t rrrtarg dttlj illustratiutia bQ 3F. 3. Arting SBCX)ND EDITION (Clurago C. JHcClurs & Co. 1913 Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1912 Published Jane, 1912 JT. ijall Printing Cnmpang ttbtrann all ijmiii linrturs rhr rijlntjf re and allg to onp W|om nnr? 31 Unofficial WASHINGTON, D. C., October. S, Miladi, I am really going, and because I have a conscience about keeping a promise I am letting you know first of all. Yesterday morning the post man placed in my hands a long, official- looking envelope on the face of which I read: TNE UNITED STATES CONSULATE ASUNCION. PARAGUAY ARNOLD HOLT - CONSUL Miss Virginia Leigh, 1910 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D. C. [i] ecrrtarp It was such a cold, gray morning. The day quite matched my mood. Summer was loath to depart this year although it is now late in October. But yesterday the wind wailed like a lost soul and all day long the rain wept against the window panes. Perhaps it was because I felt that the reading of the letter would make a great change in my life that I stood for a long time holding the envelope in my hand, not daring to break the seal. My thoughts flew back to just such a day a little more than a year ago and to a scene I shall never forget. I saw once more the upstairs room in the dear old house in K Street ah, have we not seen happy days in that house, you and I where two men who had loved each other from boyhood were taking leave of each other forever. One was soon to enter the Eternal Silence. The other was leaving on the morrow to assume his duties as United States Consul to Paraguay. It all came back as vividly as though it [2] had happened only yesterday. I could have shrieked aloud that day as I looked first into my dying father's face and then into that of his friend. What splendid creatures men are ! These two knew that they should see each other no more, yet they looked squarely into each other's eyes and neither wavered. They shook hands and said good-bye as quietly as though they were to meet again next morning. I followed Mr. Holt downstairs into the library and closed the door behind us. Then his composure gave way. He took me in his arms and made me promise that if ever I were ill or in trouble I would let him know. Well, the time has come, and sooner than I thought. I need not rehearse my sorrows before you, Miladi. You know them well. We can not understand the storms which strike us and work such revolutions in our lives, but after a while we become philosophical about most things. When my father was [3] {Unofficial Secretary no more I said to myself, " It is well. He is no longer sick and suffering." When in a few weeks my mother followed him, I forced myself to say again, " It is well. She was lonely here without him." When in the twinkling of an eye nearly all my worldly goods melted away, I said, " What matter? I have youth, health, brains, a heart, two hands. I will not be con quered." But ah, Miladi, I reckoned without understanding. Tell me, am I not the same woman that I was when my father was an influential man in Washington and wealth and social position were mine? How was it, then, that, deprived of all these things, I be came some one else? I thought of Mr. Holt and remembered my promise. I wrote and told him all, no not quite all. The shock, the pain, the humiliation, the dead illusions, the shadowy days, the long and sleepless nights these things are all one's own. Only you, Miladi, only you and I know {Unofficial >ecretarp what it was that made my youth to vanish in a night. I am only two and twenty, but I shall never be young again. And yet, shall I say I am sorry? No. With all my faults I am not a hypo crite. I have learned to the last letter that friends are friends just so long as you don't need them. When you do they take wings and fly away. I learned also that the Thing I thought was Love the Thing which outwardly was strong and durable was inwardly so frail and fragile that I dare not lean upon it lest it break and pierce me. I drank the chalice of bitterness to the dregs. I learned the meaning of the words loath ing, scorn, disgust, despair, in all their fulness. Utter disillusion was mine. I shudder when I look back upon it all. I regret that it had to be, but no, I will not say I am sorry. It is well to have learned the lesson and to have learned it well and in time, but when I had done so, I found myself like a ship that has lost its rudder [5] Unofficial and is drifting aimlessly out to sea. What was it, Miladi, the Thing I thought was Love? Only a cheap and shoddy imita tion of the real thing. I think there is nothing in all the uni verse quite so dead as a lost confidence. Every other feeling, every other sentiment and passion in life can be rekindled. Cour age, long lost, is found again. Hope re vives. Respect, even self-respect, long vanished, oft returns. Anger, hatred, envy, jealousy, long-hidden, at a touch burst forth anew, and Love shall it be different from the rest? No. It is only the lost confidence that knows no re awakening. The Man of Sorrows was not speaking of a dead faith when He said, " I am the Resurrection and the Life." Ah, well. Pontius Pilate washed his hands after he had sent Christ forth to be crucified. In like manner have all the so- called friends, false, evasive, insin cere, of my fair-weather days washed their hands of me. And, Miladi, if I were a [6] fflnoffttfal &ectetarp law-maker, I would make insincerity the one crime punishable by death the only grounds upon which one might obtain divorce. Yesterday the answer to my letter came. For once I was glad you were away from Washington, for I could hear in fancy all the arguments you would put forth against my going. Have I not been the victim of your persuasive eloquence more than once? I took time by the forelock. Before night fall my reply was in the mail box. So now you know that in less than two weeks I am leaving for South America to be private secretary to the United States Consul to Paraguay. How strange it is that the things we do under protest are usually the things that are of most benefit in the end. How I used to resent the fact that my childhood was different from that of the other chil dren. My father's official position kept us knocking about Europe three-fourths of the time, now here, now there, but children [7] Unofficial so easily adapt themselves to their en vironment, and I learned to speak all the languages and to speak them well. Now my ability to do so is my greatest asset. French, of course, is mine by in heritance. I know German well. Italian I like best of all, and a sorry figure I should cut in South America if I did not know Spanish. After all, I need not tell you, Miladi, that the real reason for my going lies in the native instinct of the human soul. The animal, wounded unto death, seeks only a place in which to hide his death struggle from the gaze of his pursuers. I, too, would hide my pain from the sight of man, only would that my hiding-place might have been Paradise instead of Paraguay ! Write me long, long letters, Miladi. Believe me, it adds to my grief to put so many thousand miles between you and me. What a tower of strength you are and have always been to me, my dear and [8] Unofficial &ecretarp only cousin! The things you did for me when the crash came were such as one does not forget, and some day I shall pay you back a thousandfold. Perhaps when I am in that far country, away down yonder, where the sun slants the other way where the summer commences with October and ends with March and the winter begins with April and finishes with September when I am far from sight and sound of all that has grieved me here, I, too, may be able to turn life around and begin again. Au revoir. ON THE B. & O. TJ EIGHO ! I am well on my way. In another hour or so I shall be in New York, and we sail to-morrow afternoon. It was a terrible struggle, Miladi. To leave all that one has known and held dear, to go far away to begin life over again among strangers is in itself a thing to break one's heart. Only the knowledge ccretari> that it was easier to go than to stay urged me on. I did a foolish thing last night. After my trunks were packed and gone to the station I went out to take a walk. It was just after sunset, quite shadowy in the streets, but the afterglow still lingered on the tops of the high buildings and lit up the dome of the Capitol. I was seized with a desire to go back over my life, as it were, step by step. So I began at the beginning. I went first to the little house on I Street where I was born. I can not remember much about this house for I was still quite a child when we left it, but two things stand out distinctly in my memory. One is the rose bush which clambered over the back porch where my mother used to sit in the summer-time when we were children. There was always a touch of sadness about my mother. I think she was not quite happy in this country she was French, you know and sometimes now, when I [10] ?Hnoffittal am lying awake at night I think I hear her yet, singing an old French song she used to love. It ran like this: Les amours irreal'ises Sont encore les seuls fideles! Dear, beautiful mother! The other thing I remember is the nursery. What romps we children used to have there until one day and I re member that day very well something happened. Father came home suddenly at noon-time and we had luncheon to gether, he and I, all by ourselves. I did not see my mother nor the babies that day, and in the afternoon I went to Grand mother's for a visit. I stayed only a week but after I came back there was never anybody in the nursery but me. And I remember the first night I was at home again. Something wakened me from my sleep. I stole to the door and half way down the stairs. I peeped over the banis ters and there I saw my father holding ' ^Inofficial Secretary mother close in his arms in the big leather chair in the library. She was sobbing as though her heart would break. He, with a face which looked as if it had turned to stone, was softly kissing her hair and talk ing to her in low and tender tones as one would talk to a tired child. Ah, Mother-o'-Mine ! All the things I could not then understand are quite clear to me now. I was only nine years old then. Blessed childhood, which can so easily put its troubles behind it ! In after years when we look back upon our childish sorrows they loom gigantic before our eyes, but while they are passing they are mere epi sodes. A child lives but one day at a time. Each day ends with the night. In the morning he looks upon a new world. I know now what made the tie so strong between us three, my father, my mother, and myself. I know now why he bought another house a new house, one with out memories. I know now why he [12] ^Inofficial thought of you and persuaded Auntie to lend you to us, for what is so lonely as an only child? The little brother and sis ter became a memory, blurred and indis tinct, but you, Miladi, you were real! Where do you think I went next ? Over onto Virginia Avenue to Madame M 's. There everything is just the same. Noth ing is changed. As I looked up at the building the lights began to come on in the various rooms and I knew the bell had rung for study hour. Do you remember the first day we went there to school? How the pupils eyed us curiously you with your dark, smooth, heavy braids and brown eyes, I with my blue eyes and fluffy, blonde curls, and how their wonder in creased when they heard the little blonde ten-year-old chattering French to Madame like a native? Do you know, Miladi, I have always connected dark eyes and hair with stability of character! Whenever I see a dark- eyed, dark-haired man I instinctively trust [13] Unofficial Secretary him. I think I loved you from the very first because you were so different from myself. You were everything that I was not. Once when I was a little girl I went down into the kitchen where the cook was making cake. She had beaten up an egg in a little glass bowl on the table and had left it standing. It had divided into two parts. The yolk had settled to the bot tom. The white remained on top. Well, (I have the craziest fancies sometimes!) that egg was just like you and me. The solid, substantial yellow which sank quietly to the bottom and kept out of sight that was you. All that white, feathery, frothy stuff which rose to the top and made a great show that was me. Suddenly the cook turned, picked up the egg-beater and gave it a quick, brisk turn. Lo, the two mixed and became inseparable. That was us! Mechanically I walked up the steps and rang the bell. I waited in the reception [14] Unofficial g>etretarp room till I heard the tap-tap of Madame's cane on the hardwood floor. I had an im pulse to throw myself at her feet and tell her all my grief, but I looked into that placid face and restrained it. I said only that I was leaving Washington indefi nitely and wished to say good-bye "Adieu?" she asked with her quaint smile. " Non, ma chere, il n' est pas adieu, mais au revoir, n'est-ce pas? " " Assurement" I answered, not wishing to tell her the real truth. I shall never come back again. She kissed me and said: " Dieu vous garde, mon enfant. Au revoir." I turned and fled lest I should lose my self-control. If we all live to be a hundred we shall still be " mes enfants " to Madame. I walked around the corner into K Street. I wonder if the love of home is as strong in every family as it is in ours. It is in you, Miladi, as well as in myself. Unofficial &ecretarp I looked long at the dear old house last night, for this house was home. It and my father's books and you are all that I have left of the old life. The books are packed and gone to storage. You are far away, and I have placed the house in the hands of a solicitor for sale, stipulating only that I shall never know who buys it. All was dark there last night and in fancy I could hear the ghosts of the past chas ing each other from room to room, through the halls and up and down the broad stairways. I thought of the light- hearted laughter, the music, the merriment which had once resounded through that house. Now all has vanished. The laugh ter was turned to tears. The music became a dirge. My feet seemed chained to the spot, but at last I turned away for it was growing late. When I reached the corner I looked back once more. Dimly outlined against the dark sky I saw for the last time the house where the Thing I thought was Love [16] ^Unofficial &ecretarp came into my life and then went quickly out of it. I think I know how Eve must have felt when she was driven from her garden. I wept the whole night long. To-day I feel as though I could never weep again. I have torn up my life by the roots. Now I must be patient till I can plant a new seed in another soil. We are nearing New York. Yonder in the distance I can see the smoke of a great city and beyond the city the sea ! ON BOARD THE Dom Pedro. Four days out. A N unlooked-for opportunity to send you a letter, Miladi ! In a few hours we are due to pass the Argentina on her way to New York, and the mail will be transferred. I came on board at four o'clock last Tuesday afternoon. We were to sail at four-thirty. Such a scene of confusion ?Hnof(irial &ecretarp I never saw in all my life. A great ocean liner carrying tourists bound for the Mediterranean lay alongside of us. The pier was black with people all in holiday mood, calling to friends, wav ing handkerchiefs and making merry gen erally. Cab drivers were swearing as usual. Expressmen had formed a line after the fashion of the old-time bucket- brigade at a village fire and were hustling their trunks on board, passing them along with the utmost dexterity. The sailors were bawling, " All ashore that 's goin' ashore ! " At last a gong sounded. The Captain stepped up on the bridge and the great monster began to move. What a contrast between that scene and the one on our side of the pier! Sailing for Europe on a pleasure trip is a different matter from starting on a voyage to South America. Sad and anxious faces looked up at the Dom Pedro as the vessel was being made ready to sail. The women all wept. The men looked as if they [18] Unofficial &ecretarp should like to. No mirth or merry-making was evident either among those on board or those on shore. No doubt many who were sailing with us were going on busi ness, but I think many were like myself, starting out on a voyage of discovery in search of a new world. In one respect I was better off than my fellow-passengers. I had left none to weep. We began to move. I stood on the deck while the Dom Pedro backed out of the river into the Atlantic. The space be tween us and the shore widened and wid ened. The day was going. The declining sun threw long, slanting shadows across the water. The broken sky-line of New York became indistinct In the distance. At last it faded out of sight and I thought to myself that no man knows what it is to be really lonely till he has seen for the first time the night fall on the sea. I went below where a surprise awaited me a most attractive little cabin with no other occupant than myself. It was [19] tHnofftctal &ecretarp charmingly fitted up and looked inviting. My steamer trunk was in its place. A small Turkish tabouret which looked sus piciously as if it were in the habit of holding a pipe, tobacco, cigars, cigarettes and other articles peculiar to the masculine gender stood near by and on it sat a bowl of glowing pink roses. While I was pon dering over the circumstance the stew ardess entered and handed me a card on which I read, " Captain Leonard Starr." Below the name was a line in pencil. Would I find a place at his table? To tell the truth I was meditating go ing to bed without any dinner. I had no desire to make the acquaintance of either the cook or the captain bold Or the mate of the Nancy brig but common sense (I still have a little) came to the rescue. In a voyage which lasts twenty-four days it is impossible not to mingle with one's fellow-passengers to a certain extent. Moreover, that 's a long [20] ^Unofficial time to go without anything to eat. Why put off the evil day? I expressed my ap preciation of the Captain's courtesy and accepted. I threw open my trunk and the first thing my eyes fell upon was a little dinner gown of blue crepe. I slipped out of my travelling clothes and put it on. Remem bering your oft-repeated assertion that the less attention I pay to my hair the better it looks, I let it severely alone. How I used to hate my blonde mop when I was a child! I think that at the tender age of five I must have resembled one of those huge, scraggly chrysanthemums you see in the florist's windows. I stuck one of the pink roses in my hair and sallied forth. Captain Starr was standing in the pas sage. He looked me over from head to foot, scrutinizingly, almost hungrily, and an expression I could neither fathom nor describe came over his face. Then he spoke, cutting his words off short after the [21] ^Unofficial manner of one long accustomed to give commands. "Miss Leigh?" " Yes." " So. Come this way." I never before appreciated how John Smith must have felt when the Indians made him run the gantlet. Every indi vidual eye in that dining-room was turned full upon me and there was no Pocahontas to come to the rescue. I was filled with consternation. Was I overdressed? No. The other ladies wore dinner gowns. Had I forgotten anything? No. I felt all right. Take it from me, Miladi, the con solations of religion are nothing to the feeling that your gown is hooked straight in the back. Then, what in the nation was everybody looking at me for? Our table seats six, and we are six as totally different people as can be imagined. At the end is a man who is typically American. I knew the moment I heard him speak that he came from somewhere [22] (Unofficial west of the Rocky Mountains. He has that peculiar characteristic (I can not de scribe it) which in Washington we used to call " west-y." He is a coffee importer and has large interests in Brazil which ac counts for his presence among us. Next to him, two Catholic Sisters, gentlewomen both, educated and refined, their faces tell ing the usual story hardship, loyalty, devotion to duty, renunciation. One is go ing in order that a large convent in Buenos Aires may have an English-speaking Mother Superior. The other because, ac cording to the rules of their Order, the one might not go alone. They looked