 
 were maturing fairly every day, that their talk dur- 
 ing Channing a visits was spiced not unfrequently 
 with business hints and outlooks. Now and then, in 
 the long winter evenings, he would bring a choice 
 bit of reading as an accompaniment to the silent 
 melody of her embroidery-sphere, as she sat in it 
 enthroned. Evenings so full of the rich lights of 
 their fancy on the strong masonry of their enlight- 
 ened knowledge were fitly framing, and silently, mys- 
 teriously perhaps unconsciously enclosing them, 
 in a little ideal home of their own. To Channing 
 there was a recognized sense of a reciprocal joy to 
 Elise, only a vague, bewildering dreaminess. And 
 so with only a qualified security in his coveted situ- 
 ation, he was yet established as a friend than whom 
 none was more welcome, none more prized. But,
 
 220 THE OPAL QIESN. 
 
 when a passionate impulse would urge him to gain 
 from her the irrevocable "yes," by the avowal of his 
 love, his calmer judgment held him back. 
 
 " Not yet! Not yet ! " was his cautionary protest. 
 "The guns must be dismantled and i he flag Hying 
 from the staff in a breeze from heaven ! " 
 
 But it was a delay fraught with peril. Masked 
 foes were still lurking round the fort, his redoubtable 
 enemy priming for a renewed charge. 
 
 With the situation thus nearly mastered, the vic- 
 tory almost within grasp, judge his mingled feel- 
 ings of chagrin, despair, and horror upon seeing Dres- 
 son one evening in that same library, in the very 
 chair that was his by the right of constant use, by 
 the same table, under the same lights and she in her 
 embroidery-sphere all calm and peaceful! If a 
 thunderbolt had struck him if the earth had opened 
 at his feet, the shock could not have been more keen 
 to his wrenched soul. 
 
 He stood a moment in the open doorway, partially 
 concealed by the portiere, as if to satisfy himself that 
 it was not an optical illusion, and that his dreaded 
 rival was indeed the veritable flesh-and-blood Dresson. 
 
 Elise dropped her work and advanced with both 
 hands extended to meet him. 
 
 The dismal operation of exchanging salutations 
 was concluded between the two rivals with tragic 
 stiffness and brevity. 
 
 Channing, who had in the whole course of this 
 affair "be'en fitting prudence to principle with won- 
 derful skill and manliiress," was struck with astonish- 
 ment mingled with disdain at the unparalleled impu- 
 dence of this intruder the scandalous traitor who 
 had involved in the hardest of all life's tragedies 
 the woman he loved. 
 
 He remained standing, outraged at the indecency 
 of the transaction with kindling eye and rigid form, 
 the very picture of calm, indignant protest against 
 cowardly audacity in the peu;on of Dresson. 
 
 At Elise's renewed invitation, lie took a chair, but
 
 TILE SURPRISE. 221 
 
 almost bounded with violence to his feet at the inner 
 suggested thought: 
 
 "She may have called him hither, or granted him 
 the interview in accordance with his expressed wish ! 
 Perhaps I am intruding they may even now be 
 discussing the practicability of a renewed engage- 
 ment." 
 
 Chami ing's high views of honor precluded the idea 
 of an interview on any grounds lower than confession 
 of wrong and apology for it the possibility of an 
 impromptu social call or visit was not even shadowed 
 in his mind. 
 
 He to whom existence now would be a long de- 
 spair unshared by Elise could easily admit as a fore- 
 gone conclusion that Dresson had long since regretted 
 the rash termination of the formal engagement 
 whose sudden finale he had himself courted and pre- 
 cipitated and why should he not make an effort to 
 retake the prize? Why not? he repeated in a daze. 
 He felt paralyzed with the thought, for somehow the 
 horrible phantasm that had overshadowed him so 
 long, in the face of this presence became a sudden 
 and terrible reality.' He saw it now as it had been ; 
 and since he had himself secured no exclusive right 
 of entrance here, why should there not be another 
 bold stroke on the part of this quondam suitor that 
 would insure a victory right before his hoping eyes 
 and outstretched hand ? Why not? He was hot and 
 he was cold. He asked himself why he did not go 
 quit the scene forever, and meddle no more with the 
 beautiful but frail and fickle bits of mortality labelled 
 the fair sex. 
 
 The stroke had fallen first on himself. He sat 
 with averted face and downcast eye, the victim of 
 this swirl of tempestuous upheavals of forebodings 
 and reproaches, thinking only of himself ; but as the 
 hot breath of the sirocco swept by him for an instant, 
 he glanced at Elise. Had she no such thoughts, no 
 implacable feelings of resentment? What she had, 
 she was magnanimously suppressing. He looked
 
 222 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 again, and perceived a certain timidity gracefully held 
 in check, and a quietly alert look, which had also a 
 "certain victorious character in it as of a long post- 
 poned triumph " that took off the edge of his bitter- 
 ness and challenged him to a division of the misery. 
 It pained while it comforted him, but he suppressed 
 his rapidly forming battalions of inaudible invective, 
 and was no longer exclusively engrossed in him- 
 self. 
 
 Bresson's monologue, only interrupted by the short 
 and formal episode of greeting, was steadily flowing 
 on, while Channing was silently taking these obser- 
 vations, and a glance now from Elise as she raised 
 her eyes to his, in an abandon of simple, loyal trust, 
 disarmed the critical censures on his lips for utter- 
 ance, gave him an assurance of an unmixed confidence, 
 and pointed an example for his following. If she could 
 so gloriously efface herself and distinguish her visi- 
 tor with heroically courteous, even amiable, treatment, 
 could not he assist in the little drama? She who 
 " rallied so easily and veiled her miseries always," she, 
 his heart's idol, should not be unchampioned in the 
 pitif nl struggle of speech with a treacherous lover. 
 
 His contribution to the various talk on indifferent 
 matters was choice but sparing. 
 
 " There's no place like this, you'll find, in our coun- 
 try, in the early spring," Dresson was saying 
 smoothly. " I barely tolerated life with those beastly 
 March winds flying from the caves of all the winds 
 in the dominions of Eolus, don't you know. Now 
 here I dare say 3^011 had it quite charming ; it's really 
 remarkable when you look at it, now isn't it?" 
 
 "Find me a place untouched by unfriendly March 
 winds, and I'll find you heaven or some place out- 
 side this sphere," said Channing, with a grim smile. 
 
 " Why, even in Rome," said Elise, " the winds 
 sweep terribly sometimes, and if you happen to be 
 on the Campagna well, you'd wish you hadn't, that's 
 all," she said, laughing. " They play at hide-and-seek 
 around the ruins and your draperies and carriage-
 
 THE SUMP RISE. 223 
 
 furnishings, without the slightest regard to the pro- 
 prieties or the reputation of the city fur aesthetic 
 elegance par excellence" 
 
 " I gathered some clerodendron for you to-day, Miss 
 Elise," Channing remarked after a slight, unvo- 
 calized pause, " but stupidly forgot to bring it. You 
 shall have it by the first post in the morning." 
 
 Elise thought she should sink into the ground or 
 faint away. Only a year ago the sweet petals were 
 all fragrant with what she fancied an undying love, 
 and here sat the perjured giver the love all abjured 
 now and dead had he come to its burial, this airy 
 deceiver who had lightly broken every vow? 
 
 She paused so long that the gently intoned 
 " thanks " were scarcely heard, as, with head bent 
 low, she kept up the little fiction of industry. 
 
 " Your Festival is to come off soon, I hear," said 
 Dresson. 
 
 " Next week," replied Channing, curtly. 
 
 " My cousin wrote me that the various costumes of 
 Artemis were to be represented, and I thought it quite 
 worth while to take a run down here and see how 
 you handle it. ^Esthetic affair, no doubt," lie said, 
 rising, " with its pictorial character and the pictur- 
 esque sceifrery of grotto and glen. I understand it is 
 to be here ? ' 1 he said, with a rising inflection of in- 
 quiry, turning to Elise. 
 
 " So the Fairies have kindly decreed, Mr. Dresson," 
 said Elise, with her old composure. k ' The girls have 
 taken it in hand, and the Opal League knows no 
 such word as fail," she continued, with a subdued 
 triumph in her voice and air. 
 
 " Ha! " he exclaimed, "I heard about that. Quite 
 clever in them, now, to think of it, don't you know." 
 
 " Will you join our festivities, Mr. Dresson ? Since 
 we are only fictitious Greeks, we may invite our little 
 barbarians," she added, playfully. 
 
 " A random shot with a poisoned arrow," thought 
 Channing, "if his superabundant conceit would only 
 permit him to see it."
 
 224 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 Chunning was distracted between doubt and 
 longing. 
 
 "Not now ! " he said again to himself, when urged 
 by the almost irresistible impulse to settle his fate. 
 " Not now ! when she has been so wrought upon 
 with the strain of this interview." And as she gave 
 him no hint of the meaning of this visit, said no 
 word of the visitor, he interpreted her reticence un- 
 favorably to himself But he forgot that this had 
 always been a forbidden ground by tacit consent, and 
 that it would cost her much, to-night of all times, to 
 step over the border. 
 
 Ah! could he but have known the quickened 
 throbbings of the heart waiting for the rest after the 
 struggle, he would have put out strong arms to stay 
 its trembling. 
 
 He waited and was constrained and distant. 
 
 Elise was nervously polite, daintily sweet, but she 
 gave him no hint of her feelings, and he went away 
 perplexed, mystified, and out of sorts. 
 
 That night Elise thought : " There is nothing in it. 
 If ever man loved a woman, he would tell her so 
 when she was so hunted and persecuted. I'll rise 
 above the whole thing. He had a chance to take me 
 fairly and he squandered it ! " 
 
 "Well, it is all right," she said, defensively, "he 
 is too young. If it should come to the point, I should 
 have to refuse him on that very ground. ' r 
 
 In the home of Elise's childhood, there was a 
 married couple who were a by-word and a reproach, 
 on account of their private and public bickerings. 
 Their life was a travesty upon matrimony patent to 
 all the village. As Elise grew, the childish impres- 
 sion strengthened, that the cause of their unhappiness 
 was due to the fact that the woman had the advan- 
 tage in years. It was a strange freak of her well- 
 balanced mind, that she should accept this youthful 
 decision as infallible, without appealing to the courts 
 of reason. Hence she was filled with a determination, 
 amounting almost to a mania, never to be the senior
 
 THE SURPRISE. 225 
 
 in years, even, by so much as a mon.th, when she mar- 
 ried. 
 
 This picture now confronted her, and tormented 
 her with the memory of previous resolutions. Her 
 refined instincts and those keen perceptions which 
 are an unfailing guide in a true woman's heart told 
 her that at last she had found her ideal, and she 
 sighed when she knew that it could never be hers. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " she thought. " This has all been so 
 spontaneous that I haven't been thinking about the 
 if s and but's and maybe's but now I must let me 
 see." 
 
 " May it not have been the same with that couple," 
 she asked herself, "if the years had been reversed? 
 Are there, then, no unhappy marriages, no signs of 
 incompatibility, where the ratio is at the regulation 
 figure?" 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know ! How my head aches ! " she 
 said, pressing her hands upon her forehead. 
 
 Still the sweet possibility would return again and 
 again. 
 
 " I'm glad I didn't let myself love him as much as 
 I wanted to; there's nothing like holding the fort ! " 
 But she threw herself upon the sofa in a kind of 
 desperation. 
 
 Half reclining, she closed her eyes, and lay 
 dreamily watching the rising glare of the flickering 
 inner lights. A forgotten picture arose in the still- 
 ness. She was in the enchanting vale of Rousely, 
 that classic nook holding two of England's crowning 
 treasure-houses Chatsworlh House and Haddon 
 Hall. She Avas walking with a friend through the 
 streets of the secluded village, pleased Avith the neatly 
 thatched cottages and their trim gardens of flowers. 
 She remembered her visit to one of these cottages, 
 through the introduction of what was to her a novel 
 sight a warming-pan which they descried on the 
 wall as they were passing the open door. She remem- 
 bered well the tableaux presented as they entered : the 
 uncovered stone floor, the scrupulous cleanliness, the
 
 226 THE. OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 deaf old woman's. sweet, chastened face and manner, 
 as she ironed at her board, or stooped to lift from the 
 oven the rich brown loaves the man's wan and pa- 
 tient look as he lay upon the couch of suffering, and 
 her companion's remark : " Is this your wife ? she 
 looks much older than you." Then she remembered, 
 too, the pathetic reply as he looked fondly, with tears 
 in his eyes, at the bent figure plying the iron, and 
 the tender smile as he said : 
 
 " She's been a glide wife to me a very gude wife 
 to me." 
 
 And the repetition sounded like the refrain of some 
 sweet melody to Elise, who thought dreamily : " He 
 might have the sciatica, and that would be lovely, for 
 I could help and comfort him ! But he has been so 
 is, so very deliberate can he truly love me ? 
 But perhaps it is this very problem he is studying 
 over." 
 
 " Marriage is an apotheosis," she mused, " beauti- 
 ful in its processes if you begin in the twenties. I 
 am not in the thirties, to be sure, but not so very far 
 off. I am afraid it will never do. Could he endure to 
 see me after a while in caps and spectacles? To 
 be sure, old ladies don't wear caps now, and puffs 
 would not be so bad but then there would be the 
 crow's-feet, and the wrinkles, and oh, it would never 
 do! For if he should love me for twenty years, and 
 then look up suddenly some morning at the break- 
 fast-table and think, ' How old and faded she is ! ' 
 and be sorry that he ever did it, I should never get 
 -over it never! I should want to die that minute. 
 Oh ! I don't know," she said, pressing her beating 
 temples. " But I must know! Yes, I think I must 
 settle it for both of us ; " and she felt as though she 
 had dropped into a great, cold, empty gulf. 
 
 "And perhaps after all men are so variable- 
 he isn't intending to ask me," she mused in the 
 shivering vacuum, and rose through her pride about 
 a foot from the bottom. " Well, let it go. It's all 
 the result of my vivid imagination! (rising still
 
 THE SURPRISE. 227 
 
 higher). Sic transit gloria mundi! And this is 
 yes, it is April ! So be it. Drop the curtain. Put 
 out the lights ! Write finis at the end of this chapter, 
 for the book is closed. The next will be the autobi- 
 ography of the charming old maid, Elise Archer ! " 
 
 It seemed long to Bertha, who sat waiting up- 
 stairs and wondering what detained her mistress, 
 since the last footstep had crossed the outer threshold, 
 and she at last decided to steal quietly down and un- 
 ravel the mystery. 
 
 Elise's arms, bare to her elbow, the rich drapery 
 floating from them, were clasped above her shining 
 head as she lay there, pale and motionless. Struck 
 by the unusual pallor, Bertha softly drew nearer. 
 Kneeling down by the side of the dreamer, she 
 marked her quick, heavy breathing, but was un- 
 certain what to do. 
 
 "But, somehow, I can't help thinking it is sad so 
 very sad ! " (and dropped again to the bottom of 
 the gulf), Elise was saying at this moment, and 
 her lips moved, but Bertha caught no sound. " And 
 it is also April ! " she still mused. " Well, I must 
 make the best of it ! " 
 
 And sighing deeply, she opened her eyes, and 
 fixed them upon Bertha, still without moving and 
 without surprise at her presence. 
 
 " I was afraid you might be sick, my lady, and so 
 I came to see, and to tell you it is very late. I 
 am afraid I disturbed your sleeping." 
 
 " I was not asleep, Bertha. I was was (rising to 
 her feet) only sky-sweeping, Bertha." 
 
 Bertha missed the accustomed lightness of tone 
 and manner, and wondered what fresh specks had 
 come over her mistress's sky, that she was so intent 
 on brushing away.
 
 228 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 CHANNING'S FORTUNE. 
 
 " She listened with a flitting blush, 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace, 
 And she forgave me that I gazed 
 Too fondly on her face." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 CHANNING was late to breakfast the next morn- 
 ing. Superba generously indulged him in morning 
 naps, declaring that owls must get a sound sleep 
 Borne time or they'd be blinking all day. This bird 
 was her favorite symbol for Charming when she 
 descended to earth for comparisons whose wisdom 
 was her hourly pride ; and when with garrulous fond- 
 ness she would expatiate on this theme, with Gran's 
 approving nods and smiles as an accompaniment, 
 Pater would declare there was one kind of wisdom 
 that he hadn't even learnt the rudiments of. And 
 when they would each time look at him with a dumb 
 surprise, he would enunciate, deliberately and sagely, 
 " The wisdom of moderation ! " 
 
 "There seems to be no end to his writing. Last 
 night it was morning several hours before the light 
 was out," asserted the watchful Pater, with a sub- 
 lime disregard of the accepted canons of time. 
 
 " That's the way to grow famous ! " chuckled Su- 
 perba, in whose mind learning was inseparably con- 
 nected with the midnight oil. 
 
 " A good way to start a funeral," grunted Pater. 
 " And it is my opinion that he must be interviewed 
 on the subject." The occasions were extremely rare 
 when this mild remedy was even proposed for the 
 son's deviation from Pater's standard of rectitude.
 
 CHANNING' S FORTUNE. 229 
 
 " Oil ! let him be, dear, it'll all come out right, 
 you'll see ! " 
 
 Upon this assurance from one of the " saints," 
 Pater would quietly drop into calm toleration of the 
 inevitable, and the "cherub" would pursue his un- 
 biased way, unadmonished. 
 
 This morning the post had brought them the in- 
 telligence of Mr. Earle's brother's death a bachelor 
 with a handsome fortune, of which Channing was 
 sole heir. 
 
 They were sitting still at various distances from 
 the partly dismantled board, engaged in a quiet re- 
 view of the solemn circumstances, when Channing 
 appeared. 
 
 "Sad news, my son," said Mr. Earle, "from Anan- 
 tou ! " 
 
 "Has anything happened to my uncle?" asked 
 Channing quickly, still standing, consciously affected 
 by the mysterious presence of the unspoken sorrow 
 around him. 
 
 " A happening that comes to all, my child," said 
 Gran, "but I didn't think he would get it before 
 these old bones." 
 
 " Ah ! so soon ? " replied Channing, with visibly 
 suppressed emotion, for this was his favorite uncle, 
 for whom he was named. 
 
 When the first pangs of natural grief had sub- 
 sided, Channing was conscious that this bereavement 
 since it was to come was not to him an unmixed 
 sorrow, for the sweet thought would intrude that 
 now he could be on his coveted footing for a pro- 
 posal to Miss Archer. He beheld the dreary years 
 of waiting (if she should be propitious) vanish into 
 the distant background, forever hidden from sight, 
 and himself in the sunlighted foreground crowned 
 with a glorious hope. 
 
 " So that's the result of the conspiracy the fair 
 marplots have been hatching in aesthetic boudoirs!" 
 exclaimed Channing, as Elise held up before him the 
 Greek costume the Opal League had finished for 
 her.
 
 230 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " That is, one of them," she replied. 
 
 " The strategy and finesse of women when they 
 undertake a season's campaign of pleasure would be 
 beyond credence," he observed, " if it wasn't so com- 
 mon. What shall I say about it? "he continued, 
 as she still stood as though she was expecting more 
 admiration and enthusiasm. 
 
 "I am sure it's the correct thing (and he smiled 
 as he thought of Dresson), also very recherch, very 
 distingue, is it not ? probably also very becoming 
 but that we can tell later on." 
 
 " It is everything lovely ! " Elise admitted, with an 
 accent of affection. 
 
 " There are eight of them, and each one has left 
 her indelible picture right here," she added, reflec- 
 tively, passing her hands in graceful movement over 
 the dress. 
 
 " The dear fingers plying the skillful needle for me, 
 isn't it sweet? Why, this suit is a rich treasury of 
 love. When I shook out the folds they sent it in 
 a beautiful box, all ribboned as nicely as if it had 
 came from Worth's I felt for the instant very much 
 as David did, I do believe, when he wouldn't drink 
 the water his chieftains brought, got at the hazard of 
 their lives, from the dear old well of his childhood. 
 It was too precious, too much a part of their sweet 
 lives, with the fragrant sympathy breathing all through 
 it, for common use. It was consecrated by their de- 
 votion, and I just felt like hanging it up, and looking 
 at it for a souvenir and a talisman do you under- 
 stand ?" she asked, looking jip at him. He nodded, 
 and she went on : " Do you wonder that every little 
 daisy is a love message, and every lily-bell holds the 
 gold of true affection ? " 
 
 " I mean to monopolize you, Miss Archer, on the 
 day you christen it," he said, after having engaged 
 her for the Festival " I give 3 r ou fair warning." 
 
 Elise laughed. " Have you taken out a patent? " 
 she inquired, archly. 
 
 " I am about to file my petition," he replied, with a
 
 CHANNING' S FORTUNE. 231 
 
 delicious gravity, " before the proper court, on or 
 before that day I am at work o-n my papers now." 
 
 When Channing looked at her just that way, with 
 a deep, tender gaze, Elise never knew quite what to 
 think or say.. It seemed to jostle her mental equi- 
 librium, oppress her, too, with the uncomfortable sense 
 that lie inwardily enjoyed her confusion and even 
 sought to produce it. 
 
 " Can I assist you ? " she said playfully, and im- 
 mediately knew that it was a very foolish speech, and 
 would gladly have fled from the room. Her heart 
 was beating, her color was rising in great surges from 
 neck to brow. She could not bear the intensity of 
 that gaze it was charming her she would break 
 away from it. 
 
 "Excuse me, "she said hastily, turning to the door, 
 " wasn't that Bertha calling me ? " 
 
 But he gently arrested her. " I am calling you 
 now, Miss Elise. Will you listen to me ? " 
 
 He resumed his seat, and placed a low chair for her 
 opposite his own. 
 
 She looked up at him with an inquiring smile, and 
 he said : 
 
 " And first, as preliminary, am I to understand that 
 I have a rival in Dresson ? " 
 
 Elise instantly felt that he had no right to such 
 inquiry without first apprising her of his own inten- 
 tions and then as confidently recognized it as a tacit 
 avowal of his position. It was hard to push her so 
 close on so sore a theme, and Channing, anxious to 
 save himself the mortification of defeat, had committed 
 the blunder of apparent encroachment upon her 
 secrets. 
 
 It was direct, it was blunt, it was also crucial in 
 his view of the case. It was a sudden descent from 
 bewildering hope to flat negations, but she could not 
 resent it, with those pleading eyes still fixed upon her 
 and the rich full tone that could not'conceal its inner 
 meaning lingering in her ear.
 
 232 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 It was but a second that she paused, but to Chan- 
 ning it seemed an eternity. 
 
 "In failure?" she asked, with a nervous sweet- 
 ness. " I know him in no other role."" 
 
 But Channing did not speak. 
 
 " I never intend to know him in any other," she 
 continued, with a mild but lofty decision. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, inspiring a deep breath. He 
 folded his arms and turned fully around, confronting 
 her with an unflinching gaze. 
 
 "I have been addressing a certain Miss Archer for 
 some months now," he said meditatively. " 1 wish to 
 ask her if she is willing to be my wife." 
 
 He spoke witli measured emphasis, every word 
 clear cut, firm, vigorous, palpitating in what seemed 
 an ocean of space. 
 
 At first Elise had not quailed under the steady blaze 
 of those orbs that seemed to penetrate the secrets of 
 her soul ; but at length, bewildered by their depth 
 and power, she slowly turned her head, her eyes away 
 a sudden paleness swept over her face. She wasiji 
 a tumult of emotion. A master-hand had touched 
 the chords at last, and she was all a-throb with the 
 music's deep vibrations. But she could not speak ; 
 she was distracted too, by the faint low rumblings of 
 the hollow tones of doubt in a deep undertone. 
 
 " Do you not know that I love you ? " he urged 
 fondly. "Will you not look at me? Will you not 
 speak one word of encouragement?" 
 
 She knew it all now she felt it all now ! Knew 
 it as in a dream felt it as in a spell. His low, 
 pleading fervor sank into her very soul ; a delicious 
 thrill ran through her frame. She felt the magnetism 
 of that riveted gaze, the magic of that heartfelt 
 utterance, the pathos of that sweet appeal. Her 
 gentle spirit swayed like a struck pendulum ; an all- 
 compelling love was subduing her, was absorbing 
 her. 
 
 But what could she do? Had she not resolved? 
 Should the struggle of years go for naught ?
 
 CHAN N ING'S FORTUNE. 233 
 
 While all this was rushing through her brain, she 
 heard Channing's voice once more, for her eyes were 
 cast down, she could neither answer nor receive that 
 maddening gaze. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, rising, " I see that you think my 
 wish presumptuous ! " His eyes were fixed upon the 
 moonlight-flooded balcony. He stepped mechani- 
 cally forward outside the open door. 
 
 Elise irresistibly followed, filled with a strange 
 unrest. She must answer him. Was he offended ? 
 He had honored her above all women. Did he not 
 understand that she prized the gift even it' she could 
 not accept the giver? These were her perplexities 
 as they stood in the moonlight together. But she 
 must answer him. Every moment's delay was a 
 sharp torture. 
 
 She laid her hand gently on his arm, for he was 
 looking outward, apparently without a thought of the 
 fair being beside him. 
 
 " Mr. Eaiie," she said, with touching gentleness, 
 "it is my misfortune rather than my fault that com- 
 pels me to refuse "she caught her breath quickly 
 "to grant your wish. I think my meaning is not 
 unknown to you ? " she pleaded, inquiringly. 
 
 " But shall a few years more or less separate loving 
 hearts? Oh! cannot you see that if the delicate 
 fibers of the spirit intertwine, there is life and peace ? 
 Can yon not understand that love is a passion of the 
 soul a thing of affinities and not of definitions or 
 mathematics? Only say," he added tenderly, "that 
 you love me, and I think I can convince you that 
 your theory is wrong." 
 
 " You know I have made one mistake," she said 
 sadly. Then observing Channing's pained, puzzled 
 look, she said, with grave simplicity : 
 
 " Love is not a thing of mathematics, it is true, 
 but ,love enjoys the proper results of the rules of 
 proportion, does he not? Love is not a thing of defini- 
 tions, I acknowledge, and yet Love's vocabulary is
 
 234 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 full of 'ardor,' 'fire,' ' zeal,' 'enthusiasm,' all choice 
 passions of youth, is it not so ? " 
 
 Charming did not reply. 
 
 " Mr. Earle," she said, ' I am not ready to say 
 what it would no doubt please you to hear, but I am 
 willing to say this " 
 
 She touched his arm to recall his attention to her- 
 self, for he was abstractedly gazing at the moon- 
 lighted shrubbery. 
 
 " My thought is all for you ; it is for you that I 
 fear ! " 
 
 While she spoke, the moonbeams were clothing her 
 as with a garment. Her form of airy grace was 
 almost etherealized by her snowy drapery, and their 
 weird silver light, and her face, bathed in their full 
 effulgence as she raised her eyes to his, had an ineffa- 
 ble charm and intensified beauty in the mingled sad- 
 ness and serenity which marked every lineament, 
 that he never, never forgot. 
 
 Ho\v the fair picture haunted him in one short 
 year ! 
 
 " And was this last utterance a grain of hope ? 
 this chance bit of negation and did she mean it 
 so ? " he asked himself. 
 
 With guarded calmness and all his usual studied 
 politeness he said : 
 
 " I have kept you too long standing, Miss Archer; 
 permit me to seat you and shawl you. 
 
 " There now ! " he added, placing himself by her 
 side, " let us talk about this thing sensibly. I would 
 not do you the injustice, Miss Archer, of thinking 
 you unwilling to be convinced, and if you will allow 
 me the privilege of trying, I hope to.be able to con- 
 vert you to my views. And I have strong reasons 
 for believing it possible," he added, as he so beheld 
 the rising doubt on her face, " because," he hesitated 
 for the statement would be an admission, "because I 
 have convinced myself." 
 
 " You think, then," said Elise, quick to discover 
 the assailable point, " that yours is the highest court-
 
 CU 'ANN ING'S FORTUNE. 235 
 
 of-appeal, and the case having been decided in it, all 
 under-courts must yield to its authority. 
 
 "But without jesting," for she saw Channing 
 looked pained, " I will certainly grant you both the 
 privilege and the opportunity is it too late to-night?" 
 she said, glancing at the stars "and -I Avill not be 
 at all displeased," she added, archly, " to be con- 
 verted to your views, provided you do not use any 
 unlawful means such as sorcery, magnetism, not 
 even poetry,"she said, smiling, " for that captivates the 
 senses you know but only pure, sound argument." 
 
 " Very, well," he said, " I am to have the floor, 
 remember 
 
 " And I am to be both judge and jury," Elise 
 interrupted. 
 
 " Correct," said Channing, " and also the counsel 
 for the defendant multum in parvo, truly! Behold 
 my chivalry ! But in spite of all fourteen of you, I 
 expect to win my case." 
 
 Elise laughed at this sally, and assured him that a 
 determination to win was more than half the battle. 
 
 "But I warn you," she said, gayly, "that we are 
 fourteen very what shall I say ? not obstinate 
 individuals, but a consolidated firm of firmness, as it 
 were." 
 
 " But now, seriously, Miss Archer, it is my opinion 
 that true love is not affected by age." 
 
 " I have been accustomed to think of Love as some- 
 thing so much divine as to be perfect from the begin- 
 ning of its existence," she remarked. 
 
 " Genuine love may be perfect in kind, but not in 
 degree. What passes for love-at-first-sight is often 
 only fascination. 
 
 " I suppose," he continued meditatively, " I ought to 
 give you some examples of happy married life where 
 there was this disparity of years which is to you such 
 a bugbear. There is no proof better than experience. 
 History furnishes many. In private life you may 
 have known some instances 
 
 Elise gave a little start, and began to say that un-
 
 236 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 fortunately she knew one unhappy case, when Chan- 
 ning waved her into silence, saying : 
 
 " I see I must protect my own rights, for even the 
 judge has no call to speak at present, and certainly 
 not the prisoner or the opposing counsel. 
 
 " Of course," he continued," there are marriages that 
 will stand for types of the rest. I happen to know 
 one, and well, their fireside happiness is the real, 
 genuine stuff just what ours would be, I 'imagine," 
 lie added, tenderly, " for are not our opinions, tastes, 
 desires and aims, in the main, the same ? And not 
 only so, is there not, in our case, unity of purpose in 
 things spiritual and divine? Is it possible to lay 
 firmer foundation than this for true, deep, all-abiding 
 love?" 
 
 He -spoke with the fervid eloquence of feeling, and 
 paused from its very intensity. 
 
 ''If we were only angels " Elise breathed so low 
 that it was scarcely audible " but 
 
 " Oh ! Elise ! let us have no more buts-f This sense- 
 less doubting maddens me," and he rose in a sort 
 of frenzy. " Have you not reason ? Is it not clear 
 to your comprehension? Cannot But pardon me, 
 I have been rude. What would you say, Miss Archer ? " 
 
 Elise's color rose at this little whiff of authority, 
 but since it was the impatience of love, she could not 
 resent it, and so as they paced the balcony floor, she 
 replied, doubtfully, naively waiving the but : 
 
 " Man's love is not considered as lasting as woman's, 
 I think." 
 
 "It is all a base slander," he replied. "Love is 
 divine and knows no sex. A true man's love for his 
 wife, a true man's love for his child, granting even 
 the exalted character of a mother's love, is as deep, 
 pure, and eternal as a woman's. If a man set 
 his heart on beauty, a fair form, fine features, rich 
 dress, and stylish belongings, he must expect to 
 be disappointed. If a man allows the blandish- 
 ments of the fair sex to ensnare him, lie must ex- 
 pect disappointment. Or if a man thinks only of
 
 CHANN ING'S FORTUNE. 237 
 
 getting money or position or social influence or 
 business prosperity with a wife, he is sure to be dis- 
 appointed. If he build upon anything -and the 
 motives are legion that induce men to marry but 
 heart attractions, mental worth, and moral graces, he 
 must obviously have a short-lived love. Why, he 
 builds upon the shifting sands. How can he expect 
 permanence ? I find no mixed motive in my love for 
 you ; it is clear, sharp, well defined." 
 
 " Mr. Eaiie," said Elise, looking upon the floor as 
 they slowly paced along, " I believe I am convinced 
 any way, almost" She looked up at him and seemed 
 about to speak, but paused. 
 
 " Another dreadful but, I see ! " Channing said, 
 kindly, enjoying her confusion. 
 
 Thus reassured, she said, timidly : 
 
 "Don't you think the world will disapprove will 
 laugh at us ? " 
 
 Instinctively perceiving that this was the last 
 arrow from the quiver of the defense, Channing 
 laughed heartily as he replied, drawing her arm more 
 closely within his own: 
 
 " Do we marry the world, Elise ? Is the world to 
 feast at our board and lounge in our slippers and sit 
 in our chimney-corner? Is it the world," he added, 
 tenderly, "that will sit beside the evening lamp with 
 me and drone over Tennyson, Keats, and Browning, 
 or flash over Hamilton and Cook? The world has 
 a horny bad finger, that it shakes sometimes in the 
 face of good deeds, but if we care to view our own 
 affairs from the standpoint of the world, we shall in- 
 volve ourselves in perpetual entanglements inextri- 
 cable confusion. It is possible to act in such a way 
 as to compel the world's approval. This .1 expect 
 our mutual devotion will accomplish. But if not, 
 the approval of conscience and the smile of God 
 ought to be enough for any well-regulated mind." 
 
 He was quietly watching for the white flag of sur- 
 render, but seeing no signs now, he cried with a 
 sudden, fierce emphasis :
 
 238 fttE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " Oh, Elise ! } r our reason is almost upset with your 
 ogres of the world, the flesh, and the devil ! " 
 
 Elise, startled, withdrew her arm and stood silently 
 legiirding him. 
 
 " Forgive me," he said, " for my rash speech ; but 
 really," he added with warmth, " I do believe all 
 these temptations are from his Satanic majesty, and 
 the sooner you say, ' Get thee behind me ! ' why, 
 the sooner" he was opposite her now, and looking 
 upon her face with a piercing tenderness "you will 
 be ready to come to your rest," and he folded his 
 arms upon his breast. 
 
 " But after all, Elise, we do not need argument in 
 such a case as this. I would much prefer to have 
 the answer of your heart. Let your heart answer; I 
 will abide by that issue." 
 
 If there had been sophistry anywhere in his plead- 
 ings, Elise was in such a sweet, bewildering dream she 
 found it impossible to discover it and what was 
 more, she did not care to be undeceived. She felt 
 like floating away on this delicious sea forever she 
 was among the lotus leaves, and the subtle odor 
 penetrated every fibre of her being. 
 
 " My darling ! " said Channing, and paused for 
 coming towards them, pale and trembling, was Mrs. 
 Healey with a folded paper in her hands. 
 
 Elise sprang towards her : " What has happened, 
 Lily?" 
 
 Airs. Healey handed her the telegram, requesting 
 the Doctor's immediate presence with Mrs. Healey 
 and Elise on account of the sudden and alarming 
 illness of Mr. Gray, Lilian's brother. 
 
 " We must go at once, Doctor says, Elise. Can I 
 help you in the packing?" 
 
 " My dear uncle," was all Elise could say, winding 
 her arms about Mrs. Healey. Then, extending her 
 hand to Channing for a good-night's token, they 
 entered the house together. 
 
 Elise and Mrs. Healey were busy together until 
 long after midnight, and when at last her thoughts
 
 CUAXNIN&S FORTUN&. 239 
 
 turned to Charming, she remembered that she had 
 given him no definite answer. So she reopened her 
 trunk and withdrew her escritoire. She arranged her 
 materials, she inked her pen, she thought, she waited 
 she could not begin. 
 
 But at last, after manifold hesitations and multifari- 
 ous condemned scribblings, she indited the following 
 note and left it with Bertha for delivery : 
 
 "I am sorry to leave without seeing you again, 
 Mr. Eaiie, but this sudden news compels us to fly in 
 the early morning. 
 