as lonesome as I felt. Directly opposite me is a man of twenty- eight or thirty, strikingly handsome and bearing the unmistakable earmarks of the Foreign Correspondent. He talks easily and breezily on every subject under the sun. Captain Starr and I make up the rest of the party. When we had been properly introduced [23] Unofficial everybody (except myself) began to talk, each along his own particular line. The Man from beyond the Rockies: " Yes, out where I come from we use an enormous lot of coffee much more in proportion than they do in the East. Brazil that 's where I 'm going is the great coffee country. That 's where you get the best." The Sister of Mercy (to her compan ion) : " We must be prepared to find things very different there. The Spanish children will not be like those at home." The Foreign Correspondent : " Oh, I Ve had a few rattling experiences. The worst thing I ever got mixed up in was a revolu tion in Mexico one of those get-there- quick affairs, all over in a day. Life was the cheapest thing on the market that day." Captain Starr: "Yes, I've lived for thirty years on my ship. A direct line to South America was a long-felt want and finally became a necessity." Then turn ing to me he added: " If you had gone [24] tHnofftctal down a few years ago you would have had to go first to England or Germany in order to get back into your own hemisphere." Never tell me again, Miladi, that curi osity is confined to our sex. Both the Man from beyond the Rockies and the Foreign Correspondent had been eyeing me fur tively but at the Captain's words they sat up and took notice. Both of those men are positively perishing to know why I am going to South America, and after the man ner of his kind, the M. F. B. T. R. dealt me a blow right out from the shoulder. " And where are you going, Miss Leigh?" " To Paraguay." "Paraguay!" he sputtered, "but what where ? " Now far be it from me, Miladi, to de clare my intentions upon so short an ac quaintance. So affecting to misunderstand his meaning I answered sweetly, "Where is Paraguay? Why, it is a little yellow spot on the map of South [25] {Unofficial &ecretarp America, if I remember. Am I right, Cap tain Starr?" " Quite right, quite right," he replied, while everybody laughed except the M. F. B. T. R. He subsided momentarily, but he will ask me again. I know he will. I am acquainted with the species. After dinner we separated. Each went his way the Captain to his duties, the Sisters to their devotions. The M. F. B. T. R. sought the solace of a good cigar. At the foot of the stairs the F. C. stepped aside to let me pass, and as he did so, he shot me a glance from two dark, mischiev ous, mocking eyes, a glance that was a chal lenge. Miladi, that man is planning to " interview " me, and he is quite capable of rushing the report off by wireless to the office in time for the evening edition. That look said far plainer than words, " I -will know why you are going to Paraguay." Well, I saw him first. He sauntered off down the promenade, no doubt to map out his plan of attack. [26] (Unofficial I went below, and the morning and the evening were the first day. STILL ON BOARD. Next day. PATIENT and long-suffering cous- in! Really my conscience hurts me when I think what a flood of literature I am unloading upon you, but I am like the minister who preached the sermon on Eter nal Punishment. I just have to get it out of my system ! Moreover, I know you will read it every word down to the last period. The Argentina is a day overdue so we are informed by wireless hence this second effusion. It will be many days be fore I can send you another letter and long, ah, long before I can hear from you. When I went below on that first night I got into negligee and threw myself on the bed, for I must tell you that my little cabin has not the ordinary berth but a pretty brass bed such as one would have at home. As usual, the moment I was alone, the [27] ^Inofficial s>ecrctarj> ghosts and goblins began their merry dance around me again. Try as I would I could not fight them back, and while I was busily engaged in the effort the Dom Pedro be gan to cut strange capers. Almost in an instant she changed from a quiet and tract able creature to a wild and unruly thing. She was seized with a violent spasm. Every part of her great being was con vulsed. She became a raving maniac. The sailors were rushing here and there, pull ing, hauling. The passage was filled with excited passengers some of whom had for gotten various parts of their wearing ap parel. Outside it was as black as the Ace of Spades. If you looked out the night made faces at you like a huge gargoyle. You could n't have cut the fog with a cheese knife. The Dom Pedro acted for all the world like a horse at a hurdle race. She would skim along for a few hundred feet and then all at once you held your breath while she took the hurdle. Up down ! Then the rain came in sheets. In Unofficial the midst of all the hurry and scurry, the bustle and confusion, I heard the calm, commanding voice of Captain Starr ringing out above the roar of the wind. You know I have always loved a storm, Miladi. This one was positively glorious and I welcomed it because it was powerful enough to chase the ghosts and goblins away. While I lay there listening to the noise of wind and wave I heard voices outside in the passage. I opened the door and peeped out. Oh, Miladi ! If only you could have seen the sight which met my eyes! Sitting on the stairs were the two most disconsolate-looking individuals I ever witnessed. I could n't keep from laughing. This is what I heard She (in a gorgeous purple kimono, hair in curl papers, limp as a rag, and wild- eyed with terror) : " Hubby, do you think we 're going to the bottom? " Hubby (in union suit, slippers, rain coat, [29] Unofficial &ecretarp and a travelling cap which sat jauntily on one ear) : " It looks like it." She (with a sigh of resignation) : ' Well, if we are, I don't see why we could n't have done it an hour ago! " Hubby vouchsafed no reply. He was pea-green of hue and from the way he lovingly caressed his stomach I think he must have had " inside information." I closed the door softly and went back to bed. Personally I did n't care a cracker whether the Dom Pedro stayed in one piece long enough to take another hurdle or not, but after all I was better off than my neighbors. I was homesick, heartsick enough, goodness knows, but, thank Heaven, not seasick. Well, the storm got past the raving, maniacal stage. It began to gibber and babble like a simple idiot and at last it grew quite still. The ocean fell asleep. I slept also and when I awoke again it was just sunrise. The sea dimpled and smiled like a baby asleep in its mother's arms. I [30] Unofficial &ecretarp sat up in bed and looked out at the port hole. We were passing some little green islands. The world was rainbow-hued. It was as though the King of Day had emp tied his jewel casket on the sea. Every color was there the creamy tint of pearl which a touch warmed into opal, the yellow of the topaz, the pink of the coral deepen ing in places to the glow of the ruby, the blue of the sapphire, the green of the emerald, the purple of the amethyst. The dawn lay on the face of the waters like a benediction, and, Miladi, as I sat looking at the scene, something happened to me. Something whispered " Peace " to my troubled soul. All my sorrows faded away. I slipped out of them as one would discard an old coat which has become too large. One after another I threw them into the sea consigned each one in turn to Davy Jones' Locker from which (with apologies to Shakespeare) no traveller re turns. I may meet other and greater sor rows as I walk my way no doubt I shall. Unofficial &ecretarp But then and there I registered a vow that I would no longer be bothered by the has beens. I slipped back into bed with a feeling I can not describe. I think I felt as one must who, after a lingering illness which has brought him almost to the brink, is convalescent at last. Life, which for so long had been out of tune, was in harmony again with the great soul of things. When I went down to breakfast I looked about me in astonishment. What on earth had happened? There were peo ple on this boat yesterday. Where were they now? It took but a glance over the dining-room to convince me that I was the sole representative of my sex that had shown up so far. Captain Starr sat at the table in solitary grandeur. He looked up in surprise. " Well! " he said, " Good-morning! " " Good-morning. Where is every body?" His eye twinkled but before he had time [32] {Unofficial to reply the M. F. B. T. R. sauntered in. Vainly he tried to conceal the havoc which the night had wrought in his self-assur ance. But his attempt at nonchalance was a dismal failure. He had a go-'way-and- let-me-die-in-peace expression which was excruciatingly funny and I could but note that his morning repast consisted of coffee, strong and black. Poor man ! He looked so miserable that I almost forgave him for asking me questions. After breakfast Captain Starr took me over the ship. I saw everything there was to see (except the passengers) from the huge engines, which keep us going, to the kitchen and the steward's pantry. The latter looks as if its stock of supplies could never be exhausted and as for the ice-box, well, Miladi, tell it not in Gath, but in that ice-box is every kind of a bottle known to the Anglo-Saxon race ! Take my word for it. Captain Starr is a fine old man, sixty- five I should think. On duty he is quick [33] Unofficial g>ecretarp U of word and action, evidently accustomed to having his orders instantly obeyed. Off duty he is kindly, approachable, courtly, a man of refinement a gentleman of the old school. Do you know, Miladi, the longer I live the more I think that refinement is the ne plus ultra of life. What a difference be tween him that hath and him that hath it not ! It says to him that hath, " This thou may'st do this thou can'st not." No matter how thickly gilded is the exte rior of him that hath not, one sees al ways the whited sepulchre underneath. It takes centuries to get it into a man. Once there it takes centuries more to get it out of him. Like pride, it is racial and inherited. Captain Starr found me a shady corner and then excused himself. He walked off down the deck, his splendid figure straight as an arrow, his head held in the manner of one who has never known fear, yet as I looked after him I felt suddenly a great [34] Unofficial lump in my throat. I could n't help feel ing sorry for him. I wonder why? Au revoir, Miladi, I am getting far, oh, so far from you and from what I used to call home. Hereafter wherever I am shall be home. I feel a little like The Man Without a Country no, I will not say that. From the quiet corner where I am writing I have but to raise my eyes to see the flag-staff of the Dom Pedro from which floats something which makes it impossible for me to forget that I have a country the flag of the United States. Adieu, then, I know that your letters are following me to the far south. I must be patient till they come. STILL ON BOARD. T"\ EAREST cousin-o'-mine, can you ^^^ tell me why a man on board a ship feels privileged to make love to every woman he sees whether she be old or young, blonde or brunette, married or [35] Unofficial unattached? There have been days late ly when I found it necessary to lock my self up in my stateroom. Unless we sight land before long we shall have need of a Court of Domestic Relations on the Dom Pedro, I Ve had it out with each one in turn. One night when I went up from dinner I heard some one singing in the music room an aria from " Rigoletto " in an exquisite tenor voice. You know I always had a penchant for following the band so I flew down to hear the music. No one seemed to know who the singer was but he sang song after song, among them some that I love, by Kipling " On the Road to Mandalay," " Mother-o'-Mine," and last of all: Go rolling down to Rio, Roll down, roll down to Rio. I'd like to roll to Rio Some day before I 'm old. I found myself standing by the Man from beyond the Rockies, so I said, [36] Unofficial " Well, that 's what we 're doing rolling down to Rio." He looked at me expressively for a mo ment and then said in a most confiding tone, " I could dispense with some of the rolling." I recalled his abject appearance the morning after the storm and was moved to irreverent mirth. Presently, however, he laughed too and suddenly we became good friends, but it did n't last oh, no, it did n't last. For a few days he pursued me relentlessly and one evening when I thought myself securely hidden, he sud denly joined me on his own invitation. Now, I was laboring under the impres sion that he was a perfectly respectable married man, Miladi, and I thought it quite natural when he referred several times to the fact that he was " lonely." So when he took a seat beside me on this particular night I was quite unprepared for the shock. His manner, however, was [37] ffinoifmal &ecretarp unmistakable. He had the prevailing com plaint. He heaved several sighs at stated intervals and then said pensively, " But since my wife died " Just as he uttered these soulful words the Foreign Correspondent sauntered by and made a wry face at me over his shoul der. I could have eaten him alive, but instead I remembered something I wanted downstairs and I spent the rest of that delightful evening in the cabin reading Le Monde ou I' on s'ennuie. I was absolutely at the mercy of the F. C. after that night. He mockingly con gratulated me on my " conquest " and re ferred to the object of his remarks as " ye ancient, sad-eyed Romeo." I tried to explain to him that he who wastes sentiment on me is likewise wasting time, for I need not tell you, Miladi, that I am everlastingly done with what shall I name it the Thing called Love. I have no doubt that Love, the genuine article, does exist somewhere in God's universe, [38] Unofficial g>ecretarp but how is one to know when he meets him face to face whether it is the little god himself or only one of his hench men? In the belief that we could not be mistaken as to his identity we rear a temple which we think is built of granite. We find it but a house of cards which falls to pieces when the summer winds blow against it. I no longer feel regret at the destruc tion of my temple, but I will build no more, no more. Well, I accepted the F. C.'s merry ban ter, in fact rather enjoyed it, until one evening . He fell. Like Lucifer, Star of the Morning, he fell! Never waste any more time going to Europe, Miladi. If you want a sea voyage come southward. All the angry grandeur dies out of the ocean as you go along. The air becomes soft and balmy. The trade winds are moist and velvety and touch your cheek like a caress. The skies are kindly and sapphire blue. The flying fish dart in and out about the prow of the [39] ecretarp found a paper on which he had carefully noted all the days of his long life which had been free from sorrow. There were but fourteen. " Know, O Man of Under standing," he wrote, " how small is the lot of perfect happiness accorded even to the most fortunate ! " Just fancy my astonishment when, with my mind full of such thoughts as these, I suddenly felt my hand (which I had put up to brush back a stray lock of hair) caught as in a vice and heard a tense voice say, " Don't touch it. It 's perfect ! " "W what's perfect?" I gasped. 44 Your hair!" Great Scott! Once more I fled. I was forced to renounce the beauties of nature again and to seek the solace of Moliere. In the morning, however, Richard was himself again. The stewardess brought me a note in which he assured me that he was the possessor of a broken and a con trite heart. {Unofficial &tcretarp But there is one man on this boat whom I can not understand at all. That is Cap tain Starr. It would be absurd to accuse him of sentimentality yet his attitude to ward me is one of protecting tenderness, that of a man to whose care something very dear has been entrusted. Moreover, I strongly suspect that I am occupying his cabin, and last night, when I went below, he said absently, " Good-night, my dear, good-night." I wish I could understand him. I wonder if I ever shall. THE Dom Pedro. Last day on board. I 'd a Bible in my hand As I sailed, as I sailed, And I stuck it in the sand As I sailed. Captain Kidd. T 'VE a Bible in my trunk, Miladi, and I have n't seen any sand for so long that I should not recognize it if I met it face to face, but the rest of the above is [42] no(fiual O. K. I have sailed and sailed and sailed. I feel for all the world like the Flying Dutchman. I don't know just where I left off and there is so much to tell that I do not know where to begin. A few days ago Captain Starr said to me at dinner, " If you feel like coming on deck at seven in the morning, there will be something to see." Needless to say I was there. Shall I ever forget it, my first peep at this land of scenic splendor? It was exactly as though I had turned over the page of a book and had come suddenly upon a charming illustration. We were approaching Bahia, and how picturesque the view from the sea ! The quaint, old town, so curiously built, looked as though it were lying on shelves of different altitudes. There is an upper and a lower town, and nearly three hundred thou sand people. The new town is on the hills and from the heights above, one has Unofficial &ecretarp a superb view of the ocean. An inclined tramway connects the new town on the hills with the old town lying on the shore, and it was the latter which quite fas cinated me. You know, Miladi, that I have always had a wholesome respect for age. A musty old library, a battered old fort, a mediaeval church, cathedral, or convent, a piece of old lace, the paintings of the Old Masters, last of all don't laugh a neglected old cemetery these have always had for me a peculiar fas cination. I suppose you have not for gotten the summer father took us to London. In my youthful exuberance of spirit I forgot his fifty years and remem bered only my seventeen. One day I in veigled him into taking a walk with me. We walked and walked and walked. He was very tired and just as we were about to retrace our steps we came suddenly upon an old church with its adjoining graveyard. Only a few of the stones [44] Unofficial &ecretarp were decipherable, but on one of them we read: Weep not, dear friend, Though death us sever. I'm going to do nothing Forever and ever. I looked at Daddy and he looked at me, and presently he said (not without emphasis) : "I envy her!" We were to stop half a day at Bahia so I went on shore with Captain Starr. He generously invited the F. C. to ac company us, but in the language of the immortal Dinkenspiel, he declined " mit his biggest dignitude," and went moor ing off by himself. Everything in Bahia, that is, in the old town, reminds one of Spain the vari colored buildings, the narrow, ill-smelling streets, most of all the people. As we walked along we came to a fine old fif teenth century church. I literally dragged my companion inside. The candles and [45] Unofficial ?>tcretarp the altar-fittings are very old but the great treasure is the altar-cloth, woven in threads of gold and said to have been brought from Peru and to have been made by Queen Isabella herself. It looked the part. The cloth on which the design is woven is quite worn away, but the gold threads are still beautiful and bright. During the two hours I spent in Bahia I had a most striking illustration of the part, dangerous and powerful, which money plays in the great game of life. The South Americans claim that Bahia is now the centre of the diamond trade of the world a fact known only to those who buy and sell the diamonds. Not a great many years ago, Cecil Rhodes went out from England and grabbed yes, that is the right word the diamond fields at Kimberley. He wrote his government that he conceived it to be his duty to paint as much of the map of South Africa British red as [46] Cfjc Unofficial ^>ccretarp possible. He did so, using for the paint the blood of England's best her lords, her earls, her dukes, and her Tommy Atkinses. Since that time, so say the South Americans, the South African Syn dicate has paid vast sums of money to the European Press to promulgate the idea that the Brazilian diamond fields are dead. Believe it never, Miladi. In Washington one sees some of the most sumptuous diamonds in the world, but even there I have never seen such bril liant gems as I saw in the diamond brokers' shops in Bahia, and they came from the native soil. When we went on board again I saw the F. C. looking disconsolately over the railing. He pretended that he did n't see me but I knew better. We touched again at Victoria but I did not go ashore, and a few days later, just as the afternoon was beginning to wane, we sailed into the Bay of Rio. No wonder that Kipling wanted to ecretarj The moon had not yet set, although over in the east tiny flickers gave warn ing that Aurora was getting ready to open the gates. But above our heads, three great, luminous stars stood out boldly in the heavens and refused to be extinguished. " Look! " said my companion. " Look quickly before it fades. Behold the Southern Cross! " Take my word for it, Miladi, if the sight I saw last night were to be seen in Europe, steamship companies would not be able to sell tickets fast enough. Talk about the Midnight Sun and moonlight-on- the-Rhine ! They are back numbers. The scene lasted only for a moment. Then it began to change. The moon went down. The great stars grew dim and faded from sight. The east became rosy and beautiful and presently the sun peeped up over the edge of the earth. Another day had come. Was it only this morning? [53] BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, S. A. \T7HO was that old duffer among the Romans (the younger Pliny, was it not?) who said, " Forgive me, friend, that I write thee so long a letter. I had n't time to write a short one." C'est moi, n'est-ce-pas? I spent my first day in Buenos Aires trying to sweep the cobwebs from my brain. A long sleep aided materially in the process and when I awoke after a four hours' nap, the world was plumb again. Life was once more in tune. I lay quietly for a while and had it out with myself, a mental summing up, as it were. The result is that I am more content than I have been for many moons. First, there was Captain Starr. The attraction I had felt toward him had ex plained itself. He loves me because I am my mother's daughter. Therefore I will put a little sunshine, if I can, into his hitherto clouded life. So far, so [62] ecretarp good. Would that I could dispose of Dr. Thorne as easily! I had just finished dressing when his card was brought up, and when I went down to the reception room a moment later, he was standing at the window look ing down into the street. His Panama lay on the table, his hands were in his pockets, and he was whistling softly to himself. I had a chance to observe him closely without his knowledge. He is not handsome. He is more than that. He has a high-bred face, fine eyes, and a slender, graceful figure. He is that type of man whom all women unconsciously reverence, the kind of a man into whose hand a little child will lay its own in confidence. He turned suddenly and saw me and his expression changed. He took in my whole appearance from head to foot and once more I was filled with consternation for fear I had on the wrong kind of clothes. You see, I don't know yet just [63] Unofficial &ecretarp what they wear down here, so involun tarily I said, "Will I do?" I had no sooner spoken than my con fusion increased for the light died out of his face as quickly as it had come and he answered, a little shortly I thought, " I think so." No wonder that he had called this the Paris of South America! The Avenida de Mayo down which we rode is a verit able Parisian boulevard. There are the same lamps, the same rows of trees on either side, newspaper kiosks every thing is here except the boulevardlers. One thing, of course, is essentially dif ferent. Whereas in Paris one hears the light, frivolous French chatter, he hears here, instead, the old, beautiful, musical tongue of Spain. It was late in the afternoon. The sun was golden, the air soft and balmy. I think every one of the million and more inhabitants of Buenos Aires must have [64] Unofficial ibecretarp been out driving, for an interminable torrent of vehicles covered the avenue in both directions as far as the eye could see. I have since learned that this is the time to see not the city but the people, for every day, about an hour before sunset, all Buenos Aires pours into the streets. Dr. Thorne asked me suddenly what I knew about South America. With all due humility I confessed that my knowledge was limited. I confided in him that I thought I knew something about it before I came, but that I had changed my mind. " You see," I said, " I learned it out of a book!" He threw back his head and laughed. Then all at once his reserve fell from him. He began to talk most charmingly about everything the city, the people, the difference between the life here and that of any other place in the world. Indeed, I had already begun to wonder why it is that we of f he States have so ut terly ignored these people, these Other [65] Unofficial &ecr etar.p Americans as some one has fitly called them. How little we know of them, of their ambitions, their problems, what their cities are like. To tell the truth, I don't know just what I expected to find here. I know only that I am amazed at what I find. Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is four centuries old yet it is as new as Chicago. The hotel where I am staying is just such as you will find in New York beautiful rooms to sleep in, good things to eat, well-trained servants to serve, cabmen who know where you want to go. The streets of the city are beau tifully clean. Everything, that is the clubs, banks, hotels, restaurants, theatres, all are close at hand. Everything is compact and there is a glitter about it all which is to be seen in no other city that I know. I am beginning to realize also that what we do know at home about South America is confined to those seething, [66] Unofficial &ecretar|> revolutionary little republics of the north. So I became deeply interested in what Dr. Thorne was telling me. He said that there could be no comparison between Venezuela and Argentina that they are as little alike as are Maine and Texas; that the people resemble each other no more than those of Massachusetts re semble the Virginians. He said, further, that no one could realize the immensity of this country until he came and saw for himself; that from Cartagena in the Carib bean Sea to Punta Arenas in Patagonia is as far as it is from the tip end of the Flor ida peninsula to the North Pole, and that there are half a million square miles more in this country than there are in all North America. " It is the strangest thing to me," he continued, " that the United States does not see the magnificent possibilities here. The large commercial houses, the banks of England, Germany, France, and Spain have branches here. But the North [67] ^Inofficial g^ecretarp Americans sit calmly at home and let them capture the prize." I did not think it strange at all and told him so. The American business man is money-mad. He wants quick results. He is not content to wait six months or a year for his returns as the slower-going Europeans are. ' Well," he replied, " perhaps you are right. But the American commercial man is usually quick to see a chance to make money. He is losing out here, no mistake about it." I could not help thinking of the dif ference between the people of these two continents. Perhaps their lack of under standing of each other is due largely to that difference. Our country was colon ized by men who came seeking liberty. They cleared away the forests, built their homes, planted their fields, made, in the end, a nation. South America was set tled by people who came seeking gold. They found on this continent a wonderful [68] ccrr tarp people, adapted to their environment, capable of attaining a civilization of which they themselves never dreamed. And what became of them the Incas ? They were annihilated and all their achieve ments perished with them. " I should like to see my countrymen a little more energetic," Dr. Thorne con cluded. " This is a land of opportunity. He who hesitates is lost." It will take more than one day to see all that is to be seen here. As we re turned to the hotel my companion showed me the Theatre Colon, the finest theatre in this hemisphere, and the famous Jockey Club. We rode down the Avenue of Palms, through the botanical and zoolog ical gardens, around the race course, through the Mercado de Pilar which is a model market, and finally out into the beautiful residential suburbs. It was like a journey to fairyland. When we were back at the hotel he said: "There are many other things to [69] ^Unofficial see. I have saved the best for next time. I hope there will be a ' next time?'" ' Yes, with pleasure, unless " "Unless what?" " Unless I should go on to Asuncion." He paused a moment and then said, "Are you in haste to leave us?" In haste ! Miladi, I feel as though I could never leave this place. But he was waiting for an answer, so I said, " Far from it. I think I should like to stay here always." Again his face lighted up and again the light died away as soon as it came, and presently he said, " Buenos noches. That 's the way we say it down here. You may as well be gin to speak Spanish to-night as any time." " True," I replied. " Buenos noches." I found Captain Starr on the balcony. Without question from me he told me all he knows (and it is all that any one here [70] Unofficial &ecretarp knows) about Dr. Thorne. It had oc curred to me as we were returning that during all our conversation he had said not one word about himself. It seems that about ten years ago he suddenly appeared in Buenos Aires, took a little house in one of the quiet streets and let it be known that he was an Amer ican physician. The better class of peo ple instantly recognized his superior ability and before long he had all that he could do. He was then quite a young man, not more than twenty-five or six, tall, dark, distingue, but he had then, as now, a reserve, a self-repression, a sort of settled melancholy which no one has ever been able to penetrate. With him came a woman, no longer young, perhaps sixty- five, and for ten years they have lived their own lives in that same little house. Professionally Dr. Thorne has become a power in Buenos Aires. Of his personal affairs no one knows any more than on the day he came. Unofficial &>ecretarp " He is the idol of Buenos Aires," Captain Starr was saying. " In the ten years he has been here he has worked in- defatigably to better the sanitary condi tions of the city. He saw that in order to be effective sanitation must be con trolled by the municipal authorities, and he has succeeded in establishing here something which may be compared to the Marine-Hospital Service at home, or rather what that service would be if har monized with local boards of health. Once the small-pox played havoc. Now vaccination is compulsory. He called at tention to the unsanitary condition of certain parts of the city and persuaded the authorities to establish a municipal laboratory and to purchase the machinery for disinfection. Just now he is very happy over a number of ambulances which are ready for emergencies. He has kept everlastingly at it until they now have the best system of sanitation that I know of anywhere. Besides all this [72] Unofficial &ecretarp he has his hospital. Did he tell you about that?" " No," I answered, remembering as I did so what he had said about saving the best for next time. " Well, I am going to let him tell you that himself," he said laughingly. " I can't do the subject justice." Then he continued seriously, " I don't know what it was that brought him here " " A woman "I ventured. " No ! " he said positively, so emphat ically that I almost jumped out of my chair. " That is the one thing I do know about the whole business. It was not a woman." I made no more remarks upon the sub ject I can assure you, Miladi, and at last he said, " Whatever it was, it is none of my business. He is the finest man I know. In addition to all else that he has accomplished he had found the sorest spot in all South America and is doing what he can to effect a cure." [73] ^Inofficial &ecretarp "And that?" I asked. " He will tell you himself." It grew late and I went to bed, but not to sleep. I could not get Dr. Thorne out of my mind. He is different from any man I have known before. There is something indescribable about him. He has magnetism. He has vitality. He is gravely sincere, quietly fearless. He has the appearance of a man who is possessed of a quiet, definite purpose. One imagines that argument would be wasted upon him if once his mind were made up. One thing about him has impressed me deeply. No matter how animated he may become, no matter how much his face lights up, his eyes seem not to smile. He wears his com posure as he wears his coat, is a man of few words, but when he does speak his voice thrills me through. If he asks a question his never-smiling eyes demand the truth. Buenos noches, Miladi. I will practice my long-neglected Spanish on you. [74] ^Unofficial &ecretarp BUENOS AIRES. Next day. T AM about to begin the last lap on my journey, Miladi. The Consul will be here in the morning and in the afternoon the Dom Pedro sails for New York. To tell the truth, I am not sorry to go on. Once more I am pos sessed with a desire to flee, to get out of sight. If I could run to the edge of the earth I should unhesitatingly jump off. Of one thing I am certain. Were I to stay here longer, where I should see Dr. Thorne daily, I should rush madly to my doom. So I am once more putting into practice my favorite maxim, He who fights and runs away May live to fight another day. You know, Miladi, there are those women who will fight and struggle and sometimes die to win the favor of a man, but I am not one of them. The man I love must fight and struggle and be will ing to die for me. Nothing else goes. [75] {Hnoffictal Whatever it was that has made Dr. Thorne the man he is, I am convinced of this. He has put Love quite outside of his life. Yesterday morning just as I was med itating venturing forth on a tour of inves tigation all by myself his card was brought to me. When I went downstairs he said somewhat hurriedly, " Will you come with me for all day? I should like to take you to the hospital and some other places." I don't know whether I said I would or not, but if I did n't speak I must have made signs, for a moment later we were spinning down the Avenida. We passed a splendid building and I asked what it was. He stopped the car and said we would get out, and I want to tell you right here, Miladi, that when it comes to newspapers and newspaper buildings, Buenos Aires leads the proces sion. They have here a hundred and eighty-nine newspapers. A hundred and [76] Unofficial &ecretarp fifty-seven of them are published in Span ish, fourteen in Italian. There are two in French, six in English, and eight in German. The largest paper in this part of the world is La Prensa and we stopped long enough to go through the beautiful building where it is published. Other cities would do well to pattern after it. The paper is the property of a wealthy family here and the building is fitted up like a club. There are luxurious apart ments where distinguished guests are asked to stop while visiting here. The proprietor has living apartments in the building which he uses when occasion of fers. The reporters have a grill-room. The presses and equipment are the finest to be had. La Prensa gets cable news from all parts of the world and when published the paper looks like the New York Herald. Whenever there is an earthquake, a tidal wave, a conflagration or other dis aster, the great whistle on La Prensa's [77] ^Unofficial &>ecretarp building blows and all the country within hearing knows that something has hap pened. On the night of the earthquake in San Francisco, the skies of Buenos Aires were blood-red from a great light thrown from the roof of this newspaper building. Nor is this all. If you are in need of a doctor and have no money, you may go to La Prensa's free dispensary. In addition to this, you may use her li brary free of charge. You may learn to speak English in the classes maintained by her owners, and attend lectures and concerts without money and without price. As we rode along Dr. Thorne called my attention to an advertisement painted upon the side of a large building. This is what it said: Pilulas Rosados para Pessoas Pallidas. "That isn't Spanish, is it?" I asked. " Not exactly. It 's Portuguese but surely you recognize it?" I took another look and suddenly I saw a great light. Who could have [78] Unofficial Secretary thought that one would meet so old an acquaintance so far from home? Pink Pills for Pale People. Oh, you New England! Oh, you United States! I presume that on the other side of the building one could find Uneeda Biscuit and The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous! We drew up before another building which I knew must be the hospital al though it looked less like one than any thing I ever saw. It was a low, rambling, one-story affair covering about half a block. All the South American cities are laid out checker-board fashion, the streets crossing each other at right angles. The inside of the building looks less like a hos pital than the outside. Everything is not immaculately white as it is in our hos pitals. There were brilliant patches of color here and there a red blanket, a yellow cover, a green cushion. The Span ish indulge their love for color even in the face of sickness and death. [79] ^Unofficial Secretary My companion must have read my thoughts for he said suddenly, " It is n't much, I grant you. I try to look upon it as only temporary, but how I have had to fight inch by inch, step by step, to get even this! Surely, before long some one will see the necessity for a thoroughly equipped hospital. Just now I am doing as the theatrical people do when they get stranded on the road waiting for an 'angel.' ' We walked along a long corridor till we came to a wing of the building apart from the others. " Come in here," he said. " This is what I want you to see." I followed him through a door, and oh, Miladi, if you could have seen the sight that met my eyes! Row after row of little cots, and on each one a young mother (they looked like children them selves) and her baby. How the little, pale, oval faces lighted up when they saw the doctor, and how wonderingly they looked at me ! I turned to ask Dr. Thorne [80] Unofficial a question but it died on my lips when I saw the transformation in him. Here he was himself. All his self-repression had fallen from him. He forgot himself, he forgot me, he forgot everything except what was before him. He went from one to another, speaking words of encourage ment, sometimes stopping to raise a pil low or straighten a cover. As we left the room he stopped to speak to a con valescent sitting by the window. I saw the dark eyes fill with tears as she replied to his questions in her own musical tongue. Then I heard him tell the at tendant that she was not to be discharged without his orders. On his face, there was a look I had not seen there before, yet it was the look one always sees in the face of the physician whose patient is dear to him and whose malady threat ens to baffle his skill. I suppose my thoughts must have been expressed in my face, for he collected himself instantly and said as if in apology, [81] ' Unofficial &ecretarp " She 's only fifteen, poor child." We turned into a hallway and crossed to another large room which we entered. Miladi, I never saw so many babies in one place in all my life. They were the deserted little ones, fathers and mothers unknown, dropped by night at the hospi tal doorway and this is the sore spot of which Captain Starr spoke and which Dr. Thorne is giving the best years of his life to remedy. We went out by the rear door and as we passed I saw some queer, basket-like arrangements near the entrance and asked what they were. He hesitated a moment and then said: " I am going to talk frankly with you, Miss Leigh. You have been brought up to see life as it should be. Here you will see it as it should not be. Those recep tacles were placed at the entrances by my order. Illegitimacy is the curse of South America. It is so common here, deserted children so many, that it makes little or [82] {Unofficial &ecretarp no impression on