 " The answer from my heart, dearest of friends, 
 which you thought you would like, might be the 
 cause of an endless misery for both of us might be 
 at the expense of your future happiness. I would 
 fain plead for a delay of my decision, until the love 
 you offer me has been tested by time and absence and 
 a wider acquaintance with the charming ones of my 
 sex. 
 
 " Do not write to me. But if after all, in a year, 
 a month and a day, your heart remains unchanged, 
 come to one who is now and will then be without 
 reserve, 
 
 " Yours only, 
 
 " ELISE."
 
 240 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ELISE RETURNS. 
 
 " Only in dreams is a ladder thrown 
 From the weary earth to the sapphire walls ; 
 But the dreams depart and the vision falls 
 And the sleeper wakes on the pillow of stone." 
 
 J. G. Holland. 
 
 MR. GRAY'S illness proved fatal, and thus one more 
 link in the chain of loving helpfulness was dropped 
 out of Elise's life. After some weeks of soothing 
 ministries to her stricken aunt weeks precious and 
 hallowed with the sweet and oft-spoken memories 
 of the dear departed Elise returned to Brentville. 
 
 Bertha had preceded her, and the Opal League was 
 waiting in her own house to receive her. How sweet 
 it was, this intertwining of arms and souls in a wel- 
 come whose cordiality was gently subdued by the 
 mute, eloquent appeal of the mourning robes! 
 
 "It has been an age ! " was Minnie Love's original 
 remark as she nestled close to her Queen. 
 
 "Say a millennium and include us all," said Miss 
 Smart. Nothing has happened here worth the record ; 
 not a soul of us has dared to love or be loved, flirt or 
 be flirted. The Monboddoes have given us up for 
 invincible stupids, and gone over the ' Border ' for 
 their fun, and Florence Burice is waiting to have you 
 sanction the beau she caught in Shoredam 
 which rapidly announced budget was interrupted by 
 a shyly protesting : 
 
 " Now, Ginnie ! " from the blonde beauty. 
 
 " Mr. Earle went to Europe soon after you left 
 did you know it, Elise ? " inquired Miss St. John
 
 ELISE RETURNS. 241 
 
 Elise changed color and replied in the negative 
 " and has been traveling in Italy and Switzerland 
 ever since. Then perhaps you haven't heard he is 
 going to the school of mines in Freiberg, to perfect 
 himself in civil engineering? He had such a tingling 
 in his bones for a mathematical career, that his father 
 consented at last for him to acquire this profession 
 and then choose between the two." 
 
 "Authorship or civil engineering, do you mean, 
 Marie?" inquired Elise. 
 
 "Precisely. I imagine," she said in a confidential 
 tone, "that it cost Mrs. Earle some tears just to con- 
 sent to the mere supposition of an alternative, for 
 you know she has set her heart upon Channing's 
 following in the line of his illustrious ancestors." 
 
 " And what a pity it would be," said Gene vie ve 
 Tete, " to have a break why, he makes the fifth in 
 the lineage of authors. I am quite sure if I was his 
 mother it would break my heart." 
 
 " Well," said Miss Smart, consolingly, " there'll be 
 no breaks of any kind; according to my notion. Jn 
 the first place, he has a talent for writing that's 
 everything. And in the next place, lie has acquired 
 the practice that's considerable. And in the third 
 place " 
 
 "Now just hold on a bit, can't you?" she ex- 
 claimed, as they uttered protesting cries that it wasn't 
 speech-day, and somebody else wanted to talk, and 
 other pretty little aggravations. 
 
 " I haven't come to sixthly yet ! What a mercurial 
 audience I have, to be sure ! " 
 
 " In the third place," she continued, " lie has a 
 fortune now, and I don't blame him for wishing to 
 be sure that his career is in the line of his tastes, for 
 he can try both and take his choice. I think he is 
 very wise." 
 
 "Why, when," said Elise, "did the wheel of 
 Fortune empty something into his lap ? I hadn't heard 
 it. That's good news, I am sure." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Miss Bunce, " his uncle died and
 
 242 THE OPAL QVEEN. 
 
 left him fifty thousand and the old homestead, and 
 Gran says that if they are willing and the Lord is 
 willing, she'd like to die in the house where she was 
 born, so they are going as soon as they can. Mr. 
 Earle is up there now putting the house in order 
 it's a grand old mansion been remodelled several 
 times." 
 
 "Why! why!" said Elise, "I hadn't heard, I 
 didn't know it," in a confused sort of way. " And 
 will they leave here altogether ? " 
 
 " It isn't quite decided, but they want to go for 
 Gran's sake now. Mrs. Earle says she hasn't any one 
 to- indulge now but Gran, and she'll make a chocolate- 
 e*claire of her, and the sweets will be laid on thick, 
 you may be sure," replied Ginnie. 
 
 "You see, Elise, the reason Florence knows so 
 much about all this is because Mr. ahem ! well, 
 Mr. Waiting-her-Mood, you know (looking at 
 Florence quizzically), has been visiting there and 
 kept her posted." 
 
 " Is it true ? " inquired Elise, fondly stroking the 
 blonde hair. 
 
 Her tell-tale blush, as she turned her finger with 
 its shining token towards Elise, was her only answer. 
 
 " Why, surely something has happened, girls," she 
 said, kissing the fair cheek. 
 
 Ginnie whispered in her ear ; she gave a little start, 
 and exclaimed involuntarily, in a tone of quick sur- 
 prise : " Otto ! " Then putting her arm around her 
 successful rival, she said, looking at her tenderly : 
 
 " I wish you much joy, and 1 hope you will make 
 each other very happy." 
 
 "Ah! you rogue," she said, shaking her finger at 
 Miss Smart, " you cheated me, I am going to look at 
 every single finger!" and there was a scrambling 
 and running and hiding of hands in great show of 
 playful mystety, until Elise had proved to her satis- 
 faction that only one of the lambs had thoughts of 
 straying from the pastures of parental love into the 
 fold of a stranger.
 
 ELISE RETURNS. 243 
 
 " We must set the League a-going," she said, en- 
 thusiastically. "All the signs say it will be a hard 
 winter, and no doubt we shall find enough to do." 
 
 Elise did not wait for Mrs. Eavle, but went over 
 that very evening to see her and dear old "Gran,"- 
 doubly dear now, she thought, for Channing's sake, 
 whose place she must in a measure try to fill. 
 
 " I will speak to mother," said Mrs. Earle, coolly, 
 after a few inquiries of Elise about her health and 
 the friends she had left; " I think she would like to 
 see you." 
 
 Mrs. Earle, whose keen, maternal eyes mistrusted 
 that all was not right with her darling son, after 
 Elise left, had worried his secret out of him, and was 
 loud in her denunciations of the offender. 
 
 "A girl that puts you off, my son, is not the girl 
 that cares for you or the girl that an Earle wants," 
 she said to him, upon making the discovery. u Carry 
 your head high. I would not give the snap of my 
 ringers for a dozen such. She has been fooling you 
 all the time, just as she did Bresson. I always sus- 
 pected she was at the bottom of that flare-up." 
 
 But when she found little success in arousing an 
 indignant pride and was haunted by his pale face and 
 the determined look of his sad, deep eye, her motherly 
 heart began to search for and apply the anodyne of 
 encouragement ; assuring him that it was the very 
 best thing they could both do and she hadn't the 
 slightest doubt that they would be married before the 
 year was up. But secretly she was disaffected to- 
 wards Elise she charged her for the rankling wound 
 in her boy's heart. 
 
 It was unfortunate for Elise, in regard to both 
 Channing's and his mother's estimate of her conduct, 
 that she had not made more of a confident of Mrs. 
 Earle, and secured her championship. But Elise was 
 not a prominent member of the busy, bustling female 
 Heart-Exchange, with its whispered secrets and false 
 quotations and speculations on probable and improb-
 
 244 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 able chances of matrimony, and had quietly resisted 
 or ignored Mrs. Earle's insinuated efforts to discover 
 the state of her affections. 
 
 Chan n ing had so long been upon the rack of doubt 
 that when the answer that he had hoped for came to 
 him with guarded conditions, he fell back into the 
 old vein of distrust of himself and doubt of her faith. 
 
 He assured himself that after Elise's calm denial of 
 any further dealings with Dresson, that source of 
 anxiety ought to be removed. But in spite of all his 
 averments, the old flame was rekindled. He could 
 not doubt her truthfulness, but he also could not quite 
 abolish Dresson or cancel his influence over Elise, and 
 a fugitive doubt, once admitted, continued to linger 
 and haunt him. How could she tell but Dresson 
 might again exercise a magnetism oveu her? And 
 how was it possible for Dresson to be again admitted 
 to intimate terms without the prospect of matrimony ? 
 
 To go and leave him in possession of the field to 
 be conscious that his place was filled by another 
 and that other a despicable rival, to realize that there 
 would be no time left her to cherish any memories of 
 himself, this made the picture unbearably galling. 
 But for this he might, with a certain courageous 
 stoicism meet the shock and brave the interim of the 
 absence that horrible interregnum when all the 
 powers of his soul would be rising in anarchy. 
 
 But underneath it all was the whispering of a hope 
 never dead. And after the first mighty convulsions 
 of despair, he listened to the voice. God is still over- 
 head, he said, and best of all, right here in my heart, 
 
 and calmly bowed to the stroke and waited for the 
 end. So, too, now Superba's words of cheer, whose 
 false ring he could not detect, lightened his sky 
 somewhat they were the eagerly grasped straws of 
 the drowning man. It was the force of this touching 
 calamity so full of an unspoken pathos and eloquence 
 that won Superba's consent to his secretly long 
 cherished plan of accomplishing himself for active 
 life in the field of his predilections-. "Then," he
 
 ELISE RETURNS. 245 
 
 said, " I shall be equipped for both pursuits and can 
 more wisely make the choice, and shall at least lose 
 nothing by a more thorough drill in an applied 
 science." 
 
 His anomalous position jarred on him. He was 
 neither an accepted nor a rejected lover, but floating 
 loosely in the mid-heavens, the subtle ether of pos- 
 sibilities. Had he not gone through such a fiery trial 
 andmentalscourging, his nature would have preserved 
 better its elastic rebound. But it was a nature with 
 an inherited doubt of his acceptability with the fair 
 sex a strange blending of a confidence that had 
 never been shaken in his powers for success in the 
 affairs of life, with a stratified and compacted timidity 
 in the lines of approach and consummation of the 
 affairs of the heart. 
 
 The six months of absence had told somewhat upon 
 Gran, in lines of greater emaciation, but the bright 
 eyes flashed their welcome, as Elise stooped over her 
 to impress her token on the still red lips. 
 
 "Did you do quite right, my child?" she said in 
 the midst of their conversation after some remark 
 about Channing. 
 
 Mrs. Earle had not returned, and Elise, who had 
 been stung by her Jtauteur, now realized that she was 
 censured in the house of her friends. 
 
 She could not reply, although she understood 
 instantly the allusion, and Gran continued : 
 
 "Such hearts don't grow every day; you might not 
 pick up such another noble one in a century ; and 
 sometimes, if they are very sensitive, disappointment 
 invites defeat. I don't say but what he will be true 
 but it is a hard test, my child, a hard test for one 
 constituted like Channing, and may be the means 
 of " 
 
 Elise had been trying to master the shock of Gran's 
 disapprobation, but she could not endure further 
 reproaches. 
 
 " Oh ! Gran, what do you mean ? Do you not 
 support me in this? Then I am miserable indeed," 
 she said, " for it is hard enough to bear it, with all
 
 246 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 of you loving me, and I see easily that you are es- 
 tranged from me, when I meant only to do the very 
 best, and thought you, Gran, of all others Avould say 
 it was the only prudent, safe thing to do." 
 
 But she did not know that Channing had not told 
 them the real reason of her postponement. 
 
 " Don't get so agitated, my child. Old Gran be- 
 lieves it will all come right yet but it was hard on 
 Channing, and I was only going to say that it might 
 be the cause of his being set against all women. 
 There is that danger, you know " 
 
 "But Gran," interrupted Elise, "I have only post- 
 poned it. I have not, and never mean to give him up 
 it all depends upon himself to consummate it." 
 
 But Gran, like Superba, could not quite get over 
 the affront of not accepting, on the instant, their im- 
 maculate son, and she could not easily forget the 
 hurt in her darling's face as he bade her good-bye. 
 
 " Well ! well ! " she said, a little querulously, " it is 
 in the Lord's hands and none of us can take it out. 
 Even you, my child" (and her tone was softened 
 now to its usual sweetness) "even you cannot hinder 
 him of God's providence ; and then again, nothing 
 can touch a hair of your head if you are appointed 
 his." 
 
 Elise kissed the dear hand she was holding. 
 
 "It seems very dark and very cold to me now, 
 Gran, if you are all blaming me. My heart has 
 been buried under what seemed a load of ashes ever 
 since " and she paused and choked down the sobs 
 "ever since I told him and then you know Uncle 
 Gray's gone too the lights are burning low, dear 
 Gran I came home for comfort." 
 
 " And you shall have it, my child," said Grari, all 
 softened at the sight of this beautiful, high-spirited 
 girl subdued and tender as a child. 
 
 " And there's One that can give it to you better 
 than old Gran. Tell it all to Jesus, He won't be so 
 exacting as Gran ; there's no selfishness in His love, 
 mine is all mixed up with Channing's grief.
 
 ELISE KETURNS. 247 
 
 " Listen, my child," she said, solemnly. "All this 
 talk is born of Gran's fears" She looked keenly at 
 Elise with those brilliant black eyes, and then said : 
 " But I am going to dismiss my fears for your sake 
 and mine, and because it isn't the way of peace to a 
 soul just going out." 
 
 " Oh ! don't say that, dear Gran," said Elise. 
 
 " I may not live to see it," Gran continued, "but 
 I expect it will be! Do you understand?" she 
 asked, looking at her searchingly. 
 
 "It will be," said Elise, calmly and steadily answer- 
 ing her look, " if it is left with me to decide." 
 
 "It is all written down up yonder," she said, "and 
 what's there is all for the best. 
 
 " You believe," she asked, affirmatively, "that your 
 name is written in the Book of Remembrance that the 
 Lord keeps, my child ? " 
 
 Elise hesitated a moment. " Why, I suppose so," 
 she answered at length. 
 
 "When 1 was about sixty getting old, they called 
 it," Gran said, smiling, " I lost a precious friend, a 
 lady who had been as intimate as a sister. She died 
 suddenly, and her afflicted husband sent me word of 
 his bereavement, and in the same note begged me to 
 come to the funeral. I was a very dear friend, you 
 remember ? ' : Elise assented "and I was feeble so 
 that I could not have walked to the grave, neither 
 were the friends expected to walk. The surviving 
 partner of my friend was a minister, and of course 
 all the congregation would wish to' come ; then her 
 relatives and his from a distance were another 
 throng. 
 
 " They held private services first at the house 
 and it was to that I was invited specially to be pres- 
 ent and afterwards the funeral ceremonial at the 
 church. To insure the attendance at the grave of 
 their especial friends, the names were called off as 
 the carriages drove up to the door to take them to 
 the church, and that would secure the carriage to
 
 248 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 the same occupants when the funeral procession was 
 made up. 
 
 " There were several rooms, and a man stood at 
 the head of the stairs in the hall, as the most central 
 point for all to hear' when lie called off the names. 
 I crowded my way to a door where I could hear 
 when my name was called, so as to be ready to go. 
 
 " He read through a long list of the relatives, and 
 then commenced 'on friends. I wanted to go, you 
 know," she said, looking at Elise, "to see the last 
 sad ceremonies, and I couldn't go, you see, unless 
 there was a place provided for me. I listened very 
 carefully, for now I knew my name must come very 
 soon. But still I did not hear it, and my heart began 
 to beat fast, very fast, with the grave apprehension 
 that possibly he might not call it. And yet I 
 expected to hear it, for I was a chosen friend, known 
 to be such by all. Still the man read on, and I 
 thought, is it possible that they have left me out ? 
 And then I began to fear that my name was indeed 
 left out, for it could never be so far down on the list 
 as that, and my anxious heart was throbbing so vio- 
 lently I thought those standing next me would hear 
 it, 
 
 "And then, in an instant, in the hushed stillness 
 of that assembly, for there was tlmt sort of eager 
 breathlessness of suspense that tells you that all 
 minds are full of the same unspoken thought- it was 
 as solemn as the judgment-day the thought flashed 
 across me in the words of the hymn, 'What if my 
 name should be left out! ' on that great day, the day 
 of assizes, when the Lord shall open his Book of 
 Remembrance and call off the names of his friends? 
 
 " The man finished but my name had not been 
 called. I sank down in a chair, overcome with the 
 strain of intense desire and doubt, and wept bitterly 
 to think I had been left out. I never wish to experi- 
 ence any deeper pain than I had at the moment, 
 when I knew I was not one of the chosen ones, but 
 oh ! " and Gran clasped her hands and raised her
 
 ELISE RETURNS: 249 
 
 eyes to heaven "what untold agony will strike like 
 a fiery dart through the soul whose name is 'left out' 
 of that great Book of Remembrance kept by our 
 Lord I 
 
 " Better have no 'supposes,' my child, where such 
 an entry as that is concerned. ' Make your calling 
 and election sure ; ' lay up your treasure in heaven. 
 Isn't your mind a little off from your crown?" she 
 said, touchingly. 
 
 Elise was much affected. " I thank you, dear 
 Gran," she said, "for your interest in the motherless 
 one. May I come again soon ? " 
 
 "Gran sees it all clear now," she said, with her old 
 fondness, putting her arms around Elise. "Keep up 
 good heart. You my be sure of Gran's sympathy, 
 living or dying. Come soon come in the morning."
 
 250 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 
 
 THE next morning, as Elise and Lilian were still 
 lingering at the breakfast-table, the Doctor, who was 
 standing by a window in the dining-room that com- 
 manded a view of Elise's house and grounds, called 
 out summarily : 
 
 " Come here, Elise ! You see I am getting on in 
 years, and not always taking my full share of the 
 good things going, because I am so confoundedly 
 busy. Last spring as I had my eye out on a pros- 
 pecting expedition while standing at this window, I 
 made up my mind to have clumps of fruit trees the 
 peen-to peach, Japanese plum, custard-apple, with the 
 double-flowering ornamental peach, away down there 
 in the burn, do you see? I mean by the brook at 
 the foot of your slope, on your premises?" 
 
 " And who has a better right ? " she said, laughing. 
 " My Doctor shall pre-empt any spot he pleases for 
 his charitable designs." 
 
 "Now there you are all wrong it isn't for sweet 
 charity at all. It is because I'm a growing aesthete. 
 Smell my breath isn't it like new milk, and my nose 
 like a pomegranate, and my hair like the roe on the 
 mountains? Oh ! I am blossoming out, I can tell 
 you!" 
 
 "Why, my dear," said Lilian "you are delineating 
 calfhood ! " 
 
 "I am surprised, Mrs. Healey, that, with all your 
 literary cultivation you show such profound ignorance 
 of the Bible. 
 
 " Now that chimp or those clumps, Elise," he said,
 
 ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 251 
 
 resuming, " are my picturesque facts that is all 
 under heaven I want of them. The birds, or who- 
 ever you say, Elise," he said with a flourish, " may 
 have the fruit, so I have my fill of that tender ex- 
 quisite pink and white bloom that crowns the spring 
 mornings with a fresh and budding beauty. 
 
 "What do you think of that, Mrs. Healey, for 
 rhetoric ? " 
 
 " Brilliant, of course. It makes me forget what 
 season this is. Why, isn't it spring?" she said 
 with mock surprise, shading her eyes and looking 
 down the burn, " I think I can see the bloom ! " 
 
 " That will do, you arch hypocrite," he said, snatch- 
 ing a kiss. 
 
 " But why don't you go on ?" she asked. 
 
 " That is much my intention, Mrs. Healey, after 
 the murmurs of an applauding audience have fully 
 subsided. Of course, Elise, a scientific man like my- 
 self found it expedient to call in a husbandman, eh, 
 Lily?" 
 
 " Yes," she laughed, " that's correct." 
 
 " One who attends to such little agricultural mat- 
 ters for a small consideration, you know ; and having 
 secured him for that, it was inevitable that he, being 
 a man of aesthetic perceptions, should fix his eye on 
 this waste land between us, and desire to give us a 
 little taste of what Wordsworth calls the 'cultivated 
 pomp of nature,' and so I turned him in here and 
 let him loose." 
 
 " Oh ! you are a blessed man ! I have been looking 
 out of my window ail the morning in a perfect daze 
 of bewildered enchantment. Why, it was real magic 
 to me to see such triumphs of landscape-gardening 
 where all was wild nature before." 
 
 " Yes, I am a downright blessing, when it comes 
 so much in the line of my own pleasure, you see. 
 Well, then of course Car-Michael that's the artist 
 of husbandly, that clumped the tre-es and gardened 
 the landscape, you knows seemed to find no end of 
 matters that must be attended to in the Paradise he
 
 252 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 had created (odds and ends that must be fixed up to 
 keep his Paradise in order), and the upshot of it is, 
 that he's settled for the winter. Bertha and he mess to- 
 gether in the kitchen, and you over here, and so he'll 
 be with you this winter for your odd jobs and chores 
 about the house." 
 
 " Oh, Lily ! " said Elise, throwing her arms around 
 Lily's neck, " isn't he good and sweet and kind? " 
 
 "Better think it over, before you make any rash 
 speeches," said Doctor, vanishing through the door. 
 
 " And lie has two classes engaged for you, my 
 pet," said Lily, enfolding the lone one, " one for paint- 
 ing and one for carving." 
 
 " Oh ! I am so glad ! " Elise cried, " the dear good 
 man ! " 
 
 " Every inch of him ! " said Lily, " but don't you 
 think we have hearts ? And what are hearts for, I 
 should like to know, if they can't do a little extra 
 throbbing for our neighbor-over-the-way ! " 
 
 " Well, the one that went to Jericho and fell among 
 thieves, he wasn't picked up any more tenderly and 
 cared for any more generously than I, and I only 
 fell from fortune." 
 
 " Well, that was a dizzy height, and would have 
 killed most any one but my own brave darling," re- 
 plied Lilian. 
 
 The shortening days were filled with a new and 
 busy life for Elise, who WHS feeding on the sweet 
 hope of a reunion in the beautiful springtime with 
 a tried friend and lover. 
 
 Superba's haughty air did not change towards her, 
 but Elise encouraged herself to believe that soon 
 Channing's presence would dissipate all clouds. 
 
 Gran had been a never-failing comfort as long as 
 they remained, which was only until just before 
 Thanksgiving ; they spent that day under the roof 
 where Gran and her son were born. 
 
 Elise missed sadly this only tie between her loved 
 and absent one, but struggled on bravely in her 
 austere life of work.
 
 ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 253 
 
 March came with its tyrannizing bluster of wind 
 and dust, and as she sat in her lonely boudoir, she 
 thought of the critical evening upon which she had 
 so nearly compromised her fair name as hostess by re- 
 fusing to see Dresson when in that spasm of sublime 
 audacity he had suddenly crossed her threshold. 
 
 The blossoms had come forth in late February, the 
 resurrection month, and were fast shedding their 
 petals and setting their fruit during the early reign 
 of this coquettish month. Siie watched the calendar 
 with a feverish, nervous dread, and yet with a hope 
 that would not be suppressed. 
 
 Bright-eyed, dancing, singing April festooned gar- 
 den and walls with her floral tributes, and as she 
 glanced at her calendar she saw that there was but 
 one more day. 
 
 "I cannot work to-day," she said, "I am too ex- 
 cited and unstrung. We must all have a holiday. I 
 will tell the girls so when they come." 
 
 But as she tore off the slip from her illuminated 
 record and read 
 
 Best is not quitting the busy career, . 
 Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere," 
 
 she remembered that Channing had said to her on 
 that eventful night when her heart first awoke to its 
 love, " We must do the duty that lies nearest, you 
 know ; " and she quietly picked up the threads of 
 her life's web, and carried it on in the same old 
 monotonous measure, with an imprisoned hope, hum- 
 ming a low, sweet melody. 
 
 A year, a month, and a day ! 
 
 How long it seemed since they stood in the moon- 
 light together, on this same balcony, where now she 
 was straining eager eyes for a familiar object that 
 surely must soon appear. All day long she had been 
 buoyed by a strong, though trembling hope, but now 
 her heart was filled with a wild, tumultuous yearn- 
 ing, mingled with spasms of tormenting doubt.
 
 254 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 v 
 
 Lily was with her, and they each stifled the rising 
 fears as the hours of the evening passed on and on ; 
 at first chatting in a lively vein in the sweet antici- 
 pation, then soberly calculating the chances and 
 times of steamer and car from Annatoo, then at last 
 seriously speculating upon the mischance ; with yet a 
 feeble, ghostly hope, until the knell of despair to 
 Elise's soul struck in the hour of twelve. 
 
 It was a night of bitter agony and self-reproach, 
 but it curtained her misery from curious eyes. None 
 in the village but Lily knew of her crushed hopes, so 
 that with dull, aching heart, but serene face, she as- 
 sumed her responsibilities when the morning sum- 
 moned her unrefreshed powers to another contest 
 with the practical life of which she was the centre. 
 
 She was not prepared for the disappointment ; her 
 heart had not for one moment lost its trust in Chan- 
 ning's iidelity. She regarded him as a man of such 
 iron determination that he would even conquer im- 
 possibilities to compass his object, and join her on 
 the appointed night. Her faith had surmounted the 
 temptations of his absence, and why should not his ? 
 It had been harder than she knew when she fixed 
 the condition, not to hear one word of him during 
 the weary circling of the months, but she had borne 
 up under the load, and it helped her to think of him 
 in the same patient attitude day by day waiting for 
 time to release them. She had pictured him to her 
 imagination, since she knew of his Italian tour, as 
 still traveling, and drinking in deep draughts from 
 the old world's fountains of artistic beauty for 
 when the Earles left the village he had not gone to 
 Freiburg. 
 
 But that was six months ago ! She began to 
 awaken to the flight of time, and ask herself with a 
 wild, irrepressible longing, where in the wide world 
 was her heart of hearts? But that did not bring him, 
 nor any tidings of him, and when in a few days Lily 
 came in with an open letter from Mr. Earle, in 
 answer to an inquiry from Doctor as to the where-
 
 ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 255 
 
 abouts of his son, she read in a firm, legible hand, 
 every word underlined : 
 
 " We have not heard from my son for three 
 months, and do not know whether he is dead or alive. 
 The last we knew of him he was in Heidelberg." 
 
 She felt paralyzed ; a deep misery took possession 
 of her tears were a mockery and life a delusive 
 bauble. 
 
 Now she knew, in the plenitude and bitterness of 
 this sorrow, that she had " crossed that last thresh- 
 old " entered the unspeakable chamber of mourning ! 
 And Chauning was not here ! Had he not promised 
 to be with her in the infinite crisis? "Oh, my 
 God ! " she cried from the depths of her prostrate 
 soul, " Have pity ! Spare me ! " 
 
 And Gran's words flashed upon her with a new 
 meaning. " Hold your blessings lightly, my child, 
 then it won't be so hard to let them go ! " She had 
 grasped hard, clung tightly to this hope she would 
 not part with it; the dismemberment of her body 
 even could not sever its vital relation with her soul. 
 
 Lily tried to comfort her. 
 
 "Oh! Lily, if you only knew," she exclaimed to 
 the dear friend to whom she could pour out her an- 
 guish, " what a dull, heavy ache lies right here " and 
 she placed her hand upon her heart. " Such a suffo- 
 cating feeling of oppression these stifling emotions 
 sometimes they almost choke me ! I go over and 
 over the same weary round of thoughts until T am 
 nearly wild with the monotonous repetition. How 
 useless a piece of mechanism is all the delicate con- 
 trivances of the brain, when the nervous force is all 
 centered upon one idea! how unbalanced all the 
 powers become ! Am I going crazy ?" she exclaimed, 
 and her tone had in it such a thrill of desperation 
 that Lily was alarmed. 
 
 "Oh ! Elise, it is so hard, I know, but do try to 
 control yourself you cannot tell what may happen 
 unless you do." 
 
 " It is useless advice, Lily dear," she said, shaking
 
 256 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 her head sadly. " So I say to myself, I will not give 
 up to it but it comes and comes and conies when 
 will it end ? All my deep emotions, all my truth, all 
 my purity, have been consecrated here and here it 
 is a holocaust all in vain. I can pray all the good 
 prayers, and I try to take to myself all the good prom- 
 ises but I cannot help feeling I cannot forget! 
 If I could only get rid of the nights. Lily ! In the 
 agonizing silence thoughts come trooping out like 
 living spirits, that I never dreamed were in my 
 heart. I have found myself dissecting my very soul 
 the brain has been whirling, whirling, and I have 
 searched and analyzed all my past, and shaped into 
 actual phrases of meaning everything vague and un- 
 determined. I dream, and I am so restless, and wake 
 so early, and think, and think when I don't want to 
 think!' 1 '' she exclaimed, 'with a passionate bitterness. 
 
 " Only have patience, Elise, and time and God's 
 good Providence, which is over us all, will reconcile 
 you to the inevitable. Why, you know even the 
 ocean requires months of rest to recover from its 
 equinoctial tossings ; and the heart, the living heart 
 so delicate that it is moved by the tiniest zephyr of 
 feeling when surcharged with restlessness by such 
 a tremendous upheaval as yours, my dear must have 
 time to fall gradually into its accustomed pul- 
 sations." 
 
 " I suppose," she answered, " I shall get more and 
 more reconciled to what you consider ' inevitable,' 
 and as you say, time and God's wonderful grace 
 must do the healing work. And I think I must not 
 talk about it any more, Lily, and try to forget it." 
 
 Lily had the abundant words of a smooth philos- 
 ophy, unsavored by an experience of the riches of 
 divine grace, and could not administer the comfort 
 she needed ; but her heart bled for her darling friend, 
 and such talks were of great use to Elise. 
 
 Gran had said to her once in those opulently 
 shining days : 
 
 " ' He that is down needs fear no fall,' the poet says,
 
 ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 257 
 
 my child, If you ever get really down, lying at the 
 foot of the cross, God may so penetrate your soul 
 with Himself, that life and all eternity will seem too 
 short to tell the wonders you beheld there." 
 
 " Dear Gran," Elise thought, " how little she knew 
 of this trial then." 
 
 And now she had a letter from her venerable 
 friend, with no word of Charming, but full of sweet 
 comfort penned by the dear old fingers. Elise kissed 
 it and wept over it, as she read : 
 
 " Do you know what Christ's legacies were, my 
 child did you ever read His will? He gave His 
 Spirit to His Father, His body to Joseph, His Mother 
 to John, and to His disciples peace. ' My peace I 
 give unto you! ' Oh ! invaluable inheritance! It is 
 yours, my child ; seek it at the cross." 
 
 But would God hear her prayer? She had for- 
 gotten Him in the days of her prosperity ; were not 
 His depths of mercy sealed against her? She had 
 thought again and again, since Gran had repeated 
 that little incident in her life, she ought not to have 
 any "supposes" about her heavenly birth. She had 
 lived a moral life, but she had not lived up to her 
 Christian privileges, she knew, and now, when her 
 need was sorest, and her soul in its crucial test, she 
 found no refuge, no solace in her religion. 
 
 As the days wore on, under the pangs of a quick- 
 ened conscience, this dull, hard load of unassured 
 citizenship in the heavenly kingdom became a sharp, 
 penetrating agony, measurably displacing the grief 
 of her selfish love. She thought of the hour when 
 she had consecrated herself to God ages ago it 
 seemed, although it was only eleven years of the 
 little darkened chamber where, with her renewed 
 earthly vision, her Heavenly Father illumined her 
 soul with His presence, and took her to Himself. 
 Her life was in processional review before her. She 
 saw that she had used all God's good things, and that 
 her heart had been "lifted up" like Hezekiah's, and 
 like him, too, she had no<i " tendered again according
 
 258 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 to the benefit done " unto her and with him, too. 
 there fell from her moaning lips, " Behold ! for peace 
 I had great bitterness ! " 
 
 Why should she not seek her Heavenly Father, 
 confess her sin, and be restored to His grace ? Why 
 go hungry and fainting when there was enough and 
 to spare in her Father's house? 
 
 So, at last, there came from her bruised and 
 stricken spirit, weary with the struggle and sinking 
 low at the foot of the cross, the pleading cry : 
 
 " O Lord ! I am oppressed undertake for me ! " 
 
 She dropped her burden there; she caught the in- 
 spiring message from Heaven's courts : " Thy faith 
 hath saved tliee. Go in peace, " and rose with the 
 anthem in her heart : " For Thou hast in love to my 
 soul delivered it from the pit of corruption ; for Thou 
 hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." 
 
 She could leave it now this dumb, aching mystery 
 without murmur in His hand who had "under- 
 taken " for her, and in the sweet submission of a re- 
 vitalized faithjcould bow, without a question of when 
 or how the secret should be revealed.
 
 THE PESTILENCE. 259 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE PESTILENCE. 
 
 " There was lack of woman's nursing, 
 There was dearth of woman's tears." 
 
 Mrs. Norton. 
 
 UNDER the mysterious power of God's sanctifying 
 grace, the daily life of Elise became like an illumi- 
 nated missal written by the divine finger. The deli- 
 cious calm of her presence was the fragrance of this 
 inward, fresh growing plant of piety, rooted deep in 
 the soul. 
 
 To her thought now, to be a Christian was a call 
 transcending all other duties, ranks, or titles. More 
 than the wifehood that had slipped from her trem- 
 bling grasp, was this sainthood of heavenly birth into 
 which she had been baptized. In it was a spell to 
 call forth every gracious affection, every ambitious 
 impulse, every noble endeavor. "My Maker is 
 my Husband, my Redeemer is his name," was not 
 merely a conventional motto on cloistered walls, 
 but a divine, a sanctifying atmosphere in which she 
 lived and loved, labored and suffered, in which she 
 was content to die since earth could furnish no 
 pillow so sweet in the supreme hour of dissolution as 
 the bosom of her adorable Lord. 
 
 When the pivotal crisis of her life came, in the 
 discovery of an absorbing love for the man all worthy 
 of it, whom her heart delighted to honor, she 
 knew that it was deep as life and lasting as eternity. 
 The beloved object might never again cross the 
 horizon of her vision, his love for her might wither 
 and perish, he might even take to himself a fair,
 
 260 THE OPAL QUEEN, 
 
 young bride but for her, this first abounding, 
 impetuous love, would also be her only one, her 
 last. 
 
 But hers was no shallow nature, to brood over the 
 inevitable and long for the impossible. The Provi- 
 dence that watched every sparrow light upon the 
 ground was shaping' her life to suit his own glori- 
 ous plans. She would wait and watch and wonder, 
 in serene repose, till the coming of her sunshine, here 
 or yonder. 
 
 So she took up her burden, not like the "great St. 
 Paul, with a moan," but with a song. She could not 
 disguise that it was a burden, even from herself. The 
 long, tedious days after the appointed hour of 
 meeting, that grew into months with not a whisper 
 in them of promise or fidelity ; the absolute silence 
 and blank that had fallen like a shroud upon her 
 new-found joy ; the obtruding thoughts and fears of 
 her lover's disaffection these were no myths but 
 hindrances in her pathway spots on her sun as real 
 as intangible. 
 
 But now with self dwarfed and God's will par- 
 amount, life had a new and consecrated meaning. 
 There was a hidden pulse that she felt throbbing 
 with her own ; the deep undertone of creation pen- 
 etrated her being. Every flower was a love-token, 
 every human creature was a brother. She wanted to 
 encompass humanity in the arms of her awakened 
 "love of benevolence," to open up to them the way 
 of life, the knowledge of this precious Redeemer who 
 was the stay and comfort of her storm-tossed soul. 
 