people. The babies left in the night at the hospital doors so often died of exposure that, since they will leave them, I have had a place provided for them. The morals of this country certainly need fumigating. Believe me, the attendants think no more of finding a child here in the morning than you would think of finding a stray dog or cat on your back porch at home." I was too paralyzed to make reply. Be sides, I knew he had more to say. So I waited for him to say it. " Sometimes I get very much discour aged," he went on. " It seems so hope less a task. " For one thing, it is impossible to get the right kind of nurses. The best are those who have come to me because of their own troubles and have afterward stayed as nurses. But they lack some thing. That splendid self-reliance which characterizes our countrywomen and makes them fearless and cool-headed in [83] Unofficial ;%>ecretarjt> moments of emergency is an unknown quantity here. Then, too, there is the church. It is so different from the Cath olic Church in the United States. There all religions meet on common ground. Here there is but one church. Conse quently its power is greater than it is in our country, the devotion of the people much stronger. Loyalty to it is para mount to all things else and this some times leads the nurses to do what seem to us incomprehensible things. Will you be lieve me when I tell you that the most competent nurse I have left the hospital without my knowledge and went to service on Good Friday, and while she was gone her patient died? When I remonstrated with her, she looked at me in astonish ment. She was utterly unconscious of neglected duty. When I asked her if she felt that it was right to leave her patient she said, ' But it is Good Friday. I must go to church.' What can one [84] Unofficial do under such circumstances? If I ever get hold of a good, North American trained nurse, I'll " " Marry her," I broke in. He did not take to the idea very kindly, although he laughed. " No," he said. " I should not do that. But if ever I learn of the presence of one in Buenos Aires I shall endeavor to attach her to the hospital if I have to use a ball and chain." Then he returned to the subject. " I have succeeded in accomplishing one thing. I have enlisted the municipal au thorities. They will help as much as they dare, and perhaps another generation may see better conditions, better times. Did you notice you must have done so the extreme youth of those little mothers? The majority of them are between fifteen and twenty, yet they look like sad little matrons of thirty-five. If only there were some one to teach them to teach them the things they ought to know! " Did I say he was a man of few words? [85] {Unofficial &ecretarp Well, he is until he begins to talk about his hospital. No wonder Captain Starr said he couldn't do the subject justice. I knew he had more to say so I kept dis creetly quiet. Being able to keep still at the right moment is a fortune in itself. I have always looked upon it as my one accomplishment. " You know, Miss Leigh," Dr. Thorne was saying, " it is to the women we must look for help. There is no need to ap peal to the men. It is here just as it is everywhere else, only worse. The Scarlet Letter is for women only. If all the men who deserved it had to wear it, a large percentage of the masculine population of South America would resemble a land scape by Corot." I should have laughed except that he spoke so grimly that I dared not. We had been riding through the lovely streets while he talked and presently he turned a corner and stopped before a little house. [86] ^Unofficial &ecretarp " This is where I live," he said briefly. " Will you come in? " He led the way up the path and into the most charming little house I have ever seen. The walls are made of adobe. It is built, as most of the South American houses are, after the fashion of a bunga low, one story, but built around a court. The interior was cool and inviting and through the window I had a glimpse of the loveliest garden, full of great, feathery, green ferns, tall enough for me to stand under, and gorgeous, unfamiliar plants and flowers. There is a little fountain in the centre, the waters of which fall back musically into the basin. It is such a garden as I have always dreamed of but have never seen before. He pushed aside a curtain and we en tered a room where sat a dear old lady a quaint little figure, as fragile in ap pearance as a piece of Sevres or Dresden china. She must be seventy-five, but she is as brisk and cheery as many another [87] (Unofficial &>ecrrtart> who has seen but half her years. Her gray hair was parted simply and waved about her ears. She was dressed in soft, lustreless black silk with a lace fichu about her throat. In her hands she held a piece of fine needlework. She seemed very small in comparison with Dr. Thome's splendid height as she rose from her low chair to greet us. " Aunt Val," he said, " I have brought you some one you have wished for years to see-" She looked at him questioningly, and he continued, " a real North American girl." " Not really! " she said as she dropped her work and took my hands in both her own. " How glad I am ! It has been so long since I have seen one." She touched a gong which hung in the doorway and a thoroughly Spanish servant appeared. " Mercedes," she said, u bring tea at once, and we will have it in the garden." [88] (Unofficial Secretary "Tea!" I said, laughing. "I knew you were English." ' Yes, I was born in England, but I went to the States when I was quite a child. I have always felt American, but ' what 's bred in the bone,' you know . I still like my tea." While she talked my eyes took in the room where we stood. The walls were stained a soft, dull green. There was a deep-toned Persian rug on the floor. No curtains were at the windows which were small and leaded. There were shelves of books on two sides of the room and pictures, not many, but good, on the walls. There was a fine reproduction of Hol bein's Madonna and one of the Crucifix ion by Albrecht Diirer, and over a desk which sat flatly against the wall a magni ficent head of Dante which chained me to the spot. Dr. Thorne saw my absorption and said, " I picked that up in Rome a good many years ago. Do you like it?" [89] ecretart> " Like it! " I exclaimed. " I love it! I love Dante. I love Beatrice. I love Florence. I love Italy. I love the Com edy Divine. I love everything else Dante ever said or wrote, " and being full of the subject I began to quote my own little sonnet on Dante: Thoughtful of mien, with measured step and slow, There walked a man in Florence, long ago. Smileless his face as bronze, downcast his eyes; He saw not the green fields, the azure skies, The cooing, chattering doves upon the stone, But walked as he had ever walked alone, Stifling within his lonely heart a cry As groups of laughing children passed him by. " Go on," he said. " It takes fourteen lines to make a sonnet." One day upon the bridge, from out the throng A woman smiled on Dante, and the Song Of Songs, the greatest that the world Has known, to all mankind was hurled The sorrows of great lovers to beguile. Ah, wondrous magic of a woman's smile! [90] Unofficial " Where did you get that? " he asked eagerly. " Wrote it." "Wrote it! Really?" "Surely. Why not?" I was n't prepared for what was com ing. He turned upon me with a glance which would have put the Ancient Mari ner out of business and said fiercely: " Tell me what are you doing in South America ? Why did n't you stay at home where there is an opportunity for a woman ? Why did n't you stay there and do things write things ? Why did n't you stay there and marry some good man instead of coming away down here?" I was so overpowered by the onslaught that I paused to get my breath. I sup pose I might have replied to the last ques tion by assuring him that the nice men were already married, but it did not occur to me till too late. All of a sudden, how ever, I had a brilliant inspiration. I [91} Unofficial thought of John Alden and Priscilla, so I smiled sweetly at him and said, "Why didn't you?" Mercedes came to tell us that tea was served in the garden. That was all that saved my life. Dr. Thorne had patients to visit, so I spent the late afternoon with " Aunt Val," as he calls her, in that quaint and lovely garden. The sun went down and it was twilight when he returned. Meanwhile she had told me something of her life. Her parents had gone from England to the United States when she was about ten years old. No, she had never married. Her real name was Valeria Valeria Rexford, but she had always been " Aunt Val." Dr. Thorne was her sister's child, but she had had him always. His mother had died when he was born. He was her boy. Sometimes she calls him affection ately " my son." There was a touch of sadness in all she said except when she spoke of him. She [92] {Unofficial g>ecretarp told what he had accomplished, how he had worked first to establish and then to maintain the hospital. " He has not taken a vacation for five years," she said. u All the money went into the hospital but then," she said with a little sigh, " every thing will be all right. Everything al ways is all right if we only think so. If it is n't get to work and make it so." It was time to go. Aunt Val kissed me and said, " If you get lonely in Para guay come back to us." We got into the car and neither of us said anything as we returned to the hotel. I went to bed and in my dreams I saw again that restful house, the quiet garden, every thing in perfect harmony, not a discord ant note anywhere. I saw Aunt Val in her soft gown and white lace fichu. And I saw him in his own environment where it was easier to understand him. Have you not known those people, Miladi, who find it of all things the most difficult to express what they feel? to [93] Unofficial put into words their friendship or affec tion? I think Dr. Thome is one of these men. To know him a little is not to know him at all. To know him well ah, Miladi, to know him well No, I am not sorry to move on. Who would knowingly plant within himself the seeds of some beautiful flower, realizing that later he would have to destroy its fragrance with his own hands and tear up the plant by the roots? Paraguay for me, Miladi. I shall write you next from there. THE CONSULAR RESIDENCE, Asuncion, Paraguay. T F after I am dead, Miladi, you should wish as my sole surviving relative to erect a monument to my memory you have my permission to make use of this in scription : The moving finger writes and having writ Moves on! [94] Unofficial How many letters I have written you since I left Washington, but never mind! That is the penalty you pay for being one of those adorable creatures who have the power (a rare gift) to read not only the lines themselves but all that lies between them. I have been at the Consulate two weeks. It is lovely here. I like it. The morning after I wrote you last, Mr. Holt arrived ah, but he was good to look at, Miladi ! and in the afternoon we all went down to the dock to see the Dom Pedro sail. All the morning Captain Starr had been my shadow, following me about wherever I went and I knew that he was leaving me reluctantly. At last, how ever, he went off for a walk with Mr. Holt, and when he returned he had shaken off his depression, whatever it was. We all had luncheon together, by all I mean that Dr. Thorne had joined us. After ward he took us in the car to the dock. I can not imagine where the River of [95] ^Unofficial Silver got its name. It is anything but silver in appearance. It is as tawny as the Tiber, and sometimes when the wind blows from the wrong direction it behaves very badly. The boats can not sail but must lie quietly and wait for the breeze to change, just as in some other localities they have to wait for the tide. But the wind was blowing the right way that day and after some very brief good-byes Cap tain Starr went on board. Presently we saw him in his white uniform upon the bridge. He lifted his cap to us, and in a moment more the Dom Pedro began to pull away. I could not help thinking of what Dr. Thorne had told me about the lack of interest the United States has in this country as I looked about the harbor. Forty vessels lay at anchor there, flying the flags of almost every country on the face of the earth. Only the Dom Pedro wore the Stars and Stripes. We had still two hours to wait for the boat which was to bring us here. Mr. [96] {Unofficial &ecretarp Holt went to attend to the business which had brought him to Buenos Aires and I went to ride again with Dr. Thorne. He was mum as an oyster every inch of the way, Miladi, and I was not sorry. I was a little short on talk myself. The man who does n't talk when he has nothing to say always makes a great hit with me. The things we feel most deeply are the things we can not put into words. Alas, how many 'put into words the things they do not and can not feel! If he chooses one may share his joys with the whole world, but not his griefs ah, no. These he coaxes down into the deep est, darkest corner of his inner dungeon and tries to forget they are there. Buenos Aires is one perpetual surprise party, Miladi. We rode out to the Jockey Club where the races were being held. It was not a gala day at all just one of the ordinary Thursday afternoon events but such crowds of people as were there ! Such good-looking, well-dressed men, such [97] Unofficial &ecretarp exquisitely gowned, beautiful women! Paris could n't beat it. As we came back the Avenida Alvear was thronged with mo tor cars and handsome carriages. I have observed here one thing which pleases me. The people have their motor cars, it is true, but our old friend, the horse, is not passe. They have also their carriages. It was not till we got back to the dock that my companion unbent. Mr. Holt was on the pier, and just before we left the car, Dr. Thorne turned to me and said, " Shall I not see you again in Buenos Aires some day, Miss Leigh? I hope so." I presume I said something in reply, Miladi, but I could n't tell you now what it was. He saw us on board, then ran down the steps, got into his car and drove furiously around the corner. I felt like jumping overboard. I need not tell you, however, (for you know him as well as I do) that it would n't be possible for one to be gloomy long in the presence of Mr. Holt. He is just the [98] {Unofficial ^>r crctarp same as he used to be when he visited us in Washington. There is always " some thing doing " when he is around. The air becomes charged with electricity. He gathered me into his arms for a minute when he came down to Buenos Aires and looked volumes, but he has not mentioned my father and mother, our broken home, my own sorrows, or anything else con nected with the old life. Evidently he has no intention of doing so and I am glad of it. When I awoke next morning I felt again the charm of this lovely land, its strange unfamiliarity. The trees and sky and water all seemed unlike those of any other country I had seen. The land itself was different. In a few months the railroad will be completed and then a run down to Buenos Aires will be compara tively a simple matter. Now it takes a week to come up to Asuncion, but who would exchange boat and river in the open for berth and smoke in a sleeper? [99] Unofficial I soon found that as in our own Cali fornia the distances are deceptive. The mountains covered with dense forests to the summit look quite near. One fancies that he could reach them in an hour, but should he ride all day he would find them just as far away as ever. Day after day, as we sailed up the river, we saw on the banks fields of bananas, cotton, cassava, tobacco, and hundreds of orange trees laden with golden fruit. Mr. Holt told me, however, that these were the wild orange trees that they grow in great abundance. But the fruit is bitter and thousands of the oranges that we saw lay rotting on the ground, unheeded save by the parrots. They, it seems, are very fond of the seeds. They cut open the rind with their curved beaks and very deftly extract the kernel, the only part they will eat. We were near enough the shore in places to see the wattle-and-daub cottages of the natives, and before I reached Asuncion {Unofficial &ecretarp Miladi, I came to the conclusion that these are a happy, contented people. Poor as they are they have few wants. They live freer, healthier, a thousand times happier lives than do the poor in our great cities. They know not what it is to suffer from hunger or cold. They are courteous, hos pitable, friendly, and the little copper- colored children, naked and unashamed, eye you curiously. One afternoon about a week after we sailed from Buenos Aires I sat in a shady corner, my attention divided between the ever-changing shore and Mr. Holt, who was walking up and down the deck finish ing his cigar. Occasionally he tossed a remark in my direction as he passed and as I watched him I could not help envying him his magnificent poise. Suddenly I found myself thinking of that terrible night about six years ago a night which whit ened his hair and broke his heart but from which he issued forth unconquered. All Washington was horrified when it became [101] known that Mr. Holt's splendid son, just twenty-one, had lost his life the night be fore in a frantic and unsuccessful effort to save his sister when a sputtering candle let fall a drop of burning wax upon her filmy ball gown and set it all ablaze. Father and I hastened over to them as soon as we heard of it, and I can see them yet those two men. For a moment both were speech less. Then Mr. Holt burst forth: " It might have been worse. Leigh, it would have been worse would n't it? if he had n't tried! " Poor Mr. Holt! He could meet his sorrow, could look it squarely in the face if he had to, but he could not have borne it if the boy in that last hour had disap pointed him. Since that day I have never heard him speak of his children. Reso lutely he put his own grief behind him that he might the better help the mother bear hers. One never gets at the real depths of Mr. Holt's character unless one hears him speak of his wife. [102] Unofficial I had been wishing that he would say something concerning the work at the Consulate, so I was rather glad when he ceased his walk and sat down near me. " Shall we have a little talk about our plans, Virginia? " he asked. " This is as good a time as any." I waited, and presently he went on with a little laugh, " You may think I have lured you down here under false pretences." "Why?" " Well, it is n't so much the work to be done, although your knowledge of the languages will be a great help to me there, but, you see, Virginia, there is Mrs. Holt " "Yes?" " She is brave. She tries to be cheerful, but after all, life away from one's own country, however interesting, is exile. And so I thought " " Of course. I understand." " Every day you make less tedious for [103] ZHnofftctal &ecretarp her, Virginia, will be a day I shall not forget. She is all I have, you know. As for the things to be done at the office there are Armstrong and Farnsworth. Armstrong, you know, is the official secretary." " I see," I said, and because he had grown serious I spoke lightly. " I am to be the wwofficial secretary." " Exactly," he replied, laughing. " You could n't have put it better." Late the next afternoon we reached Asuncion. I had long since gotten past the place where anything I saw astonished me. I stepped into a waiting automobile with the utmost nonchalance. Had it been a wheelbarrow I think it would have been all the same to me. Mr. Holt is quite a personage in Asun cion. Every one calls him " El Senor Con sul," and from the way they say it, I take it that he has " made good." The Con sulate, that is the Government office, is in a building almost adjoining our little Unofficial house. The latter is perfectly delightful and evidently dates from the very early days. La Senora Consul (otherwise Mrs. Holt) is as pretty and as charming as ever. She says that the little house looked so dilapidated that the Consul protested when she wished to take it, but you should see it now! It is restful and pleasing, far more so than are the so-called aesthetic residences we see at home. The walls are made of adobe, and it, too, is built about a patio (inner court) as nearly all the houses down here are. The roof is flat like those on the houses you see in the Far East. The rooms all open into the patio and into each other. The only dif ference between this and the other houses is that ours is two-story. Most of the Paraguayan homes have but one floor. There is no need of a fire department here. You can always jump out of the window. All the houses have deep eaves, and from them slender tubes of hardwood [105] Unofficial project a foot or two to carry off the rain. They do carry it off with a vengeance. Mrs. Holt says that in the rainy season they spout like a young Niagara upon the unsuspecting passer-by. The most fascinating thing to me about the whole place, though, is a great door of solid wood, studded with wrought-iron nails. It opens into a dark passage leading to the second floor. In the door is a spy-hole and two smaller openings through which one could fire should an enemy venture an attack. The door looks as if it might be older than the rest of the house and was perhaps brought here from some other part of the country. My own little room is as pleasant as I could wish although quite different from any I have ever had elsewhere. La Sefiora Consul assured me that I should have a bed if I preferred it although none of the rest of them have. Instead, wide, roomy, beautiful, brilliantly colored hammocks with long lace fringes swing in every room except in Mr. Holt's [106] Unofficial g>ecrctarj> den. There a broad and unmistakably American leather couch holds forth in solitary grandeur. The chairs and tables all over the house are as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar and such a thing as a rocking- chair is unknown. We have a garden also, but . There is only one garden in my little world, Miladi, and it is in Buenos Aires. Still, as gardens go, this one is n't so bad. It, too, is riotous with ferns, palms, castor- oil plants, and wild indigo, and at the back is a row of orange trees. At night when we look out into it the trees are alive with fireflies. They dart in and out and through it like myriad miniature butter flies dipped in phosphorus. El Senor Consul and Mrs. Holt begged that I would stay and live with them en famille. I remembered what Mr. Holt had said and when he laughingly assured me again that he would double my salary if I would keep Mrs. Holt from being homesick, I stayed, and have found it [ 107] Unofficial >ccretarp delightful. Monday I went to the Con sulate where I made the acquaintance of the Head Secretary, Mr. Nelson Arm strong, and of the Under Secretary, Mr. Richard Farnsworth (who by the way, is a Washington man) and last, by no means least, of Pasquale. I don't know just what title would be given to the position occu pied by Pasquale. If this were a news paper office he would doubtless be known as the " printer's devil." Anyway, he is a handsome lad of about seventeen, with large, soulful, Spanish eyes and a beautiful olive complexion. He is uniformly good- natured, and they tell me that wherever the female population of Asuncion congre gates, there you will find Pasquale. My work at the office is neither onerous nor unpleasant. It consists largely in trans lating the numerous letters in many lan guages which come daily to the Consul. I slipped into my place without the slightest difficulty and feel as though I had been here always. [108] Unofficial &ecretarp Au revoir, Miladi. There are enough interesting things in this old town to fill a book, but I shall have to leave them till next time. ASUNCION, PARAGUAY, S. A. HRISTMAS Day in Paraguay I It is hardly possible to persuade myself that it is so, Miladi, for, as you know, December with us comes in summer-time and is the month which corresponds to June on the northern side of the Equator. The day has been truly delightful, neither hot nor cold, but like a fine September afternoon at home. They tell me, though, that it is not often that we have such days. Just now we should be prepared for almost tropical heat. It is warmer in Paraguay than anywhere in the United States unless perhaps at Key West. Even in Florida, though, the frost sometimes blights the oranges, while here such a thing is not known. [ 109] Unofficial Shortly after La Senora Consul came down here she sent back to Washington for some rose bushes. It was only an ex periment, but it has proved a huge success. The American Beauties are as high as the house and a perfect mass of bloom! Gorgeous butterflies flutter everywhere and all out-of-doors is full of birds birds of every kind, from the tiny yellow ones which look in color like the canaries but are in form like the humming-birds, to the green-and-scarlet parrots which chatter and scream above our heads. No, it does n't seem much like Christmas, Miladi, although we had a Christmas tree and tried not to forget that it was the Birthday of the King. When I went down to breakfast I found a package at my place, and oh, joy! letters from you, Miladi, six weeks old, it is true, but that made no difference. Have I not said that I have an abiding fondness for things that are old? The [no] ^Unofficial g>ecretarp writing on the package was unfamiliar, though, so I opened it with a good deal of curiosity. Mrs. Holt cried out with pleasure when I took out an exquisite, matchlessly carved Spanish fan. It cer tainly looked old enough to satisfy even my abnormal taste. It fairly reeked with age. There was a card in the box which I surreptitiously extracted, much to the amusement of El Serior Consul who caught me in the act. When I got upstairs I looked at it again. On one side it said, " Dr. Rexford Thorne." On the other was a line which read, " I am giving myself the pleasure of wishing you Merry Christmas. Hasta la vista." (Till I see you again.) I was never so grateful before, Miladi, that I am a product of the twentieth cen tury. Otherwise it might be up to me to return this gift on the ground that it is improper for a lone, lorn maiden to accept the same from an unmarried man. Not for [in] ecretarj> It was no use. Further argument was wasted. So now all I can do to get even is to lead my escort a merry dance. I take a melancholy pleasure in taking her places where she thinks I ought n't to go, and I 'm convinced that one is an American only in the United States. Asuncion has a beautiful cathedral, some fine parochial churches, a Palace for the Government, a Public Library, and a University. There is a good theatre, too, and a customs-house, a market-place, some fairly good railway stations, and a hos pital which would make Dr. Thorne feel like committing suicide. More than this, we have electric lights, telegraphs, and yes telephones. But there is one draw back to the telephones. They all speak Spanish. If I stay here forever I shall never get accustomed to hearing a voice say, " Buenos dias" instead of " Hello," and " Adios," instead of " Good-bye." Asuncion is thoroughly Spanish and very old. At the same time there are many [113] (llnoffirtal is>ecretarp things which are modern. There seems always a mixture of Past and Present. Since I have been here I have thought so many times how like the history of the Transvaal is to that of Paraguay. They have the same peculiarity of a dual lan guage that is, the people of the town speak one language and the people of the country another. In the Transvaal the rural language is the official one, but here the reverse is true. Spanish is the official language. The natives speak the Guarani. The strongest point of resemblance, how ever, is historical. Like the people of the Transvaal those of Paraguay waged for t years a sanguinary war against overwhelm ing numbers the combined forces of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. It was when Lopez was Dictator. For years they fought, till it was almost literally true that there were no men left in Paraguay. Lopez was a gifted young man. He had the personal magnetism sufficient to per suade these people that they were fighting [114] Unofficial &ecretarp for sacred principles, while as a matter of fact, it was only to satisfy his own over whelming ambition. Lopez had had a European education. He had also a French lady friend and an idea that he was Napoleon's most promising understudy. There are two unfinished buildings in As uncion which are of interest. Both were commenced by him. One is the old thea tre, built in imitation of the celebrated La Scala in Milan, the other a mausoleum, a reproduction of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, which Lopez designed for the recep tion of his own body. But it remains un- tenanted, for in 1870 the brave little army was defeated and Lopez himself was killed at Aquidaban. One thing, though, he did for Paraguay. While the men were fight ing he made the women plant the orange trees, of which there are thousands. When the men were all dead and only the women and children were left, the oranges were their salvation, and believe me, Miladi, if you have never eaten a Paraguayan [H5] ?Hnotftctal orange, then you have never eaten an orange. Q. E. D. Away back in 1609 the Jesuits were sent out from Spain for the purpose of pacify ing, educating, and governing these people. Paraguay was then a part of the Spanish dominions. The fathers founded schools, tried to reduce the Guarani to a written language, taught the natives agriculture, architecture, and many of the arts. But the greatest thing they taught them was that everything they needed they could make themselves, in their own country and out of their native material. In fact, this is true of this whole continent, Miladi. If there were not another inch of land on the face of the earth, South America could live by herself. She has everything with in herself the rubber which keeps off the rain, the coffee which goes with one's breakfast, the beef on which the world dines, the wheat to make the bread, great forests of lumber for the builder, finer woods to tempt the craftsman, and don't [116] Unofficial &ecretarp forget the diamonds which are here to grace the beauty of the Spanish ladies. In Paraguay, however, the civilization of those early days fled under the ravages of war. When this little Republic issued forth from the disastrous struggle of 1865-70, she was the mere wreck of a nation. But those who fought for her, Miladi, they have written their names alongside those of the Greeks who fought at Marathon and Thermopylae. Heigho, I wonder who invented holi days, anyway! They are the very deuce for making one miserable. They are all right so long as the jollity and the festivi ties last, but when these are over and you sit down a few moments by yourself, be hold, all your old griefs come trooping out of the past laden with useless regret and pain ! Not only that, you are in luck if you do not find that they have accumu lated at compound interest. But there this is Christmas and therefore different from all other holidays. I will not be [117] ^Unofficial gloomy. Presently I will get out my little volume of Carlyle and find the page where he says : " The eternal stars shine out just as soon as it is dark enough ! " Life has so many corners, Miladi. We turn and turn them, thinking all the time that each will be the last. But evermore we find another and still another. When the winds of to-morrow shall have blown away the ashes of to-day all that remain of the fires that burned within me yester day it may be that even I shall find love and happiness waiting for me at the turn of the road around which I least expect to find it. Adios. ASUNCION, PARAGUAY, January. / "T -S HE calendar tells me that it is the middle of January, Miladi, but I don't believe it. The temperature is sug gestive of Beelzebub his residence, and if there is a warmer spot in the universe than [118] ^Unofficial this I hope a. record for previous good con duct will keep me from being sent there. I never realized before how advisable it is to walk the straight and narrow path! I Ve been thinking all day of a story I heard once about a man who was forced to spend a summer in Arizona. He wrote home to his wife that if he owned both Arizona and Hades he would rent Arizona and live in Hades. Don't think for a moment, though, that I am slandering Paraguay. Only a short age in angels keeps it from being a Para dise. The sky is spread above us in one pure, sapphire sheet. The luxuriant tropi cal vegetation has reached the limit of its growth. There are masses of flowers, and alluring, though sometimes poisonous fruit. The air is soft and relaxing, and to those unaccustomed to the climate, enervating. When you go out for a walk, which you do at this time of year only in the even ing, you suddenly discover that you have left all your starch at home. But the [119] ^Inofficial ;%>ecrctan> heat seems to have no effect upon the natives. The men here are fine, stalwart-looking fellows, but there are no young women in South America. There seems to be no intervening period between childhood and womanhood. The years we know as those of girlhood do not exist here. The men are happy-go-lucky, care-free people. When they have a little money they spend it feasting and dancing. When they have none, they know that the produce of their farms will support them. They have large families but no anxiety as to the future. Give a Paraguayan a guitar, a few cigarettes, and a glass of cona (new rum) and he will find recreation and diversion for a whole day at no expense. Just now, though, on account of the intense heat, the theatres are closed. The promenade is deserted. The walls burn your hands if you touch them, but ah, Miladi, it is all so beautiful! A rare melancholy seems to pervade the very air, and over every inch [ 120] {Unofficial &>ecretarp and into every corner of the land is burned the gold of the South American summer. It is like a love that is dead and yet persists. Pasquale has become my slave. If you don't believe it just listen to this. A few days ago he presented himself at the door and asked for me. He had under his arm something which looked like a roll of matting, and when I appeared he pro ceeded to unroll it on the porch. Now, it did n't look like anything I had ever seen before, Miladi, and when Pasquale gets excited he begins to talk the Guarani. I am somewhat of a linguist myself but that is a language I do not speak. I saw from his gestures, however, that he wanted me to walk on the thing, whatever it was, so I did. I happened to look up at Mr. Holt and his eyes were dancing with mischief. "What is it?" I asked him. " Oh, nothing," he replied, unconcern edly, " just a snake ! " [121] ^Unofficial &>ecretarp A snake ! Did n't I tell you this was Paradise, Miladi? Even the serpent is with us ! I sent forth a shriek which would have discouraged a Comanche. The skin was twenty-four feet long, about half a yard wide, and (I must confess) beauti fully mottled. Pasquale had killed His Snakeship himself about a mile out from town at the edge of the woods. Then he had had the skin tanned and made into a strip for " La Senorita norte-Americano," as he persists in calling me. Hear my last will and testament, Miladi. If a fellow were to see that " sarpint " coming at him au naturel, he would think he had consumed a whole Kentucky dis tillery! Witness my hand and seal! After Pasquale had gone I confided in El Sefior Consul that I should certainly assassinate our young Spanish friend if he did n't stop calling me all the time a North American. There are moments when I don't know whether to array myself like an Eskimo lady or a Pottawottomie squaw ! [122] ccretarp brunette to blonde which a. little peroxide may bring forth? Shades of the Seven Sutherland Sisters! There has been nothing doing socially at the Consulate since I came. All are waiting for the extreme heat to pass. But I have met Frau Zollner, Mrs. German Consul and Mrs. Gordon-Brown Mrs. British Consul. The former is fair and fat and forty, and when she found I could talk German I thought she was go ing to abduct me. As for Mrs. Gordon- Brown she is perfectly charming, but all I can say is that she is Mrs. British Consul with a large B. If there is anything in King George's realm more English than she, I should like to see it! We are looking forward to seeing Cap tain Starr again. Each alternate voyage the Dom Pedro lies at Buenos Aires for three weeks. So we are planning to have him here with us. Miladi, sometimes I think I might just as well have borne the ills I had in Wash- [125] ^Unofficial ington as to have flown to others that I knew not of in Buenos Aires. The day hours at the Consulate are filled to over flowing, for which I render continuous thanks. To have one's hands employed and one's thoughts occupied has been the salvation of many a storm-shaken crea ture, but the night hours they are long and shadowy and full of dreams. Voices from out the land of " Ye Hearte's De sire " call to my soul, already haunted with the unfulfilment of life. But then, the night does n't last so very long after all. Sunrise comes as usual next morning and in the electrical presence of El Senor Consul I inhale new life. Every now and then one of my dead ambitions rises out of its grave and I really feel like doing things. Buenos noches, Miladi. I have a picture of you at this present moment wading about in the snow! The very thought makes me feel better. Would that I were a child again with a little red sled and [126] Unofficial &ecretarp a hill-side and a small boy to start me on the downward path. Adios. ASUNCION, PARAGUAY, February. \7 OU have always had my unbounded sympathy, Miladi, in that you had me for a cousin and could n't help it, but you would never have guessed now, would you? that I was in danger of be coming a Foreign Missionary. A few Sundays ago I awoke with a deadly longing to hear the Church Service. Reading it to myself did n't seem to fill the long-felt want. At last I spoke of it to Mr. Holt. He laid down his cigar, and said with a little laugh, "Ettu, Brute?" I have aired my views on the subject of religion in your presence so many times that I think it is taking a mean advantage to do it again from this distance, Miladi. Mine is a faith untroubled by doctrine. Per sonally, I believe in God the Father, [127] Unofficial &etretarp Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ His Only Son, Our Lord. After that all creation may split up into sects and denominations if it chooses and enter tain any creed it pleases. It makes no dif ference to me what it is. If there is a man, woman, or child on earth, however, who has n't a creed of some kind, it is my honest opinion that he, she, or it had better go out and find one. I remember once a long time ago it seems now I went in to my father's library and on his desk saw a little slip of paper on which he had copied from an open book lying there these lines : " What care I for caste or creed? It is the deed it is the deed ! What care I for class or clan? It is the man it is the man ! What care I for robe or stole? It is the soul it is the soul ! It is the faith, it is the hope, It is the struggle up the slope, It is the brain, the eye to see One God and one humanity!" [128] Unofficial I never forgot those words, Miladi, and I have always said to myself that if they satisfied his great soul they were good enough for me. Nevertheless, I have al ways tried to stay in the beaten path. " I am not at all surprised to hear you say this," Mr. Holt said. "We've all been there. Mrs. Holt and I feel it too. When one is not Catholic oneself, to live in a truly Catholic country is a strange experience." Well, I could n't get the thing out of my mind, and when a few days later, I hap pened to meet Mrs. British Consul in one of the shops, I unburdened myself to her. I found that not only she herself but all the people at the British Consulate, felt the same sense of loss. So it transpired that last Sunday we got together at the British Consulate and Mr. Caruthers, the Head Secretary there, whose father is an English clergyman, read the Service. I sang " The King of Love my Shepherd is," and the whole affair passed off [129] {Unofficial &ecretarp beautifully. Mr. Caruthers used his Eng lish Prayer Book, of course, but he was nothing if not diplomatic. When he came to the prayer for the King he read : Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless our Most Gracious Sovereign Lord King George V, The President of the United States, and all others in authority. Thus did he ward off all danger of any international complications ! So you