 She threw mighty efforts into the League; was 
 untiring in her ministrations upon the poor and sick, 
 brightening up their dingy homes with love-scraps 
 from her "feast of fat things" and with dainty bits 
 of her aesthetic work where it would be appreciated; 
 and teaching them daily to combine Christian duty 
 with Christian beauty. She had the joy of beholding 
 the living plants of nature thriving witli the living 
 plants of grace: peace, joy, love, temperance, patience,
 
 THE PESTILENCE. 261 
 
 goodlier, in the rooms, and daisies, geraniums, 
 mignonette, fuchsias, in the window-gardens. 
 
 " Oh, dearest ! I cannot, cannot let you go ! " 
 exclaimed Lilian, clinging to her husband in an agony 
 .of startled apprehension that she was going to lose 
 him forever. 
 
 " But you know, Lilian, I have been putting the 
 call of duty on other shoulders for three weeks now, 
 won over by your pleading. I feel that I am called 
 now imperatively. I cannot shift the responsibility 
 any longer. No other man can perform my duty for 
 me. It rests with oneself to discharge snch obliga- 
 tions. The cry is loud, our fellow-beings are dying 
 by hundreds, because physicians have not stood 
 heroically at the post of suffering, have deserted the 
 plague-stricken streets." 
 
 " But it isn't here, dear, and those that live there 
 ought to attend to their own sick." 
 
 "The contagion is all through the air, Lilian, and 
 the town is not so far that a favoring wind might 
 not easily bring it in a few hours. One of the best 
 ways to keep off its ravages after sanitary precautions 
 and quarantine regulations is to fight it where it is 
 rife in its stronghold. I could -not answer my 
 conscience, Lily dear, if I refuse to follow its lead- 
 ing now. Some one must take the risks for the sake 
 of suffering humanity, and there is no doubt in my 
 mind that I am called to the work. But my dear 
 wife need not think that it is necessarily a sacrifice 
 of my life. God willing, we shall spend many more 
 happy days together." 
 
 Lilian knew it was magnanimous heroic. But 
 she was not convinced that it was duty and she was 
 not anxious for her husband to immortalize himself 
 as a martyr to principle. 
 
 But she had learned long ago to yield when the 
 Doctor urged a point of duty, for there she knew he 
 was inflexible.
 
 2G2 THE OPAL QUEEN: 
 
 "But' what will Elise and I do?" she said, pit- 
 eon sly. 
 
 "Elise is going with me," he replied iu a hushed 
 tone, as though it was not with his fullest assent. 
 
 " The crazy girl ! " cried Lilian. " I shall forbid 
 it, this minute ! " and she tore herself from hei; 
 husband's embrace, to rush over to Elise and an- 
 nounce her veto. 
 
 " Wait ! Lilian," the Doctor said, encircling her 
 again in the strong arms. " We have talked it all over. 
 She is not to be dissuaded firm as a rock. I have 
 used argument and persuasion and entreaties, but 
 .with no better result than that she has been pleading 
 with me and I have at last given in ; if she may not 
 accompany me, she will go unprotected, and throw 
 herself into this dreadful breach as a nurse. And 
 you will be surprised, dear, to see how happy she is 
 in the anticipation. She called me in just now, as I 
 was passing, to tell me of her resolution and beg my 
 consent. She was fairly radiant with the thought of 
 martyrdom. That is a little too strongly expressed, 
 I guess," he said, thoughtfully, " but I haven't time 
 now to rummage around my brain to hunt just 
 the right words. You see her, Lilian, and you'll 
 understand it then yourself." 
 
 Elise stood on such a high place of consecrated 
 endeavor ever since her new baptism, that she had 
 disposed of herself and renounced happiness to take 
 in its stead blessedness and stilled her heart into 
 such resignation to the divine will, that no sacrifice 
 seemed too great for her ardent soul. All lior en- 
 thusiasm for the beautiful was turned into the 
 avenues of a soft religious blessedness, and utilized 
 there as decorative agencies for the households of 
 poverty. Now was she in the highest, noblest sense 
 an ideal aesthete, using the charms of the beautiful 
 for the development of the good now was the 
 Christian education superadded to the highest art- 
 culture. 
 
 Her jewels had been laid aside for many a month,
 
 THE PESTILENCE. 263 
 
 but she was still the Opal Queen, not with the ubiqui- 
 tous flashes of the gay spontaneity that had made her 
 atmosphere so brilliant before, but with a soft lam- 
 bency of humor a mellowed iridescence that pene- 
 trated all hearts and set her apart in a hallowed 
 sphere of her own. 
 
 Little Miss Tete, whose mind was constantly 
 harassed by domestic infelicities, found a congenial 
 refuge for all her grief in Elise's heart and home. 
 She was a faithful satellite, revolving in the sphere 
 of her chosen primary. She begged hard for permis- 
 sion to accompany Elise, which after parental con- 
 sent could not well be refused. 
 
 Bertha, ever faithful, knew that she would not be 
 able to support'the anxiety of her mistress's absence ; 
 she had no thought of peril for herself where the 
 safety of her mistress was concerned, and would not 
 be left behind. 
 
 The little corps of valiant workers in the medical 
 field, fainting under their ill-proportioned load, were 
 greatly encouraged by the reinforcement of the 
 Doctor's party, and resumed their duties with re- 
 newed alacrity and gratified hearts. 
 
 For days and weeks the long wards of the hospital 
 were trodden by these two amateur nurses, who 
 addressed themselves to their task with a resolution 
 and tact that would have honored a professional. 
 They flitted about here and there on their errands of 
 mercy, hovering over the cots of the sick and the 
 dying, who lay watching feebly the graceful motions 
 of the plainly-dressed, white-capped messengers of 
 love, stammering their thanks through parched lips 
 or with hollow, ghastly eyes begging for the benison of 
 prayer. 
 
 In the majority of cases but little medicine was 
 required, but unremitting labor. After a few practical 
 lessons from the Doctor, they proved invaluable in 
 supplementing the physician's work in the various 
 and complicated duties that met them there : the 
 preparation of soups and broths, the ventilation of
 
 264 TUB OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 the apartments, the making of the beds, and above 
 all the careful watch and record of the -changing 
 symptoms of the fever, kept their eyes and hands full 
 of blessed ministries. 
 
 To Florence Tete there was much of romance in 
 her preconceived notions of nursing the sick. But 
 the parlor visions of administering dainty doses to 
 patients with an interesting pallor, and cooling 
 fevered brows and parched lips, were illusions easily 
 dispelled after two or three night-watches. The 
 picture of positive distress that met her at every 
 turn ; the painful twitch ings of the face, the grim 
 contortions of muscle, the hard-featured men and 
 women who made them these were the painful 
 aspects from which all sentiment was strained save 
 the practical one of an active and tender sympathy. 
 Women of such delicate nerve and refinement, all 
 unused to the sights and sounds of suffering, would 
 have been simply a picturesque embarrassment in 
 such a place had not duty been their motto, and love 
 burned in their hearts. Elise found her sensitive 
 spirit shrinking many a time, and had she not been 
 " strong in the Lord " could not have endured the 
 strain ; and Florence Tete was strong in her Queen. 
 
 But at last there was an abatement the ravages 
 of the fierce destroyer were stayed from lack of 
 victims. Those who had been tided over the gulf 
 were on the road to recovery, and Doctor Healey 
 accepted the signals of his release. 
 
 Bertha was sent in advance to prepare the house 
 after their six weeks' absence and the others fol- 
 lowed, after picking up the odds and ends of a heroic 
 campaign on the tented field of Death. 
 
 They arrived in the evening, and as they drove up 
 to where Lily stood with open arms of welcome 
 
 " Halloo ! Lily ! " cried Doctor, descrying her at 
 the door in a tremor of glad agitation. " Here we 
 are, you see ! Not a feather of us harmed ! And 
 these girls," he said, tapping them on the shoulder, 
 " have earned their stork-badsres ! But for this
 
 THE PESTILENCE. 265 
 
 little woman," he said, embracing her, " we will 
 give three cheers for the bravest woman in the 
 crowd ! who staid at home a martyr to the agony 
 of silent suspense ! " 
 
 " Yours was by far the hardest lot, dear," he 
 whispered in her ear. 
 
 " ' What deeds he did in that dark town, 
 What hearts lie soothed with anguish torn, 
 What weary way;, of woe he trod, 
 Are written in the Book of God, 
 And shall be read at Judgment Morn.' " 
 
 Bright lights gleamed in the " palace," and Elise's 
 weary steps were soon attracted to her own roof- 
 tree. 
 
 As she stood a moment in the library doorway, 
 and raised her eyes to Heaven in fervent thankful- 
 ness for her gracious return, the words of Bridget 
 Flinn's original and simple eloquence outlined again 
 her portrait with striking fidelity : 
 
 " She was tall and she was beautiful and she was 
 dressed all in black and the folds hung down, and 
 there was a look of heaven in her face, and as though 
 she was saying her prayers all the time." 
 
 She dropped her eyes all was as she had left it. 
 She glanced at the cosy chairs by the table with 
 its rich soft lamp, and would have fallen to the 
 floor had she not been caught in strong, manly 
 arms. 
 
 C banning did not disturb her trance of blissful 
 possession ; he was not reluctant to prolong a slum- 
 ber dazed, but conscious of its joy against a beating 
 heart whose hungry yearnings were at last appeased. 
 
 After their long happy talk, Elise exclaimed with 
 a sober tenderness : 
 
 " But dearest, it is " 
 
 " Yes, Elise," he interrupted, " it is October ; the 
 grandest month in all the year ! You will not be 
 troubled now with your burdens shared, my darling. 
 But with June in our ' hearts, we can bear the .
 
 266 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 benisons and malisons of every month in the year, 
 and crown them all with the breath of the Opal month 
 for a sweet benediction." 
 
 There was a peal of wedding-bells, and a ring with 
 this inscription 
 
 C. E. and E. A. Els f<r/^v., 
 Oh ! the Goodness of God !
 
 THE EXPLANATION. 267 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE EXPLANATION. 
 
 FREIBURG, Aug. 15. 
 DEAR ART : 
 
 By a fatal blunder, a letter written to you three 
 weeks ago lies still in my drawer; so it conies to 
 pass that instead of your dignified scrawl, which I 
 was proposing to decipher in the near future, I have 
 the aggravating duty of recapitulation and another 
 bout on paper with myself. It is a disquieting 
 thought to me that my best friend has so long been 
 standing outside the portal, without even the chance 
 of pulling a beil or raising a knocker for admission 
 into the apartment dedicated to his exclusive use. 
 
 That unmitigated blunder which 1 thought at 
 the time a most astute exhibition of executive talent, 
 opened the flood-gates of misery upon me, their law- 
 ful but innocent victim. But I am keeping you in 
 suspense, and will not prolong the biographical por- 
 traiture of that superlative Mis-doing, and in order 
 to be sure, I will drop it right here, take up the nar- 
 rative in order, and let the Mis unfold herself if she 
 
 can 
 
 When I wrote you last I was in Heidelberg, stroll- 
 ing through the magnificent ruins on the Neckar, 
 climbing mountains for views, and scaling (for some 
 of them are to be reached only by hundreds of steps) 
 churches for pictures. 
 
 I made my way south, with Swiss lakes and Ber- 
 nese Alps for picturesque accompaniments of the 
 journey in the background. 
 
 But I will omit all detail of travel in this letter
 
 2G8 THE OPAL qUEEN. 
 
 and hasten to give you the episode of the epic which 
 fate, or, to speak more reverently, Providence, has 
 been weaving around me, and into which I have been 
 forced an unwilling actor indeed, quorum pars 
 maynafui, as saiih the poet. 
 
 1 reached Freiburg, after three months of delight- 
 ful but rapid touring in Italy and Switzerland, one 
 scorching day in the beginning of September, hot, 
 dusty, weary, crabbed (my soloistic excursion proving 
 not at all genial), desiring only a bath and a bed. I 
 found both in comfortable quarters, enrolled myself 
 next day at the School of Mines (I was fortunate in 
 arriving at the opening), and buckled on the armor 
 for a tough fight, inasmuch as I purposed to accom- 
 plish double work and in half the allotted time. I 
 had examined the curriculum, and knew I could do 
 it by diligent perseverance. 
 
 I pushed the study with a grip like iron for five 
 solid months, and then well, I made the mistake of 
 supposing my constitution was also iron, but when J 
 awoke one April morning to life once more, I dis- 
 covered only a few relics of phosphate of lime as 
 supporters of this "house I live in," supplanting the 
 ideal iron frame-work of my fancy. 
 
 A rack of bones that is all I was, Art in which 
 you never could have detected the person you used 
 facetiously to term your blooming athlete. 
 
 And, what was more, my premises had also changed 
 their fashion and their material. It was plain, even 
 to the weak sight and fugitive glances of a sick man, 
 that I was in a lady's boudoir. There were her dainty 
 work -basket and all the numberless pictures aesthetic 
 botherations on the bureau that set a man wild 
 not a sick man, you understand, to whom every article 
 was a speculative morsel of just the quantity and 
 quality to stimulate a weak brain and give it a 
 relishing feast but a knockiug-about-fellow who 
 ignores knick-knacks and rejoices in room and free- 
 dom. 
 
 Well, where was the fairy of this enchanted land?
 
 THE EXPLANATION. 269 
 
 my dazed mind asked; and just as in the fairy 
 stories, at that moment there entered a graceful 
 looking woman, with an indescribable charm of 
 expression on passable features. She spoke and 
 her voice was like the music of the spheres. 
 
 "My dear friend," she said, clasping my hand 
 and looking into my face with that rapturous "ex- 
 pression, " we are so glad to have you with .us 
 once more." 
 
 My eyes were still fastened on her, and I knew 
 not what to say, but stammered out a low inquiry 
 about having been ill. 
 
 "Very ill," she replied. ""We thought we 
 should lose you; but now," and her face \vas all 
 smiles, "you are quite out of danger, and we are 
 going to have you well again in short meter." 
 
 "But who are you and who are we?" I ven- 
 tured to ask, slowly. 
 
 " We are " and she made a motion as if intro- 
 ducing some one at her side " Mr. and Mrs. Han- 
 son, your servants, sir;" and she made a little 
 obeisance; "and we are also," she continued, per- 
 cejving the unsatisfied look of my eye, "your 
 regularly installed nurses, subject to the physician's 
 orders." 
 
 She administered some drops and left me, urging 
 sleep and quiet, and said the pretty little mystery 
 should be unraveled as soon as I got a little more 
 used to life. 
 
 And now, dear Art., comes the only genuine ro- 
 nuince of my history. I shall .give you only the 
 outlines, and leave the filling and shading for one 
 of those quiet talks that I hope is in store for us 
 before very long. 
 
 It seems, that oppressed with the extra labors I 
 had imposed upon myself, nature gave way under 
 the strain without apprising me of her intentions 
 (the sneak-thief !) but I forbear, I had injured her, 
 and such retaliation was a retribution for my abuse
 
 270 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 and I fell in the street, was picked up by officers, 
 who carried me to the hospital. There Mrs. Hanson, 
 in her daily ministrations in the ward where my cot 
 lay (a labor of love on her part), came across me. 
 She was so attracted by my English face, and so im- 
 pressed with its noble refinement (I use her words) 
 and the desperateness of my situation (it was the 
 only way my poor spirit had to impress her while I 
 was shrouded away in the curtains of delirium), that 
 she decided to have me removed to her own home as 
 soon as practicable. Moreover the doctor had noti- 
 fied her that my life hung upon a thread, and unless 
 there was the most vigilant nursing it would, inevi- 
 tably fall into the chasm. 
 
 The change was managed with the greatest caution 
 and skill she gave me all the particulars and the 
 Professor (who, by the way, I had become ac- 
 quainted with in the school, but who did not know 
 who liis wife's patient was until I was in his house) 
 and his wife, relieved by one attendant, have watched 
 my critical case, and brought me thus far on the road 
 to health. Oh ! the goodness of God! "Oh, that 
 men would praise Him for His wonderful works unto 
 the children of. men ! " Let us be content in the 
 rims He puts us in ! 
 
 And it turns out, best of all no, I will retract 
 that, for the best of all is that I am an existent fact 
 but it turns out second best, that we have mu- 
 tual friends, Professor and Mrs. Hanson being well 
 acquainted with Doctor and Mrs. Healey - and 
 Miss Archer. Lilian, as she calls her, is, in fact, 
 an intimate friend, and I just call to mind now an 
 allusion I once heard those ladies make to M 
 Springs and Louise Osborne. I had often Iteard of 
 
 Louise Osborne and M Springs, but the thought 
 
 did not occur to me to classify Mrs. Hanson in that 
 department. 
 
 The illness was a violent attack of Roman-fever 
 seeds planted in Rome, and burrowing in my system 
 from the time I arrived, parched and dusty that hot
 
 THE EXPLANATION. 271 
 
 September night. It made frightful ravages in my 
 system with its delirious and nerve-eating tooth. 
 Then the convalescence, in which state I now am 
 but I refer to the early convalescence more es- 
 pecially was tedious, and beset with relapses and 
 disappointments. But at last I am looking forward 
 to a leave-taking here and a hand-shaking over the 
 "bright blue sea" in a very few weeks. 
 
 As I began to grow better I longed for my old 
 occupation ; I had dandled that plaything of a pen so 
 long it had really become a pet, and I could not do 
 without it. 
 
 During the hours of convalescence, the cacoethes 
 scribendi fit came over me, and I indulged in a paper 
 on current topics. The Professor and the journals 
 kept me posted, and my observation of the inner 
 working of the " machine " when I was alive and 
 afloat enabled me to put in the genus loci. I 
 sent it to the London Telegraph, and it was re- 
 ceived so favorably (I reckon appreciation now by 
 the pound sterling), and I find my acquired taste so 
 strong, that I have concluded to adopt the pen as my 
 fighting gear for life's battle am collecting material, 
 in fact, for my first book. The title may give you 
 some notion of its scope and meaning: Religion vs. 
 Culture. I feel, indeed, like a bundle of cocoons in- 
 side of an indefinite quantity of raw material that 
 only needs to be unwrapped, carded, spun and 
 dyed, to make the long threads of novel and ro- 
 mance. Of course there is the weaving ; and if you 
 wish a Gobelin you must be an artist, and a skilled 
 artisan if you require only Axminster. Well, let us 
 try both, Horatio! 
 
 It was a source of unmitigated grief to me that 
 Pater and all the "saints" in the dear old "Rest" 
 were kept so long in suspense without any tidings ot 
 me. But I was a month nowhere leastwise, in. the 
 vernacular of our Irish brethren, it would have been 
 hard to furnish my number and street in that border- 
 land of delusive vagaries ; and then, with a strange
 
 272 THE OPAL Q UEEN. 
 
 fatality, when, in the plenitude of her goodness, Mrs. 
 Hanson offered to write a line for me, and said she 
 would have done it before if she had known an ad- 
 dress, I stupidly directed to the old place, and it 
 lay in the office, through the carelessness of the 
 official, some time before it was forwarded. 
 
 The blunder that I referred to in the early part of 
 this letter was in locking up all my letters, and not 
 having one about my person as a clue or a guide 
 when 1 was non est, so to speak. 
 
 Mrs. Hanson naively remarked : 
 
 " I searched your pockets thoroughly, even at the 
 hospital, before we brought you here, for I knew you 
 were somebody's darling, and I wanted the dear 
 mother to know that you were in the care of friends 
 for ought not life to be a brotherhood? " she said 
 sweetly ; and then, with a most touching pathos : 
 " We try to make it so." 
 
 And they succeed, Art. The gentle Christian in- 
 fluence radiating from this little family -centre, time 
 will feel, but eternity alone can measure. 
 
 I have written this, my dear friend, at intervals, 
 and so the date on the opening sheet is passed by. 
 But, God willing, I shall be with you very soon, dear 
 old chum, and give you all the missing links of my 
 heroic poem (is it not?) and addenda. 
 
 You will also have a tremendous budget to open 
 in the hearing of this now sitting court. Having 
 compared notes and experiences, if we are not both 
 nearer the only true goal worth our living, it will be 
 because we are batten-heads that are scarcely worth 
 the punching. But, whatever I may prove to be, you 
 will not doubt that I' am ever, 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 CHANNING. 
 
 P. S. That beautiful dissolving-view, Dresson, is 
 still extant, patching up his manhood "abroad" I 
 was about to say ; but not wishing to be too hard 
 on him, I will amend by substituting veneering for
 
 THE EXPLANATION. 273 
 
 patching, which might be considered oy some an 
 offensive word in the connection. 
 
 I ran across him one day in the Ufizzi Gallery in 
 Florence, where he was idly standing at what, I con- 
 fess, was, in its way, worth the eyesight spent on it. 
 I found myself similarly magnetized. 
 
 In the " Tribune " which contains the gems of 
 the gallery, most of them Raphael's best pictures 
 upon one side-wall, hung about five feet from the 
 floor, was the beautiful portrait of Fornarina, Ra- 
 phael's sweetheart, painted by himself. A little to 
 the left and in front stood an easel, upon which was 
 a faithful copy of this portrait, upon which a lady 
 (sitting upon some high, portable steps, which thus 
 brought her face upon a level with the original she 
 was copying) who was the fac-simile of Raphael's 
 Fornarina, was putting the last finishing touches. 
 You may imagine that it was a striking group. 
 Three faces almost identical looking at you from the 
 wall swimming around in your retina with the pre- 
 cision of the lens's reproductive powers, in such truth- 
 ful confusion that now you thought they were all 
 dead, and anon were sure that they were all alive, as 
 imagination bridged the space and blended the cen- 
 turies. 
 
 You will not wonder that a number of bystanders 
 were attracted by the novel sight, and eagerly watch- 
 ing for such turn of the artist's head as should give 
 them better sight from their respective positions of 
 the flesh-and-blood picture, which they were compar- 
 ing with the original Fornarina. It seemed as though 
 she must have stepped out of the very walls to lend 
 a hand to the undertaking.
 
 THE QPAL QUEEN. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ARTHUR : 
 
 The pupils in prospect-urn of Professor Monboddo 
 were in a high state of excitement, yesterday, upon the 
 occasion of the delivery of his first lecture. Indeed, 
 the whole village is more or less stirred up about the 
 new enterprise. Wit and ridicule circulate freely at_ 
 the expense of the embryo authors, but at bottom 
 they wish the Professor success, for many have seen 
 him and heard his benign, fatherly talk, and declare, 
 with a wise shake of the head, that there is "some- 
 thing in him out of the common." 
 
 My own curiosity was, I confess, intense. Im- 
 pelled, not so much by my own convictions, as by 
 the home-coterie, I sought the Professor's lecture- 
 room, secretly determining to withdraw my connec- 
 tion at the close of the lecture, if it was assumed 
 that my presence, per se, impressed me into student- 
 life. But by Dox, Art, Monboddo was too much for 
 me ! I discovered (with humiliation in one sense) 
 that, nolens volens, I must take up the craft. 
 
 " What sort of balderdash is this ? " I hear you
 
 276 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 say ; " is a man's free agency suddenly suspended in 
 the hitherto liberal, even radical village of Brent- 
 ville ? " 
 
 It sounds, I own, paradoxical, but be patient, my 
 long-suffering Art, and time will solve the riddle. 
 (And now, since you apologize so humbly for the 
 interruption, I will continue the narrative.) 
 
 I found I was a fixture for three terms, at least 
 not exactly that my free-agency was suspended or 
 destroyed, but that my moral nature was in the 
 ascendency and declined to guide me contrary to 
 the Professor's wishes. 
 
 Imagine a room, about thirty feet by fifty, filled 
 with fellows on benches, and a variegated border of 
 the fair sex, about three deep, all around. Precisely 
 at the stroke of ten from a clock in the hall, every 
 eye was turned to an opening door on the platform, 
 in which appeared the classical figure of the Pro- 
 fessor, smiling and bowing, until he reached the 
 desk near the front of the stage ; then, with a pro- 
 found and dignified genuflexion, he greeted his au- 
 dience in the most musically sonorous accents that 
 ever went skyward. 
 
 Now you are not to think that this dSbut was after 
 the manner of a French dancing-master, and that he 
 came tripping in with a fawning smile on his lips. 
 On the contrary, while there was grace in every 
 movement, there were no "airs," as we term them, 
 no flourishes, no superfluities of any kind, in dress, 
 gesture, or speech. The face, the carriage, each un- 
 studied attitude, created an atmosphere around the 
 man of transparent sincerity and purity. Before he 
 opened his mouth, we were learning lessons. The 
 inference we so often draw from those words in the 
 Gospel - " He opened His mouth and taught them " 
 of Christ's power to teach without speaking, purely 
 by His personality, was strikingly exemplified in this 
 teacher. 
 
 I ought to describe him to you, as, with your pres- 
 ent influx of clients, there is no hope of your seeing
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 277 
 
 him for yourself ; but I feel inadequate to the task. 
 Of course, I can make a conventional cut of him, 
 but the spirit of the man as it shines in his face and 
 through his whole person is beyond expression in 
 words. 
 
 Fully six feet in height, he stands erect, with 
 something of a military bearing; his square shoulders 
 support a head more high than round, crowned witli 
 luxuriant gray hair that stands in a rolling wave 
 back from his massive forehead. I said gray, but it 
 is the golden gray that in the bleachery of age will 
 soon be silvery white, and in certain lights it gleams 
 like an aureole about his venerable head. His face 
 is of a Greek cast, and his dress the Greek costume, 
 which admits of free and easy movements of the 
 body, and is a hygienic improvement upon our bands 
 and buckles and strictures of various kinds. The 
 Professor recommends the dress to his pupils, I un- 
 derstand (I have heard nothing officially), and I, for 
 one, shall be glad to adopt this innovation. 
 
 The subject was up for discussion this morning at 
 the breakfast-table that is how my thoughts happen 
 to run on it just now and I may as well inform 
 you, in conclusion of this branch of the subject, that 
 "Superba" is immensely in favor of it, declares it 
 both sensible and aesthetic, " and what more would 
 you have ? " she very pertinently inquires. So you 
 can easily guess what the present generation is com- 
 ing to (or going back to, for the next step will 
 doubtless be the patriarchal simplicity of flowing 
 mantles and sandals), as woman is the autocrat in 
 affairs of dress. 
 
 I come now to the lecture proper. And here I 
 am glad, both for your sake and mine, that I have 
 the art of stenography well in hand, for I can thus 
 preserve what is valuable in these lectures for subse- 
 quent study, and shall take pleasure in sending them, 
 to you for perusal and comment (if you care to keep 
 up with the march of my improvement) when the 
 interest seems to justify me in such a proceeding.
 
 278 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 So, dear old chum, shall we keep life's links still 
 united in the making up of my career. But alas ! 
 how selfish is all this planning when you and your 
 pursuits will not, on the other hand, be reproduced 
 in my life ! For I see, by the necessities^ of the case, 
 you can't, by any known process upon which the 
 word honor can be inscribed, let me into the secrets 
 of your profession. 
 
 Well, sic vita est ; ijrst on one side and then on 
 t'other! and I am sensible of Fortune's favor in put- 
 ting the contribution for the nonce, on the side of 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHANNING EARLE. 
 
 P. S. The manuscript will accompany this letter.
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S FIRST EXAMINATION. 279 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROFESSOR MONBODDO'S FIRST " EXAMINATION " 
 DISCUSSION OF THE PHRASE u LADIES AND GEN- 
 TLEMEN " SCHOOL FOR AUTHORS AND JOURNAL- 
 ISTS. 
 
 GENTLEMEN AND LADIES : 
 
 " As it has been the aim of my life to present truth, 
 I have not presumed to compromise it at the outset 
 of this enterprise by the use of phraseology which 
 shall convey or imply a falsehood, even though that 
 phraseology be sanctioned by custom and made sacred 
 by time. I assume, by your presence, that for the 
 present, at least, the pursuit of truth is your aim and 
 the suitable presentation of it the object of your 
 study. It becomes us, therefore, to inquire into the 
 reason for the form of address I have just used, and 
 to decide if it be the one best adapted for mixed 
 assemblies. 
 
 " There is a certain manner of greeting an audience, 
 prescribed for the speaker by custom, with which you 
 are all familiar. 
 
 " Tell me, Chserephon, if you discover any flattery 
 in Burns's celebrated lines : 
 
 " ' Her 'prentice hand she tried on man, 
 An' then she made the lassies, ! ' " 
 
 "Indeed, Ulysses, that has long been my private 
 opinion." 
 
 "But perhaps you will admit, Chserephon, that 
 there is one grain of truth concealed in the chaff ? "
 
 280 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 "I am willing to concede Ulysses that the true 
 underlying thought of the lilies according to popular 
 intrepretation, is the superiority of the ' lassie ' in 
 finished -workmanship, but that she is on that account 
 entitled to precedence over the 'lad' I am unwilling 
 to grant." 
 
 " But, Chserephon, in the works of the Supreme 
 Being, among the brute creation where do we find 
 evidence of the most skill and sagacity in the 
 rhinoceros with its bulky, unmanageable frame, or the 
 bee with its delicate wings and sensitive antennae ?" 
 
 " In the bee without doubt, Ulysses ; for in the 
 bee's productions we have not only a storehouse for 
 honey, but the fine art of architecture and a problem 
 in mathematics." 
 
 "And do you think, Chserephon, that the hum- 
 ming-bird with its variegated plumage and finely 
 woven hanging-nest is inferior to the buzzard that 
 with all its strength makes no use of it, either for 
 providing a home for its young or for storing up its 
 daily food ? " 
 
 " By no means, Ulysses ; but do you not see that 
 the humming-bird and the turkey-buzzard are dis- 
 tinct classes, while man and woman belong to the 
 same ? '' 
 
 "But I am prompted to remind you, Chserephon, 
 that the female of the humming-bird makes the nest, 
 and raises her young." 
 
 " Among brutes do } r ou consider those that can 
 render service to mankind the most valuable ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly, this is true, Ulysses." 
 
 " It would, therefore, seem that the horse, which 
 carries our daily burdens, is more valuable than the 
 lion, which can contribute only one skin, no matter 
 how long he lives?" 
 
 " This also seems true, Ulysses." 
 
 " And in the development of our nature, Chsere- 
 phon, is it of the first importance to supply the wants 
 of the body?" 
 
 " Unquestionably, Ulysses, for if we do not pre-
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S FIRST EXAMINATION. . 281 
 
 serve our bodies, we shall have no intelligence to take 
 cognizance of our spirits." 
 
 " Which then, Cheerephon, do you consider the 
 more valuable, the female nightingale, who weaves 
 her nest and raises her young, or her mate, who sits 
 and warbles the whole night through?" 
 
 " It seems clear to me that the male bird* who en- 
 trances mankind with his melodies, must be con- 
 sidered the more valuable." 
 
 " Have you never heard, then, that nightingales' 
 tongues make an excellent dish, and that they are 
 said to impart a delicious tone to the voice of singers? 
 and are you not aware that this bird's nest is a 
 great delicacy for food in China?" 
 
 ' I have so heard, Ulysses, and will retract, there- 
 fore, what I have said, it' I may be permitted to do 
 so ; for it is evident that the female nightingale is the 
 more valuable, as she contributes most to the bodily 
 wants of mankind." 
 
 "And if the mother bird, who builds her nest and 
 rears her young, "be more valuable, does it not follow, 
 by the same process of reasoning, Chserephon, that 
 the mother of men, who brings up children, orders 
 the affairs of her household, and makes it possible to 
 have 'homes' in the midst of large communities 
 as well as in the wildest desert, is more valuable 
 to mankind than the father, who has not these 
 instincts? " 
 
 " I seem to say so, Ulysses, but I appear to myself 
 to say this I know not how. Be assured, however, 
 that I feel convinced that I must acknowledge the 
 ' lassie ' of the highest value, but as to whether she 
 shall therefore be considered the superior, I look to 
 you for information, if you will kindly impart it to 
 me." 
 
 " Would it seem, then, that men are of your 
 opinion when they say, addressing an audience com- 
 posed of both sexes : ' Ladies and gentlemen ' ?" 
 
 "It would, indeed, Ulysses, but it may be only 
 indicative of that courtesy which man, as the
 
 282 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 stronger, ought always to extend to the weaker sex." 
 
 " For my part, I frankly avow myself filled with 
 loyal devotion to the fair sex, and ready to concede 
 to her any position founded in justice. But, Clito, 
 how say you, ought truth to be sacrificed to error?" 
 
 "Unquestionably not, Ulysses." 
 
 " And -is it possible for that to be true which to- 
 day holds out one thing as most desirable, and to- 
 morrow that which is exactly opposite or differs from 
 it materially ? '' 
 
 " It is impossible, Ulysses, for one of the first con- 
 ditions of truth is, that it is founded on principles 
 which are as immovable as the rocky mountain." 
 
 " But does nob Fashion, with its freaks and 
 caprices, tell us many lies, Clito ? " 
 
 " She does, indeed, Ulysses, as when she makes a 
 complexion with cosmetics, or bows low before an 
 unworthy king." 
 
 "And do not punctilios of ceremony lose their 
 value when based on falsehood ? " 
 
 " It appears so to me, I must confess, Ulysses." 
 
 " Are you not aware, Clito, that in a former age 
 the woman was placed last or ignored altogether in a 
 public address, because she was not supposed to have 
 an existence outside of the circle of her home? " 
 
 " I think it is as you say, Ulysses." 
 
 " Then, since we should recognize justice before 
 any other quality in formal procedures as well as in 
 the smallest affairs of life, is it not clearly wrong to 
 adopt a phrase because shifting etiquette ordains it? 
 an etiquette, too, that is based upon what all will 
 allow is disputed truth, and most will condemn as 
 falsehood ? " 
 
 " You say the truth in that respect also, Ulysses ; 
 and I am persuaded that we should have a form of 
 address founded upon truth, which will then not be 
 at the mercy of fashion but I have no counsel to 
 offer upon the subject, and shall hope that you will 
 suggest to us a remedy for the evil." 
 
 "I deny, sir," said Nicomachides, an impetuous but
 
 THE PROFESSORS FIRST EXAMINATION. 283 
 
 careless youth, whose thoughts had been wandering 
 in the " variegated border," "that man is inferior tp 
 woman the phrase is simply used for courtesy." 
 
 " But is not that inferiority assumed, when we ad- 
 dress the fair sex first, Nicomachides ? " 
 
 " This I am unwilling to admit, Ulysses." 
 "Well, then, if, as you say, she takes that rank 
 only for courtesy's sake, what is it but saying, in one 
 and the same breath, that she is and she is not 
 worthy of such precedence? Now she either is, or 
 she is not, worthy of that honor. If she is, does not 
 consistency require us to yield it to her, not only 
 then, but always ? " 
 
 " If she is, Ulysses, what you say is undoubtedly 
 true." 
 
 " And if she is intrinsically worthy of the prefer- 
 ,ence, no chances or changes of time can divest her 
 of her rank. And if she may hold it in the public 
 social assembly by right of merit, by what logic can 
 you complain if she, acting upon the privileges of her 
 position, presume to exercise her rights in that larger 
 political assemblage, where officers are chosen for the 
 state?" 
 
 " But this is neither the time nor the place for 
 discourse upon the much-vexed question of woman 
 suffrage." 
 
 " But in these days of the acknowledged equality 
 of the sexes," observed the beautiful Tljeodosia, who 
 had been quietly awaiting the opportunity to cham- 
 pion her sex, " when neither claims superiority, and 
 both stand upon the same level of talent, intellect, 
 genius and taste, and even of executive ability, why 
 should any form of address be recognized in which 
 one outranks the other even if it be only a social 
 and transparent fiction?" 
 
 " Then shall we consider how to avoid mistakes in 
 this matter, Theodosia?" 
 
 " This, indeed, is my desire, Ulysses." 
 
 " Rhetorically considered, the members of asentence 
 forming a series admit of precisely opposite arrange-
 
 284 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 merits without change of meaning. The climax re-" 
 quires the members to grow in importance in the 
 order of their enumeration, commencing with the 
 weakest and ending with the strongest as when in 
 the description of an orator we say, ' A word from 
 his lips might turn their hearts, might influence their 
 passions, might change their opinions, might affect 
 their destiny ; ' or when the zealous patriot cries, 
 ' My country, my whole country, and nothing but 
 my country ! ' 
 
 " On the other hand, in the halls of legislation, the 
 anti-climax is the preferred form of address, as when 
 we say : ' My Lords and Gentlemen!' Now, in this 
 case, power is inherent, patent, acknowledged; rank 
 has its fixed values and cannot be questioned, so that 
 no misunderstanding could arise as to superiority if 
 the phrasing should be, ' Gentlemen -and Lords ! '- 
 and yet, under the power of usage long usage and 
 longer and deeper self-love this heraldic synonym 
 for wealth and power silently asserts it claims to 
 pre-eminence, and the world graciously labels it 
 1 courtesy,' when the only element of courtesy con- 
 tained in it is due to the presumable preponderance 
 of its aged members. 
 
 " Rhetoric, therefore, does not relieve our embar- 
 rassment. If we return to usage, we find, still cling- 
 ing to us, a form belonging to the soi-disant days of 
 woman's acknowledged inferiority. The ' lords of 
 creation ' could afford to be knightly to the so-called 
 weaker sex, and give them the protecting aegis of 
 their shadow. They emulated the serene dignity, the 
 unchallenged power of the titled lords, they would 
 excel them in urbanity and gracious condescension, 
 so it was ' Ladies and Gentlemen ; ' so it is to-day. 
 
 " A strange anachronism outgrown by the social 
 polity of this new century, a tennis-ball in the hands 
 of rhetoric, it is sanctioned, not of reason, but of 
 habit. Suppose we cap our habit with reason, that 
 the resemblance to a 'tailor's dummy,' be less striking 
 and endeavor at the same time to secure both the
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S FIRST EXAMINATION. 285 
 
 truth and the proprieties. The solution is easy, the 
 conclusion satisfactory. 
 
 "That the majority rules is a fundamental principle 
 in our governmental policy no maxim is of greater 
 force in our republican institutions ; so we will stand 
 on this broad, this equitable basis numbers shall 
 regulate precedence ; in no other way can we balance 
 an aggregation of equalities. Favored by the devia- 
 tions of costume in the sexes, the speaker, with a 
 glance of his eye, c'an decide the momentous question 
 and address his audience according to its report. 
 
 " With the progress of time, if our acquaintance 
 ripens into friendship, I may be indulged in the free- 
 dom of a word of deeper significance, and then it 
 will be my privilege and my pleasure to give you 
 without presumption that rarest of titles : 
 
 " Friends." 
 
 " What say you, Cebes, is this a progressive age in 
 which we live?" 
 
 " Without doubt, Ulysses, since Art seems almost 
 ubiquitous, as she sits enthroned amidst our varie'd 
 industries, and sovereign Science stretches his scepter 
 over the globe." 
 
 "In view, then, of the fact that good work is the 
 result of good instruction, would you assume, Cebes, 
 even if you were a traveler from another sphere 
 that some institutions must exist which had been 
 organized for special development in the multifarious 
 departments of these arts and sciences ? " 
 
 " This would assuredly be a correct conclusion, 
 Ulysses." 
 
 " And in a state, believing in a monotheistic religion 
 and a gospel publishing a salvation free to all, would 
 you also expect to see institutions for the education 
 of teachers of morals and Christianity ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Ulysses ; and what a multitude of 
 theological schools there are in our land, as well as
 
 Tim OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 schools for training lawyers, doctors, teachers, artists, 
 dentists, nurses, cooks in fact, I think every depart- 
 ment of physical and mental labor has its nursery 
 and an organized system of higher instruction,for all 
 desiring to become proficient in the studies connected 
 with it." 
 
 "But you have omitted from your list, Cebes, 
 one vital department. Is it possible, then, that in all 
 our broad land no school can be found for training 
 men of letters journalists and authors? no institu- 
 tion where book-making can be studied as an art with 
 a view towards making it a profession?" 
 
 " This is indeed the melancholy truth, Ulysses." * 
 
 " Do you call the products of human skill and 
 ingenuity wrought by the activity of fingers, works of 
 art, Cebes?" 
 
 " They are usually so considered, Ulysses." 
 
 " Mas it ever appeared to you that there was an 
 amount of activity on the part of the brain in the 
 production of works we call purely literal, equal if 
 not greater than that called forth by manual produc- 
 tions ? " 
 
 "I have often thought it unfortunate, Ulysses, 
 that the word art carries with it an idea of activity, 
 of busy-ness, which in the word profession, represent- 
 ing another class of works, is entirely lost?" 
 
 " Well, then, in order to attach the conception of 
 work to this \\ov({- profession, let us regard the mental 
 faculties, for the time being, as the brain-fingers, 
 since they are the agents, invisible but real, of all 
 the work accomplished." 
 
 " Then, by like reasoning, is it not clear that the 
 products of these busy brain-fingers will be arts 
 also?" 
 
 " That too would, follow, Ulysses." 
 
 " And would you say that those who thoroughly 
 master the technique of an art and acquire great 
 skill in its execution, are entitled to the first rank in 
 their calling?" 
 
 Since this work was written, the author has heard of one such 
 school.
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S FIRST EXAMINATION. 287 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 "And, if besides this knowledge of the art in all 
 its details, this master-artist has the ability to estab- 
 lish governing rules and principles and can create a 
 successful modus operandi for the instruction of the 
 learner, does he deserve the rank of Professor of that 
 art ? " 
 
 " Assuredly, Ulysses." 
 
 " As a man cannot successfully teach what he 
 partially or imperfectly knows, an understanding of 
 his art and a capacity to impart it to others are 
 essential to form the true badge of the Professor. 
 Mr. A. professes to be a doctor, but if he do not un- 
 derstand the 'art of healing' the body he is a quack, 
 or at best an artist, or perhaps only an amateur. 
 Mr. B. professes to be a minister, but if he have no 
 skill in teaching the 'science of life ' and does not un- 
 derstand the art of soul-healing, he is a charlatan, an 
 amateur or an artist may be, but- not a ' Professor. 1 
 Mr. C. lias the profession of a lawyer and may have 
 his library stocked with all legal authorities, but if lie 
 know not how to manage all the varied sinuosities 
 of the law sor as to secure justice for his client, he is 
 not entitled to the rank of ' Professor.' ' 
 
 " Is it not clearly evident Cebes, that if we had 
 schools for the ' art of literature ' where ' Professors ' 
 could be properly educated there would be fewer 
 charlatans and tyros to impose upon and befool us ? " 
 
 " Assuredly this would be so, Ulysses." 
 
 " And what Cebes, would follow if we had no 
 sloppy brain-work ? " 
 
 " Then it is quite evident, Ulysses, that there 
 would be no trashy literature." 
 
 " What would be the character of an instructed 
 public, Cebes ? " 
 
 " Without doubt it would be a discriminating public, 
 Ulysses. Many people devour literature now because 
 it is in print ; just as patients swallow drugs because 
 they are prescribed, while with more knowledge of 
 medicine and the laws which govern the human
 
 288 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 system, they could better diagnose their own case, 
 and save their pockets from depletion and their 
 stomachs the disgrace of being turned into a drug 
 shop ! " 
 
 " That is a clever comparison, Cebes. There is a 
 magic in the printed drapery of thought of which we 
 must all beware; a sorcery which puts us under the 
 spell of authority a sort of Delphic authority whose 
 utterances we fear to question, for are they not ' in 
 the paper '? do not type and ink give them oracular 
 distinction and infallibility ? 
 
 "But with a school for literary training, there 
 would be fewer but better books in the market no\v 
 flooded with good, bad, and indifferent. We are a 
 reading people, that is true, but do not let us surfeit 
 ourselves, like the confectioner's clerk in his novitiate, 
 with the dainty accessories of eating, as we are likely 
 to do, in these days, when publishers, with a laudable 
 but divided enthusiasm for cheap literature and a 
 heavy bank account, make books abound as' Solomon 
 did silver in Jerusalem like stones in the streets ! 
 
 "These things being so, is it not time for a 'new 
 departure ' ? Shall we not dare to be original, that is, 
 to be ourselves? 'One star differeth from another 
 star in glory,' each has its own peculiar brightness. 
 I come to tell you of a more excellent way. You 
 have come to learn how to find it. A fearful re- 
 sponsibility lies in the education of a human soul. 
 That noble work I leave to the wise and good who 
 are called to its pursuit. I claim nothing in that 
 direction. ' For indeed,' Ruskin has well observed, 
 ' the arts, as regards teachableness, differ from the 
 sciences also in this that their power is founded not 
 merely on facts which can be communicated, but on 
 dispositions which require to be created.' I am 
 simply an 'examiner' of the mind in the condition 
 in which I find it. I present truths, I endeavor to 
 awaken desires for the acquisition of the best kinds 
 of knowledge so far forth it is education, but frag- 
 mentary. I point out a certain path, it is yours to
 
 THE PROFESSOR s FIRST EXAMINATION. 289 
 
 choose or to refuse it. I lead the way where all may 
 follow if their will incline them, and pray without 
 ceasing that each one may secure the 'true riches.' 
 
 " It is assumed when the class comprises persons of 
 mature age sucli as those I see before me that 
 there has been previous special training in the higher 
 branches of learning as well as the rudimentary; but 
 the methods by which such are instructed how to 
 become authors will be precisely the same as would 
 be fitting for them if they were in the formative 
 period of life and still pursuing those studies; as the 
 individual resources and capacities would, however, 
 vary in a marked degree in the two classes, so 
 the work, so the results, would be correspondingly 
 varied. The more the knowledge, the higher and 
 more successful the work under the same methods 
 of training. 
 
 " I propose to impart to you the secret of true 
 authorship. I doubt not I shall have to bear the 
 frowns and sneers of brother-authors and perhaps 
 the disgrace of ostracism. But I am led on by the 
 spirit of truth the good of humanity impels me. 
 Successful reforms are often inaugurated in the 
 opposition of intolerance if the cause demand a 
 victim, I am ready. ' Yea, woe is me if I preach not 
 tiris gospel ! ' '
 
 290 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ART: 
 
 I plead guilty to malice prepense, in quietly ignor 
 ing, in my last letter, that riddle which "time was tc 
 solve." If you had penetrated the meaning within 
 the lines, you would have ascertained that it was to 
 be unfolded in my time, that is to say, at my. 
 pleasure! To be sure, I had all of that excellent com- 
 modity that was going, as much, in fact, as any one 
 else could boast of, for had I not all there was ? 
 what a riddle is this, that there is something from 
 which each one may take all he can carry away, 
 without diminishing the quantity, and no one can 
 take more than another. But I felt cramped, and 
 preferred to defer the subject to a more leisurely 
 hour. It is now my intention to introduce method 
 into my work, and try to keep ahead of time here- 
 after, for, once in the rear, it is hard to catch up. 
 
 But at last I am about to divulge, and bring you 
 face to face with the mystery. I see your quizzical 
 expression, but I am not to be bantered on so serious 
 a subject, for, by Dox, when a man is in for a nine 
 months' course of real, hard grubbing, in an appren- 
 ticeship of his talents to himself, he is apt to be a 
 pretty hard master, and I, sir, stand before you as 
 an equivalent of such a proceeding! But I will 
 speak no longer in an " unknown tongue." 
 
 You remember that, in my last letter, I briefly 
 described the hall, the audience and the Professor ; 
 I will now rehearse the occult and impressive part of 
 the affair.
 
 LETTER TO AUTttVR DOANE. 291 
 
 After the Professor's explanation of his style of 
 greeting an audience (which you find at length in 
 the MS.), and the retreat of the visiting fair sex, 
 he turned suddenly around and walked to a black- 
 board in the rear of the stage, and wrote, with firm 
 hand in engrossed letters, the following inscription : 
 
 " Let him that putteth his hand to the plow not 
 look back " and then after a pause so solemn 
 that you could hear the traditional pin dropping, and 
 so prolonged that each one of us had turned our- 
 selves inside out, as it were, in the scrutinizing pro- 
 cess and given our brains a vacation besides, he 
 advanced to the front of the stage, and said, in what 
 I should call, in any other man, a dramatic manner, 
 (it was dramatic but was not acting, as was evident 
 from the suppressed emotion, felt but not seen, so com- > 
 pletely was he master of himself), and very much in 
 the tone, I imagine, in which kord Nelson said, 
 " England expects every man to do rfts duty " : 
 
 " I expect this word of wisdom (pointing to the 
 board) to find fulfillment in the intelligent action of 
 each one in this presence. 'Let not him that putteth 
 on the armor boast himself as he that taketh it off.' 
 There is a time to take it off when the warfare is 
 over, but now is the time to put it on, and keep it 
 on. Put it on in no listless or braggart spirit there 
 is indeed no room for boasting now. It is in the spirit 
 of true humility that I call upon each one of you to 
 advance to the work ! Vagrants follow their caprices 
 and stroll at will through all fields, but the man of 
 purpose chooses one path and sets his feet firmly in it 
 and his face towards the goal, turning neither to the 
 right nor the left. Demosthenes, with half-shaven 
 head to be proof against the temptations to cut short 
 his term of voluntary confinement endured six 
 months in a lonely chamber, that he might devote 
 the energy of his whole being to the study of oratory. 
 
 " To be a scholar, to place one's self above the 
 common level, to ascend the steeps of science and 
 climb the rugged hill of fame, require energy,
 
 292 ME OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 resolution, time, self-denial, patience, and ambition. 
 These are not the common qualities of a fickle brain, 
 but the higher attributes of genius. He that pos- 
 sesses them, by disciplining them and subjecting them 
 to proper obedience to his own masterspirit, can con- 
 trol, not only his own destiny but that of others. 
 
 " A voice has bidden you enter here. You will not 
 disregard that inner voice, urging you on to high 
 emprise. Success is a coy maiden who can only be 
 embraced after ardent and persistent wooing. But 
 the way to success is now open to you, the time is 
 propitious, the examiner is before you earth listens 
 and heaven waits to grant you nerve for fulfillment. 
 
 " Are you ready for the endeavor ? I expect each 
 one before me (and he took us all in, Art, by a 
 glance of his eye) to enter these lists of brave sur- 
 render, and to pursue, with me, the study of truth, 
 and the development of his highest faculties and 
 rising capacities, until he finish the course." 
 
 " Nothing cabalistic in the words, as I can see, or 
 so very wonderful, either," I hear you say. 
 
 That is so, Art, but you must remember that the 
 most eloquent and convincing spee'ches are often 
 tame and spiritless when reduced to writing. Fur- 
 thermore, I have not given you the exact words, for 
 I was so taken by surprise by this coup cTStat the 
 abruptness and oddity of his movement, and the 
 swift impassioned appeal or harangue, perhaps I 
 should call it thjlt my mind and heart were com- 
 pletely carried away, and there was nothing left of 
 me for stenography. 
 
 Then another thing is to be taken into account. 
 Although the phraseology of the sentence would in- 
 dicate authority, and the use of the word " expect " 
 might seem to imply command, that was not the tone 
 in which the Professor addressed us. There was a 
 seeming contradiction between the spirit of the words 
 and the spirit of the speaker. The voice, the tone, 
 was of a persuasive earnestness, which somehow filled 
 one with a feeling that he had been long years
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 293 
 
 patiently waiting for this very hour, when our eyes 
 would be opened to the glory of the prize and our 
 power and privilege to grasp it. And there was a 
 pathos in it, that was more like a mother pleading 
 with her child it was, in fact, spirit pleading with 
 spirit ; the accessories of body and time forgotten for 
 the moment, souls pure and simple met in that supreme 
 crisis of mental search and reflection. 
 
 The magnetism of the man is something phenome- 
 nal. We were all spellbound, and did not care to do 
 aught but his bidding willing victims ! that is the 
 chicanery of it! But, on the whole, I do not regret 
 my bondage if bondage it may be called for it is 
 oi;ly to myself, in a laudable career. And, oh ! Art, 
 if I do succeed, the darling wish of my devoted par- 
 ents and idolizing " Gran " will be fulfilled ! This 
 thought is another buoy for the line I now throw out 
 into the deep waters of industry this -net I now 
 cast into the great, wide sea of .literature, for the 
 golden draught the}' call " fame." 
 
 This is ambition, I know ; not, I trust, " the vault- 
 ing ambition that o'erleaps itself," but a sober and 
 worthy desire to be among the foremost, for the hon- 
 or of my manhood. For myself, I would not be am- 
 bitious in this direction ; but for the dear ones who 
 are wishing, and watching, and hoping ah! for their 
 sweet sakes, best of chums, pray that I may receive 
 the laurel crown ! 
 
 I think there is a great deal in what the Professor 
 says about " genius." Caiiyle, you know, disclaimed 
 all pretensions to it, saying: "Of genius, I never im- 
 agined in the most lofty humors that I possessed be- 
 yond the smallest possible fraction ; and this fraction, 
 be it little or less, can only be turned to account by 
 rigid and stern perseverance through long years of 
 labor. Unrelenting perseverance, stubborn effort, is 
 the remedy. My own poor arm, weak and shackled 
 as it is, must work out my deliverance, or I am for- 
 ever captive and in bonds." 
 
 I have adopted his beautiful motto, which was his
 
 294 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 vade mecum during those struggling years Terar 
 dum prosim. May I be wasted, so that I be of use. 
 
 There will be great opposition to the new move- 
 ment, of course there always is at the outset of any 
 reformatory measure and there will be ridicule and 
 satire, caricaturing and lampooning, but we shall plod 
 steadily on, heeding it not. 
 
 So you behold, dear chum, in your hitherto un- 
 bridled companion, the prostrate slave of Duty, but 
 none the less, always 
 
 Your devoted friend, 
 
 CHANNING. 
 
 P. S. The Professor has honored me with the 
 name of Achilles
 
 SECOND "EXAMINATION." 295 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SECOND " EXAMINATION " GENIUS, AND HIN- 
 DU AN CES TO ITS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 " ' O BELOVED Father and all good spirits whose 
 dwelling is in this place, grant us to be beautiful in 
 soul, and all that we possess of outward things to be 
 at peace with them within. Teach us to think wis- 
 dom, the only riches. And give us so much wealth, 
 and so much only, as good and holy men could man- 
 age and enjoy.' 
 
 " ' Want we anything more ? for my prayer is 
 finished.' '' 
 
 " Tell me, Achilles, what you consider the true 
 meaning of those words of Horace, Poeta nascitur, 
 non fit." 
 
 "It seems to me, Ulysses, that Horace intended 
 to affirm that a genius for poetry can by no possibil- 
 ity be bought, stolen, or acquired, because it is a 
 birthright possession." 
 
 " Would you say, Achilles, that bej r ond this orig- 
 inal and accepted signification there is a larger prop- 
 osition, derived from its spirit, which asserts that 
 success is not possible in any of the 'fine arts' with- 
 out genius by which we mean a special, inborn gift 
 for its pursuit ? " 
 
 " That is also, I think, Ulysses, derived from it 
 by popular interpretation. But this is one of the 
 world's favorite aphorisms, Ulysses, and I, for one, 
 feel ready to resent any attacks upon it." 
 
 "It is time-honored, I acknowledge, Achilles, and 
 so beautiful in its moss-grown decorations, that 
 it is indeed pity to disturb its repose. But the living
 
 296 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 fact is that where we have one * genius ' now, we ought 
 to have one hundred ! Tell me, Achilles, have you 
 really, as I hear, borne off the prize, in two mathe- 
 matical contests ? " 
 
 " It is as you say, Ulysses." 
 
 " And has it ever come to your ears, as the voice of 
 }-our townsmen, that you have a ' genius ' for mathe- 
 matics?" 
 
 " This I must also confess, Ulysses.' 
 
 " Euthydemus, I understand, has been your com- 
 panion and classmate ; perhaps he can tell us whether 
 you have been what is called an idle lad." 
 
 "On the contrary, Ulysses, Achilles acquired the 
 reputation of being the most industrious student." 
 
 " And can you testify from your own observation, 
 Euthydemus, that he is deserving of such repu- 
 tation ? " 
 
 "Unquestionabty, Ulysses." 
 
 "Have you ever suspected, Achilles, that you 
 had any skill for architecture ? " 
 
 " Except a fondness for carving, Ulysses, I have 
 had no attraction towards that art and have enter- 
 tained no suspicions of a talent for it." 
 
 " And if Achilles were cast upon a desert island, 
 judging from what you know of his industry and 
 love of orderly occupation, does it seem to you, Eu- 
 thydemus, that he would be long without a habita- 
 tion raised bv his own hands to shelter and protect 
 him?" 
 
 " I am convinced, Ulysses, that he would construct 
 an edifice very soon, for he is an inveterate whittler, 
 and his mathematical skill would undoubtedly assist 
 him." 
 
 " Do you draw this conclusion chiefly from his 
 talent or from his industry, Euthydemus? " 
 
 " Chiefly from his horror of idleness, Ulysses." 
 
 " On account, then, of his love of the beautiful, 
 and the determination to overcome all obstacles, 
 which he is known to have, it is fair to suppose that 
 he would make a study of foliage and the roots and
 
 SECOND "EXAMINATION." 297 
 
 trunks of trees, and after considerable practice be 
 able to wrest some of Nature's secrets from her and 
 produce a creditable structure?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly, there would be some such culmina- 
 tion, Ulysses." 
 
 " But if this would be possible under such un- 
 favorable circumstances, might we not reasonably ex- 
 pect a more splendid development if an equal amount 
 of industry were laid out under the direction of 
 masters of the art of architecture ? " 
 
 " It is quite clear that this would be so, Ulysses." 
 
 "Is sloth the producer of any great works, 
 Achilles? " 
 
 " Unquestionably not, Ulysses, except the dread- 
 ful ones of vice and ignorance." 
 
 " Does it not then appear to you, Achilles, that if 
 men were released from her shackles, and thereby free 
 to make the most of themselves and their opportuni- 
 ties, the crop of geniuses would be greater than at 
 present? And if idleness be a hindrance to the 
 development of genius, and men are, unaware, ignorant 
 of that fact, does it follow that one incentive to in- 
 dustry is lost?" 
 
 " How can it be otherwise, Ulysses? " 
 
 " And if after tireless industry some fail to obtain 
 the results of genius, would you consider, therefore, 
 that their labor had been without profit, Achilles?" 
 
 " By no means, Ulysses, for, in seeking for one 
 good, they were no doubt getting a furnishing for 
 the work to which they were better adapted, and 
 which they would, perhaps, by this very means, 
 discover as, for example, the training that Carlyle 
 had in the ministry and the law was part of his 
 equipment for a literary career." 
 
 " Are you willing, then? that we consider what are 
 some of the other hindrances to the development of 
 genius? " 
 
 " I am quite willing." 
 
 " Are you aware, Achilles, that some distinguished 
 thinkers maintain that universal education is a
 
 298 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 hindrance rather than a help in governmental 
 \ polity?" 
 
 \ "That was probably Pope's idea when he said, 
 
 \ 'A little learning is a dangerous thing,' Ulysses; 
 
 \ and Socrates observes that ' one of the inevitable 
 
 \ results of the diffusion of knowledge in a free com- 
 
 \ munity is the growth and rooting of irrational 
 
 1 opinions, in contradistinction from pure knowl- 
 
 edge.'" 
 
 / "And it is quite clear that he was right, Achilles, 
 / for to deal with ignorance is comparatively easy, but 
 / ignorance puffed up with the conceit of knowledge 
 forms a mountain of error, a veritable Ehrenbreitstein, 
 that can only be dug away in ages, or exploded by 
 the volcanoes of a revolution. Conceit blinds the" 
 eyes to real ignorance, and weaves a mask of learning 
 which, when once well adjusted, cuts off the view of 
 the natural features, for the masker will not have the 
 courage to expose them ; he will be a blind but potent 
 force for evil, for he will have just enough knowledge 
 to be the tool of designing demagogues." 
 
 " Herbert Spencer considers our theory of universal 
 education a delusion, so far as it is a cure for political 
 evils, you are aware, Ulysses." 
 
 " And this will inevitably be true, if we leave the 
 education of the morals out of the account, by with- 
 drawing the Bible and religious training from our 
 schools, Achilles." 
 
 "You remember, Ulysses, that Nordenskjold, in his 
 voyage in the Vega, in search of the northeast passage, 
 discovered a people on the desolate shore of northern 
 Siberia, who, without education, maintained a just 
 and liberal government, social and domestic order, 
 and even refinement of manners." 
 
 "You refer to the Tchuktchis, Achilles; it was 
 indeed surprising. And that distinguished jurist 
 and lawyer, Judge Stevens, declared that ' the ideas 
 now moving the world are, for the most part, morbid, 
 and crazy ideas, which are the legitimate fruit of hot- 
 bed and universal education; many things,' he says,
 
 SECOND ' ' EX A MINA TION. " 299 
 
 ' usually accounted unmixed blessings to mankind, 
 are more curses than blessings. Education is one 
 of them.' Notwithstanding these wise opinions, is 
 it not a self-evident truth, Achilles, that a liberal 
 elementary education is the common and inalienable 
 right of all, is included in that Declaration of our 
 forefathers, in the phrase ' life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness ' ? " 
 
 ."So it appears to me, Ulysses." 
 
 " We call those wicked who defraud men of their 
 just rights, do we not, Euthydemus?" 
 
 ," Undoubtedly, Ulysses." 
 
 " Then is not he who defrauds himself of his own 
 lawful rights guilty ? " 
 
 " This is also clear, Ulysses." 
 
 " If, then, a liberal elementary education be an 
 individual right, does it not, therefore, become an 
 individual duty to enter into its possession?" 
 
 "I, indeed, agree with you in that opinion." 
 
 " Then, in a court of moral equity, we might put 
 our case thus : 
 
 " As it is the child's inherent and inalienable right 
 to be properly nourished and strengthened by his 
 parents, to whom he renders service, so it is the plain 
 and inalienable light of the citizen, in the very con- 
 stitution of things, to demand nourishment and 
 strength from the state, to whom he renders service 
 not simply protection in the one case more than in 
 the other, but just development of the powers which 
 shall fit him for the best son or the best citizen." 
 
 "And, further, as it is the imperative duty of the 
 parent to give his child religious training, so it is the 
 plain duty of the state to cultivate the morals of its 
 citizens, and thereby establish character, which more 
 than education, makes them loyal to the state." 
 
 " That education is necessary in the production of 
 genius, I think we will all agree ; but will all kinds of 
 education foster genius?" 
 
 Achilles was silently considering what answer to 
 make to this question, and did not reply.
 
 300 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " Do you consider originality an essential quality 
 of genius, Achilles ? " 
 
 " Unquestionably, Ulysses, it is the distinguishing 
 merit attaching to it." 
 
 " Have you ever thought that the tendency of the 
 educational process of the day was to educate origi- 
 nality out of. the student? " 
 
 " That is probably the case, Ulysses, but until now 
 I have given the subject no attention." 
 
 " Are not students plastered all over with forms and 
 made to run in grooves ? Is not what little invention 
 may be in them pruned away to make them fit into 
 the prescribed moulds that custom and learning have 
 fashioned for them ? Cramped and fettered in the 
 free play of their own imagination, made to think 
 other people's thoughts, and adopt other people's 
 theories and maxims, is it strange that we turn out 
 fine specimens of the model, but no new designs, by 
 this course of education ? Are not the natural powers 
 of observation checked or suppressed in the artificial 
 training of our modern school system ? " 
 
 " It is as you say, Ulysses." 
 
 "Did you ever consider, Achilles, the growth of 
 this thing, this wonderful agent, we call a school of 
 learning? " 
 
 " I am aware, Ulysses, that wise men met, coun- 
 selled, and decided upon certain branches of learning 
 to be pursued under competent instructors, in one 
 building set apart for the purpose/' 
 
 " What you say is true, Achilles. Then other wise 
 men met, counselled, and other branches were added 
 to the curriculum. After a lapse of time, other wise 
 men met, counselled, and grafted more buds into 
 the parent stock, and thus they kept on adding all 
 desirable forms of knowledge, until, at the present 
 time, the tree of education groans with its weight of 
 miscellaneous fruits and superfluous branches. In 
 the worthy effort to develop the whole man, and round 
 him off so perfectly that he would slip with easy 
 motion through the walks of life, they have succeeded
 
 SECOND "EXAMINATION." 301 
 
 in polishing him so smooth and round, that, satisfied 
 with liis gloss and rotundity, he has no incentive to 
 roll at all!" 
 
 ' Does it appear to you, Euthydemus, that, as a rule, 
 genius is eccentric ?" 
 
 " That is probably the case, Ulysses." 
 
 "Is it not evident that eccentricity must present a 
 few angles of individuality?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " What will you say, then, to the rounding and 
 smoothing process of the modern system of educa- 
 tion?" 
 
 " I must conclude, Ulysses, that it is fatal to 
 genius." 
 
 " I once heard the father of a promising boy remark 
 that he never intended to punish his child, for fear of 
 checking his growth in originality. Would you con- 
 sider such cheap training anything more than the rank, 
 noisome growth of the weed that cumbereth the 
 ground ? " 
 
 "It would undoubtedly be productive of a fine 
 crop of original sin, Ulysses, with the penitentiary 
 in the near perspective." 
 
 " Should not the aim in education be to lead out 
 the faculties and give them fair play in a right direc- 
 tion, without distorting, cramping, or crowding them, 
 and without terrifying or discouraging their owner?'' 
 
 " I quite agree with what you say on that point, 
 Ulysses. 
 
 "The dominant taste of the child is an index of 
 selection for the life-pursuit, and all the education 
 should bend to the development of that taste. It 
 usually appears in early childhood, and, if not crushed 
 out by opposition or stern necessity, rapidly develops 
 under the simple, fostering influences of Nature and 
 local surroundings. If the educational processes are 
 all adapted to further the same development, the 
 product will be, if not genius, a shoot of rare value 
 and close resemblance to it. 
 
 " ' Hogarth's exercises at school were more remark-
 
 302 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 able for the ornaments which adorned them than for 
 the exercises themselves ; ' and Thomas Bewick, after 
 exhausting the margins of his books, found ample 
 material for his chalk-sketches in the gravestones, 
 the floor of the church porch, and the family hearth- 
 stone. 
 
 " Genius will find vent if unchecked. 
 
 "Another hindrance to original development is 
 man's unwillingness to accept the conditions which 
 Nature, who is the educator of genius, sees necessaiy 
 to impose. She is a jealous teacher and stern disci- 
 plinarian, and usually weaves a net 'of circumstances 
 around her pupil, which will make his personal lot 
 include many hardships, and few or rio compensatory 
 benefits, and tumble him into contest with the 
 vanities, prejudices, contradictions, absurdities, and 
 excesses of men, to supply his public and social 
 training. 
 
 " Privations, poverty, toil, scorn, and obloquy arc 
 some of the depressing and inexorable companions of 
 his struggling march. Friends they are, since they 
 assist in leading him into the conquering hero's 
 pathway, but friends in disguise 
 
 " Love of ease, ambitious projects for wealth without 
 sacrifice, too often blight with their sirocco-breath 
 the promising buds of genius, and give to the world 
 an imitator instead of a creator an effigy rather 
 than a man. 
 
 "While I am not willing to adopt that other maxim, 
 that ' Genius is Perseverance,' you will not fail to 
 perceive, from the suggestions already thrown out, 
 that, in my opinion, perseverance enters largely into 
 the composition of genius. 
 
 " It is, indeed, difficult to find a master in one of the 
 arts who has not begun early and practiced inces- 
 santly at his work ; toiling on through the revolving 
 years, dimly realizing perhaps, at first, anything but 
 the passion, and the necessity for its exercise, but 
 nevertheless toiling early and late, cheered only by 
 inspiriting inner visions, until success crowns his
 
 SECOND EXAMINATION. 3QS 
 
 efforts, and fa ne heralds it to the world. Even the 
 work of the artisan,, for which truly some genius is 
 required, has been governed by these same rules and 
 subject to the same conditions, methods, and inspira- 
 tions. 
 
 " Thomas Bewick you remember him as the en- 
 graver of ' Select Fables,' the ' Birds,' the ' Quadru- 
 peds,' and the rare block of the ' Chillingham Bull ' 
 devoted all the play-hours of his childhood and youth, 
 seven years of apprenticeship, and long years of 
 patient, loving labor, under his own leadership, to the 
 work of his art, and was rewarded with the bright and 
 enviable eminence of the inventor of the ' White 
 Line,' and the proud glory of reviving by his indi- 
 vidual genius (the world calls it) the art of wood- 
 engraving, and giving it an impulse which continues 
 to this day. 
 
 " And how we venerate dear Charles Goodyear, as 
 he stands in a complete outfit of rubber ! (including 
 a cane of the same material) a costume full of 
 pathos, when you know its history for did he not 
 devote his life to the consummation of one cherished 
 hope ? not only sacrificing ease, family comfort, and 
 reputation for sanity, but enduring rebuffs, ridicule, 
 and grim poverty itself ; going about worn, haggard, 
 dispirited, hopeless of men, but with undying faith in 
 his invention, he at last perfected his work and 
 bequeathed to the disbelieving world an industry so 
 universal in its application to life's needs and re- 
 quirements, that it takes a first rank in the com- 
 modities of commerce. 
 
 " Charles Goodyear, animated from first to last with 
 the unconquerable passion of working out his dom- 
 inant conception, and the philanthropic desire of 
 benefiting humanity, by the products of his genius, 
 discovered the secret of vulcanizing rubber; and 
 then, overcome by toil and anxiety, died prematurely, 
 a martyr to his prolonged sufferings in its attain- 
 ment. 
 
 " And now to these honored names illustrating in
 
 304 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 their lives the genius of perseverance and those not 
 less distinguished, Palissy, De Lesseps, Edison 
 we may add aRoebling ! crowned as are his suffering 
 years with the chaplet of a patience that faltered 
 not in the achievement of his great purpose, although 
 deprived of the stimulus of human appreciation, 
 until victory arched the stream, and gave us the 
 Brooklyn Bridge."
 
 THIRD EXAMINATION. 3Q5 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THIRD " EXAMINATION " THE SPIRIT OF THE 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 " TELL me, Charmides, if you believe that the spirit 
 in which an author undertakes his work will materi- 
 ally affect that work ? " 
 
 "Assuredly, Ulysses; it goes without saying that 
 he must not write in a rancorous or vindictive, pas- 
 sionate or envious spirit. Crystallized spleen may 
 sparkle at first, but it soon decomposes into a putrid 
 mass which is alike an offense to the reader and a 
 disgrace to the writer." 
 
 "Must he also speak truthfully, Charmides?" 
 
 " Certainly, Ulysses." 
 
 "And in order to secure the best results, must he 
 speak the truth in love ? " 
 
 "That, doubtless, would secure the best results, 
 Ulysses, besides making him a subject for inspiration." 
 
 "Will you allow us to consider this matter of lit- 
 erary inspiration, about which there is so much loose 
 talk ? " 
 
 " I shall consider it with pleasure, Ulysses." 
 