see, Miladi, that it is not impos sible for good to result from what is some times a truly selfish motive. We all felt better after our little service and it has made a sort of tie between us. Things are beginning to take on life again. The terrible heat is passing. Un used as I was to the climate it almost finished me for a while. The Consul in sisted that I stay quietly at home for a few days so I entertained myself by watch ing the Spanish servants make the guava jelly. Next to the orange, the guava is the [130] Unofficial &ecretarj> most abundant of the fruits in Paraguay. The trees look much like our plum trees. The fruit is yellow, about the size of a five-shilling piece, and filled with tiny seeds. Each tree yields about a bushel and a half, and the women bring the fruit in large basketfuls to Asuncion. The sea son for guava is from January to April. It makes beautiful and delicious jelly, clear and bright red in color. The water jars have also a continual fascination for me. They are large and porous and during the extreme heat the moisture hung in great drops on the out side. On the inside, however, the drinking water was as cool as one could wish. If we had them at home the Artificial Ice Company would have to go out of business. Of all the products of Paraguay, though, nothing is so interesting as the yerba-mate, the Paraguayan tea. It is n't tea at all, of course, but is far superior to it. The word yerba means an herb the word mate means a cup. Therefore it is the Unofficial herb drunk from the cup. Yerba drinking is as prevalent in Paraguay as tea-drinking is in England or Japan. The yerba is the leaf of a plant which grows wild in this country. They have now large plantations where they grow it, or rather where it grows itself, for it does not need cultiva tion. The leaves look like our holly leaves green, smooth, and glossy. The plantations where they grow it are called the yerbales, and here the peons, under an overseer, strip the plant of its shining leaves and toast them over large fires till they are quite dry and brittle. They are then placed in a large wooden mortar and pounded, and when they are quite reduced to dust the powdered yerba is put into large bags and sent to market. The Paraguayans have a method of drinking it which is all their own. It is made exactly as we make tea. The natives make theirs in the mate, which is a small gourd. They put a pinch of yerba in the mate, pour the boiling water upon it, and [132] Unofficial g>ecretarp then suck the infusion through a little tube called a bombilla which expands at the lower end into a bulb filled with tiny holes. This acts as a strainer. Sometimes the bombilla is a very primitive affair, simply a little wooden tube, but often it is an exquisite thing of silver, the filigree show ing the finest workmanship. The native method of drinking the yerba is not easily acquired by foreigners. They never fail to scald themselves the first time they try it and usually end by making and drinking it as they would ordinary tea. I did not like the yerba at first. Like caviare and ripe olives, it is a cultivated taste, but once you have acquired it you can not loose it. It has all the stimulating qualities of tea and coffee, but none of their bad effects. One can drink all he wants of it and will find himself neither wakeful nor nervous afterward. There is one drawback about yerba-dnnkmg. If you go to see a Paraguayan family, the whole crowd (I use the word advisedly, for the [133] (HnoUirtal families are enormous) and other guests, if they have them, will be seated. Then the yerba is passed from one to the other, all using the same cup and bombilla. They will be greatly offended if you refuse. Con sequently one does n't make a business of visiting them. Preparing and packing the yerba is the principal industry of the coun try and if I were a man I think I should stop Secretarying and begin exporting yerba to the United States. What a fine thing it would be for the frayed and fraz zled American nervous system ! As another proof of the manner in which the other countries have " beaten us to it," I went one day into a little shop to make some trifling purchase and my eyes fell upon an article which bore the unmistak able earmarks of a United States factory. I was curious enough to inquire whence it came. " Ah, Senorita," replied the proprietor, " that is European." A little further questioning brought [134] ^Unofficial &ecretarp forth the truth. The article was European only because it had been sent to Europe before being sent here to save time. There are not enough boats running direct from North to South 'America even to fill what orders we do get. So our American goods are no longer American when they get here, and it serves us right. Further more, a few more questions brought forth the information that the Paraguayan im porters send their orders for these things to Europe instead of to the States. What do you think of that? The Paraguayan peasants, that is the laboring men who work on the yerba plan tations and the ranches peons, they call them are in a class all by themselves. We have no people like them at home, neither are they like the peons in Mexico who, because they are forever and ever lastingly in debt to their employers, are forced to work for them all their lives. The latter see to it that they never suc ceed in getting out of debt. Here the [135] ^Unofficial jfeccrctarp peons come to do this kind of labor usually because of some disgracia, perhaps a knife- thrust over a game of cards, perhaps a quarrel at a horse race, or because of the dark eyes of a senorita. There are some splendid-looking fellows among them and for the most part they are cheerful and good-natured. But when they drink the cona, the native rum, they are dangerous and their respect for human life is nil. Pasquale strolled under the window just now whistling " Me gustan todas " a little Spanish folk-song which they sing down here to the same tune the German children use for " Ich hatt' einen Kam- eraden" The translation runs something like this : I love the girls, the pretty girls, I love them all the dark, the fair, The short, the tall, but, best of all I love the girl with the golden hair! Poor Pasquale ! I fear that the pangs of unrequited affection must he his. Adios. [136] Unofficial &>ecretarp ASUNCION, PARAGUAY, March fifteenth. /"\NE gains experience rapidly in this country, Miladi. A few days ago the Consul had a letter from an old friend up in Maine asking him to look up a some what wayward son whom he had reason to believe was on a ranch not far from here. The weather was fine so Mrs. Holt and I went with El Serior Consul on his quest. The national dress of the women of Paraguay, that is, of the native country women, is an exceedingly primitive affair. It does duty, it is true, for all the pomp and circumstance which the female form divine seems to require in other lands, but it is an extremely decollete and sleeveless garment called a tupoi, and sometimes in the more remote villages even this is considered cumbersome. As for the ninas, (babies) they wear their native nothingness ! As we drove along we saw a cottage back of a clump of trees and the Consul [137] ^Unofficial &ecretarp thought he would inquire whether we were following the right road. In this clear atmosphere you can see a long dis tance and we had noticed several people moving about the cottage. At sight of us, however, there was a general stampede. Everybody fled. I was glad they did, Miladi. Never having resided in the Garden of Eden I have always looked upon clothes of some kind as a sine qua non. Mr. Holt knocked and pounded and pounded and knocked. At last one of the women appeared clad in the tupoi. With courteous salutations, half-Spanish, half-Guarani, she requested us to take possession of the house. She apologized for keeping the Consul waiting said that there was but one tupoi in the family and she had had trouble in finding it! The outer garment of the men is the poncho. It is not made of rubber such as those our soldiers wear at home are, but is a simple piece of woollen or cotton cloth, [138] Unofficial &ecretarp cut six feet square, with a hole in the centre through which he puts his head. It is his coat by day and his blanket by night. When he is tired he spreads it upon the grass and rests on it, and next to his horse it is his most valued possession. I am always finding things in Asuncion. A few days ago when I was out walking (with that villainous old Spanish woman ambling along behind me) I came to a little house which looked interesting. In the doorway sat an ancient specimen of our sex who well, I think she must have been the identical messenger who went after the doctor the day that Methusa- lah's great-grandmother was born. Mi- ladi, she was the oldest ever! But there she sat, and when I saw what she was do ing, I sat, myself. She was making lace the marvellous Paraguayan lace, another illustration of the truth of the teachings of the Jesuits, that everything they needed or wanted they could make themselves out of their [139] Unofficial >ccrctarp native material. She was almost blind, but her sense of touch never deceived her. The lace is the most beautiful I have ever seen, and that is saying a good deal. Europe has never produced anything to equal it. It is called in the native lan guage nandutij meaning a cobweb, and it is made of thread spun from the native cotton and sometimes from other native plants. In texture it is exceedingly fine, soft and lustrous as the finest silk. Best of all it is practically indestructible, and the skill these women display with the needle while working out difficult and in tricate designs is wonderful. The lace sells here for a song. I should hate to try to buy it in Paris. If it ever finds its way in to the market of Europe it will command exorbitant prices. When I got back to my desk, about an hour behind time, Mr. Holt looked up and said with mock sternness, "Now where have you been?" (Ac cent on the now.) [ 140] ^Inofficial I assured him that like a sheep I had gone astray that I had done the things I ought not to have done, and, incident ally, had left undone a few of the things I should have been doing, but that on the whole I had had a fine time! He laughed and then said, teasingly, " Well, it takes little to amuse children. I think I shall not be as enthusiastic as you are when I get my crown! " Our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Armstrong, the Head Secretary. He is a fine fellow, Miladi, but he has a wife, and every time I look at him I say to myself: Needles and pins, needles and pins! When a man marries his trouble begins. Do you know, Miladi, of late years I have been consumed with admiration for the perspicacity of Mother Goose ! Don't you remember the day we came upon her grave in the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston? We read, not without a feel ing of awe, the inscription: [141] Unofficial Sacred to the memory of ANNE Wife of Isaac Goose. Mother Goose. Until I saw that stone I had been in clined to look upon this good lady as a myth. Now I am convinced that she was a female Solomon. More than that avaunt, ye Wright Brothers, Brookins, Beachy, et al! Hie to the woods and the hills. You are several centuries behind the procession. There is nothing new about aviation, for Old Mother Goose when she wanted to wander, Rode through the air on a very fine gander! But to get back to first principles (other wise Mr. Armstrong) he has a wife ! What under the sun possesses the men to marry us, anyway, Miladi ? Can you tell? It is a subject on which I long have pondered. Unmarried, man is lord of creation. Earth, sea, and air are his. He [142] ^Unofficial gbecretarp pays the taxes, controls the Steamship Syn dicate, and invents the aeroplane. In spite of all this, just as often as not, the fields go unfilled, the boats dash against the rocks, and the aeroplane lights in the top of a tall tree while Dear Man pursues the fleeing garment of a lady, and for what, Miladi, for what? Why do the men marry us ? Surely not for the delirious joy of paying our bills! To me the strangest thing about the whole proposition is that the man who really seems to be the right sort the scholar who has the wisdom of all the ages at his tongue's end, the scientist who scorns everything which he can not reduce to formula, the lawyer who argues and wins the most difficult cases, the minister who preaches eloquent sermons, the doctor who, because of the character of his calling needs more than any man on earth sym pathetic companionship at home, not infre quently chooses as a life partner a dear little package of frivolous femininity tied [143] Unofficial &ecretarp up in blue ribbons, whose sole qualifica tion for the job is that she is kissable. Apropos of doctors, Miladi, as the darkies down South say I have a " hunch " that being a doctor's wife is one of the Fine Arts. He is the man of all men who plays the game! All the day long, nothing but sickness and suffer ing and pain, and he is in luck if he does not find them accompanied by poverty, wretchedness, and woe. I have no doubt that a doctor could stand people's physical ailments better if only they would keep their scarred and battered souls out of sight! Through the scorching sun of summer, the winter snows, the spring rains, the autumn winds, he goes abroad. When the rest of the world is asleep he is in the streets. He has to smile though all the earth is in tears. He has to tell us the truth when he knows it will break our hearts. He is there to greet the new-born. He closes the eyes of the dead. Year in, year out, he willingly repeats to-day {Unofficial &ecretarp what he did yesterday. Yes, it is the doctor who plays the game ! Well, then, if after something less than twenty-four hours of this sort of thing every day he gets home, at brief intervals, to an unhealthy atmosphere and a queru lous companion who thinks that he could have gotten home to dinner at six if he had tried but there, Miladi. Paciencia! Let us leave the verdict with the coroner! After all, don't we women have very much the better of it in this world? If we have the luck to draw a perfectly good husband we take up most of his time, spend all of his money, and wear some of his clothes. What more can we ask? I think Daddy used to be quite disgusted with me because I could never enthuse over the fair and virtuous Penelope who spent the night ripping out what she had woven during the day while she waited for her lord to return. I did my very best, Miladi, but I couldn't get up a thrill! I was all the time thinking of a storm-tossed [145] ^Unofficial &ecretarp ocean where Ulysses was clinging to a spar! Returning to the art of being a doctor's wife if he is the right kind of a man he will become a popular physician, in which case, it is true, she will see little of him. On the other hand, if he is not the right kind she will wish she had never seen him at all, and there you are. Heaven protect us from the doctor who is n't the right kind of a man! Deep down in my inner consciousness I have a serious think or two about this sub ject of marriage. I am almost afraid to say it aloud. But I am convinced that within every man since the world was made, deep-rooted as life itself, lies the desire to see himself reproduced in his child. Man realizes, as woman seems not to do, that Youth will pass, that Age will come, just as surely as that to-morrow's sun shall rise. There will come the day when Time will begin knocking at the gates, when his life-work is done, when if [146] {Unofficial he have not the strong arm of young man or young womanhood to lean upon, he shall sit by himself in that long twilight which is followed by the night. Therefore he would that the light-heartedness of youth, his own flesh and blood, should bear him company through life. And he is willing to pay the price, to face the work- a-day world with its manifold griefs and burdens. So far, so good. Hear my last word, then, Miladi, and I '11 forever after ward hold my peace. Show me that wo man who marries a man, wilfully accept ing the best that he has to give her, who then leaves him with the greatest longing of his heart unsatisfied, and I will show you the most contemptible creature on the face of God's earth. Selah. But then, I don't want to be too hard on Mrs. Armstrong. It is only that I have always despised those intensely practical people who have n't room in their cosmos for one iota of sentiment. I never hank ered after the halo which seems to [H7] Cfje ^Inofficial surround the head of the woman of the type commonly known as " capable." Far rather would I be the very creature that I am, full of faults, but withal thoroughly human. When I went with La Senora Consul to return the call of Mrs. Head Secretary, I saw at a glance the reason for her hus band's meek and lowly spirit. Miladi, every shade in that house was drawn up exactly three and three-quarter inches (tailors' measure) from the window-sill. There was a " dim, religious light " over the whole house. If the chairs had been placarded they could not have said more emphatically, " Don't sit on me." There seemed to be nothing else for it, however, so I sat down gingerly on one while Mrs. Holt teeter-tottered hazardously on the edge of another, and I drew my own con clusions as to the thoughts of the Head Secretary on " all the comforts of home." I have no doubt that, like the Hindoo, he takes off his shoes before entering this [148] Unofficial &ecretarp holy temple. Still, far be it from me to discredit any one's good intentions. Per haps Mrs. A is only trying to set the Spanish women a worthy example. They are, as Uncle Remus said of Ole Sis' Tur key-Buzzard, " perfec'ly scan-dale-yous housekeepers." There is a never-changing, rare good- fellowship existing between El Senor Con sul and his wife. What 's the reason all married people are n't good friends like these two, I wonder? When Mr. Holt put in his appearance that evening we were still discussing our call of the afternoon, and in a burst of marital confidence La Sefiora Consul said, " What on earth do you suppose made him want to marry her? " Mr. Holt paused a moment before re plying. Then, regardless of my presence, he took her pretty face between his two hands and softly kissed it. "My dear!" he expostulated. " S-s-s-sh ! Perhaps she is wondering the {Unofficial &ecretarp same thing about me ! A man's mother- in-law may be his misfortune, but his wife is his own fault." We both went off into fits of laughter. Trust El Senor Consul to clear the atmos phere every time. THE U. S. CONSULATE, ASUNCION. XT7ERE you ever in love, Miladi ? Then believe me the pain it brings would make a well-developed case of in digestion feel like a soft spring morning. What a child I was in those old days in Washington ! What dreams I dreamed, and how I grieved over the awakening! How Love must shudder and hide his holy face when he sees a travesty walking in his image, Miladi, and yet, perhaps it is es sential perhaps it is that part of the Sorry Scheme of Things Entire by means of which we learn the difference between the false and the true, the artificial and the real. [150] Unofficial &ecretarp They say that it comes but once that sunrise, that first, brief, fleeting moment of abandonment, when all the world wealth, fame, honor, life itself, seem well lost if only Love be gained. It may be true. But when all that one gains is a Thing called Love, Miladi, only a mockery and a sham shall he then know Love no more? Love is like a fire in a grate. Feed it often and well and its warmth and glow will leap to meet you like a living thing. Look down deep into its bed of glowing coals as you would look into the crater of Vesuvius, and you can easily persuade your self that there is nothing on the earth nor in the heavens above nor in the wa ters under the earth which can put the fire out, but beware! Sometimes we sit and dream before the fire. Sometimes we fall asleep, oh, only for a moment, it is true, but we awaken with a start and remember a neglected duty. We have forgotten to replenish the ^Unofficial fire. But we will do so now! Too late! It is useless. The fire has burned itself out. The dead, gray ashes, which a breath would scatter to the Four Winds, are all that remain. We can never fan into life that warmth and glow again, ah, no. But we can kindle a new