 " Have you not heard men who deny the authen- 
 ticity of the Scriptures, and yet shrink from acknowl- 
 edging their infidelity, in a company of believers,' 
 say with boastful condescension : 
 
 " ' Certainly, the apostles were inspired. You also, 
 my dear Mr. MacDonald, were inspired to write your 
 "Scenes in a Quiet Neighborhood," and so was Han- 
 nah More when she wrote " Ccelebs in Search of a 
 Wife." '
 
 306 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 "*In a general sense I grant that I was inspired,' 
 replies MacDonald, ' for God every moment breathes 
 into me the breath of life, without which thought as 
 well as literary composition would be impossible. 
 But that I am taken possession of by the Holy 
 Spirit, and divested of all selfishness, pride, ambition, 
 everything that belongs to my earthly nature, so that 
 I cannot err in my writings, much as I would like to 
 believe it, I must deny an appeal to my own con- 
 sciousness will not sustain the affirmative.' 
 
 " But without examining this branch of the subject 
 farther, would it appear, Charmides, that he who is 
 seeking for truth, and the best methods of enforcing 
 it, would put himself in close communication, and 
 cultivate intimate relations with the Guiding Spirit 
 of all Truth ? If lie were a sincerely earnest hea- 
 then, would he consciously establish this relation 
 with his guiding divinity?" 
 
 " So it appears to me, Ulysses/' 
 
 " And if he were a sincere and enlightened Chris- 
 tian, ought we not to expect equal wisdom in the 
 deliberate choice of the God, who is named Imman- 
 uel?" 
 
 "I feel clearly persuaded that as an intelligent be* 
 ing he ought so to do, but on the other hand I see so 
 few who put themselves under this Leadership that 
 I am led to doubt its efficacy." 
 
 " The fact that men do not avail themselves of a 
 privilege cannot be considered proof that it does not 
 exist, Charmides." 
 
 "The petitioner's supplies will be in exact propor- 
 tion to his demands upon the treasury. If he stand 
 still in helpless, do-less scepticism, putting forth no 
 effort to establish the communication, he will hear no 
 voice, receive no orders. But let him compass the 
 difficulties on the human side, and then touch with 
 the voice of his soul that invisible telephone stretch- 
 ing to Heaven's court, poised close by the believer's 
 ear, and the returns will be full and satisfactory." 
 
 " Would you consider all endued with a certain
 
 THIRD EXAMINATION. 307 
 
 kind of inspiration, who, like the apostles, lived ac- 
 cording to the guidings of the Divine Spirit, sacrific- 
 ing everything belonging to self for the good of 
 humanity ? " 
 
 u I am compelled to admit, Ulysses, that if self is 
 ever rooted out of the soul, a Divine Power must do 
 it, and the only way to prevent its return, as it seems 
 to me, is for that Holy Spirit to keep possession, in 
 which case the man would, of necessity, be inspired." 
 
 " Siddartha wrought out a purer code of morals for 
 the demoralized Brahminists, by the sacrifice of per- 
 sonal ease and indulgence. Confucius formed a 
 moral code for the Chinese. Marcus Aurelins An- 
 toninus laid down in his philosophy maxims of 
 \\isdom and virtue to reclaim the Romans from vice 
 and degradation. Would you consider all these in- 
 spired, according to the degree of self-abnegation 
 they exercised ?" 
 
 " So it would seem, Ulysses. And where would 
 you rank Socrates? I see you have left him out of 
 the list." 
 
 " Among men, Socrates was undoubtedly the 
 greatest embodiment of devotion to duty that ever 
 lived in a human form, Charmides. In the last days 
 of his imprisonment days glorious with the hope- 
 ful cheer in which he discoursed on the immortality 
 of the soul, and full of the pathos of unmerited 
 punishment was not that god-like man afraid that 
 he had neglected some will of the gods?" 
 
 " I have read, Ulysses, that in those last days he 
 carried out the injunction of a dream which had be- 
 set him in one form and another all his life. The 
 dream said: 'Socrates, cultivate the Muses, and 
 make this your work.' As philosophy was the 
 highest province of the Muses and he was engaged 
 in that pursuit, he supposed that the voice was 
 urging him on and encouraging him in his work. 
 But iu those last moments, in order to clear himself 
 of the sin of neglect, in c.ise the voice had been en- 
 joining upon him to cultivate poetry, he wrote a
 
 308 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 hymn to God, and turned JEsop's fables, which he 
 knew by heart, into verse." 
 
 " This anxiety to do the whole will of God was in- 
 expressibly touching at such a time, Charm ides, and 
 recalls the apostle's injunction, 'Lest by any means 
 ye should let them slip.' If you look carefully at 
 tlie biography of great men, will you not find that, 
 listening to the inward voice, is what, more than 
 anything else, makes spiritual heroes?" 
 
 " You say what is clearly the case, Ulysses." 
 
 "The spiritual ear becomes so attuned to the soft, 
 inaudible cadences of the guiding Spirit, that it 
 catches the meaning of the court messages, even 
 while they are in the current of transmission. To 
 hear is to obey with these heroes. It is not only 
 Socrates who heeds the warning of a 'familiar spirit,' 
 as he called it the ' special manifestation of the 
 Divine will rarely, if ever, vouchsafed to any man." 1 
 
 " The characters that we have mentioned were lights 
 in a dark world, but the light that arose in Judea, 
 when the new-born Babe of the manger was heralded 
 by Heaven's angelic chorus of song, has eclipsed all 
 les.ser lights those were only the scattered beams of 
 this coming Sun, that holds all light's essence in its 
 supreme effulgence. The 'Sun of Righteousness' 
 has arisen the lesser lights flee away, there is no 
 more place for them. The work of spiritual heroes 
 now God's Christian heroes is to disseminate His 
 light. They are all torch-bearers, whose wands have 
 been lighted at the same altar. Siddarthas and Zo- 
 roasters are not possible, now, but devout leaders are 
 ever in request. The feeblest may carry a light, -if 
 perchance it be but a rushlight, and all may catch 
 Heaven's sparks as they fall upon the altar of Faith. 
 Acting in this spirit, Heaven alone can register the 
 good that one may accomplish, eternity alone dis- 
 close it." 
 
 " The heathen believes that his gods can assist him, 
 and prays to the deity that controls the special bless- 
 ing lie needs. Shall a Christian be less devout?
 
 THIRD RXAMINATION. 309 
 
 Shall he not establish the connection with Heaven's 
 courts? May he not pray for direct and instant as- 
 sistance in whatever he undertakes for the good of 
 humanity ? " 
 
 " He not only may, Ulysses, but he ought so to 
 do, or he will deny his faith." 
 
 " And if he be faithful to this duty and attentive 
 to his responses, whatever word the world may 
 write upon his work, whether it be failure or success, 
 what judgment will be pronounced above, think you, 
 Charmides ? " 
 
 " Doubtless, it will be that best of welcomes, 
 Ulysses, in which our Lord shall say : ' Well done, 
 good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of 
 thy Lord.' " 
 
 "Mr. Solomon Love is a saint of sixty, Charmides. 
 He is known as the idealistic carpenter, and is 
 thought on all sides to be a 'crank,' harmless, good- 
 natured and industrious, but nevertheless a 'crank.' 
 Mr. Solomon Love is never conscious of perpetrating 
 a pun, and is as guiltless as a Mahommedan of a joke. 
 His conversation is ''yea, yea, nay, nayj direct, and 
 shorn of superfluities. He attends strictly to his own 
 business, and lets other people's alone (a rare virtue, 
 Charmides). He speaks ill of no man, and has a 
 kind word for all. 
 
 " He is so simple and old-fashioned as to believe in 
 an ever-present God who takes an interest in human 
 affairs, and in his, Solomon Love's, daily and hourly 
 pursuits; and he is so sincere in his worship and 
 simple-minded in his service as to believe that his 
 God gives him help when he asks for it, answers him 
 when he prays. 
 
 " When he walks the streets his head is erect and 
 his eye fixed, as though he saw things unutterable 
 in the thin air, and yet, if accosted, he is immedi- 
 ately conscious of his surroundings, and gives and 
 takes, on the instant, in tenseness of personality. 
 
 " He owes no man anything in the current, coin 
 of his country, but keeps 011 hand that perpetual
 
 310 TtlE OPAL QVEEtf. 
 
 debt, which is the only one that the Bible recognizes 
 as paying interest in heavenly coin ; in order to dis- 
 charge this, he is ' instant in season and out of 
 season ' in giving from his scanty store to supply a 
 neighbor's want, lending a helping hand whenever 
 the cry of distress reaches his ear. 
 
 " When he rises in the morning his gratitude for 
 the night's mercies ascends in spoken words to the 
 throne of the Highest. 
 
 " When he enjoys the luxury of his morning bath, 
 he lifts up the silent prayer, ' Wash me and I shall 
 be clean, cleanse me and I shall be whiter than 
 snow.'. 
 
 "As he dons his attire, 'So, O Father, clothe me 
 with the garment of righteousness.' 
 
 "As he builds his fire, 'Come, Holy Spirit, kindle 
 a living llame of sacred love upon the altar of my 
 heart.' 
 
 " As he beholds the rising sun, ' Arise, Sun of 
 Righteousness and shine in my heart,' this is the 
 language of his soul. 
 
 " As he goes about his daily avocation, ' Let right- 
 eousness be laid to the line, and justice to the plum- 
 met, that all my dealings may be upright in Thy 
 sight and squared according to Thy word.' 
 
 " So he goeth about. 
 
 "So they go about for there are two of them- 
 and the likeness of one is that of the Son of God ! 
 
 " Such are the silent breathings of this quaint, 
 orderly soul. Such is the spirit of his daily and 
 hourly utterances heard only in Heaven which, 
 rising in the sweet incense of worship to the Father's 
 throne, causes the angel to inscribe in the Book of 
 Remembrance this golden record against the name 
 of Solomon Love. 
 
 " ' Thy prayers and thine alms are come up as a 
 memorial before God.' 
 
 " Below these two types of soul-workers -the type 
 of the highest consecration where the work is all for 
 God, and that where the daily labor, primarily for
 
 THIRD EXAMINATION. 3.1l 
 
 self, is consecrated to God lies the great mass of 
 humanity. Below the two are unnumbered grades 
 in which the selfish worker forms the largest class. 
 The average man works for self directly, while pray- 
 ing for blessings to come through his work indirectly 
 for the glory of God and the good of His kingdom. 
 
 ki That is, the average Christian man when he is 
 not under special pressure for gospel-work. 
 
 "I am addressing, it is fair to suppose, the average 
 Christian. Let us consider the subject with candor 
 to see where we stand ; for assuredly if we are re- 
 sponsible for the manner in which we perform our 
 duties, it is important that we understand the best 
 way. If \ve are ready to believe that a Guiding 
 Spirit has been vouchsafed unto any man, then why 
 not to each one of us, who has a desire to be guided 
 by the Spirit of Truth ? 
 
 "If of a truth 'God is no respecter of persons,' 
 but 'giveth liberally' to him that asketh, then we 
 may, each one of us, safely calculate upon this guid- 
 ance, so long as we follow ' the voice.' Under such 
 guidance, we have minds illuminated for our special 
 tasks, and will learn to know ourselves better, and 
 what we are capable of aspiring to, and what it is 
 possible for us to attain. 
 
 " Work, then, ever in this devout spirit, and God 
 will help you in your search for truth and your effort 
 to proclaim it to the world. 
 
 "The great Chalmers said the truth of Christianity 
 is 'all written in us already in sympathetic ink; the 
 Bible awakens it, and you can read.' Take then 
 this glorious Bible as your text-book of faith and 
 practice, for it contains the science of Life with 
 many wise lessons on the science of Death."
 
 312 THE OPAL 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANB. 
 
 DEAR ARTHUR : 
 
 You may imagine me now completely transformed 
 by my "familiar spirit," who is in quiet possession 
 of the "house I live in." Listen to my breathings. 
 
 As I take my bread I say, '"May I have breadth of 
 vision to-day so that I may portray, not only the 
 central object, but all the accessories in the biography 
 of Joan d'A'rc." 
 
 As I pour my wine I sigh, " Give me an easy flow 
 of spirits." 
 
 As I sip my tea, " May I teacli only right prin- 
 ciples." 
 
 As I carve the jolly mutton roast, " Fill me with 
 the marrow and fatness of the truth that nourishes 
 the soul." 
 
 As I don my overcoat and "arctics," "So may I 
 put on Timothy Titcomb, Joshua Geddes, Becky 
 Sharp, Daniel Webster," or whatever the selected 
 character may be for the day's meditations. 
 
 As I take off my scarf I breathe, "So rid me of the 
 bonds of slavish custom or fashion, bound like a yoke 
 upon my neck;" and as I doff my clothing for the 
 night, "So may I put the world off and under my 
 feet." 
 
 As I scan a man's physiognomy for the impress of 
 thought or emotion, " So quiz me, O spirit that 
 sittestin the inmost innermost sanctuary of my being, 
 and evolve new creations."
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR 1)OANE. 3J3 
 
 As I drive my tandem team, "So may I cut along 
 the highway of literature with singleness and speed." 
 Note Singleness may be defined originality with- 
 out much straining of the etymology. 
 
 Let me hear your opinion on this lecture very 
 soon. I give you permission to dissect the lecture to 
 your heart's content, so you send the analysis to 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHANNING.
 
 314 THE OPAL QtfEEX. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 I 
 
 IT is a lucky thing for me, clear Art, that I have 
 your patient sun-burnt, left-hand ear, to pour my 
 biographical woes into while I am making this climb 
 up Fame's steep ! I am positive that I thus work off 
 some of the superfluous bottles of my wrath, which 
 might otherwise be poured out upon the devoted 
 heads that are to me the dearest in all the world. 
 Now 1 grow tender, but truly, Arthur, I hope I may 
 be spared such an awful catastrophe for if their 
 hopes are blighted in regard to me, I solemnly 
 believe it will kill them. So I ask you, best of 
 chums, to help me be patient, and to spare your 
 gentle irony and mock heroics, for their sakes. 
 
 The suggestion that the town authorities better 
 see to it that the Professor isn't much on the streets 
 in company, lest his phenomenally musical voice en- 
 danger the flagging, and put them under constant 
 heavy expense for repairs, is one of the most valu- 
 able and timely that you make, and shall be duly 
 considered. 
 
 But, joking apart, as I was saying, I feel, when 
 writing to you, that I am, in some mysterious way, 
 clearing up some of the rubbish that would other- 
 wise block up the door of my mental apartments for 
 with you I am candid, with you, I am sincere to a 
 fault ; and so this little ventilation of my real self 
 (I confess it is little) imparts tone to my artificial 
 self. 
 
 But this is far away from the subject on the tip of
 
 LETTER TO AUTttVU DOANE. 315 
 
 my pen when I commenced this letter. I give you 
 fall liberty to laugh and crack your sides, until 
 you are as bruised as a prize-fighter I laughed my- 
 self abundantly, at the time and out of the time. 
 
 The Professor examined to-day on " The Spirit 
 which should animate an Author," and at the close, 
 he said that if the class wished to be successful", and 
 considered him responsible for their success, it would 
 be necessary for each and every student to sub- 
 scribe to certain conditions and adhere to certain 
 regulations of a very positive nature. The fellows 
 began to grow uneasy and look at each other doubt- 
 fully finally, Ruskin ventured to inquire if we 
 were to be put upon oath. (Ruskin's Greek name is 
 Charmides.) 
 
 "Not upon oath, gentlemen, but upon honor," was 
 the Professor's reply. " I am willing to sever the re- 
 lations existing between myself and any man who 
 does not care enough for the art of literature, to as- 
 sume these obligations," he said majestically, "and I 
 will do it now or not at all." 
 
 Not a fellow rose to claim his ticket of exit. 
 
 Seeing which, the Professor continued with com- 
 manding assurance : 
 
 " And if lie fail to fulfill the obligations, be sure 
 his crime will find him out. ' Many are the wand- 
 bearers, but few are the true Bacchanals!' This 
 secret that I now give you is not only a test of con- 
 science, but upon its faithful observance, success 
 will depend. Whoever fails, stigmatizes himself at 
 once as the coward that was too mean to be true, 
 and too lazy to be victorious." 
 
 This was getting solemn, I assure you, Art, and if 
 you could have seen his grave and impressive dignity, 
 and have heard the concealed passion of his tones, 
 you would have trembled for the soul and body of 
 your old chum. He said that he would again give 
 any one an opportunity to depart, but not one 
 of the twenty devotees stirred. This mystery had 
 awakened their curiosity, and they had too much
 
 316 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 pluck to give in now. A smile of approbation 
 gleamed on the Professor's face as he said, " Well 
 done, my men, you agree to stand up for your colors, 
 and shall have the flag and the motto ; and re- 
 member, when I tell you, that your fame and your 
 fortune are both secure." 
 
 But in order to appreciate the dramatic move- 
 ment and situation of the next act, you should have 
 been with us on the bench. 
 
 Throwing the weight of his body forward, just 
 enough to impose his personality upon us in a newly 
 awakened sense of our vassalage, looking at us from 
 underneath his shaggy brows with his peculiar, 
 Socratic stare, and gesturing with a continuous 
 " Thou-art-the-man " shake of .his index finger 
 which each man of us, I am convinced, interpreted 
 as a warning to his individual self he administered 
 to us the oath, I was about to say ; and by Dox, 
 Art, we felt as solemn and knew it to be as binding, 
 as if it were one he announced our platform of 
 action while in pursuit of literature. I cannot give 
 you the exact text, but the substance of it is, that 
 wherever we are, whatever we are engaged in, with 
 whomsoever we are conversing, when the ''divine 
 afflatus " seizes us, if it be only so much as a tiny 
 zephyr, bearing upon a theme under consideration, 
 we are immediately to cage it, commit it to paper-- 
 this rule to be binding for three months. In conclud- 
 ing, he gave with striking effect Socrates's last charge 
 to Crito: 
 
 " And if you take heed to yourselves and try to fol- 
 low in the path which I have now 'pointed out, you 
 will, whatever you do, render to me and mine and 
 your own selves a service, even if you do not make 
 any promise now." 
 
 Thus are we armed, dear Art, in this rigid panoply 
 of virtue, and, with fellows who have temperaments 
 like mine, no other watchword could be as sacred or 
 inspiring as this one with which we are entrusted 
 " Be true to thyself ! "
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 31J 
 
 "But here is another tragedy," you say "when 
 is he coming to the farce ? I see nothing in all this 
 to make me 'laugh and crack my sides.' ' 
 
 Have patience, Art, this is all preliminary, I grant. 
 But now, at this juncture of affairs, I shall vote you 
 a first-class dullard if you cannot scent the game 
 the jolliest fun from afar. 
 
 The fellows were recounting their haps and mis- 
 haps, yesterday, in the lecture-room, before hours. 
 
 Leighton Smith (you remember his tall, gaunt 
 figure) came stalking in with a memorandum book 
 under each arm, a quire or so of paper in his hand, 
 sundry rolls peering out of divers pockets, and capped 
 the climax by scattering scribbled sheets, that blew 
 all over the room when he doffed his beaver with 
 the exception of two, that rested in loving benedic- 
 tion on the top of his pate. It was the exaggerated 
 picture of what each one of us had been doing, a little 
 more sub rosa. Each " Lemon " saw himself in cari- 
 cature. The mirth was uproarious for a few seconds, 
 and then the dyke being burst, the stream of confi- 
 dential talk flowed rapidly in a current of surprising 
 complications, ludicrous situations and awkward 
 dilemmas, that our new rule had sprung upon us, in 
 loyalty to the master. The hour supposed to be 
 devoted to grave discussions was enlivened by the 
 humor and wit residing in the "Lemons," as one by 
 one they owned up to " having been there ! " 
 
 Herbert Ruskin was walking, under a cloudless, 
 moon-ruling sky, to see his Dulcinea thoughts all in 
 embryo ; good, solid material, but not enough devel- 
 oped for the pencil yet it being also very much to 
 his mind to keep tliem in that rudimentary state 
 when suddenly, in the ensuing, expectant pause, just 
 after the gong had sounded at his sweetheart's door, 
 sentence after sentence came trooping in swooping 
 down upon him like the Assyrian upon the Jew 
 with clearness and power. Out came the note-book, 
 in went the ideas ; and the fair one declares that she 
 stood full five minutes at the entrance vainly waiting
 
 318 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 for recognition, heart all in a flutter with the fear 
 that her Herbert had gone stark mad ! 
 
 Gard Swift, in a somber turn of mind, threw him- 
 self into the tousorial chair for the removal of his 
 whiskers, and instead of indulging the professor of the 
 ancient and honorable art of shaving in his traditional 
 and hereditary rights of gossip and chit-chat, main- 
 tained a moody silence, but out of that silence 
 thoughts did grow (in flat contradiction of the 
 axiom, " Out of nothing, nothing can come "). He 
 recognized the -whisper of the Muse and essayed the 
 glittering blade still athwart his face to repay this 
 little mark of her confidence with a verbatim report 
 of her communication; snatched a pencil from his 
 vest, and was making fair headway, when, feeling 
 some sharpness on his cheek and impeded by the 
 lively flow of carnation liquid, he rose to seek a posi- 
 tion more favorable" to his undertaking; the artist 
 with infinite disgust meanwhile exclaiming, " Why 
 you are only Aa(fshaved, man ! " u Half or quarter," 
 said the undaunted Swift, " take your next victim 
 I'll see you later ! " And he sat on a lay chair, a 
 diligent scribe, in that picturesque state of semi-bar- 
 berism, much to the entertainment of the increasingly 
 dense crowd of customers (?). 
 
 One fellow missed the train, another was carried 
 thirty miles beyond his destination, a third lost his 
 breakfast ; a fourth was at a dinner party, when the 
 cacoethes scribendi got possession, and instead of turn- 
 ing red as any sensible man ought to have done, 
 when he begged the indulgence of the hostess in a 
 few minutes' absence from the table he became as 
 pale as Hamlet's ghost. The frightened hostess fol- 
 lowed him, the guests sprang from their seats, and 
 altogether a first-class panic was on the eve of in- 
 auguration, before he could convince them that he 
 was well, or tint his alabaster with just the shade re- 
 quired by the exacting guests (cheated out of their 
 bit of excitement) to insure him against a faintingfit, 
 and to assure the hostess that he had sufficient vital-
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 319 
 
 ity to resume mastication. Of course, the immediate 
 necessity for writing was over ; the muse deserted 
 skedaddled, as any decent muse would, when her in- 
 trenchment was stormed like that. According to the 
 best of my knowledge and belief, dear chum, Muses 
 don't enjoy a melSe ! 
 
 Not to weary you with all the dramatic situations 
 that came to light, I will give you only two more 
 quorum pars mayna fui. And I am sure. Art, you 
 will say I have taken the palm my own thoughts 
 and the lack of them furnishing the most ludicrous 
 accessories of all the dramas. And as we usually 
 find the deepest pathos underlying the purest humor, 
 I think you will discover that element also at least, 
 myself being judge, it was liquidly pathetic ! 
 
 Like the ancient Romans, I am fond of my bath, 
 and a nicely perfumed one at that. In the absence 
 of Numidian slaves in this era of history. I install 
 myself as attendant, and honor myself with the title, 
 of Private Cleaner, bre vetted General Scrubber to 
 His Highness C. Earle, Esq. I am lazy enough to en- 
 joy this aquatic luxury (which I can conscientiously 
 indulge in as a pre-requisite for health and happi- 
 ness) to such a degree, that I have been in the habit 
 while absorbing as much of the element as possible 
 through my two and a half million pores of poising 
 my head upon the marble rest, and weaving fancies 
 out of home-spun theories, iridescent air-castles, and 
 the like. Forgetful, at the particular moment to 
 which your attention is now invited, of the inexor- 
 able law that is bound like Solomon's fillet around my 
 forehead (I fear, Art, that before long it will hang 
 like Coleridge's albatross around my neck ; in which 
 case I may find some difficulty in preserving the bal- 
 ance of power, the weight of the new member from 
 Feather-land would so endanger my autonomy), I 
 fell into my usual dreamy speculations ; when lo ! 
 in the midst of them, and I in medias res, who should 
 appear but Her Ladyship, with some really valuable 
 suggestions; and mark you, simultaneously (how
 
 320 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 convenient a treacherous memory would h:ive been 
 just then ! ), the apparition of Le Monboddo ! What 
 could I do? I had no wand with which to conjure 
 writing materials, and I had no bell ! Of all places 
 in the house, the bath-room should be furnished with 
 bells ! But in our Arcadian simplicity, before life had 
 become complex under the Monboddo dispensation, 
 we had managed our larynxes with admirable agility 
 and effect. 
 
 With a swash that sounded, in my fretted ear, like 
 an imprecation on all professors of the " New Art of 
 Design in Literature," and this one in particular, I 
 arose, like "Venus from the sea" (dripping, but 
 without my shell), stood beside the transom, and 
 called not too loud, for fear of startling "Superba" 
 and all the household gods and goddesses ; then 
 louder and with some sharpness ; still again, in a 
 high, imperious key: between the pauses, conning 
 over the suggested idea and coaxing Her Highness to 
 stay ; which she, indeed, in the delay and uncertainty 
 (finding me forewarned but not forearmed), was little 
 pleased to do, and would have utterly disappeared, 
 had I not held her in the vanishing distance by a 
 fold of her fluttering robe. Still no reply to my 
 summons; I well, I am sorry to confess to you that 
 by this time I was desperate I fairly yelled, 
 "'Superba!" 
 
 The dear soul heard on the instant having been 
 somewhat prepared, I imagine, by previous inroads 
 upon the silence when " Phillis! Phillis ! " was caus- 
 ing sundry unaccountable concussions in the atmos- 
 phere around her and a sweet voice called outside, 
 " What is it, dear?" 
 
 Of course you can guess the rest, when I tell you 
 that I wrote in the bath ! I leave your imagination at 
 work on my " exposures " (as the photographist 
 terms the sittings of his subject) and all the ele- 
 mentary steps in the picture ; my spasmodic efforts 
 to preserve the lines of perpendicular, base, and hori- 
 zontal, after I had "established" them; the coup
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 321 
 
 d'etat, by which I marked my " dominant" (revers- 
 ing my position in the marble boat, and thus getting 
 the one point of light on my paper that the darkened 
 window furnished) ; and then the altogether playful 
 but vexing and almost hopeless entanglement of 
 " values " of outlines and texture with values of 
 thought and expression. 
 
 But not satisfied witli my departure on aesthetic lines 
 during the day, I got on the rampage at night ; this, 
 the most gay and festive scene of all, I must reserve 
 for the next letter. Meantime believe me, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHAN.
 
 322 TUE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FOURTH " EXAMINATION " PLOTS AND DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF THE NOVEL STUDY OF CHARACTER- 
 DRAWING. 
 
 " TELL me, Critias, do you consider the plot of a 
 novel the most important concern of the author?" 
 
 " Probably this is true, Ulysses ; for, with well- 
 sustained characters, an intricate plot insures the 
 deepening interest of the reader." 
 
 " But do you not consider racy sketchiness, with 
 an underlying sense of keen humor, often as satisfac- 
 tory for entertainment? " 
 
 " In such writings, Ulysses, we are not kept on 
 the qui vive of expectation and surmise, and so lose 
 one agreeable feature of entertainment, that is, 
 prolonged curiosity. There may be greater mo- 
 mentary excitement, but not the quiet, steady stream 
 of pleasure, it seems to .me, that accompanies an 
 elaborated plot. Purely humorous literature laughs 
 at plots and all the heavy scaffolding of the regulation 
 novel as so much useless lumber. It uses caricature, 
 or fantastic spelling, or an incongruous setting of ideas 
 in contrast or association so as to make pictures of 
 the ludicrous. I know of no quality, Critias, which 
 seems so essentially a part of the birthright principle 
 as the faculty of producing/Vm in literature. It can 
 be cultivated, without doubt, but the germs are large 
 at the outset, in every successful humorist. Noth- 
 ing falls so flat as labored, humor. Upon this topic 
 I have no advice to give you, or next to none. If 
 surprising comparisons, ludicrous from their very
 
 FOURTH EXAMINATION. 323 
 
 oddity, exaggerated fancies and strange, unsus- 
 pected resemblances continually present themselves, 
 so that the mind views everything in grotesque, 
 distorted, yet mirth-provoking lights, give them the 
 rein, and see where they will lead you for there 
 are one hundred consumers of mirth to one pro- 
 ducer. But, by all that is fitting, orderly and 
 decent, do not try to be witty in writing without 
 the gift success is flatly impossible. The profes- 
 sional zany, by long practice, understands, not only 
 his own tricks, but the degree of relish in his audi- 
 ence, and adapts his eccentricities to their palate." 
 
 " Do you find some pleasure, Critias, in novels 
 whose plots are prophecies of the possible or visions 
 of the plausible ? " 
 
 " I would so consider Jules Verne's stones, 
 Ulysses, and they are a source of fine entertainment. 
 In these, scientific research is pushed into the regions 
 of the imagination, but so subjected to philosophic 
 laws, that no appearance of absurdity is suggested, 
 and the love of the marvellous is gratified by the 
 astounding effects of exaggerated truth ; large specu- 
 lations are also aroused as to the probability of 
 practical science ever reaching so high a plane. It 
 seems no extraordinary thing for Cj^rtis Harding 
 on the Mysterious Island to furnish himself with 
 clothing and all the necessaries of life out of the 
 natural products of the earth around him, through 
 acquaintance with the laws of chemistry and the 
 applied sciences, so ingenious and subtle are the 
 devices of this philosophy, operating in the region of 
 the unknown." 
 
 " Doubtless he does get amusement of a pure and 
 high type, Critias, but, as the reader is prepared for 
 impossible projects and miraculous adventures, is not 
 the valuable philosophy and scientific information 
 given in such plots of little benefit to him that is, 
 without profit, instruction ? " 
 
 "It appears to me, Ulysses, that the reader is en- 
 trenched in 'Doubting Castle,' where he expects
 
 324 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 everything and concedes everything, but believes 
 nothing." 
 
 "Tell me, then, Critias, whether you think the 
 novel with a purpose of solid instruction for its basis 
 whereby alone it had a call into existence is cap- 
 tivating to the average reader ? " 
 
 " With an occasional exception, Ulysses, I find 
 them dull. For the general reader nothing suits so 
 well, it seems to me, as an abandon of research or 
 debate, and a happy rest in an enchanted land of ease 
 and refreshment. k Ethics of the Dust ' is a delightful 
 dialogue, giving chemical instruction in a novel way, 
 but it does not rise to the rank of a novel. Almost 
 every novel has some purpose, if the author is an 
 earnest man, and in many a reformatory or correc- 
 tive spirit is apparent. 'Hannah' inveighs against 
 the unnatural law forbidding marriage with the 
 deceased wife's sister. ' Never Too Late to Mend ' is 
 a powerful protest against 'solitary confinement,' 
 and one object of ' Our Mutual Friend ' was, no 
 doubt, to unmask the evils of the Poor-house sj'stem. 
 There are many in which we find historical or bio- 
 graphical information, but if you refer to the teaching 
 of practical and scientific truth, I think it is confined 
 chiefly to children's literature ; in which line nothing 
 has been produced superior to the 'Hollo Books.' 
 'The History of a Mouthful of Bread' takes one 
 through a charming physiological ramble, but it, 
 again, is a dialogue, or, in fact, a monologue rather 
 than a novel." 
 
 " And is it not true, Critias, that the plots which 
 furnish acceptable recreation, which beguile without 
 tedium, and refresh without worry, are founded on 
 scenes of love and scenes of travel?" 
 
 "Scarcely is a novel glanced at, Ulysses, much 
 less will it pass the fiery ordeal of public criticism, 
 unless it be panoplied with one or both of these 
 armor suits." 
 
 " You say well, Critias ; and such are indeed proof 
 against most of the shafts that are hurled against
 
 FO Uli Til EX A MINA TIG .V. 325 
 
 them. Of course the love scenes must be drawn by 
 a master, who will give us a real and not a make- 
 believe love, for no shams are tolerated here ; and 
 there is little necessity for a poor imitation, for al- 
 though it is the most valuable of earth's possessions, 
 it is found in rich abundance and countless varieties 
 of the one pure and indivisible essence out of which, 
 or the want of which, all human experiences grow, 
 bear fruit, fade, and fall ; so that, in order to graft 
 this bud of human activity in your story, your own 
 heart must not only be an orchard weighted down 
 with rich fruitage, but you must have a nursery 
 as well, full of cuttings and seedlings the out- 
 come of trial, sorrow, and tears from the harvest of 
 your rich experience. So will you have a lever of 
 power to lift the hearts of men. You need to be 
 tried as the gold, in the crucible of sorrow ; smitten 
 like the reed by the blast of disappointment; pros- 
 trated like the oak by the tornado of misfortune ; 
 then you will be prepared for universal sympathy 
 with men. What you want, what you must have, is 
 a good sound scorching in the flames of love, and a 
 -sharp crisping in the furnace of affliction, then out of 
 your new growth you will find a touch-stone for 
 other hearts." 
 
 " Is it not your opinion, Ulysses, that stories 
 founded upon legendary plots and bits of traditionary 
 gossip or history furnish a wide field for successful 
 effort?" 
 
 " Assuredly, Achilles, for Shakespeare and Scott 
 have elevated the flag of conquest on those fields, 
 and are undisputed sovereigns in their territory. A 
 love of the marvelous is inborn, and strange, wild 
 deeds of erratic people, antiquated customs and 
 dialects, unexplored and unvisited regions, the odd- 
 ities of a different civilization, or even the polite 
 barbarism of an uncultivated era, all have a unique 
 charm especially when, with the unfamiliar 
 elements which stimulated the curiosity, there is in- 
 fused this alchemy of love which transmutes whatever
 
 326 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 it touches into shining colors. More study of the 
 localities and the people are required for such produc- 
 tions, and the best way is to visit the scenes." 
 
 " But was not ' Roinola ' the production of an un- 
 travelled Englishwoman, Ulysses ? " 
 
 " You very properly remind me, Critias, that 
 'Romola,' as well as some other successful foreign 
 subjects, have been treated by authors who never 
 left their native coasts, but this is only another proof 
 of the good results of persevering study." 
 
 "As truth is ever stranger than fiction, Critobulus, 
 could not the wildest dream of an author be dupli- 
 cated or surpassed in real life ? " 
 
 "Certainly, Ulysses, if it is within the range of 
 possibility." 
 
 "And will not, then, the incidents of common life 
 furnish plots for our novels ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Ulysses, ad infinitum, and I had 
 almost said that they do so ad nauseam. There is 
 no brain so ingenious, no invention 'so skilful, as to 
 be able to cheat Nature out of her championship in 
 this field." 
 
 " Were the principal personage of a tale, a young 
 man who is equally in love with two fair girls and 
 they in turn equally captivated with him and the 
 recipients of letters of devotion which are duplicates, 
 with a massive ring of betrothal on each fair left 
 hand the heroines distant, separated and unac- 
 quainted, and the denouement accidentally brought 
 about by a mutual acquaintance rarely seen, the plot 
 would be deemed incredible and fit only for the 
 romance." 
 
 " And yet such a tragedy has come to my personal 
 knowledge. So original, so lawless is Reality. Scott's 
 most celebrated work was based upon the story of 
 prominent events in Miss Rebecca Gratz's career, as 
 related to him by Washington Irving. He took the 
 proud integrity and unswerving religious faith of 
 this reigning beauty for the nucleus of his most 
 perfect character, Rebecca, in ' Ivanhoe.' "
 
 FOURTH EXAMINATION. 327 
 
 " Is it possible to cultivate virtue by contemplating 
 vice ? Tell me, Critobulus, if you wished to instruct 
 a youth in virtue what steps you would take. Would 
 you attract his attention to the noble and good among 
 your acquaintances, and by pointing out the benefits 
 that resulted from worthy conduct try to stimulate 
 him to emulate their deeds?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, that would awaken within him a 
 noble ambition, Ulysses." 
 
 " And since in youth habits are quickly formed 
 from observation, would you consider it necessary to 
 banish from his company all those who were dishonest 
 or who would entice him to follow his evil passions ? " 
 
 <; Assuredly, this would be necessary, Ulysses." 
 
 " Would it also be important to guard him against 
 exhibitions of any sort that would imperil his 
 modesty ? " 
 
 " This, too, would be important, Ulysses." 
 
 "You would then consider low scenes in 'variety 
 theaters ' unproductive of modesty?" 
 
 " I quite agree with you on this point, Ulysses, 
 because what was at first disgusting from coarseness 
 might soon be relished as ' forbidden fruit.' " 
 
 " Do you think, then, that vice is any less vice, if 
 it be presented in an attractive garb? " 
 
 " Without doubt, it is more dangerous, Ulysses, 
 when gilded over so that its enormities are not per- 
 ceived." 
 
 " Would you not consider those novels injurious, 
 Critobulus, which bring the reader into companion- 
 ship with degraded men and women, who have all 
 the trappings of rank and wealth about them as well 
 as the fascination of beauty with which to poison 
 their readers' minds ? 
 
 " I should be indeed ashamed to say anything in 
 opposition to such an opinion, for I should say what 
 was neither reasonable nor true." 
 
 " Then it would seem to you that those novels 
 founded on the incidents of real life which present 
 secret vice, that from its very nature must be handled
 
 328 TIIK OPAL tyUEEN. 
 
 delicately and ' with gloves,' are pernicious to the 
 youth who is cultivating virtue." 
 
 "I must, indeed, believe it, Ulysses; and I was 
 reading only yesterday a case in point. It is said 
 that the Rev. William Jay, when a student, had a 
 corrupt book put in his hands for fifteen minutes. 
 lie said many years after that he had never been able 
 to obliterate the impression made in those fifteen 
 minutes ; that he had wrestled in prayer for grace to 
 overcome and forget utterly and forever the evil 
 thoughts then introduced to his mind, but without 
 success." 
 
 "And will you concede further, Critobulus, that 
 it is not unharmful to older persons who deem their 
 morals formed ? since purity of mind must be 
 impaired by allowing the imagination even for a 
 moment to consider passively vicious subjects, as 
 even the hardest wax is sullied by an atom of soot." 
 
 " That seems also true, Ulysses." 
 
 "Would it not be a great folly and misfortune 
 then to indulge in reading such books?" 
 
 "So it appears, Ulysses. But what perplexes me 
 is that some of our best authors most affect this 
 kind of plot." 
 
 "Whatever fosters moral indifference or contri- 
 butes to the undermining of society, by stealthily 
 but gradually removing the props of a sound virtue 
 and modesty, cannot, in right reason, be considered 
 good or creditable work, Critobulus. Truth must 
 be our.standard in all such measurements and not 
 public opinion, which is shifting and mercurial. Most 
 of the German and French novels pander in this way 
 to depraved taste. Miss Muhlback is no exception 
 to this stricture. Brilliant and bewitching as are the 
 tales of royal courts, fascinating descriptions of 
 princely deviations from the strict line of conjugal 
 fidelity and manly purity do not palliate their dis- 
 grace. They are none the less sinful for such a guise, 
 and far more dangerous to the reader, who can better 
 afford to lose what glimpses of history or biography
 
 FOURTH EXAMINATION. 329 
 
 are obtained through these channels, than his sensi- 
 bility to the claims of virtue and religion." 
 
 "Now are you willing that we should consider the 
 method of propagating plots, Achilles ? " 
 
 "That is, indeed, what I most wish to know, 
 Ulysses." 
 
 " The two species that are known to authors re- 
 quire different methods of propagation. If there is 
 a nucleus of fact, a germination bulb you might 
 call it, you may drop that into the hot-bed of your 
 imagination and leave it there for a time ; you must 
 water and enrich by study a dry and barren soil ; but 
 if this has been previously done and the bed is in an 
 arable state, no laborious culture will be needed for 
 familiar products, that is themes worked out on 
 familiar lines, such as studies of home scenes and 
 characters. It will grow, I said, but you must give 
 it some attention. Nourish the embryo with the dews 
 of concentrated, kindly thought, with the tender air 
 and fairy sunshine of day-dreams, the iridescent 
 light of your fancy, and the warmth of your affec- 
 tions. If you care for the tender shoot as does the 
 gardener for his seedlings, if you love it, it will grow 
 best ; then with its instinctive perception of your 
 attention, it will repay you with new leaves and 
 blossoms every day. This species, like the child's 
 music which 'sang itself,' she said, grows itself." 
 
 "I am quite in despair about any such growth, 
 Ulysses, for notwithstanding all you say, I do not 
 understand the modus operandi. Your talk seems 
 all figurative to me, without practical bearings." 
 
 " True, indeed, Achilles, it is like the child's 
 music and comes up spontaneously, so that it is inde- 
 pendent of rules. When you experiment you will 
 find out that I have, in fact, given you the method 
 as far as it can be made tangible to you. It is not 
 wholly illusory, but mental and incommunicable 
 with exactness of speech. Turn the thought thus left 
 loosely in your mind over and over, let it ramify as 
 it will, do not for your life raise a finger to check its
 
 330 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 development, no matter bow erratic its growth may 
 seem. Be still and watch it. When fully grown, 
 you may prune it, dig about it to your heart's con- 
 tent; being well rooted, you will not endanger its 
 life. 
 
 "But let us consider the cultivation of the second 
 species. 
 
 " You have an aim in your story, a noble desire to 
 establish some truth or to unmask some villainy, or 
 correct some folly. This is worthy. Now, first of all, 
 study your subject : ransack creation for items, 
 master it, be full of it. Secondly, deliberately choose 
 your dramatis . personce. Your theme will be sug- 
 gestive of fitting characters, which you must select 
 with the view to the amount of work you require 
 them to do this is for your prominent actors; the 
 minor ones may be chosen with the distinct purpose 
 of giving variety or affording mirth. 
 
 " Your theme will also presuppose many local 
 accompaniments. Thus the modern science of spiritu- 
 alism requires for its stage drawing-rooms and 
 cities, and a mixture of the cultivated and ignorant 
 classes, with a predominance of superstition in all, 
 the educated being in the ascendency; with perhaps 
 the introduction of some country cousins upon whom 
 to experiment, to bewilder, and to convert: or, if so 
 you choose, who shall by their strong good sense and 
 native wit reconstruct their city friends, by recon- 
 verting the spiritualist to the normal religious stand- 
 point. 
 
 " Thus with ease the skeleton of your plot may 
 be framed, subject to modification a joist or a post 
 more or less, here and there, matters not, for they 
 can be removed and inserted at pleasure. 
 
 " Next for the visible clothed habitat of your plot. 
 Now, as heretofore, you must depend upon a mind 
 freighted with the collections of years of varied 
 research, to form your rich draperies of imagery ; 
 strong and thoughtful logic, facts and fancies being 
 curiously interwoven with science and art you must
 
 FO UE TH EX A M1NA TION. 33 1 
 
 put into it the very marrow and fatness of your 
 being. 
 
 " Above all must you be full of personalities ; and 
 by this I mean the rubbish that gathers by contact 
 with society as composed of individuals;- for this 
 heterogeneous mixture of bodily and mental traits, 
 outward and inward habits and customs, is strikingly 
 like a rubbish-heap ! However, it is a heap out of 
 which you can stamp, like Pompey, but with better 
 result, ' armies to do your bidding ! ' How has this 
 dirt-heap accumulated? By your intuitive percep- 
 tion and the trained habit of observation. 
 
 "I have now come to a fundamental principle in all 
 story-telling: observation keen, acute, unwearying, 
 minute, constant, interested observation this is your 
 open sesame to the avenues of literature. Style is 
 important without doubt, but the genius of observa- 
 tion will hew for itself a path when once it is ready 
 to delineate and make itself heard, because it has 
 something to say; and though with scanty education, 
 the ideas may not sit easy in their lumbering' carriage, 
 no one shall ever call them to a halt, because they 
 have the 'It' in them who is a veritable Phoebus 
 for driving over the world ! 
 
 " This power of observation is, it seems to me, the 
 one least apprehended by the uninitiated, and the one 
 that exacts the most from the initiated of all the 
 exercises demanded of him the most exhausting 
 and at the same time the most pleasurable of all the 
 offices that he is called upon to fill in the pursuit of 
 his art. 
 
 "If not blest with a memory that holds like wax, 
 you must be the victim of a memorandum-service. 
 But it can be cultivated; by long drilling of this habit 
 of observation the memory will become strengthened. 
 
 J O 
 
 Besides the memory for fixing scenes, incidents, con- 
 versations, there is the prerequisite of impressibility, 
 to insure a high order of talent in literature. Quick 
 and fine sensibilities, ready and comprehensive sym- 
 pathies, and a certain humility or power of adaptation
 
 332 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 to whatsoever circumstances or elements, combine to 
 produce this important quality. The nervous rather 
 than the bilious temperament, the sanguine rather 
 than the phlegmatic, manifest it. Certain influences 
 exercise a subtle and indefinable spell over persons 
 constituted with a high degree of impressibility. 
 
 " The squealing of a dying pig will work into the 
 text through an author's nervous susceptibility to 
 pain and suffering, and the occasional but prolonged 
 nibbling of one flea disjoint the mental productions 
 of the most patient philosopher, and put an added 
 sting into the satirist's pen. 
 
 " The reading of a long and sublime epic like 
 Homer or Milton acts like a magician's incantation 
 by awakening the slumbering powers of poesy- 
 rudimentary and fragmentary, but distinct to the 
 one operated upon in the rhythmic measure sound- 
 ing through all the chambers of his fascinated, pos- 
 sessed brain, and in the lofty utterances lying there 
 in disordered heaps, vague and mysterious. The 
 singing bard has communicated his spirit to this 
 reader, and like the impress old ocean makes upon 
 one's brain on a long voyage, which is carried for 
 days on land, these atoms of the brain controlled by 
 this master-spirit continue their airy, imperceptible 
 dance, long after the direct contact with the master. 
 
 " In like manner, this invisible, mystic force puts 
 one in the immediate spiritual environment, for the 
 time being, with the character whose impress we 
 wish to take ; a power of substitution by which we, 
 having studied him closely, temporarily adjust our- 
 selves to his thoughts, his life-problems in a word, 
 his status and then are ready for his manipulations 
 upon us ; we absorb him, as it were, and relate in 
 this way his personal experiences. But this is no 
 blind leading; judgment and skill render effective 
 service in the filling out, and this comfort may be 
 taken to every struggling author's soul, that while, 
 in the main, certain lines of conduct must result 
 from certain characteristics of mind and tempera-
 
 FO Ult Til EX A M1NA T1ON. 333 
 
 ment, human nature is itself so incongruous, incon- 
 sistent, that no critic would be justified in picking 
 flaws in the seemingly inconsistent characters. It is 
 impossible to say that there never was such a person 
 as the author represents, when real life abounds iu 
 such abnormal characters and such eccentric devia- 
 tions from the law of consistency. Still, if lie keep 
 the end of his art in view, which is to give pleasure, 
 he will not create monstrosities. 
 
 " Apart from the study of good authors for the cul- 
 tivation of a fine style, temperament here also exer- 
 cises its sway, and under any course of study stamps 
 its own impress upon the delivery of thought, which 
 is manifest over and above educational processes and 
 makes what we call individuality of style. 
 
 " For fluency in speaking and spoken fluency, 
 though not as essential to the novelist as for those 
 engaged in grave discussions at the bar, the forum, or 
 in deliberative assemblies, is important, for the reason 
 that this literature is for the most part colloquial, 
 and requires the free and easy style of social converse 
 if you have not the gift of language, practice in 
 private. Jt is an immense advantage to have at your 
 command the right word at the right moment, for 
 sometimes one clear-cut passage will stand for a 
 volume of thought. Practice on somebody. Perhaps 
 there is a convenient wife, and if docile she is by all 
 odds tl^e best of the near relations for this study. 
 Daughters, sisters, cousins, and the like are apt to 
 consider a word-fall of this kind a bore or an intru- 
 sion, and therefore make indifferent listeners for a 
 long-winded monoloo-ue. But your wife makes a 
 
 -*.T 
 
 good victim she abounds in the martyr element. No 
 doubt, all gifted conversationists had some lamb that 
 was sacrificed on the altar of hero worship, as Johnson 
 his admiring Bos worth, Goethe his Eckermann, 
 Coleridge his coterie of friends, and Carlyle his 
 faithful Jane." 
 
 " But, Ulysses, it appears to me that you are 
 asking too much ; talent for originating, talent for 
 letting our thought severely alone, and talent for
 
 334 Tlt OPAL 
 
 knowing the right moment to .use it, talent for re- 
 membering, talent for being impressed, talent for ob- 
 serving and talent for speaking when we come with 
 only raw material and as yet no discovered talent in 
 these directions." 
 
 "I am glad you used that word undiscovered, 
 Achilles, for it indicates the truth. Without doubt, 
 these talents are lying dormant, all unworked. But 
 supposing them absent in the measure in which I 
 have set them forth, do not therefore hesitate, my 
 good youth. Would you drop the pen and give up 
 the chase?" 
 
 " By no means, Ulysses ; there is still hope until 
 one has tried and failed, and Carlyle says .that being 
 'once foiled is nothing like final defeat.'' 
 
 "Let us see, then, what the we will not. call it 
 remedy and thus imply diseas.e or disorder, but what 
 the substitute is for a felt want in these directions. 
 Are you willing to admit that you can think and 
 talk like a gentleman, Acliilles ? Since all your 
 antecedents, or at least your education and your 
 habits, fit you for that kind of exposition ?" 
 
 " That is reasonable, Ulysses." 
 
 "Very well ; then you have already a fund for the 
 major part of your story, which should be in a high 
 and manly tone. If } r ou find difficulty in making 
 original impersonations of character, put yourself in 
 direct verbal communication with such characters as 
 you wish to sketch, confide to your memory or your 
 memorandum their strange expressions, peculiar 
 English all their idiosyncrasies. When separated 
 from them, commit to paper their sayings verbatim, 
 and your own impressions ; compare the impressions ; 
 and these conclusions which' you have gained by 
 deduction as your study advances, and modify your 
 opinion as the character becomes more and more re- 
 vealed, or approve them, as the case may be. You 
 will soon be en rapport with these children of your 
 brain, paper-heroes ; and so when you introduce them 
 into your story, if necessary, write your thought first 
 clothed in your own language, and then translate it
 
 EXAMINATION. 335 
 
 by means of your newly made vocabulary winch is 
 your stock in trade into the language of k Tom, 
 Dick or Harry ' samples of which you procured at 
 first hand by word of mouth, and lodged securely in 
 your brain or memorandum. By comparison and in- 
 genuity of adaptation, miles of this parlance can be 
 construed from simple data. With a little practice, 
 you can thus roughen style. 
 
 " The elevation of a .simple style into a learned and 
 pompous one, the reduction of a smooth and diffuse 
 style into a naive and abrupt one, can be acquired in 
 the same way ; if original characters are not at your 
 command, there are always books which contain all 
 these varieties and more, and if you have any im- 
 pressibility and will read a typical one of the kind 
 you wish to draw, your thoughts will involuntarily 
 take a similar mode of expression. 
 
 "But a colloquial style is your standard; if you 
 have acquired any of the rhetorical styles, by previous 
 writing for instance, a verbose, pompous, diffuse, 
 labored, antithetical or even if your own style has 
 become stilted or affected with mannerism from run- 
 ning too long in a groove, you must correct this, as a 
 simple style is best for conversion into all the other 
 styles needed in the dialogue. 
 
 " Strike out superfluous words and everything that 
 savors of pedantry (unless you are portraying, a 
 character to whom it is natural), and, in general, high- 
 sounding words and phrases. Occasionally in life we 
 meet with some one who * talks like a book,' but he 
 earns the unenviable distinction of a 'bore ' possibly 
 agreeable to a few but to the many a ' bore,' who 
 is listened to with different degrees of impatience, 
 and mentally relegated to a hall of suitable dimen- 
 sions for public speaking! For we want neither an 
 encyclopedia, nor a long-winded philosopher, nor an 
 enthusiastic reformer, in the hours of social recrea- 
 tion, but a man untrammeled with isms and bookish 
 lore, living in the world around him, with eyes to pick 
 up a pin or a lady's veil, and ears to hear the softest 
 prattle of childhood.
 
 336 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " If you lack practice in writing stories, you may 
 find it difficult, ut first, to make correct personations 
 of character. To think now like a lady of fashion and 
 anon like a Highland drover -now like a 'sharper' 
 and now like a saint now like a veteran and now 
 like an unsophisticated youth now to put the words 
 of villainy into the ruffian's month and anon to expose 
 him and drag his secrets to light, now to harrow up 
 the feelings of the unsuspecting by the cool intrigue 
 of the schemer, and now to unmask his treachery 
 to be now the man of the world and now to preach 
 against the ' pomps and vanities ' of life will be only 
 measurably possible, at first; but in this, as in all 
 things, ' practice makes perfect.' The 'genius 'can 
 compass it sooner, no doubt, than the plodder, but 
 plod on, Slow-Foot, there is a crown for thee, too, at 
 the end of the race. 
 
 " We are many-sided men and women, touching 
 by our sympathies a wide circle of conscious intelli- 
 gences. We ha-ve in the outset formulated each 
 character according to a living or an ideal model. 
 We know precisely how Mary looks and what she 
 will say under given circumstances, because we have 
 studied her, analyzed her, known her through and 
 through. Then we lay her away in a brain-corner as 
 we would a doll in a cradle ; when she is called in 
 the play, we have only to turn the side labelled ' Mary ' 
 in full view of our consciousness to see it reflected 
 as in a mirror. Now we give a pronounced effect 
 to one side and again to another, and so keep the 
 thread of the plot spinning this many-colored thread 
 that forms the woof of the drapery; the warp is all 
 laid out and planned beforehand, or, mysterious as it 
 may seem, the fairy-like wearer does often so ply the 
 shuttle that simultaneously she weaves both warp and 
 woof the whole web; and sometimes bits of web- 
 bing spun in other hours may be inserted here and 
 there, and so nicely fitted as to give the appearance 
 of a true grow.th you see not the patches and call 
 it all ' very good.' '
 
 * LETTER TO ARTHUR i)OANti. 33? 
 
 CHAPTER IX.* 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ART : 
 
 You remind me of my delinquencies in not relating 
 to you the minutia3 of our system of development 
 under Monboddo, and I will therefore begin my letter 
 with the desired information. 
 
 There are no fees of any description in our school 
 or band. The Professor rejects the first name be- 
 cause it smacks of a money bargain between master 
 and pupil, and there is a hidden suggestion of the 
 birch, a graded marking system, or some equivalent 
 ad terrorem motive as the incentive to endeavor and 
 the inspiration of progress. The Professor is a man 
 of inherited wealth sufficient for the enterprise, and 
 prefers investing all his capital both of money and 
 brains in good, paying stock to be drawn on the hearts 
 and intellects of young men ; the dividends, he claims, 
 are laid up in the Bank of Heaven, and so far as 
 payment of the original deposit is concerned he is 
 willing to wait until the vaults of eternity are opened. 
 
 When you think of it, Art, the only noble employ- 
 ment in life is the contribution to human needs di- 
 rectly, and what can be more benevolent or more 
 wise than the effort to furnish the proper equipment 
 for young men just entering the arena for a fight 
 with " the world, the flesh, and the devil "? It is a 
 noble work, and when undertaken in the loving spirit 
 of the Professor may be said to be remarkable in 
 the sense that it is out of the general order of things, 
 now running in the groove of selfishness for thou- 
 sands of years, to do honest work for God, looking to 
 Heaven only for reward.
 
 338 tnti OPAL QUEEtf. 
 
 The Professor says that, true to the instinct of their 
 nature, all men are in pursuit of happiness, and that 
 they miss it either through ignorance or misunder- 
 standing of the true way of obtaining it. The rem- 
 edy lies in a broadened education which means with 
 him especially a literary emancipation from prevail- 
 ing ruts and an advanced standard of general in- 
 struction through an enlarged and illuminated teach- 
 ing. 
 
 The schools of the period fall under the ban, be- 
 cause of stereotyped methods which crush the power 
 of observation in the formative period of life, and 
 weaken the memory by inordinate demands upon 
 it, unaccompanied by the natural stimulus which 
 would refresh and invigorate it. In his view, the 
 teacher should be so thorough a master of his sub- 
 jects, that no text-books are required; and though 
 leaving the student to observe, question, explore, and 
 investigate much for himself, he should be encouraged 
 and led on in that pursuit by one able and ever ready 
 to solve his doubts and direct his energies. 
 
 I told you about our amusing experiences with our 
 jottings " in season and out of season." This prac- 
 tice was only allowed us for six weeks we were 
 then requested to dispense with our memoranda. 
 (The Professor has no more peremptory form than 
 advice ; for he holds that if the true spirit subsists be- 
 tween us, his suggestions will have the effect of au- 
 thority, without its weight.) We were to be even 
 more diligent than formerly; but whereas before \ve 
 looked at objects subjectively, we must now go out- 
 side of ourselves and collect our impressions from the 
 . world around us, and store them up in the memory 
 until such time as it became convenient to transfer 
 them to paper, with a ready trust that they would 
 not vanish, collapse, or change bulk or proportions, to 
 mock us with shadows and deformities of the truth. 
 
 The practice required some system to manage it 
 successfully ; but we soon learned that if the prelimi- 
 nary steps of close attention and accurate observation
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR HOANE. 330 
 
 were faithfully carried out, there was no trouble in 
 remembering. The grip of the mind became inten- 
 sified quicker to seize and more tenacious in hold- 
 ing a thing once fastened in its talons. 
 
 The qualifications for admission into this "band" 
 are a sound and vigorous constitution, with no defects 
 of any kind either of sight or hearing, a good edu- 
 cation in the elementary branches (advanced learning 
 does not disqualify), a knowledge of hygiene and 
 chemistry and the elements of medical practice. 
 
 The Professor claims that intellectual proficiency 
 will be in direct proportion to physical soundness ; 
 and that there may be no shortcomings under his 
 management, he puts us under the oversight of a 
 physician during the entire period. The object is to 
 advance the cause of physical education, and in the 
 gymnasium we are under the supervision of a medi- 
 cal a'dviser who moderates or proportions the exer- 
 cise to the strength of the gymnast, and at the same 
 time gives practical lessons in anatomy and talks on 
 hygiene and medicine. One of our studies, or per- 
 haps I should say avenues of investigation, that I 
 have not mentioned, is the practice of medicine. This 
 we pursue in quite an original way through the 
 medium of analytical chemistry. 
 
 The theory is that if we are thoroughly acquainted 
 with the elements in our own body, and the action, 
 free and in combination, of the sixty-four chemical 
 elements, we can, by the help of instruction in the 
 principles of the healing art, be competent to keep 
 the balance properly adjusted in the human system 
 and preserve it in working order through our diet. 
 Of course, it is presumed that the proper amount of 
 air and exercise will preserve for us what we are pro- 
 nounced to have upon entering viz., a sound mind in 
 a sound body; but as disease is insidious, and some- 
 times gets a foothold before its victim suspects its 
 proximity, we are so thoroughly to understand our- 
 selves as to guard against its first approach and to 
 rout it by a telling home-thrust upon the appearance
 
 540 TBE OP A L Q UKEN. 
 
 of the first symptoms. The Professor says we ought 
 to live our seventy years in the full bloom of health 
 ful activity, and thirty years more with the tolerable 
 comfort that now appertains to average middle age. 
 
 The associate professors share their chief's enthu- 
 siasm, and are as vast repositories of knowledge in 
 their special spheres as he is a treasury of gnomic 
 wisdom in all matters pertaining to human interests. 
 Drudgery is an unknown .quantity, and study is a 
 beatitude. Even into so dry an investigation as 
 bones they contrive to put so much vitality in their 
 practical illustrations upon your own bod}- or a fel- 
 low-student's (the skeleton pro tern.') that you have 
 the names and action before you know it, and have 
 been so keenly interested as not to be conscious of 
 putting forth a single effort to remember. 
 
 The Professor believes in the sciences so far as they 
 can foe made practical, but when they reach out into 
 vague speculations and dreamy transcendentalism he 
 affirms that they empty the mind of the energy re- 
 quired for grappling with questions relating to human 
 duty and human happiness and human needs that 
 any stud}*" and examination of the elements that con- 
 verts them into agencies to bless mankind is useful 
 and praiseworthy, but that " the proper study of 
 mankind is man." He claims that a high and aes- 
 thetic civilization has multiplied our wants and cum- 
 bered our minds with the effort to satisfy them that 
 with reduced indulgences, and a limitation put upon 
 our external wants, we would be more apt to turn 
 our attention to the pleasures arising from duty in- 
 stead of self-gratification, and would have time for 
 reflection and self-examination, and thus be put in 
 the way of inquiring if the true happiness did not 
 consist in extending to others benefits similar to our 
 own and being instrumental in that universal millen- 
 nium which is the hope of the race. 
 
 The names by which we are designated have sprung 
 out of that seething caldron of wit and ridicule which
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 341 
 
 assails any enterprise inaugurating a new departure 
 from the ruts of conservatism. 
 
 At first they called the twenty who joined them- 
 selves to the Professor " Monboddoes " a very good 
 name ; but when the new class of twenty came to the 
 field, the first-term men were called "Lemons," the 
 second-term men " Boddoes," and only the third-term 
 men arrive at the distinction of the full cognomen 
 " Monboddoes." The whole band they call the " Im- 
 mortal Sixty," and the school " Academia della 
 Crusca" 
 
 The Professor's lectures he calls them "examina 
 tions," and uses the Socratic method (this you have 
 observed in the verbatim reports I have sent you, if 
 you have had time to read them) are so clear and full 
 that "just to hear them," as the ancient Prodicus said 
 about his own lectures, "is to be thoroughly educated 
 in the subject-matter." 
 
 I need not tell you that I am in the fullest sym- 
 pathy with ther design and aims of the Professor that 
 goes without saying, for it would be arch hypocrisy 
 to secure the advantages of a system ' without money 
 and without price " that my judgment did not approve 
 and I could not most cordially support. But this, to 
 my mind, is the res vexata : 
 
 Suppose, after all, when the prescribed number of 
 revolutions of the examining wheel have been made, 
 we do not come out the genuine article ! We 
 shall no doubt be done up in neat packages and duly 
 labelled " Masters of the Art of Literature," but must 
 there not inevitably be some blanks in the distribu- 
 tion ? Is Nature so prodigal of her favors as to furnish 
 every one of the sixty young men, thrown together 
 promiscuously, with the shining passport to distinc- 
 tion ? And here I know I am a trifle disloyal to the 
 master, who teaches that the consciousness of inter- 
 nal improvement and the faithful discharge of duty 
 is a sufficient reward who disclaims the bauble of 
 distinction, is blind to the praise or blame of the
 
 342 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 world, and emphasizes in his own conduct the truth 
 of those old lines 
 
 " Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 
 
 And this, I believe, too, accords with Scripture, 
 which enjoins upon us the love of neighbor equal to 
 self, bids us " take no anxious thought for the mor- 
 row," and declares that " the fear of man is a snare," 
 and the honor which cometh from man. 
 
 And yet in the period of aggressive youth, unless 
 one deliberately chooses the role of reformer or 
 martyr, I know not how it is possible to keep from 
 prospecting a little into the near future, to try and 
 catch the probable outcome of our somersault (I hope 
 it will be with becoming dignity) into the teeming 
 whirl we call life. With maturity of years comes a 
 decline of ambition and an easier settling into well- 
 defined paths of action. 
 
 And so you will not blame me for occasional mis- 
 givings which shoot like spent rockets across my sky. 
 But after all, what are a few fugitive streaks of dark 
 in my great heaven of blue ? 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHANNING.
 
 FIFTH EXAMINATION. 343 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FIFTH "EXAMINATION" NOVELS THE HERO AND 
 THE HEROINE. 
 
 " TELL me, Xenophon, if you perceive a tendency 
 in mankind to be exclusively dominated by sensual 
 and selfish enjoyments ? " 
 
 " Assuredly this is so, Ulysses." 
 
 " Would you then consider any entertainment 
 that furnishes pure and refined pleasure an import- 
 ant agent in winning men from these forms of self- 
 ishness ? " 
 
 " Unquestionably, Ulysses." 
 
 u And if the entertainment thoroughly diverts the 
 mind, takes it into new channels of thought, and 
 thus relieves the strain upon nerves pressed sorely 
 in the old ruts, would it be still more beneficial?" 
 
 " We ought to be inexpressibly thankful for such 
 an entertainment, Ulysses. If Carlyle had better 
 understood the true theory of the nerves, he would 
 have been a happier if not as wise a man." 
 
 u Do you not think the modern novel of highest 
 type able to furnish such entertainment, Xeno- 
 phon ? " 
 
 " It had indeed never occurred to me, Ulysses, 
 but I am quite inclined to agree with you, when I 
 remember how much pure pleasure I have had while 
 reading them." 
 
 " Will you allow us to consider the matter, Xen- 
 ophon, by commencing with the hero, since his char- 
 acter decides in great measure the quality of the 
 novel?"
 
 344 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " By all means, Ulysses." 
 
 " Having fixed upon your hero, would it not be 
 wise to elevate him mentally midway between heaven 
 and earth, as it were, at a convenient seeing distance, 
 and in that invisible sphere have him ubiquitous to 
 you? then to centralize in him, so as to preserve an 
 essential element of success, that is, unity in the 
 theme ? " 
 
 "It would be wise, Ulysses, for the introduction of 
 too many characters or too complex a network of in- 
 cidents distracts and wearies the reader." 
 
 " No matter how varied and interesting the acces- 
 sories of the stor} r , or how full of choice bits of knowl- 
 edge and collateral, sketches it is, they may be over- 
 looked or forgotten ; but the personality and fortunes 
 of your hero must stand out in such vigor of life that 
 he cannot be ignored and will stick fast in the reader's 
 mind as an acquaintance or a friend a friend that 
 goes with him, be it remembered, for good or ill. 
 Few realize the potential power of the hero or heroine 
 of a novel, particularly during the formative period 
 of the mind. Many a youth is unconsciously 
 stamped by some hero that strikes his fancy who 
 sinks like a die into the plastic wax of his nature and 
 hardens there is, in fact, never quite obliterated." 
 
 " I remember, Ulysses, that Jane Welsh Carlyle, 
 when a child, became so enthused with the character 
 of Queen Dido and the heathenish ceremonials of 
 her times, that she burned her doll on a funeral 
 pyre of cedar allumettes with an accompaniment 
 of spices, a few sticks of cinnamon, a few cloves, 
 and a nutmeg, and then lo carry out the ritual she 
 recited the speech of Dido and stabbed her doll. 
 She tells us that when considering the pros and cons 
 of any action, her inquiry was, not. . ' What is right ? ' 
 but, ' How would a Greek or a Roman do under like 
 circumstances? ' and commended herself in proportion 
 to her degree of approach to her chosen models. 
 She says that her ' inner world was three-fourths Ro- 
 man and one-fourth Fairy.' "
 
 FIFTH EXAMINATION. 345 
 
 " Many a little innocent, Xenophon,and even adults 
 have clone the same insensibly. Not having Jeanie's 
 full-thoughted brain, but only sensations which 
 served as impulses to action, they have not formu- 
 lated those sensations, and have been unconscious 
 devotees. Could we but look into the youthful 
 minds of the centuries since Shakespeare's time, we 
 should doubtless find many ardent aspirants for the 
 characters of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, or Macbeth." 
 
 "Is it not clear, Xenophon, that the central figure 
 should be worthy of emulation? Make him noble, 
 heroic, the world needs continual reminders of the 
 glorious possibilities of character ; heart-weighted 
 with sin and folly, the tendencies of life are down- 
 ward, and can only by strong means be turned out 
 of that course or prevented from entering it. Be 
 more afraid of corrupting or misleading one soul, 
 Xenophon, than of receiving a rejected manuscript 
 (' declined with thanks ') from the editorial auto- 
 crat, or of embarrassing your publisher and per- 
 manently encumbering his shelves. Be more zeal- 
 ous to exalt humanity than your name, and to fill 
 hearts with goodness than your pockets with gold. 
 It is a noble utterance for a dying man that he has 
 not written one word that he would wish unsaid 
 but what has been the dying man's standard of 
 uprightness? Upon that depends the value of the 
 testimony. 
 
 "Do not infer from this that there is to be no vil- 
 lainy in the plot virtue and vice thrive side by side 
 in life, and as such may be transferred to your page. 
 But be sure that you make vice hideous. Condone 
 it not, palliate it not, throw over it not one rag of 
 charity paint it as a thing to be detested ! extenuate 
 not petty faults, gild not sly, seductive influences 
 oh, my soul ! the foul bed of iniquity that modern 
 authors are making and shamelessly portraying in 
 all its frightful loathsomeness, its pestilence-breed- 
 ing vapors uncovered for the world's gaze ! and oh, 
 my soul ! the eager, breathless curiosity of the pant-
 
 346 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 ing world to have the false though* pampered heroes 
 of lascivious deeds exposed to their gloating vision. 
 
 "The modern novel is tainted through and through 
 with the rotten kernel of seduction that lies in the 
 heart of it; secret amours, intrigues of vice and 
 passion are like the worm coiled in the heart of 
 the rose, snugly' covered by its crimson peial or 
 the unsightly one laid bare in its hideous nearness as 
 we dissect the luseiou.i fruit, having stealthily gnawed 
 its way in shining but defiled tracks from centre to 
 circumference ! Ostracize such books try to revive 
 or create a purer taste that shall not enjoy this meal 
 of worms, be they never so ' savory tales of illicit 
 love and illegitimate children ! 
 
 " This is a high mark, but God helping, you can 
 attain to it. 'Tis the glory of Sir Walter Scott 
 whose one tale of that genus is all that the world 
 needs until doomsday that with this one exception 
 he steered clear of that 'rock of offence.' 'Tis the- 
 shame of George Eliot, who prostituted her noble 
 talents to such ignoble ends ! 'Tis the glory of 
 Dickens, who could interest, amuse, reform, teach, 
 without this all-seductive element of an author's 
 power say rather of an author's weakness. Power 
 to excite wrong feelings, stimulate bad passions, and 
 secure more readers, yes ; but weakness to resist the 
 temptation to wrong his own soul by presenting at- 
 tractive pictures that help the world on in vice; he 
 is the powerful soul who conquers himself." 
 
 "Without doubt, Ulysses, the influence of wicked- 
 nesses a factor in literature, is very much overrated, 
 but here is a contradiction : if we are to depict vice, 
 why must this, more than any other, be ignored by the 
 author?" 
 
 "Because, Xenophon, this, more than any other, is 
 specious, therefore more dangerous to social life 
 and purity ; because this, in the very nature of 
 things, can never be set forth in its true colors. 
 Society would shrink from the spectacle of sensualism 
 in its emblazoned characters it must be touched
 
 FIFTH EXAMINATION. 347 
 
 lightly, sketched artistically, a charm of mystery 
 woven around it a veil that hides the horror and 
 beguiles the senses into a dreamy sensation that it is 
 not half so bad as the moralists would have us 
 believe ! This secrecy furnishes the element of mys- 
 tery which can be made highly artistic, that is true ; 
 but forget not that there is such a thing as corrupt 
 art. Thank God ! we are not yet brought to the 
 Pompeian era! Any vice that must be skimmed over, 
 gracefully handled, delicately touched, becomes not 
 a deformity and a hideous running ulcer to the sight, 
 but a petted dandled foible peccadillo ! Bah ! The 
 Brazen Artiste who talks of ' mon petit accident ' 
 with all the nonchalance of a common prostitute, and 
 the easy-minded public, so willing to overlook dis- 
 grace and dishonor in its favorite actress, because of 
 her colossal impudence in ignoring it herself and 
 sublime indifference to all moral lines of conduct! 
 These are tide-marks to show what this false taste 
 creates and how it works, and what we have come to, 
 now in this enlightened Christian nineteenth century ! 
 Fighting Mormonism, indeed, with all the force of 
 law, and coddling or countenancing bold, shameless 
 vice, because, forsooth, it is so enveloped with aesthetic 
 charms ! Men and women grief to tell ! look on 
 admiringly while the writer or the actor plays his 
 little part in tliis hideous drama of moral debauchery 
 and vicious reality ! shut their eyes and secretly 
 smile on the one hand, and openly applaud or mildly 
 condemn on the other. These are plain words ; but 
 the lack of just such plainness has caused this moral 
 cesspool to percolate society to its core ! " 
 
 " I quite agree with you, Ulysses, and yet answer 
 me this question Is it not the business of the author 
 to portray life as he finds it?" 
 