fire in the same grate. Ah, the wounds we receive as we make our way through life, Miladi ! They bleed and burn till we come to look upon them as incurable. But some bright morning we awaken to the realization that they have healed of their own accord. Only the scars remain. Two weeks ago we were giving a recep tion at the Consulate to the other foreign representatives and their suites. La Senora Consul was in her element while the preparations were in progress. When it comes to doing things just right Mrs. Holt is long both on knowledge and ability. But at the very last moment she had an accident. She sprained her ankle so bad ly that it was evident there would be no [152] Unofficial &ecretarp possibility of standing on it for some time to come. We were seized with the utmost consternation. What should we do? At last she said to me, " There 's no help for it, Virginia. You '11 have to represent me." " I? " I cried. I was perfectly aghast. "Why, I could n't do it!" " Well," (she laughed in spite of her pain) " it is either you or Mrs. Head Secretary." That settled it. Nothing could have induced me to subject El Serior Consul to that. So after I had made Mrs. Holt as comfortable as possible I went upstairs to get dressed. I looked over my wardrobe, but nothing seemed to suit the occasion. The gown I had intended wearing would not do if I had to stand by the Consul's side and re ceive his guests. I felt very much dis turbed, but all at once I bethought me of a well-wrapped-and-tied-up package which I had brought with me unopened from [153] Unofficial 3s>ecrrtari> Washington. Now, what is the use, Mi- ladi, in having a perfectly good wedding- dress lying in the bottom of one's trunk going to waste? I fished the box out and cut the cord. The veil was lying right on top. I felt like tearing it into ribbons and throwing it into the waste basket, but well, the lace was really stunning and I could n't quite forget the size of the check! The dress, moreover, was a dream. It was one of Madame L 's finest creations, and when I got it on, " though I do say it as should n't," I looked the part. When I went down to show myself to La Senora Consul, she sat bolt upright in bed and exclaimed, " Virginia, how dare you ? I shall never be able to hold up my head again after the people in Asuncion have seen that gown 1 " Then I suppose she thought of how I happened to have it for all of a sudden her eyes filled with tears. She held out her arms to me and said, comfortingly, " I could just kill that man ! " [154] ^Unofficial &ecretarp " Don't worry," I said, laughing. " He was long ago consigned to that ' innocuous desuetude ' about which President Cleve land used to love to talk. As for the gown, I may just as well wear it out. The sentiment which surrounded it wore out long ago." I thought I had had trouble enough for one day, Miladi, but the end was not yet. When the reception was " in the midst " a chuckle from El Sefior Consul attracted my attention and I looked up. Coming in at the end of the line I saw the Consul from Buenos Aires and Dr. Thorne! I caught my breath when I saw him, Miladi. You see, I had persuaded myself that he could n't look right in anything but white flannels and a Panama hat. Well, I had n't seen him in a dress suit. I think Mr. Holt would have been perfectly happy if he could have managed to have him come upon me unaware, but fortunately (for me) I saw him first, and by the time he reached our end of the line I had [155] Unofficial (outwardly) recovered. Would that I could say as much for him ! As a general thing his facial control would put a Chinaman to shame, but it played him traitor this time. When he looked up suddenly and saw me, there came a look into his eyes which well, Miladi, it was the look which no woman has ever yet seen in a man's eyes and failed to comprehend. It was only for a moment. Then it passed. Shall I see it ever again? It was very warm next day but Dr. Thorne would not be restrained from visiting the hospital so I went also. What a contrast between it and the lit tle, low, rambling building in Buenos Aires in which he is so deeply interested! I spoke of it and he said, regretfully, " Yes. It is too bad. We have a hos pital something like this in Buenos Aires, the Carlos Durand Hospital. But it is for men. Nobody seems to think the girls and the babies are worth saving." [156] Unofficial &ecretarp It was too warm all the afternoon to do anything, but toward evening we rode out to the hills back of Asuncion. When we reached the summit we stopped to rest the horses and I could see that my companion felt (as who does not?) the peculiar charm of the land. He dis mounted and stood looking out across the emerald alfalfa fields, great slopes of vivid green which began at our very feet and stretched away and away, down into the valley. From the heights we could see the river flowing down to Buenos Aires, and beyond it the Gran Chaco the happy hunting-ground of the Indian. There he is the hereditary lord of the land. He lives there almost as undisturbed to-day as he did a thousand years ago. He has still his bow and his arrows. He hunts and fishes when the mood is upon him. What man shall call him unhappy? They say that long ago the Jesuits went afar into this country also, that they built chap els there which now are overgrown with [157] {Unofficial &ecretarp impenetrable jungle that the Indian tra dition still contains some memory of the fathers although they have long since forgotten what they came to teach. I could see that Dr. Thorne was busy with his thoughts and presently he said, almost as though speaking to himself, " What a country ! I had no idea of its beauty. I have been ten years in South America but it seems to me that I was never really in the country before. Have you learned to love it?" he asked suddenly, turning to me. " Very much," I answered. " It is like the song of the Lorelei. Once you have heard it you are forever after under the spell. When I saw it first it seemed ineffably lonely and silent. Soon I learned that it soothed and cheered because of its vast expanse. Alone, you are not lonely. Silent, you hear its music." From the top of the hills we watched the sun go down. The air was heavy with the odor of the tropical flowers. [158] Cfje Unofficial Great flocks of green parrots were flying swiftly homeward, chattering shrilly as they went. The sunsets they have down here make you feel anything but impor tant Miladi. Every time I see one I wonder more than ever why people go gad ding around in Europe chasing scenery. Why don't they come down here? Last night at sunset the hills seemed to catch fire. Great crimson gashes lay upon them as long as the afterglow lingered. Down below, though, the light faded, and the hills wrapped themselves in shadow. A mist rose out of the ground. The purple of the falling night touched it gently and seemed to bind the earth and the sky to gether in harmony. Softly the day went down into the night. Whenever I watch the sunsets down here I can't help thinking of those strange people who worship the sun who kneel before it as it rises and when it goes daily to rest. Almost I understand. Is not the sunset typical of Life itself of [159] Unofficial Life when Love has made Life what it should be? When the giving and the receiving are one, when the welding has become imperceptible, when the sur render of soul and self unto the one you love becomes a matter of no con sequence are they then not one and the same? Does not Love become Life? Does not Life become Love? They do. They blend and lose themselves in each other even as the day becomes the night. As we started homeward the moon came up over the hills. Every now and then the weird cry of a bird or a beast in the forest rang out on the night air the call of the wild. It was late when we reached the town and we had ridden for miles in silence. Pasquale was asleep in the patio, but roused himself, stabled the horses, and then went sleepily home ward. I stole a look at my companion's face. It might have been cut in marble. All the gracious good-comradeship had [160] Unofficial &ecretarp fled. He had wrapped himself once more in that terrible self-repression, and pres ently he said, " I shall be leaving before you are awake in the morning. Buenos noches." It would have required the assistance of an ice-pick and a hammer to have taken the coldness out of his voice and manner, Miladi. Every word cut like a whip. I was chilled frozen. So with all the indifference I could assume I made an swer after his own manner. " Oh," I said, airily. " Going back to morrow? Ad'ios, then." Miladi, I know now that he spoke that way because he dared not trust himself to do otherwise. Too late I realized it. He looked up at me quickly, and may I never see again that look in a man's face! I have seen it somewhere else, I think perhaps in a painting by one of the Old Masters in the face of Him who was despised and rejected of men nowhere else. I tried to undo it to Cfjc Unofficial 33>ecretarp call him back but the words would not come. He had turned and was gone. Never tell me again, Miladi, how often you used to say it ! that whatever is is right. It is n't true. Sometimes whatever is is wrong. I can not imagine what it is that has persuaded this man that happiness is not for him that the good things of this life are for others, but whatever it is, it is n't right. The longer I live the less I am persuaded that what we call right is always right and what we call wrong is always wrong. Do we not acknowledge as masters those men and women who have been brave enough, strong enough, to make their own right and wrong? Just think who they are! Did not Christ Himself do it? And Alex ander? And after them how many! Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Savona rola, Cromwell, Luther, Abraham Lin coln were these afraid of what the world might say? Then why should any [162] Unofficial ls>ecretarj> man on earth heed the voice of the raven when it croaks " Thou shalt not? " Dr. Thome's bearing is not that of a man who has been at fault. I can't shake off the feeling that whatever it is, it con cerns Aunt Val. I said as much to Mr. Holt one day and he asked me what made me think so. I could not tell him why, so he laughed and said, " Well, the gods gave to man intellect and to woman intuition. The latter works faster and sometimes gets better results." This speech made me think of a teacher I had once who never lost an opportunity to inform us that a woman reasoned with her heart instead of her head. Well, what if she does? But the ache in my heart, Miladi, it has become a real physical pain. Will it ever grow less, I wonder? Shall I ever see him again, and if so, will he have forgotten ? Adios, Cousin-o'-mine, adlos. I must to bed would that I might say to sleep, for in sleep one forgets. [163] ASUNCION, PARAGUAY. A LONG time since I wrote you, Mi- ladi, and since then another shadow has fallen across my life. Captain Starr is dead. We had been looking forward to seeing him and had thought it a little strange that we had heard nothing from him, but one morning when I sat at my desk at the Consulate the mail was brought in and El Senor Consul tossed me a letter, saying, " Ah, Virginia, here you are. The Dom Pedro is in. Here 's a letter from the Captain." I opened it eagerly and cried out from the shock it gave. This is what it said: My dear, will you not come down to Buenos Aires? The old Sea-dog is about to start on his last voyage. The Consul sprang to his feet. "What's the matter?" he asked. I handed him the letter. He took it in at a glance and said quickly, [164] Unofficial Secretary " You must go. I '11 come myself just as soon as I can." There was no time for that beautiful trip down the river. The trains have been running now for some months and I was in one and on my way before I fairly realized it. Where is he who has not witnessed the cruel contrast between smiling Nature and a troubled heart, Miladi? I thought as I rode along that the skies had never been so blue nor the hills so green nor the sun so golden. And I thought again of the life-long sorrow of the man I was hastening to see a man who for more than forty years had been a living exem plification of the characteristics which King Arthur laid down for his ideal Knight : To reverence his conscience as his king; To glory in redressing human wrongs; To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it ; To love one only and to cleave unto her. How could the birds sing and the Unofficial &ecretarp flowers bloom and the sun shine when such a man was passing? Death is in itself so little a thing, Mi- ladi. Too often have I looked into its face to be afraid. The pebble which one tosses carelessly onto the sunny surface of the lake makes a great commotion when it falls, but gradually the circles widen and widen till they lap against the shore and come not back again. By the time they reach the water's edge the spot where the pebble fell is stilled again. It is as though it had not been disturbed. Well, when I see how little the commo tion on the surface of life caused by the passing of a great and good man and how fleeting the remembrance what can it matter about poor, little, inconsequential me? For long I have been convinced, Mi- ladi, that no man or woman who is really sane ever wished that the dead could re turn. I think so many times of the old legend of the Indian king whose beloved [166] Unofficial and only son, the prince, the idol of his heart and the heir to his throne, had died. The old monarch grieved and grieved and at last besought of Buddha that his son might be restored to him. The god lis tened to his entreaty and then replied, " It shall be as thy son wishes. Be hold him. Ask him if he would return." The poor old king looked into the glori fied face of his son. Then he shook his head. He could not ask him to come back! I thought the journey down to Buenos Aires would never end. In addition to my anxiety for Captain Starr I could not banish the recollection of my last inter view with Dr. Thorne. Should I see him again? Surely, if Captain Starr were ill, yet how would he receive me this time? I need not have worried about it. When the train pulled into the station he was there, and I could not help thinking of that other morning, now nearly a year ago, when I had seen him first on the [ 167 ] Unofficial Dom Pedro, for I looked up to find those observant eyes, unusually grave this time, looking straight into mine, and there was in them no shadow of resentment. Sometimes I wish I were a man, Mi- ladi. I envy them in that they possess, as women do not, that greatest gift the ability to forgive and forget right royally! There was nothing in his man ner to indicate that he even remembered that last night in Asuncion. Quietly he took possession of me, bag and baggage, and put me into the car. " Captain Starr is at my house," he said. " I could n't bear to leave him ei ther at the hospital or the hotel. He seemed so lonely." "Is he very ill?" I asked, when I could find my tongue. " Very. His condition is grave, but he does n't look ill. He is not in bed, but you will see a great change in him. Try not to notice it, will you? Don't let him see that you are troubled about him." [168] Unofficial Unnecessary advice to one who was for so long forced to keep cheerful in the face of sickness and suffering. I had done it before. I knew I could do it again. He was in the doorway watching for my coming as eagerly as a child. How changed he was but how beautiful a change ! His hair was quite white now. All the ruggedness in his once sea-tanned face had given way to a rare and won derful softness which seemed to illumine it. It was as though one had placed a lamp behind his head. He did not speak for a moment and then said, simply, " You were good to come." " Well," I responded as blithely as pos sible, " Mahomet would n't come to the mountain, so you know the rest ! " He smiled and brightened still further when I told him that the Consul was com ing down in a day or so and that he would see him, too. Alas, I feared that he would have to make the days very few. Aunt Val was glad to see me and even [169] ^Unofficial Mercedes, the austere, unbent when I threw her a smile. After dinner we all tried to keep cheerful but it was hard work. At last I said, " Does no one ever use this beautiful piano? May I sing for you? " Aha, Senor Doctor! For once I had struck a chord which vibrated and re sponded to my touch. He sprang up and opened the piano, saying eagerly, " Why did n't you tell me you could sing?" " Why did n't you ask me? " I laughed. He threw himself back in his chair and never stirred for an hour. I had never felt less like singing in my life, Miladi, but the most inexplainable thing in the world to me is this. Give the woman a voice, and the nearer the heart is to breaking the more beautifully she sings. Of all the emotions of the human heart only two will not be driven forth in music. They are Anger and Fear. These we can not sing. [170] (Unofficial When the music stopped Captain Starr retired. He laid his hand on my head for a moment and said, " Your mother used to sing. She sang always in French. Do you?" " Oh, yes," I answered. " To-morrow I '11 sing French songs for you." We lingered a little longer, speaking of the music we hear down here, es pecially among the country people, the natives they call them just as though the people of the city were not native too. The songs they sing are in the minor key and in that peculiar broken time heard nowhere else except in Spain. Some time during the eight centuries when Spain was the dominion of the Moors that peculiar Spanish music was born. The broken time is truly Spanish. The minor in it came with the Moors. Don't you remem ber that place in Spain at the foot of the Alpuj arras, Miladi, where, it is said, after the Fall of Granada, Boabdil looked back on the beautiful city from which he had {Unofficial &ecretarp been driven and burst into tears? And his mother said to him scornfully, " Well may 'st thou weep like a woman for what thou could 'st not defend like a man!" They call this spot El ultimo suspiro del Moro, and I have always thought that that name ought to be applied to the Spanish music the last sigh of the Moor. Dr. Thorne went to see that Captain Starr was comfortable and to say good night to Aunt Val, a thing he never for gets. I had not intended to linger till he returned but I happened to glance at the table and I was lost. American maga zines just as sure as I live! I picked one up and promptly forgot the world, the flesh, and the hour. When he re turned, however, it was evident that he had not forgotten the music. He was still under the spell, and presently he said, " I have asked you before why you [172] Unofficial &ecretarp came to South America. With your tal ents, with that voice you don't belong down here." We live but once, Miladi, and there is a limit to things! I presume I had reached just that epoch in my dissipated career when a word was just one word too much. I tossed the book on the table and said, like a spoiled child, " Oh, I don't belong anywhere on earth!" He started to answer but checked him self. Then he said softly without look ing at me again, " Buenos noches." Idiocy, thy name is woman! I went to bed and kept a perfectly good pillow nice and damp all night. Captain Starr seemed cheerful next morning. He arose a little before noon and came into the living-room. He seemed to want to talk about his earlier days days when he and my father and El Senor Consul were together at Harvard, [173] days when he knew my mother first ah, it was of her, Miladi, that he most wished to talk. His love for her, to me a painful subject, had been at once the grief and the glory of his life. He had met her first on shipboard. He was re turning from a summer in Europe just be fore he entered college. She was coming with her parents to find a new home in a strange land. So I sat down by him and let him say all that he wished about those (to him) happy days. He told of her bewilderment when they landed in New York and even laughed a little when he recalled her strug gle with the English language. He him self had made her acquainted with my father and he had never blamed her that she had loved him instead of himself. Then he wanted me to sing in French, and after I had sung everything I could think of, I found myself, more from force of habit than anything else, I think, singing this: [i74] Unofficial >ecretar$> Andante. t=t pp L/es am - ours... ir-re-al-is - - i i I i \ &^ mm frft- ^ & .