 " Tell me, Xenophon, you are surely not one of 
 those men, are you, who deny that novel-writing is 
 an art?" 
 
 " Doubtless you are right, Ulysses, for I surely 
 know that it is the business of the historian, the
 
 348 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 biographer, and the annalist to portray life as he finds 
 it." 
 
 " Then if it be an art, Xenophon, should not the 
 novelist be an artist and treat his subject artis- 
 tically?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly he would be under such obligations, 
 Ulysses." 
 
 " With a foundation of truth (for even if the basis 
 be imaginary, it must have in it natural ingredients, 
 as the landscape has no permission to be without sky, 
 earth, rock and field), his talent occupies itself in 
 combining out" of his imagination attractive forms 
 and groupings, with a view to artistic effects; this 
 is his privilege, his art. He is not bound to ' subject 
 the imagination strictly tq the conditions of truth 
 and reality ' the artist's standard \& feeling, the end, 
 refined pleasure. It goes without saying that in 
 depicting men and manners, he cannot ignore nature 
 or- truth. The law of fidelity to both is, in a certain 
 sense, prescribed by his art; for, as the object of the 
 novel-writer is to give refined pleasure, whatever 
 nullifies this object is inartistic by so much. If he 
 create monstrosities and perversities to shock his 
 reader, and disorders in the social code of manners or 
 the religious code of morals to arouse indignation and 
 disgust, he fails in his primary object therefore fails 
 as an artist and as a novel-writer. So that, while not 
 tied down by this condition of absolute fidelity to 
 nature, he must keep in the groove of truth by fitness 
 and consistency ; first, because nothing less will pro- 
 duce pleasing impressions; and, second, because there 
 is such a thing as the ethics of art, founded on the 
 inseparable connection between the Good and the 
 Beautiful. To put it more distinctly, he will at all 
 times and in every case present subjective truth 
 absolutely, and objective truth relatively to the occa- 
 sion and the speaker. He is at liberty to select from 
 or add to nature whatever pleases his artistic fancy, 
 but never -at liberty to falsify her or glorify vice, 
 which is untruth. With the growing tendency of
 
 FIFTH EXAMINATION. 349 
 
 tliis age to disassociate morals from art, I have no 
 sympathy nay, more, my whole being rises up in 
 indignant protest against the pernicious, though 
 specious doctrine, and thunders anathemas against 
 the promulgators of it ! Cannot the zealots, blind in 
 their enthusiasm for making art their religion and 
 introducing into this era the vain, altogether profitless 
 and abject worship of a forgotten age can they not 
 see that just as soon as the morals of aesthetics is lost 
 sight of, there will be corruption in art? that. purity 
 and strength of artistic forms will be sunk in vice 
 and puerility ? Yes, Xenophon, the combination of 
 the good, the true, and the beautiful is the trinity of 
 strength and purity in art. Would you consider it, 
 therefore, essential that the novelist be himself pure, 
 and searching after the true, the good, and the 
 beautiful in all his artistic spirit reaches unto?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Ulysses." 
 
 " No blushes will then tinge the sensitive cheek of 
 Modesty as she reads the printed page no sensuous 
 breathings of a Swinburne or a Wilde will clog our 
 literature, no vulgarism of a Byron or a Sterne or a 
 Moliere will then poison the channels of thought and 
 arouse the contempt and righteous protests of the 
 morally healthy world ! Our highest models of litera- 
 ture are based upon the true union of goodness with 
 art. 
 
 " As for the hero, always make him a man of high 
 purpose and moral endeavor ; not by necessity a Cal- 
 vinist without any religious cant, he may inculcate 
 religious principles ; and when we remember that 
 novels are read chiefly by the young, we need not 
 hesitate to set up continually an exalted standard of 
 manhood. I know there is a temptation to be daring, 
 to depart from the beaten track, to hew out a new 
 one in which to give a license to humor and freaks 
 and passions new, striking, and original combinations 
 of sin ! sin itself, alas ! being as old as Adam some- 
 thing less commonplace and stereotyped, something 
 saucy, wild, devilish, original /.they will term it. But
 
 350 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 there are established canons of taste in this, as in all 
 other arts, and he who deviates widely may be toler- 
 ated as an eccentric, but he who ignores or defies 
 them will be dropped from the catalogue of the im- 
 mortal writers. 
 
 " Let us never lower the standard of high, unim- 
 peached integrity in manhood, for our hero ! we can 
 contemplate at our leisure the reverse species lying 
 in plain unvarnished facts and histories all around us ! 
 
 " For your accompanying figures there is more 
 license and usually one marked trait will sufficiently 
 identify them, if drawn with distinct strokes ; "whether 
 it be the obtuseness of a good-natured tutor, like 
 Dominie Sampson ; or the fidelity to hereditary great- 
 ness as in Caleb the character in 'The Bride of 
 Lammermoor'; or the button-losing Peggotty ; the 
 miserly Grandfather Smallweecl, with his pillow 
 gymnastics ; or the faithful Judy, ever shaking up 
 and smoothing out the Smallweed pair. 
 
 " While insisting upon the truest manhood for the 
 hero, it does not follow that he must always be in his 
 right mind. If you are fond of the study of lunacy,* 
 a crazy man or one just on the border-land of in- 
 sanity that you may take advantage of the element 
 of mysteiy will sometimes make an effective figure. 
 
 " What has been said applies also in its main fea- 
 tures to the heroine of the story. In general avoid 
 weeping women and puling children leave them to 
 the comforting friends that God has given them, and 
 draw strong heroines having no tears in public ; sup- 
 pressing the outward show of sorrow and mastering 
 all emotion like the Rebecca of ' Ivanhoe,' or, if she be 
 a sinner, like Becky Sharp, ignoring them all, grief, 
 sorrow, and remorse ; or like Pamela, maintaining a 
 calm exterior over a bursting heart. The world, the 
 female world, needs heroic models there is a languor 
 and inertia about the nineteenth century fair one, that 
 is fruitful of tears, and that, consuming itself on the 
 aesthetics of self, resorts to this petty and sometimes 
 pretty weakness as an outlet for disordered nerves.
 
 FIFTH EXAMINATION. 351 
 
 A little broader outlook into the real distress of life, 
 a little braver courting of sunshine and air, would 
 gird them for non-resistance when beset by the river- 
 god lachrymose? fosmince. 
 
 "Withdrawn from the practical affairs of life by 
 the more pressing and absorbing duties of decorative 
 art, they find crewels and the palette easy and elegant 
 substitutes for a more fruitful industry and a better 
 directed energy, and point, with a pride that never 
 questions their devotion to right-living, to the recherche 
 compensatory adornments of wall and furniture. 
 It is doubtful if these studies which erupt into manias 
 do not greatly generate moral indifference. Art is 
 not religion, though a world of Goethes and Schillers, 
 Hegels and Schellings, should so. proclaim it. Ye 
 cannot serve two masters, saith the Lord, God and 
 Art! 
 
 " Patience, modesty, self-denial, must be the crown- 
 ing virtues of your model heroine. The latter, es- 
 pecially, we require in woman. Unless the man is to 
 be a martyr of reform, we do not so much look for it 
 in him the battle with life will develop other traits, 
 and compel in the average man an aggrandizement 
 of self not selfishness be it noted, but self-reliance, 
 self-development, self-accumulation but not self-for- 
 getfulness pre-eminently. This is the woman's true 
 atmosphere, and her diadem of beauty is her self-sur- 
 render for does it not show a nearer kinship to 
 divinity? 
 
 " Beware of the easy and cheap way of making 
 your characters by descriptions of what they are and 
 can do, instead of permitting them to act out their 
 lives, establishing their characters by inference. I 
 have known some so-called heroines go through a 
 whole story without performing one single creditable 
 deed. 
 
 "Pronounced 'pretty' and 'sweet,' labelled 'an- 
 gelic,' they played the cherubic role, smiling and 
 looking unutterable things ! perhaps heaving a sigh 
 or two in a striking tableau and dropping a tear of
 
 352 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 wounded sensibility frequently, but never once rising 
 above the level of a figure-head ! And yet the 
 author was incessantly calling our attention to her 
 graces and nobility of spirit, and demanding our 
 worship at her shrine. Let your characters act and 
 speak for themselves, and your reader decide for him- 
 self as to the degree of merit they possess. A deep 
 craving for novelty and variety is a strong instinct 
 of our nature, but do not let it lead you beyond the 
 bounds of taste and prudence. 
 
 " Put what you can of originality into your work 
 without straining for effect or marring the harmony. 
 Be original, if so doing you are yourself. But do not 
 strive to be original; that 'never befell any one by 
 deliberate resolve.' You will find it hard now to 
 strike a new vein in the well-worked mine of story- 
 telling, without crossing into the border-land of 
 romance, where superstition, legendary tales, exag- 
 gerated scenes, incidents, and fancies arouse the 
 curiosity and weaken the intellect by stimulating a 
 craving for the unreal and the unattainable. By 
 deadening the sensibilities to the ordinary dangers 
 and accidents of life, and creating a passion for the 
 impossible, they introduce mental disorders, unfitting 
 the judgment to draw healthy conclusions or make 
 just comparison between the actual.and the ideal."
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 353 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ARTHUR: 
 
 I feel this evening like half a pair of scissors ! You 
 know just how that is. Partly to battle it off, and 
 partly to give you my usual bulletin of home and 
 school transactions, I take up my pen for a scribble. 
 
 Last night (or rather this morning at 3 : 30 o'clock), 
 according to a preconcerted arrangement, a party of 
 " Lemons " met at the observatory, to take observa- 
 tions on the stranger that has recently appeared in 
 Heaven's high court. Brilliant in appearance and 
 original in dress and carriage, he eclipsed lesser 
 luminaries by the brightness of his head-gear and 
 the lengthened splendor of his train. 
 
 You recognize without further preliminary the 
 comet of 1832. Having passed his perihelion, he was 
 only feebly beautiful (with spasmodic flashes of past 
 glory) compared with what he has been, reminding 
 one of a faded belle whose waning charms increase 
 her desire to keep and enhance them. He has been, 
 so far, ahead of his confreres in amiability, having 
 manifested an accommodating spirit superior to any 
 comet in my recollection not presuming, like the 
 rest, to meddle in our sublunary affairs by getting 
 the elements off their bases ; mixing up earth, air, fire, 
 and water, in such uncanny, unscientific, and dis- 
 orderly proportions, that floods, tornadoes, conflagra- 
 tions, earthquakes, pestilence, famine, panics, and 
 the thousand "ills that flesh is heir to," were evolved 
 and let loose upon this poor, afflicted earth; rollick- 
 ing at large like so many demoniacal spirits, without
 
 354 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 permission or restraint but quietly and cheerfully 
 (as far as we can discover) minding his own business, 
 thus granting us continued "spells" of fair weather. 
 No occasion for the old prayer of the superstitious 
 Catholic, " Lord, save us from the devil, the Turk, 
 and the comet." 
 
 The probable cause of so much indulgence is the 
 loss of half of his head ; and having only half a mind 
 to do mischief, you know, is equivalent according 
 to the laws of popular interpretation to not doing 
 it at all. " The double-minded man is unstable in 
 all his ways," the single-minded man is stable, and 
 the half-minded man is " tabled," Q.E.D. 
 
 But comets are a variable quantity, while you, my 
 dear chum, are a fixed quantity. I know just where 
 to find you, even after this long rodomontade. By the 
 very necessities of the case, you are calm and patient, 
 waiting, hoping, for another invoice on the next sheet, 
 labelled sense. Well, there's plenty of it, real hard 
 sense, too, coming. The foregoing is like old 
 "Gran's" knitting not difficult enough to be 
 called work, and not sufficiently amusing to deserve 
 the name of play what then will you call it? 
 " Stuff," I suppose. That would answer, for stuff is 
 one of the accompaniments of nonsense. But some- 
 times, you know, one has the sauce without the pud- 
 ding, the mise en scne without the comedian ! 
 
 But now to business no more prating, even to my 
 " t'other half of the scissors," for, if it can't cut, I 
 know from sharp experience that it can thrust and 
 bore ! 
 
 The Professor desires each one of us to choose a 
 model that is, to decide in our minds what literary 
 character, taking all things into account, we most, 
 admire and study him from center to circumfer- 
 ence : Analyze him, penetrate him through and 
 through, read every printed scrap that can be found 
 relating to him, talk about him, discuss him (dream 
 about him, I suppose, will also be in order, and, in fact, 
 necessarily follow), love him, reverence him, do every-
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 355 
 
 thing, in fact, but eat him figuratively, we shall eat 
 him, too, by absorbing the vitality of his spirit, the 
 marrow and fatness of his views and principles, 
 which, assimilating with our mental tissue, will be- 
 come incorporated into our minds, and thus nourish 
 them, as truly as the food does the body. The deci- 
 sion is an important step, and, like every other one 
 that concerns me, is discussed viva voce in the family 
 circle. 
 
 Upon the announcement of an important measure 
 proposed for regulating my well-being (in the 
 gross, or minutiae) no one ventures to express an 
 opinion until Pater has delivered his. As a pre- 
 liminary, we usually skirmish to* find out where each 
 one stands, and look the field over, as it were, while 
 tossing our balls of wit and wisdom. Thus far, it is 
 simply an exhilarating exercise, but presently some 
 one happily is hit, by accident, and then we set to 
 work in earnest, to see which side will win the score, 
 for, as I have intimated, there are usually two par- 
 ties in this deliberative family game. 
 
 Pater repeated some well-worn maxims, by way of 
 introduction, as "Good in all, and none all good." 
 " One falls to the side towards which one leans." 
 " Non omnia possumus omnes" and the like ; while 
 Superba her round eyes fixed on Pater, but her 
 mind engaged in its own problems of family com- 
 fort, or, like Eve, " on hospitable thoughts intent," 
 I well knew, for absenteeism was visibly written 
 on her face catching the word Burns, ejaculated, 
 " Yes, it was burnt yesterday, and I must reprimand 
 Angeline this minute ; " reminding one of Mrs. Scott's 
 pleasantry on Lamb, which you may not have heard. 
 
 When Sir Walter finished some remark on Charles 
 Lamb, taking the cue only, she said : " Yes, indeed, 
 I always did admire lamb very much, especially 
 with mint-sauce." 
 
 Pater looks in the coals until Superba returns, 
 followed by " Peter the Great " with sherry. Pater 
 now warming up to the subject, gives running com-
 
 356 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 mentaries upon the leading stars in the literary 
 firmament, and I find my mind attracted, distracted, 
 now here, now there, and altogether very much un- 
 made-up. For each portraiture, like a magnet, drew 
 and repelled according to the pole presented. Car- 
 lyle, Goethe, Hamilton, Bacon, Hawthorne, Ruskin, 
 Irving, Addison, Buhver, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, 
 pass in review before us. (The poets, all but Shake- 
 speare, are excluded from the catalogue. Shakespeare 
 and the Bible are recommended as our vade-mecum.) 
 
 Pater proceeds inquires if'it is to be a study of 
 character *per se, or simply in its literary aspect 
 the man or the writer. For, he goes on to say, 
 " You get from a book many things if you read in a 
 desultory, aimless way, but all lying in penumbra, 
 dim, vague, and distant. But if you read with 
 sharpened faculties to find something, to get, as gold 
 from the mine or perhaps in this case money from 
 the bank would be a better illustration to express 
 the relative ease of getting as compared with creating 
 you secure just what you go for. You have in 
 your mind to draw fives, twenties, tens, bullion, 
 drafts you look for disposition, for talent, personal 
 habits, business habits, social qualities, for fine rhet- 
 oric, veins of poetry, logic, sophistry each or all, 
 you get according to the practiced eye you bring to 
 the search, and the fulness and variety of the treasury 
 from which you draw. The scientist notes configu- 
 rations and mineralogical conditions which reveal to 
 him the secret of the ore-bank in what to your untu- 
 tored vision is but a scantily wooded hill. (I did not 
 much relish this disparagement of my geological 
 knowledge, but took pains not to show my annoy- 
 ance.) Celia will find fifty four-leaved clover-stalks 
 while you are sauntering about idly peering for your 
 first." ' 
 
 This illustration was so true to fact, that I blushed 
 while I smiled, recalling the scenes (of which Pater 
 was in profound ignorance) of our last ramble. 
 
 " Then again," he continued, " if you read for ideas.
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR bOANE. 357 
 
 that is another tiling. So you must read Hamil- 
 ton, Locke, Aristotle, and metaphysics generally, until 
 you become familiar with the science as it now stands, 
 the embodiment or representative of a thousand flash- 
 ing brains, after which you can strike out for your- 
 self." 
 
 I now remarked that each and all these points were 
 to be considered in our study. 
 
 " It is plain, then," he resumed, " that you want the 
 best man and the best writer. If he have a genius 
 for writing, with no background of moral character, 
 you can neither love nor reverence him, however 
 much you may admire his writings. On the other 
 hand, if he be a model in all the relations of life 
 husband, father, citizen, friend, and write feebly, you 
 cannot admire his productions, however much you 
 may love and reverence the man. All have faults ; 
 necessarily, human nature has not yet put on per- 
 fection ; but it seems to me that your requirements 
 are to be met in the wisest writer with the fewest 
 blemishes of character*" 
 
 "Gran," who sat in her high-backed chair, straight 
 as an Indian and working like a Trojan at her self- 
 imposed task why, I have one drawer full now of 
 her knitted articles had been duly posted by your 
 obedient servant as to the general drift of the con- 
 versation, and now inquired timidly if any one had 
 mentioned Bunyan. 
 
 " Bunyan has a clear spiritual insight," said the 
 dear soul, " and Isaiah, too, is a sublime writer, and 
 I am sure you'll find, very pretty reading in Samuel " 
 (not at all disposed to have her Bible heroes over- 
 looked in the discussion and left out of the list for the 
 championship), " and the sweet singer of Israel has 
 stirred more hearts than all your authors put to- 
 gether!" she exclaimed boldly, dropping her knit- 
 ting, and with something of a flash in those still bril- 
 liant eyes -" and that is what you call eloquence, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 I explained that we were expected to read the Bible,
 
 353 THIS OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 and what we now wished to ascertain was the writer 
 in secular literature who would serve as the best 
 model. 
 
 " Well, well," she said, with a slight shade of an- 
 noyance, for she never likes to seem not to under- 
 stand, "you may hunt your libraries through and not 
 find one fit for a model 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ,' Channing ! Put Him on just as Booth does 
 Hamlet. Forrest did Macbeth. Study His character 
 just as faithfully as Booth studies the one he is going 
 to assume try to be Him ! I know you can't do that," 
 she said, looking squarely at me over her spectacles, 
 "but you can try, and you will be Christ-like, and 
 that is enough for 
 
 'Poor, -pale-faced, mortal clay, 
 Gone to-morrow, here to-day.' 
 
 What does Booth try to do? Isn't it to act exactly 
 as he thinks Hamlet did in each situation and under 
 all circumstances? How does he learn how to do it? 
 By studying the history of the times, and every action 
 and word of Hamlet, through his whole career then 
 he can put him on, and go before people and act him 
 out, that's the way, Channing, to 'put on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ.' Study the best model, and you'll win 
 the most stars, my child." 
 
 "Gran's" voice had gradually taken her usual fine, 
 far-away tone, but there was an inexpressible gentle- 
 ness in her closing sentence, and when she said, " Win 
 the most stars, my child," it was subdued and elo- 
 quent as an angers. 
 
 Dear, dear "Gran!" lam half inclined to be- 
 lieve she is right, Art, when I think of the empti- 
 ness of fame and how quickly we are borne away out 
 of sight and sound of all this glittering show we call 
 life, to lie cold and still " under the daisies." But I 
 am moralizing and (Tut! tut! this will never do! 
 I think some of the attenuated vapor in the comet's 
 tail must have got into my eyes they are so dim 
 just now.)
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 359 
 
 And yet I know that nearly all the great have had 
 a model they may not have recognized it as such, 
 but there has been one great master-spirit to which 
 theirs bowed, and whose animus they imbibed. 
 Carlyle had his Goethe, Goethe had Jean Paul, did he 
 not? Scores have had Shakespeare, and scores more 
 have never told us the name of their inspiring genius. 
 
 Rejecting rumor and traditionary gossip, and taking 
 only authorized accounts of his life, the Professor 
 desires us to become so familiar with our author's 
 history that we shall be able to cite any incident in 
 his career ; and as it is noteworthy that only the main 
 facts can be given in biographical histories, and those 
 are presumably of interest because selected, this 
 charge seems neither trifling nor unreasonable. We 
 are to get permeated with his identity, saturated with 
 his spirit, so that, when we come from contact with 
 him into the realms of the living, we may give them 
 the benefit of the drippings which will flow from us 
 in revivifying streams. 
 
 Have you seen " Blind Tom " in one of his analyt- 
 ical studies of music spells, trances, you might not 
 inaptly term them ? 
 
 While the musician touches the keys, have you 
 seen him sitting by, mute, motionless, with folded 
 arms and heaving chest, the eyelids closed (only the 
 inner vision awake, alert), drinking in the rich 
 burst of harmony, deftly extricating from it the 
 mechanics of the accompaniment and the clear strains 
 of the melody? Have you observed the deepened 
 breathings, the occasional undertones half concealed, 
 half audible of repressive power and nervous ex- 
 citement, as now, in steadily increasing sympathy 
 with the composer, he becomes impressed with the 
 rhythmic measure, his body swaying to and fro in the 
 exact movement of the composition, his soul laboring 
 in the tumult of impassioned feeling, until at last he 
 is en rapport with the composer? Hs has imbibed 
 his spirit, it overflows, his finger-ends are tingling 
 with it, and he is now ready to reproduce it! Nay
 
 360 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 more, with that as a nucleus, have you heard him 
 continue and enlarge the theme with musical group- 
 ings, lights and shadows, all his own ? 
 
 But to return. My mind is very much inclined to 
 Carlyle. I call him a literary hero of a noble type, 
 and a writer of consummate skill and vigor in his 
 line. And will not that line furnish me with an 
 equipment of ideas equal, if not superior, to minor 
 authors in more miscellaneous departments? 
 
 I think the study of his life will stimulate me to 
 develop the one great energy, perseverance (in which 
 I fear I am constitutionally deficient Mother Nature 
 got a parsimonious streak when the distribution came 
 tome), as well as conform my style to an unimpeach- 
 able standard. 
 
 I shall wait impatiently to hear your views on this 
 subject. 
 
 A decision of this kind ought not to be formed 
 at once. Pater's fears were aroused lest I should 
 decide too hastily ; but when he learned that we had 
 three months to reflect upon it, he seemed quite satis- 
 fied that I would come out all right. I thoroughly 
 appreciate this privilege of making sure of the merits 
 of favorite authors by renewed attention to their 
 works, and of reviewing the merits of others with 
 whom we are not so familiar, reserving our decision 
 until we enter the second term become Boddoes. 
 Then during the rest of the course it is obligatory 
 upon us to stick to our chosen guide. 
 
 So we have our little caucuses on all important 
 matters ; and like all caucuses, we are blest with a 
 leader, Pater usually taking that role upon himself, 
 reminding one, in his zeal to control each member of 
 the coterie, of a certain House-leader in* Congress. 
 
 The watchful, indefatigable Washburne, at one 
 time the leader of his party, ever on the alert himself, 
 like the old Roman, to "see that no harm befell the 
 republic," and anxious that every man in the party 
 should record himself aright, would invariably "drum 
 up " the members on the floor ; rallying his forces to
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 361 
 
 the front when voting- was in order, crying out lustily 
 to the laz\ r , the undecided, the inattentive, or the 
 preoccupied member not on his feet, " Up ! Brown, 
 Up ! Smith, Up ! Jones, Up ! Up ! " accompanying 
 each exclamation with a motion which of itself was 
 eloquent enough to lift them out of the quasi-hori- 
 zontal into the perpendicular a raising motion, vig- 
 orous, brisk, nervous, in striking contrast with the 
 indolent, indifferent, mechanical way in which they 
 obeyed the summons. 
 
 But sometimes, under Pater's leadership be it 
 observed with all deference I don't "Up" even 
 when he raises the rally ing-cry. Then I am rein- 
 forced by Superba and " Gran," and it generally 
 ends in Pater's beating an ignominious retreat. 
 
 Know, old " t'other half," that I shall be deep in 
 T. Carlyle, et aL, all my spare time now, and don't 
 dare to expect such a lengthened epistle as this, for 
 a space and half a space ! But, meantime, give me 
 the benefit of your reflecting mind fully, on this 
 weighty matter. If I am in danger of shipwreck or 
 smash-up, I want to know it, and would accept the 
 unwelcome information from none so cheerfully as 
 from my astute and well-beloved chum. 
 
 Faithfully, 
 
 CHAN.
 
 362 fltE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SIXTH "EXAMINATION" CULTIVATION OF A GOOD 
 STYLE. 
 
 " WOULD you say, Critobivlus, that the musical 
 professor has a certain technique, to which he re- 
 quires absolute fidelity in his pupils ? " 
 
 " If one wishes to master the art of music, he must 
 study the mechanical part of it with arbitrary exact- 
 ness, Ulysses." 
 
 " And is the same true of sketching and painting, 
 Critobulus?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Ulysses." 
 
 " Would it be fair, then, to draw the conclusion 
 that in each art there is a key, so to speak, which, 
 after constant use, turns easily the whole machinery 
 of the complex harmony of tones, whether of color or 
 of sound or of imagery?" 
 
 " Doubtless you are right, Ulysses, as the ' key ' to 
 perfection in any branch if it be only the simple 
 art of story-telling is repetition." 
 
 "The musical professor says to his pupil, 'The 
 scales! the scales! the scales!' The professor of 
 sketching says, ' Draw ! draw ! draw ! ' What, then, 
 shall the professor of design in literature say, but, 
 'Write! write! write!' What we do not possess, 
 my good young friends, we must make ; and let me 
 say, for your comfort, that sometimes the artificial 
 comes very close to the natural. Now, in order 
 to compose successfully, Critobulus, what supplies 
 must you have on hand as your composing fund?" 
 
 " Evidently a supply of words and ideas, Ulysses."
 
 EXAMINATION. ,%3 
 
 " Is it necessary, then, to be a philologist a lover 
 of words ? " 
 
 " It seems to me, Ulysses, that the successful 
 writer must appreciate words their fine shades of 
 meaning, their force, their fitness and in that sense 
 he would be a lover of them. I find myself quite 
 proud and happy, sometimes, when introduced to a 
 word, as if it were a rare acquaintance who would be 
 of use to me." 
 
 " Words are your pigments, Critobulus, and 
 your brain-tubes must be full of a choice variety. 
 And here your knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
 tongues will be of advantage in enabling you to 
 seize and fix them through their etymological bear- 
 ings. You need to add daily to your stock by com- 
 munion with the best authors." 
 
 " I have heard it said, Ulysses, that Chancellor 
 Kent read Blackstone through without getting an 
 idea." 
 
 " But was insensibly equipping, himself with his 
 tools, Ibycus. You may have an incipient shoe in 
 the glowing iron, but, if the hammer and anvil are 
 wanting, the shoe will remain invisible. So you may 
 read Homer through, if you are only an English 
 reader, without getting an idea ; but you will find it 
 impossible to resist the grandeur of its majestic sim- 
 plicity, and the sounding march of its rhythmic 
 melody will haunt every chamber of your brain, and 
 fill it with imagery a no small good, Ibycus." 
 
 " I would have you read Xenophon for perspicuity 
 and elegance, Homer for grandeur and simplicity, 
 Milton for lofty thought, choicest utterance, rich and 
 solemn imagery, Carlyle for vigor and originality, 
 both of style and thought, and for courageous dic- 
 tion ; read Carlyle and Goethe for ideas, read 
 Dickens and ' Twain ' for humor, read Ruskin for 
 noblest Christian sentiment conjoined with purest 
 artistic insight and conceptions ; and I would have 
 you read your Bible for inspiration, for a clear 
 spiritual vision, and a ' closer walk with God.'
 
 364 WE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 " But, while cultivation of style is good and neces- 
 sary for the finished writer, be careful not to sacrifice 
 sense to style ; the substance is more precious than 
 the form, the idea than the dress. Have in your 
 mind only the desire to present truth vividly, pun- 
 gently, and the spirit will shape its own agencies for 
 the communication. You will thus have your own 
 style, subject, doubtless, to classification under one 
 or more of the known orders, but essentially your 
 own. Especially will this be the case if yon have 
 been allowed to follow your natural bent in the small 
 discoveries and inventions which belong to the 
 imaginative period of youth, and fill the childhood 
 days with delight." 
 
 The Professor then took a volume from the desk, 
 and read aloud the following idyllic passage : 
 
 "On one occasion I was detained all day and all night at a house 
 of this kind, in listening to the tunes of a young man of the 
 family, who played well upon the Scottish pipes. I, in turn, 
 whistled several Tyneside tunes to him; so that we could hardly 
 get separated. Before my departure, next day, I contrived, by 
 stealth, to put some money into the hands of the children. I had 
 not got far from the house till I was pursued by a beautiful 
 woman, who accosted me in 'badish' English, which she must 
 have got off by heart just before she left the house, the purport of 
 which was to urge my acceptance of the usual present. This I 
 wished to refuse; but, with a face and neck blushed with scarlet, 
 she pressed it upon me with such sweetness while I thought, at 
 the same time, that she invited me to return that (I could not 
 help it) I seized her, and smacked her lips. She then sprang away 
 from me, with her bare legs, like a deer, and left me fixed to the 
 spot, not knowing what to do. I was particularly struck with her 
 whole handsome appearance. It was a compound of loveliness, 
 health, and agility. Her hair, I think, had been flaxen or light, 
 but was tanned to a pale brown by being exposed to the sun. 
 This was tied to a ribbon, and dangled down her back; and as she 
 bounded along it flowed in the air. I had not seen her while I 
 was in the house, and felt grieved because I could not hope 
 ever to see her more." 
 
 " In this bucolic sketch, the most uncultivated 
 student, with an eye for the beautiful, will recog- 
 nize an exquisite drawing by the hand of a master. 
 It is an etching, and it is more for, besides the 
 invention and outlines, you have here and there
 
 SIXTH EXAMINATION. 355 
 
 rare touches of color. In it reside the germs of three 
 pictures, oil paintings, if you will, after Hogarth or 
 
 \TT-11 f O 
 
 Wilkie. 
 
 " A room, bright with its culinary decorations on 
 wall and dresser, and with the merry eyes and laugh- 
 ing dimples of rosy-cheeked children, becomes vocal 
 with music now in the weird minor of the bagpipes, 
 now in the merry whistling of English ballad and 
 song, now in social laugh and chatter of male and 
 female voices. 
 
 " That is the material for your first picture. 
 
 " For your second, you portray just outside the low, 
 gambrel-roofed, chimney-hooded cottage, with its 
 surrounding low hedge of silver-edged holly under 
 a many-branched tree, the guest bending over three 
 upturned curly heads happy, childish faces all aglow 
 with innocent curiosity. 
 
 "But your central picture, the last in the narrative, 
 is so full of incident that you must select the most 
 prominent, or stretch your canvas into a panorama. 
 
 " Under the blue of heaven, in the midst of waving 
 grain and crimson poppies, a rustic beauty, with eyes 
 of lustrous hue, the pale brown of her hair shading 
 into gold, with blushing downcast mien, now presents 
 with graceful modesty the parting present and blush- 
 ingly urges its acceptance, now removes the embargo 
 from the sweet chalice of her lips, now flees like a 
 frightened deer back to its covert. 
 
 " Here is the keen perception of the artist, in the 
 quick and minute delineation of the figure, the dress, 
 the attitudes and expression, and the bounding flight 
 (which left him transfixed to the spot by the appari- 
 tion's sudden disappearance), the shaded hair, the 
 floating ribbon which tied the ends all in a few 
 seconds of time. 
 
 " Here is all the poetry of the boy that loved to 
 f lighten the oxen into the river to hear the ' delight- 
 ful dash ; ' all the art of the young man who devised 
 the vignettes and tail-pieces for the 'Select Fables;' ' 
 all the painter's love of color, and the author's sim- 
 plicity and quaintness of diction. This picture,
 
 366 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 traced on the retina of his eye in a few fleeting 
 seconds, is crystallized for us in print after fifty long 
 years (during which other scenes in life's miscel- 
 laneous picture-gallery were caught by the same 
 lens) in a few vivid lines of graphic power. 
 
 " It proves him to have possessed, besides the brain- 
 memory that locks up in its mystic chambers incidents 
 of the passing hour the eye-memory which ' went out 
 and looked at things, and came home and drew them.' 
 
 " But there is more than the artist and author here 
 there is a striking view of the man himself : the 
 genial guest that would contribute his share to the 
 social entertainment, and found and gave such 
 sympathy and fellowship that he ' could hardly get 
 separated;' the benevolent soul that had a kindly 
 corner for children in his heart ; the warm-hearted, 
 impulsive being that 'could not help it;' the tender, 
 susceptible youth that grieved because he ' could not 
 hope to see her more ' all this of the man's character, 
 besides the fresh and charming idyl, in a brief sketch 
 of twenty lines. 
 
 " But this could never have been done without 
 trained habits of observation,, gathered in the long 
 years of childhood, youth, and maturity. And this 
 trained habit, apparent now in his seventy-fifth year, 
 while writing the ' Memoir ' from which this extract 
 is taken, Thomas Bewick pre-eminently possessed. 
 It was his lie made it. He was without the culture 
 of the schools, having had only an elementary educa- 
 tion, but he had the three qualities essential to 
 literature observation, delineation, and 'invention 
 were his in such a marked degree that it is safe to 
 say he would have been as successful in literature as 
 in engraving, had he chosen this art. 
 
 " In conclusion, my good young friends, permit me 
 to give one admonition. 
 
 " The world of literature is open before you, and, 
 like the bee, you may flit from flower to flower in 
 gathering up your honeyed store ; but be sure that 
 you have as true an instinct as the bee in your choice. 
 Shun trash and obscenity as you would poison."
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DO AN IS. 367 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 
 
 DEAR ART: 
 
 This literary business is not all a " bed of down," 
 as I realized to my cost last night. I had had a 
 heavy day contending with an essay on the " Char- 
 acteristics of the Age ; " fishing up authorities on 
 other ages to make effective comparisons ; diving 
 anew into my Juvenal, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and 
 Euripides, to get the popular follies denounced by 
 those eminent dramatists, and worrying not a little 
 in the effort to establish my equation, and find out 
 the comparative values of the unknown quantities x 
 and y which in this case stood for art and religion. 
 At last, about eleven of the clock, Pater came in 
 as usual to get the temperance-beaker to his sherry 
 "night cap," which (you may not be aware) is the 
 picture of his "young hopeful " drawn up before the 
 table, his hand scribbling under the astral the im- 
 mortal thoughts that are to fix an imperishable halo 
 upon the name of Earle. I concluded to take his ap- 
 pearance as my own dismissal to the beautiful realm, 
 and seek my feverish couch ; and really, Art, the 
 vision of the dear old man in his long gown and tas- 
 seled cap, with the lighted candle in his hand and 
 the serenest of paternal smiles on his face, ought to 
 be a panacea to the fevered brain of any dutiful, well- 
 regulated son. What then could be more logically 
 inferential than that it ought to be one to me ? 
 
 I escorted (not flung) myself after due respect 
 to the disrobing process decorously to my " unsung
 
 368 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 and unwept couch," whispered to myself a soft, good- 
 night, and "fell off into slumber land," do you 
 say? Not a bit of it. Lights out! is a good com- 
 mand, but it does not infallibly extinguish the lights 
 within. 
 
 Busier than ever, the phosphorescent brain-waves 
 were all aglow, and in their weird radiance I found 
 myself constructing sentences, with an exquisite, sil- 
 very finish, as it seemed to me in my partially dazed 
 state. There were some in particular that would not 
 leave me. 
 
 I conned them over and over, and stowed them 
 away in my cerebral lock-up for future use, then 
 again courted sleep: this time with some show of suc- 
 cess, for I was just upon the dizzy verge, when -hang 
 it all! 1 felt a shock that was like a charge from a 
 hundred Leyden jars, and awoke with a start, to find 
 Duty pulling at me to get up and write it down im- 
 mediately, for in the morning it would be dust and 
 ashes ! 
 
 Remembering my promise to Superba, and men- 
 tally denouncing the whole scribbling fraternity, I 
 turned over to light the candle which is always on a 
 table by my bed-side. Carefully feeling all over the 
 top, nothing whatever came in contact witli my pha- 
 langes that night of all nights, the only one in which 
 such a literary revelry had been possible orderly, 
 methodical Phillis had omitted to put the illumina- 
 tor in its accustomed place ! I knew then, Art, that 
 there was nothing for it but to turnout and light up 
 the " Student." 
 
 But the domestic element was not the only one 
 arrayed against me, Art the forces of Nature had 
 evidently conspired with Phillis. Probably consider- 
 ing that a smart lesson in "heroics" would put new 
 tone into me, old Mother Nature stirred some frost 
 into the air that night by way of variety, and I stood 
 there shivering while I drew off the contents of the 
 match-box without getting one spark ! 
 
 Thunder and Lightning! what did it mean? I
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 369 
 
 wished in my soul that it would lighten, for then I 
 could see ; or that I had the necessary saltpetre, 
 charcoal, and sulphur to mix up a little for home con- 
 sumption. 
 
 Never make a promise, Art, and then you'll never 
 rue it. I paused to consider the next step. I knew 
 that if Superba caught the sound of my endeavors, 
 she would have the whole household summoned to 
 my aid and hers, to account for the missing links be- 
 tween me and the world of light. I knew I could 
 pull my bell and summon Phillis, who would think 
 it only a just expiation of her crime if she should 
 be kept wandering through the halls all night. But 
 what can a man do, Art, when he is filled with a 
 weak generosity towards the fair sex? My warm 
 heart would not permit me to disturb the serenity of 
 the female mind, or expose hr slightly draped form 
 to the chances of rheumatism and what not. So after 
 upsetting a vase or two and fumbling over everything 
 on the table, from a book to the piece of eraser, I at 
 last fastened to a pencil. A raid for some paper was 
 clearly next in order. My ardor being now some- 
 what cooled, I decided to write upon anything that 
 came to hand (how literal !) presenting a flat sur- 
 face, even if it should be my diploma ! It would be 
 reasonable enough to expect to find a literary man's 
 table scattered all over with blank sheets but the 
 acutest thinker will sometimes be caught without his 
 kerchief when he has a cold, and to my dismay, Art, 
 I remembered now that I had just finished the last 
 page of a quire, as Pater put his head in the door. 
 If I wrote on my manuscript I might succeed in mak- 
 ing a fine palimpsest, to be sure, but where would be 
 the Tischendorf in the morning to decipher it? I 
 thought of the fly-leaf of my Bible, but remembered 
 that it was full of sage maxims and holy verses copied 
 by dear "Gran's" old, trembling fingers, and my 
 reverence for age wouldn't let me touch that. 
 
 Luckily now I felt something hard as I leaned 
 against the back of the chair in which I was sitting
 
 370 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 in despair, and at once discovered that it was the 
 pocket of my waistcoat. With a sigh of relief I remem- 
 bered a note sent by the fair Celia that day. It was 
 soon in my benumbed fingers for, mind you, I was 
 still clad in the "trailing garment of the night "- 
 expecting when I first left my snug quarters to make 
 a dash and turn in again in a Hash, 1 had not seen (oh, 
 the satire of the figure !) a moment since when I 
 could stop to get on my dressing-gown. 
 
 I wrote as well as I could in the dark. I send you 
 the copy to put you in a certain sense in juxtaposi- 
 tion with my misery, trusting to the honor of a friend 
 that you let not your eyes linger too fondly on the 
 fair Celia's chirography. Siie would send me to Cov- 
 entry for a month and a day if she knew it had been 
 out of my hands, but I can trust your honor and in 
 the interests of art, you know, find myself excusable. 
 
 Superba laughed and wept by turns when I re- 
 counted my midnight adventure at the breakfast- 
 table ; pronounced me of martyr-stuff, said she always 
 knew I had a talent for literature, and the- genius 
 of perseverance (and Pater put in, gifted with the 
 courage of his convictions which was particularly 
 soothing as I was at that moment privately berating 
 myself for a stupid idiot), and that the sentences were 
 brilliant and cutting as a diamond " really quite 
 Horatian now, dear," she added, fondly. 
 
 She assured me that I should "never, never, be so 
 put about again," for some way must be contrived 
 for me to have everything convenient (as if it wasn't 
 too utterly convenient now, dear soul !) and she was 
 sure that she could have an electric light introduced 
 at my head-board, so that by simply touching the 
 knob, light would be there ; " and perhaps I can so ar- 
 range it," she said reflectingly, " that you can touch 
 a spring and open a drawer also, in the bed only 
 that is a little more doubtful," she said, slowly shak- 
 ing her head. 
 
 Dear Superba! she would have knobs all over 
 me if that would only spring me into literary celeb-
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR VOANE. 371 
 
 rity ! and she is actually out on a mission this morn- 
 ing, to have the thing in working order by night, i 
 doubt not she will succeed, for when has the good 
 soul failed in anything she has undertaken to sim- 
 plify for me this crawling into fame ? She extorted a 
 promise however, that I should not use it for any 
 lengthened inspiration, only for striking iridescent 
 fragments, likelast night's production. There were a 
 few others of an epigrammatic nature, one of which 
 Superba declared worthy of Socrates, and which, 
 she said, showed that I had "workedit out " not know- 
 ing, dear innocent critic, that the very thing to con- 
 demn it would be the indication of labor. But she 
 had the local setting in her mind, which was doubt- 
 less enough to make it heroic the midnight quarry 
 and the son, who is her heart's idol, toiling away at 
 his excavations ; in the very nature of the case he 
 would dig out nuggets of glittering gold. (I will 
 give you the thoughts.) 
 
 This art-decorating, finger-polishing age ! An age 
 when manners usurp the place of morals, and fine 
 speeches are considered a substitute for noble feelings. 
 An age in which Chesterfields are indigenous and 
 Garfields exotics. An age when each sex takes for 
 its motto, Arise, shine in the social world ! An age 
 in which a generous rivalry in bangles and almond- 
 shaped nails stimulates the minds of our girls, and 
 the "german" and the bicycle cultivate the muscle 
 of our boys ! 
 
 The Professor smiled when we gave him some of 
 the picturesque effects of our loyality. 
 
 He says we must win the muse by devotion to her 
 most trifling wish, her lightest whisper. Capricious, 
 haughty, and exacting, she is fond of coquetry, but 
 not in her lover. From him she will not take a slight 
 or suspicion of indifference. She penetrates the dis- 
 guise in which the half-assent of the reluctant wooer 
 lies concealed, and values it accordingly. He said : 
 
 " She is trying you now, advancing coyly, but never- 
 theless expecting recognition, admiration,and homage.
 
 3T2 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 You may discourage her by indifference, or ignore 
 and thus repulse her. 
 
 "At first she approaches timidly, stealing behind 
 you, and vanishing when you turn and look at her. But 
 if you are an ardent suitor, you wait and watch for 
 her coming once more. She repays you with a smile, 
 and bow of recognition to your face. Again you 
 wait, and watch, and lo ! she comes with a gentle 
 dignity and holds converse with you. Now you are 
 enraptured but be cautious ! she is erratic. You 
 have enticed her into your presence, her stay depends 
 upon your fealty. When she discovers, after repeated 
 visits, sincerity in your devotions and alacrity in your 
 obedience to her whims as well as her requirements, 
 with easy frankness, and yet with dignified sweetness, 
 at last she is all your own. But she is a jealous mis- 
 tress, and will share with no one else her rights. You 
 must be her willing slave if you would wear her lov- 
 ing favors." 
 
 But, notwithstanding all the encouragement held 
 out by. the Professor, dear Art, I am still skeptical of 
 my success. A man's vocation is born in him, not 
 made for him, and, when too late, I fear my devoted 
 parents will concede that the art of literature was 
 not born in me mathematics was. I have been a 
 Euclid from my cradle, and for my tombstone 
 desire no better inscription than Archimedes' : 
 
 After all, there is nothing like^trying, and nil 
 desperandum is still the motto of, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHANNING.
 
 SEVENTH EXAMINATION. 373 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SEVENTH " EXAMINATION " LACK OF INCIDENT IN 
 THE NOVEL. 
 
 " ANSWER me this question, Achilles : is it not 
 clear that authors are pushing their metaphysical 
 analysis of motive a little too far in our modern 
 novel ? " 
 
 " I grant, Ulysses, that it is painfully monotonous 
 to follow the lengthened and frivolous discussions 
 on ' Why Stanhope deserted his wife,' or ' What all 
 the world thought about the way Serena parted her 
 hair.' We are reminded of the debates of the Middle 
 Age schoolmen, philosophically speculating on the 
 number of spirits that could sit on the point of the 
 finest cambric needle discussions as useless in the 
 one "case as the other, it seems tome, and productive 
 of the most barren amusement." 
 
 " But are you not acquainted with the fact, Achilles, 
 that it is the fashion to approve this kind of novel ? 
 that the talent of successful introversion is, in fact, 
 the key to popularity just now ? " 
 
 " Be it so ; but is it not also evident that he who 
 climbs by a stronger ladder will reach a more lasting 
 fame?" 
 
 " Are you willing, then, that we consider some of 
 the weak rounds in the favorite ladder of to-day?" 
 
 " Assuredly, Ulysses." 
 
 " Is it true that the plot may be meager, but the 
 mental analysis in setting it forth must be discrim- 
 inating and exhaustive ? In unwinding the laby- 
 rinthine processes of thought developed in this or
 
 374 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 that possible or real contact with others especially 
 as relating to the flaming of the love-lamp in the 
 hero and heroine does a keen eye and skillful hand 
 carry the reader through the prolonged distractions 
 and wild upheavals of passion, the dull throbbings 
 of despair, the feeble meanings of hopelessness, or the 
 bitter lamentations of disappointment ? " 
 
 "This is considered fundamental, Ulysses." 
 
 " But do you. think it possible, Achilles, for the 
 healthy mind to permit a Damocles sword to hang 
 over it in terror for months, or to remain for years in 
 sight of the water which Tantalus forever presents, 
 forever withdraws ? Such mental conditions are 
 found in the insane asylum, Achilles, but the healthy 
 mind, with the quick instinct of a child, sees, reflects, 
 decides. Then, since it is either weakness or wicked- 
 ness that causes mental inaction, is the case then thus, 
 that the particular mental states which require sucli 
 protracted portrayal are diseases of the mind ? " 
 
 " So it appears, Ulysses." 
 
 " But are they so set forth in the novel, Achilles?" 
 
 " That is quite overlooked, Ulysses ; the attempt 
 is to make them the most fascinating parts of the 
 novel." 
 
 " It appears, then, that, since we are not warned, 'we 
 may inadvertently imbibe some poison not because 
 we admire such characters, but because we have 
 been under their influence." 
 
 "It seems that you are riglit, Ulysses. In these 
 rushing days of heart and brain, there is but one out 
 of a thousand in real life that indulges in extended 
 speculations about his love-affairs ; and that one we 
 have read and studied ad nauseam forever on the 
 show-board as he is put by every imitator of Hugo 
 and Eliot."" 
 
 " They claim a departure from the old lines on 
 which the romance was run, Achilles. They pretend 
 to renounce that school of fiction, with its impossible 
 situations and improbable adventure, culminating in 
 the wildly sensational climax ; but they go to the
 
 SEVENTH EXAMINATION. 375 
 
 other extreme and substitute realism, with its uni- 
 versal metaphysical genius for a kind of spiritual 
 vivisection, and give us ghastly dissections of char- 
 acter and scientific probings of the hidden motives 
 and secret springs of action. Is not this a question- 
 able improvement? It is, I grant, admissible with 
 purely artistic novel-writing, but only so far as it 
 conduces to pleasure. A bed of rose-leaves will 
 turn sour through frequent use, and 'linked sweet- 
 ness long drawn out' through the pages of an octavo 
 novel becomes somewhat stale ere the close. 
 
 " We follow the lovesick Herman through ninety 
 and nine variations of his fever ; at the hundredth we 
 are ready to toss him over as a silly fellow, and quit 
 the book altogether. He looks romantic, we feel 
 sure, standing on the outer edge of the gay group 
 surrounding the fair creature who had a mortgage on 
 his heart (whom it is now fashion to represent as a 
 lady with preoccupied affection or a pre-engaged des- 
 tiny), in a brilliant assembly, sulking, and gnawing 
 his mustache, but in real life we should call him a dis- 
 agreeable bore only fit for his books, cat, and library. 
 
 "Dorothea speaks sweetly and gently while she 
 takes one glove off ; speaks gayly and gently while 
 she tosses it on the mantel ; or with a fine color on 
 her cheek, she stoops to adjust a tidy or pick up the 
 rose just fallen from her belt. Bless you, Dorothea! 
 we are quite indifferent to those little matters. You 
 may pick up pins and adjust your draperies to your 
 dear little heart's content, but pray do not expect us 
 to be in a state of bewildered admiration every time 
 you turn your vain little head or raise your pink 
 satin slipper ! 
 
 " The * moving accident ' and dire catastrophe 
 which gave zest to the romance, and indeed to the 
 novels after Richardson's time, were pushed into 
 exaggeration and sensuality to such a degree as to be- 
 come sensationally vulgar, and they justly passed into 
 decline and oblivion. But the other extreme is now 
 reached in the barrenness of incident and the plethora
 
 376 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 of sentiment. The exigency of the case demanded 
 careful pruning, but no such demolition of the boughs 
 artd branches ; and while in the new departure a 
 brave show of leaves over the unsightly trunk was 
 politic and artistic, neither art nor expediency would 
 justify the umbrageous spread of a forest over one 
 poor torso. 
 
 " Society men and women, particularly (and they 
 are the popular characters in vogue for the novel of 
 this era), do not trouble themselves with such close 
 scrutiny of motif m those -whom they meet. They 
 have not the time they are in a vortex ; they have not 
 the taste or inclination they are deep in aesthetics; 
 they have not the talent the novel and the magazine, 
 the club and the newspaper, furnish current news and 
 easy diction ; and as for the rest, they inquire Cui 
 bono? sip their sherbet, and vex not their easy souls; 
 and they would abhor themselves in dust and ashes 
 at the very thought of prying into the secret cham- 
 bers of their neighbors' brains. 
 
 " The romance was unhealthf ul, with its lawless com- 
 binations of circumstance and method, its escapades 
 and tragic denouements, its marvellous mingling of 
 high and low life, which stimulated vicious appetites 
 and threw so rosy a charm over a false life, that the 
 youth were enticed into a search for -its counterpart in 
 real life. But is it more healthful, think you, Achilles, 
 to teach the young to psychologize the souls around 
 them to such an extent, that they pronounce, with 
 the air of ' I am Sir Oracle,' the underlying motive 
 when only the action is patent ? In the art of diag- 
 nosing mental states, may they not, through the 
 subtle operation of sympathy, fall into them? 
 
 " Fascinating, no doubt, is the study of human 
 nature to many minds, and, to the philanthropist or 
 the minister who deals directly with mind, perhaps 
 important ; I say ' perhaps,' because for purposes of 
 moral suasion I \yould rather be ignorant of the lay 
 of the spiritual land, with its biases, peculiarities, and 
 tendencies it is a gradual revelation of the special
 
 SEVENTH EXAMINATION. 377 
 
 identity of a man that is best met and appealed to 
 by the swift charge of unstudied oratory unprej- 
 udiced by preconceived notions of what is, was, or 
 might be. 
 
 " This analysis of motive is not productive of good 
 in real life it cheapens goodness and degrades 
 honor. Why? Because it cultivates, under the 
 guise of character-reading supposed to be a notable 
 gift and of vast benefit to its possessor an absolu- 
 tism of the ego princeps. in him who judges, 
 and a habit of ever-present suspicion that the deed 
 is not genuine, because of another and more selfish 
 motive than the apparent one, and consequently less 
 worthy of admiration. And while never truth was 
 clearer than that the student oftenest projects his 
 own image upon subjects he is analyzing, and thus 
 quite unconsciously dissects himself, never is this 
 truth realized by him at the moment. Really he 
 is conjuring in his brain what he would do under 
 like circumstances, as he can never be sufficiently 
 filled with the personale of another spirit to present 
 it infallibly. 
 
 "And now if you urge, Achilles, that his charac- 
 ters are the products of his brain, and not subject to 
 the laws of life, it must still be acknowledged that he 
 collects his impressions from life and takes them for 
 his data in his reasoning processes and logical con- 
 clusions. Accustomed to regulate the mental brains 
 of his automata, he easily assumes that the living are 
 equally subject to his skillful manipulations, and be- 
 comes dogmatic and arbitrary .in his judgments of 
 men, which are sometimes harsh and often mistaken. 
 All of this tends to diminish the supply of that 
 heavenly charity of which our world stands in so 
 much need. 
 
 " I submit, if this is not an evil demanding instant 
 remedy." 
 
 " What say you, my good friends, shall we nave 
 some plums in our pudding once more ? It is becom- 
 ing quite pasty in our mouths through lack of fruit
 
 378 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 and spicy condiment ! We shall keep our seats in 
 the face of a catastrophe or two, and a ' moving 
 accident ' would be pleasantly suggestive of the pano- 
 rama of life. For life, the model, be it remembered, of 
 the novelist, is full of dramatic situations, plots, and 
 counterplots, and only of interest as a life to the 
 general reader when there is enough vitality in it 
 to produce or arrange them. Some lives are as full 
 of ' moving accidents ' as the corals on the neck of 
 the babe beads of color and of aesthetic outline and 
 shall they be ignored because, forsooth, certain 
 authors, being introspective, find their superabundant, 
 motionless sentiment a marketable product and the 
 best capital in the trade of book-making ! " 
 
 " But," said Thesetetus, sharply, "this would be go- 
 ing back to the time of Scott ; most of us have be- 
 come quite tired of grandiloquent scenes and stilted 
 heroes." 
 
 " No doubt, Thesetetus ; I know many orderly 
 people who are quite tired of the Bible, but it is 
 nevertheless a genuine treasury of gold. No, let 
 us have healthy incident, fresh narrative, and true 
 actors not puttering puppets on the stage of our 
 ideal novel. Better the prolix Richardson, who at 
 least was true to his intention of representing life 
 and manners, and fell not into masquerading them 
 like the hypocritical divinity that presides over the 
 destiny of the remodelled modern novel. For if the 
 minutiae of daily life are drawn out with tedious 
 exactness, the character of Pamela, for sweet grace 
 and noble dignity in perilous, unexpected situations, 
 stands without a rival in the ranks of fiction; while 
 her shy prudence and native wisdom, her unschooled 
 tact and Christian fidelity to principle, give a rare 
 luster to her beauty and make her worthy of emulation 
 in private life."
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 379 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LETTER TO AKTHUR DOANE. 
 
 "I thank the goodness and the grace 
 
 That on my life have shone, 
 And made me in these art-full days 
 A friend of Arthur Doane." 
 
 EVEN if you are, my dear chum, too reverential to 
 enjoy my improved version of the old stanza, you are 
 not too humble to appreciate the compliment con- 
 tained in it, and will, 1 hope, make due acknowledg- 
 ment for the same. I am almost smitten with re- 
 morse when I consider the sad truth in the double 
 entendre, found in the third and fourth Iambuses of 
 the third verse. That I, Channing Earle, should 
 ever live to play a double part in life, quite staggers 
 me. Sometimes I am tempted to pull up stakes and 
 pitch my tent, elsewhere. My whole course of life 
 thus far has shown (when there was method enough 
 in it to show anything) that the bent of my mind is 
 towards mathematics and why could I not find an 
 honorable profession in that department, and so be 
 true to my nature and my taste? Civil engineering 
 is lucrative and of sufficient importance to command 
 a good social status ; or I might be Professor of 
 Mathematics, or Astronomical Professor which would 
 be just to my mind. 
 
 When the grind is hardest in this field, I find 
 myself turning to " conic sections" for refreshment ; 
 I entertain myself with cutting the maximum para- 
 bola from a given right cone, and find the exercise 
 as exhilarating as champagne, or since that simile 
 will be without. effect upon your temperate soul say 
 Nicholas elixir of vol. ammonia, and as soothing as 
 Chartreuse cordial. I ask myself again and again if
 
 380 THE OPAL QUEEN. 
 
 I have any right to even attempt to turn the whole 
 current of my being into a channel where it can never 
 course with . the full steady flow of a river that re- 
 ceives impetus from mountain springs and gushing 
 torrents pouring into it and accelerating its course. 
 There are no hidden springs for me to unearth in 
 all the gloomy, arid waste of land you call literature. 
 We have already tons too many books. I am almost 
 ready to excuse the vandalism of Caliph Omar when 
 he gave his command to destroy the Alexandrian 
 library. But how much is yet to be learned of the 
 starry fields, where are " Arcturus, Orion, and the 
 chambers of the south 1 " How much room is there 
 for scientific inquiry and investigation in discovering 
 the nature of planetary influences, star-dust masses, 
 aerial and lunar tides, and revealing God's wonderful 
 workings in the harmonious yet complex movements 
 of suns and systems of suns ! Or my fondness for 
 the solution of difficult mathematical problems might 
 be exercised to advantage in some of the applied 
 sciences. 
 
 On the other hand, I ask myself if my parents 
 may not reasonably expect the gratification and be 
 allowed the privilege of choosing a calling for me, 
 especially when I know that they have been looking 
 forward for twenty years to the fulfillment of a cher- 
 ished hope in regard to it. Can I disappoint them 
 utterly without making one effort to attain to the 
 height of their wishes ? Could I bear to see them 
 bowed down with grief that the son of their old age 
 their Benjamin, their only one should deliberately, 
 and, as it would seem to them, maliciously and 
 obstinately turn his back upon the prestige which a 
 long line of illustrious ancestors gives him, set aside 
 the claims of an unborn posterity, and be the first to 
 break the link in this chain of celebrated litterateurs? 
 
 Art, my courage fails, I must still longer play at 
 this work though, by Dox, the truth is I never dug 
 so hard in my life. The Latin Syllabus was a baga- 
 telle to it, and Homer a tennis-ball but in the sense
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR bOANE. ^1 
 
 of accomplishing anything valuable I am playing, 
 fooling, wasting my time, and wearing out rny 
 patience. This, verily, is filial devotion with a ven- 
 geance. The question is, will it pay ? as we say in 
 the mercenary language of the day. That, however, 
 is a conundrum that time alone can decide. Perhaps 
 I have already an upward tendency. The author is 
 expected to philosophize occasionally, even if he be 
 simply a^novelist, and if abstraction is any indication 
 of a philosopher, there will, according to present 
 appearances, soon be sufficient proof that I may lay 
 claim to that distinction. 
 
 ight mys 
 
 or been caught in strange "tricks and manners." I 
 turned the water spiggot and put my match under 
 it to light the gas, brushed my hair with my hand 
 mirror, folded my handkerchief and put it in the 
 ring at breakfast, and carried off the table-napkin in 
 my pocket ; and had I been the cook, doubtless 
 would have held the egg in my hand and put my 
 watch in to boil. I have not quite come to putting 
 my coat and trousers into bed and hanging myself 
 over a chair, but falling into a puzzle this morning, 
 over one of the knotty points in this "Rise and 
 Progress" business while washing my hands, I actu- 
 ally prolonged the operation of wiping them for a 
 whole hour! and would no doubt, have been obliv- 
 ious of the whole transaction, had not Phillis been 
 a spy upon my movements. Passing by my door, 
 she saw me standing in the middle of the room with 
 my eyes fixed upon a corner of the ceiling and my 
 hands mechanically going through the drying process 
 with the towel. Phillis, having become somewhat 
 accustomed to my eccentricities, is in a state of con- 
 stant expectancy for some new and surprising devel- 
 opment in this quarter of the house, so she thought 
 nothing of it until an hour later (as she declares 
 upon oath) she found me still standing, wiping and
 
 382 fits OPAL 
 
 rubbing, rubbing and wiping continuously, and with 
 such a dazed expression on my face that she imme- 
 diately called Superba who routed me out of 
 that trance, I can tell you, quicker than lightning. 
 And a shock it was, to come from the seventh heaven 
 of philosophical speculation to the pomps and vanities 
 of this life. But it was an experience and I had 
 " worked it out." It will never again be a marvel 
 to me that Socrates could stand from dawn to dawn 
 through the livelong night, while a soldier at Potidea, 
 looking into the sky in that fixed, immovable atti- 
 tude, solving his great problems of the secret of life, 
 or, as he expressed it, "why anything comes into 
 being, exists, -or perishes." 
 
 Why have I not heard from you? Write at once to 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 CHANNING. 
 
 P. S. Nearly all learned men are mosaics, Flor- 
 entine or Roman, according to the locality of the 
 birth, style, and quality of materials used in their 
 composition, and the master of design and his co-op- 
 eratives, that have the handling or construction of 
 them mstruction, we call it, but is there not, side 
 by side with this process, the coequal of imperceptible 
 construction of character progressing? 
 
 Examine one. By careful analysis, you find the 
 glass, trenchant, cutting, of a Juvenal or a Thackeray ; 
 the color of a Titian or a Turner ; the passion of a 
 Shakespeare; the imagery of a Moliere or a Massey ; 
 the harmony of a Virgil; the simplicity of a Homer; 
 the precision of an Archimedes ; the delicacy of a 
 Longfellow orVanBeust; the patience of a Palissy; 
 the fearlessness of a Carlyle ; the richness of a Ten- 
 nyson ; the dexterity of a Hugo or a Dumas all 
 these and more ; yes, more than the 25,000 shades of 
 color in the smalts of mosaics, are the innumerable 
 potent agencies that go to make up that interesting 
 and valuable piece of work, an educated man ! 
 
 Mere bits, in fact, of the lives of other men and
 
 LETTS ft TO ARTHUR 1)0 AN E. 383 
 
 other women wonderfully arranged into this com- 
 pound we call a new being; very complex, very 
 intricately and insensibly blended nothing but a 
 mosaic after all ! but a mosaic made by the Divine 
 Artificer, in which the vitalizing cement not only 
 fixes the tesserae, but assimilates them so as to pro- 
 duce new and artistic designs ! 
 
 Once in a while an original flashes into being a 
 Bunvan, that magnificent monolith, made out of a 
 simple shaft quarried from God's word, which awes 
 and inspires by its height, its simple majesty, and 
 the glimpses of heaven we get from its top, as well 
 as the lessons for earth we derive from its base ! or 
 a Homer, that mountain of granite boulders washed 
 up from the ocean of eternity upon the sands of 
 time ! inimitably picturesque in its rugged disorder, 
 unapproachably sublime in its towering heights, its 
 raging torrents, and the secret, musical flow of its 
 icy depths ; with its snowy top now glistening in 
 the white sunlight, now rosy with the "after-glow," 
 now rich and varied with the purple circumambient 
 air marking its lines in deeper tone and shades of 
 color down every ridge and chasm, and the massive 
 shadows of its rock-ribbed breast, it stands in the 
 still beauty of solemn strength, a beacon, a banner, 
 a model a shining mark for all mankind ! 
 
 The foregoing, my dear Art, are some verbatim 
 extracts from this morning's " examination " on 
 Originalit} r in Literature. 
 
 The mosaic figure pleases me very much, and 
 suggests another directly in my cherished line of 
 thought. You have, for example, the corpuscles of 
 a Dickens, we will say that will give you richness 
 of tone and coloring ; the fibrin of a Carlyle that 
 will indicate strength ; the albumen for toughness 
 and so on, I need not go on with all the constituent 
 elements of the mortal man you will see from this 
 how easy it is to construct an illustrative man on 
 
 this basis. 
 
 CHAN.
 
 384 THE OPAL 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 EIGHTH " EXAMINATION " TIME AND PLACE FOR 
 WRITING STEADINESS TO FINISH WORK. 
 
 "TELL me, Etithydemus, if it is true, as physiolo- 
 gists assert, that some of our bodily functions whose 
 movements are beyond the control of the will are 
 governed by habit? As for instance, the stomach 
 consents with reluctance to a change in the dining- 
 hour from midday to evening, if it has been accus- 
 tomed to the former, or resents the intrusion of a 
 dinner at noon, if it has been accustomed to the lat- 
 ter?" 
 
 " I have good reason to assent to this, Ulysses, if 
 no physiologist had uttered it ; for while on my visit 
 to Achilles, whose dining-hour is six. my head 
 thumped with provoking regularity every afternoon 
 for the meal to which it had been accustomed at mid- 
 day." 
 
 " It does not, therefore, appear strange to you, 
 Euthydemus, that the powers of the mind should 
 run more easily if they have fixed times for their 
 action-?" 
 
 "Assuredly not, Ulysses ; man is called a bundle 
 of habits, and the strange thing is, that he ever ac- 
 complishes anything without system and regularity 
 the genius, is, I think, the only exception to the 
 rule that method is productive of the best results." 
 
 " For the average man, then, it would appear to 
 you best that a time for writing should be selected, 
 and that time daily adhered to ? " 
 
 " I agree with you that this is necessary for the 
 worker, Ulysses. It will doubtless be a triumph to 
 train one's self in such a habit that when the harness
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DO AXE. .".SH 
 
 is put on the steed will go, with the precision of the 
 trained beast of the fire-engine." 
 
 " Methodical regularity accompanied by good di- 
 gestion will secure this good result, Euthydemns. 
 Take care of your liver, and write by the clock." 
 
 ' Some write best in the morning, some in the 
 afternoon, some only at night when quiet reigns. 
 The time is immaterial, with the exception which I 
 will mention although the presumption is that stu- 
 dents acquainted with hygiene know it well there 
 must be an interval of rest after each meal. One 
 hour, at least, must be given to the digestive facul- 
 ties, and rest or quiet recreation may be taken then ; 
 and unless the press of work is heavy, two hours 
 should be taken for the reinforcement oif the physical 
 being. Npthing is gained by neglect of this rule : 
 over-zealousne.>s must be paid for in inferior work as 
 well as waste of nerve and tissue. Nature's equa- 
 tions must -have balanced members if there is to be 
 tranquillity of soul. There must be no appearance 
 of effort in a work designed to please, therefore 
 select the time for your writing when the spirit is 
 willing and the flesh strong let it breathe of roses, 
 morning-dew, and hill-tops, and not of heated draw- 
 ing-rooms which breed moody speculations, vaporous 
 inanities, and dolorous situations." 
 
 " And would you consider it reasonable also, Enthy- 
 dcmus, to have some place secure from approach or 
 interruption, and to guard your nerves against undue 
 excitement, especially that \vhich arises from the play 
 of bad passions, such as anger, hate, and revenge? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Ulysses, Carlyle understood that 
 when he insisted upon being master of his own house 
 so that he could bang his door in the faces of those 
 whom he disliked." 
 
 "A figurative expression, Euthydemus, to indicate 
 the necessity of freedom from intrusion. For the 
 best work, silence and seclusion are essential, espe- 
 cially when there is a drag upon the spirit in the 
 shape of a diseased body. 
 
 25
 
 386 THE OPAL QUEEX. 
 
 u There are different tastes. We cannot, if we 
 would, bring all to tlie same mode of acting and 
 thinking, any more than we can compel them to like 
 the same dish. You, my Clito, are fond of your 
 gravy on your potato, but Aristarchns, who chooses 
 liis upon the meat, would complain of indigestion for 
 a week, if you forced him to eat of your dish ; while 
 Critias has no relish for his dinner unless a clean, 
 space upon the plate is dedicated to the sauce, so that 
 lie may tincture this and that to his fancy. To be 
 tolerant of other people's opinions and notions is not 
 easy, but indispensable to right living. 
 
 " Mi-. Tossoft' writes to-day with enthusiasm a hur- 
 ried criticism of Froude's * Caesar;' to-morrow he is 
 fired with indignation against the British Occupation 
 of Alexandria, and begins an elaborate article for the 
 press ; the next day he takes up the discussion of 
 Social Reforms, and adds some twenty pages to its 
 length ; and if you glance at the shelves in his book- 
 case, you will see scores of MSS. in various stages of 
 preparation and completion. Does it seem to you, 
 Clito, that he is wasting his forces? " 
 
 " So it seems to me, Ulysses." 
 
 " You would agree, then, with me that it is better 
 to finish as you go, especially in portraiture. Do not 
 leave until some future time which is no time the 
 delineation of .some strong point in character. You 
 will work most successfully when your thoughts are 
 all heated and fused, ready for the mould. In the 
 glow of composition with nervous energy and feeling 
 held up to their best level, your touch will be more 
 unerring than afterwards, when the palette lies daubed 
 and the brushes stiff. Then, too, you are in best trim 
 to keep the mind up to your first impression- -for you 
 will find one of the most difficult as well as import- 
 ant tasks belonging to your art is that of reproducing 
 the exact strength of the first impressions ; difficult, 
 because of the slow transcript by pen and paper; 
 important, because rarely is the thought or scene 
 presented to the mind twice alike, and never as
 
 LETTER TO ARTHUR DOAX& 387 
 
 vividly as at first. Have you not found it so, 
 Clito?" 
 
 " I sometimes start with a thought, Ulysses, 
 which turns out, when worded and presented, 
 quite different from the original a flower of an- 
 other species but if 1 keep on adding flower to 
 flower, I bring my sunflower at last, and the lilies 
 are all thrown in ! " 
 
 "In conclusion, then, my good young friends, 
 since you know your duty, if you consider it best 
 to gird on such habits as we have now examined, 
 you will become even-tempered and calm. Lite- 
 rary men ought to be the most placid and sweetest 
 tempered of men, because their brain is their mi- 
 crocosm, where there is little to distract. Living 
 with the heroes of history, or those of their own 
 creation, they are far away from the whirl and tur- 
 moil of busy life. They would, indeed, become 
 quite fossilized if it were not for family and social 
 ties a Xanthippe or a brace of night-cherubs 
 will keep them awake to the demands of the 
 living." 
 
 "This is another reason why I wish to increase 
 the number of authors for blessed is peace!" 
 
 " Brothers in art, who live for other's needs 
 In duty's bondage, mercy's gracious deeds, 
 Of all who toil beneath the circling sun, 
 Whose evening rest than yours more fairly one? 
 Though many a cloud your struggling morn obscures, 
 What sunset 'brings a brighter sky than yours?" 
 
 THE END.
 
 1,-tt
 
 r^e9B^C