*-, *~ =n T- p 9-9-9 9- d= ^- 4" U. =? *. 5 5. - "[ ' H^ ' ecretarp instructions. Please express to her my pleasure in being able to serve her and believe me Very truly yours, RICHARD HOLDEN. WASHINGTON, D. C. As I read a great weight slipped from me, Miladi. The anxiety of the last few weeks was over. All was just as I had wished it to be, and I am neither afraid nor ashamed to look the action in the face. One day I shall enter, also, as a pupil in the Great School, and doubtless I shall re-learn many things, but surely I shall find that the God of Things As They Are has made right there the things which in this life " gang aft aglee." Adios. ASUNCION, PARAGUAY. JUST a year ago to-day since I sailed from New York, Miladi, a year which has seemed long in passing but is short to look back upon. [182] Unofficial g>ecrctarp We are going on a vacation, Miladi, so don't be surprised at the postmark on the next letter. We all found ourselves depressed after the death of our friend. Even the Consul's sunny nature has been shadowy. He has been actually low- spirited, and I know that it is because he can not help thinking that of that dear, old, triangular friendship at Harvard only one angle remains. The long and close intimacy which existed between the Con sul and my father existed also between Mr. Holt and Captain Starr, although with it was always the undercurrent of sadness which the circumstances had wrought. My own depression was due partly to a sense of personal loss and partly don't laugh to the money which Cap tain Starr had left me. What a distorted idea we have of riches, Miladi! To me there is nothing in all the world so pa thetic as the poverty of wealth. It can buy only the material things of life. [183] Unofficial &ecretar We have come to look upon Success as synonymous with dollars and cents. What nonsense ! Was n't Michelangelo, then, a success? And Shakespeare? These never had money. Poor Millet starved at Barbizon; he had not even the means to go to see his dying mother yet he painted " The Angelus." Who shall say that he was unsuccessful? Money has its place in the world. It is necessary to our civilization, but, Miladi, sometimes I wish I could throw back my head and let out a ringing, mocking laugh which could be heard to the stars when I think of the things which money can not buy I I remember telling father once that he had brought us up to be perfect geese that we knew a little of everything and not very much of anything. He laughed and said, " Well, it might be worse." I did not see then how it could, but I am beginning to see now, Miladi, are n't you? When you look back over your child hood, do you not realize that all the [184] lessons we learned from books or at school amounted to very little? I do. If I know anything at all it is what I learned from him. He taught me all I know. Now there is never a day goes by that I am not reminded of some word of his, no mat ter what the particular phase of life pre sented at the moment may be. One at a time, with no undue emphasis, always in love and kindliness like the constant dropping that wears away the stone, un consciously his thoughts wrote themselves upon my own, indelibly, ineffaceably, permanently. You see, Miladi, I was n't blessed with your poise and self-reliance when I was a child. I effervesced upon the slightest provocation, but Daddy never failed to come to the rescue at the psychological moment. We were possessed of the goods the gods provide in those days, you know, and one of his gravest fears for me was that I might forget that there were those less fortunate than myself. [185] ?Hnoffmal Well, every day since I have had this money, I have heard his voice, as of old, saying to me, one at a time, such things as these: " Money is powerful, my dear, but you must not forget there is a distinct dead line across which it can not go." " I want you to think of the real things of life, my dear, the things which make life worth the living. Nature has wisely put it beyond the power of money to buy these." " All the money in the world can not bring you happiness, little daughter, no, nor health, nor loyalty, nor friendship." " The divinest element in all humanity is love, my dear. God made it so. But if it comes at all it comes to rich and poor alike. It can not be bought nor sold." " I hope you may always look at money in its true light. It is mighty not al mighty. It has great powers for good. It can feed the hungry, warm the freez ing, help to heal the sick. But the eternal realities of life, my dear, the things of [186] Unofficial g>ecretarp mind and heart and soul these defy a check-book." Isn't it all true, Miladi? If one went on indefinitely, it would be always the same. Have you not heard of men buy ing justice? No man on earth ever did it. He may have bought the judge. One may buy a lawyer if he 's willing to be sold, but not the law. Do we not hear of men who have sold their honor? Fudge! Whenever I hear that, Miladi, I always think of the knight in " As You Like It " who swore by his honor that the pancakes were good and the mustard was naught. " But," quoth Touchstone the Fool, " if you swear by that which is not, you are not forsworn. No more was this knight swearing by his honor for he never had any. If he did he had sworn it all away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard." So, it is. When the buyer of honor examines his purchase he finds that he has been cheated. The package con tains dishonor. [187] Unofficial >ecretarp I have thought about it all so much, Miladi. What care I for money when it will not obtain for me the thing I want most on earth? And even if it were pos sible to buy it, would not one scorn above all things a love that could be bought? The knowledge that it came not volun tarily would scorch and sear one's soul till it became an arid, dusty desert with no oases in it anywhere. But then, I had the money. Nothing could alter that fact. It was mine. So I tried to forget the things it could not buy and to remember those that it could, and of the latter this spoke loudest: " It can feed the hungry, warm the freezing, help to heal the sick." Do you want to know what I did, Mi ladi ? I can see you shake your head, you dear, cautious creature, but it is too late now. No one knows me as well as you and there is one respect in which I have not changed. Sometimes it takes me a long time to make up my mind to [188] Unofficial &ecretarp do a. thing, but once I have decided, I never open the case for a re-hearing. I wrote Mr. Holden asking if he could turn seventy-five thousand dollars' worth of the bonds into money for me. He cabled an affirmative reply and shortly afterward the draft arrived. Then I was indeed puzzled. How was I to get the money deposited to Dr. Thome's credit without having to answer questions? That I accomplished it was due partly to luck, partly to the fact that they do things differently down here. There is no Ameri can bank in Buenos Aires. If there had been it would have been all off. An American bank employee would have made me tell my age, nationality, and who my grandfather was. But the only bank I knew in Buenos Aires is as English as Johnny Bull himself and I was n't brought up in dear, old, diplomatic Washington for nothing. I wrote a letter stating that the bearer, acting as messenger for some one who did not wish his identity made [189! Unofficial &ecretarp known, would deposit seventy-five thou sand dollars in the English bank for the purpose of building a Hospital for Women and Children in Buenos Aires, the deposit to be made to the credit of Dr. Rexford Thorne under whose supervision the donor wished the hospital to be built. Would the bank kindly notify Dr. Thorne to this effect? If that Englishman had had any idea how scared I was he would have moved a little faster. I did n't know just what was going to happen next, but they ac cepted both the letter and the deposit with out question, said they would get Dr. Thome's receipt for the latter which I might call for in a few days, and the deed was accomplished. And now, Miladi, no one knows but just you and me, and for the sake of the old days when you shared many a secret with me, keep this one also. It was not because I deserved it that means was given me to do this thing, but if it shall help in ever so small a measure to [190] ^Unofficial g>ecretarp eradicate the cancer which is gnawing at the moral vitals of South America if it keeps but one young girl from following in the footsteps of her betrayed sister, if it saves the life of only one helpless, de serted child, last of all, if it makes him happy then, surely, Miladi, I shall draw interest on seventy-five thousand dol lars at a hundred per cent for the rest of my natural life. I just hate that old French philosopher who said, " Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a." He did n't know a thing about it. I would a thousand times rather love the man I can not have than to have the man I do not love. Who wouldn't? But, Miladi, if he ever finds me out I '11 have to come back to Washington! South America won't be large enough to hold me. As I have told you, we are going on a vacation. After the manner of men, El Sefior Consul tried to conceal his depres sion and to fight it out by himself, but the [191] ZBJnofftctal effort was apparent and the weight too heavy to be lightly cast aside. So, one evening last week while we sat on the porch, a telegram was brought him. He heaved a long sigh of relief and said, " How long will it take you two girls to get ready to go on a vacation with me?" We both spoke at once. " About two minutes," said La Senora Consul. " I can go right now," I said. He laughed at our enthusiasm. " Well, I '11 give you till Thursday to get ready. I must arrange for the work with Armstrong before I can get away." He had cabled to Washington for leave of absence and it had just arrived. We fell to discussing plans as to where we should go. La Senora Consul said, " anywhere," but as for me, you know, Miladi, what a thirst I have for explora tion. All the navigators from Christopher Columbus down to Dr. Cook have n't a thing on me when it comes to a desire to [ 192] Unofficial see strange lands. We have two months at our disposal. I was wild to go all the way around the continent from Buenos Aires down to Cape Horn, up the western, coast to Pana ma, across the Caribbean Sea to the At lantic, and then back again to Buenos Aires. The Consul rather favored my plan till we found, alas, that it would n't work ! There is no way to get back. One can go from Panama across the Caribbean to the Barbadoes, it is true, but none of the southbound steamers stop there. Only those going north touch the islands. This meant that when we got as far as the Bar badoes we could not get back to Buenos Aires without going first to New York. What do you think of that? Reluctantly we gave it up and at last agreed to leave it to Mr. Holt. We assured him that we would be " good fellows." If he chose to go abroad we would go along. So to-morrow we start. There is an element of delightful uncertainty in our Unofficial &ecretarp movements. Mrs. Holt and I have n't a ghost of an idea where we 're going, but we 're off ! Adios. BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, S. A. VT'OU may think when you see this post mark that we have n't gone very far, Miladi, but then, we have only started, and since I wrote you I have had the time of my life! I gathered from a few re marks which Mr. Holt let drop from time to time before we left Asuncion that he thought that this would be an excellent opportunity for him to see what he could of the country down here to look into its commerce and industries, to visit some of the ranches, coffee plantations, and the Legations. So when we got this far we made our first stop. I must tell you before I go farther, though, that the day before we were to leave Paraguay, Mrs. British Consul got wind of the plan. She flew down to our [ 194] Unofficial place and with tears in her eyes begged that she might go with us. We were not sorry to have her, so we became a party of four. Well, on the day we started, our little party arrived at the station first and while the Consul was attending to some necessary details I looked out and saw Mrs. British Consul (followed by Mr. B. C.) approaching. Miladi, I was like Bre'r Rabbit "I jes' hatter go off to my laffin'-place ! " There was n't a thing wrong with her appearance, of course. The travelling suit and cap she wore were altogether suitable and in good taste, but they were so English that it was painful. As to her boots well, Miladi, you would n't be caught with them on at your own funeral. Nevertheless, as I have told you before, Mrs. B. C. is charming, and one can not help envying the English women their wholesomeness. At home they live largely in the open. They ride and hunt and climb the hills and possess splen did physical strength. On the morning [195] Unofficial &ecretarp we started, however, Mrs. British Con sul had on her face a do-or-die expression which moved Mr. Holt to remark that he felt sure she would come back either with her shield or upon it. You used to tell me sometimes, Miladi, that I had the pro phetic vision! I never believed it before. Now, however, I have the feeling that when we return to Paraguay, weary and footsore after our two months' jaunt, Mrs. British Consul will march at the head of the procession with flags flying! All of us had had the trip down the river so we took the train to Buenos Aires. I was wild to be on the salt Atlantic again and supposed that we should go directly on board, but here we had surprise num ber one. The strangest thing in all this continent, Miladi, is that the moment you are out side of the city you are as definitely in the country as though the city were a thou sand miles away. There is a lack of a rural population which is astounding. [196] ecretarp Without the least suspicion he steps off into his bath, and you can just imagine the resulting splash. In a moment he comes up, panting and puffing, blowing worse than a porpoise and madder than a hor net. Then the gaucho deftly inserts an arrangement resembling a pitchfork be hind his head and ducks him again. By this time he has reached the other end of the sluice and feels the inclined board under his feet. He walks indignantly up it, shaking his wet coat and looking re proachfully at the gaucho, as though to convey the impression that he has been the victim of misplaced confidence. On the way back to the hacienda we saw some of the men " busting a broncho." I have seen some pretty fine riding in my life, Miladi, but this beat any exhibition of the kind I had ever witnessed. No one could believe that an animal of any de scription could twist himself into as many different shapes and attitudes as that one did. But the gaucho seemed to sit in the [ 202 ] Unofficial saddle as lightly as a feather and, woman like, I shrieked, "Oh, he'll be killed!" "Killed?" laughed Mr. Harding. "Who? Pedro? Not on your life. The ' bronc ' does n't live that could hurt him. He can ride anything that has a back to sit on. There 's only one thing the ' beast ' can do to get him off. If he lies down and rolls over he may do it, but even then Pedro would dismount. He would n't be thrown. Fine fellow Pedro. Lots of 'em are." "Who is he?" I asked. " Well, " Miladi, the moment I asked the ques tion there came the same shadow on his face, the same gravity into his voice, which always come into those of Dr. Thorne whenever you ask him about things in this country. I knew Mr. Harding felt like saying something more and I hoped he would, so I kept quiet. Presently he went on: [203] Unofficial " He is only a gaucho, Miss Leigh, a half-breed, you know. Nearly all of them are. It is too bad. Of course we have some bad ones, but they are all magnificent fellows physically and most of them are pretty decent. They are the sons of Spanish fathers and Indian mothers therefore they have the con tempt of both the Spanish and the Indians. It 's a shame. In managing the estancla, of course we have to treat them all alike, but it 's hard not to be decent to a fellow like Pedro." So you see how it is, Miladi. Whether in the crowded city or out on the great pampa under God's blue skies, wherever you turn, you find that the curse has left its mark upon the people. There is an utter lack of moral conscience in South America. If only they could be brought to the realization of how appalling it all is what a light it places them in in the eyes of those nations alongside of which they really wish to stand! But they take [204] Unofficial &ecretarp it all as a matter of course and evidently think it is the same everywhere. We had been watching Pedro for half an hour while we talked and could not help noticing that the " bronc " showed signs of surrender. We had all kept at a safe distance, but a little later as we rode toward the house, the victorious Pedro came galloping by. He flashed a fine smile at Mr. Harding and took off his hat to us with all the grace of a caballero, and I, too, thought, " What a shame! " The visit to the estancia was a rare ex perience for us all. Mr. Harding took us to the railroad in time for the night train back here. He told us of the enor mous wheat fields at the other end of the ranch, and that Argentina shipped more wheat to Europe last year than did the United States this in addition to the three million sheep and the two mil lion quarters of beef which went also. Af ter a look at this ranch of the English Land Syndicate (only one of many in [205] ?Hnofftctal ifcecretarp Argentina) I can well believe it and then some. We got back to Buenos Aires yester day morning. There is always something strange about arriving here. I feel every time that I am in a strange, new city where I have never been before. The feminine contingent went shopping and while we were gone the Consul called up Dr. Thorne. When we returned Mr. Holt was pacing up and down the veranda, and this is what I got: "Isn't it just fine, Virginia? Some body 's left Thorne the money to build his hospital. He 's coming presently to take us out to where they 're breaking ground for it." Great Scott! I began to think things were getting warm. We had luncheon, and then Dr. Thorne appeared. Miladi, you should have seeri the change in him. He looked like a dif ferent creature and talked about his plans with almost boyish enthusiasm. I felt like [206] {Unofficial ^>ecretarj> a thief in the night. If he ever finds me out! Miladi, if he ever does! Fortu nately the Consul was so interested that he did most of the talking, so I managed to conceal my perturbation of spirit. But I am already receiving the interest on my seventy-five thousand, Miladi. I got the first instalment when I saw his face. As we came back to the hotel the Con sul began urging Dr. Thorne to go with us. " The hospital will keep," he said. He shook his head. " Not this time," he answered, and then in a tone audible only to me, he said, " The hospital might keep but Aunt Val might not." " Is she not well? " I asked. " Oh, yes, but seventy-six, you know. I do not like to leave her for any length of time." He went with us down to the boat. He held my hand a good deal longer than was absolutely necessary, Miladi, but all he said was, " Hasta la vista." [207] Unofficial >ecretarp COLON, ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. \T7ELL, Miladi, here we are at the great ditch. Let me assure you that you are no more surprised to have a letter from me from Panama than I am to be writing one from there. We have had so interesting a trip thus far that it is hard to put it into words. An old friend of the Consul owns a large coffee plantation in Brazil not far from Rio. Of course that was one of the things we wanted to see. So we took a little coast steamer from Buenos Aires and went over to Montevideo where, because the harbor is as yet unfinished, one has to land by means of the small launches which lie in the bay for the purpose of bringing pas sengers ashore. There is a fee of one dollar per passenger, and here we met a surprise, for we found the dollar in Uru guay to be the equivalent of the dollar of the United States. The five-dollar gold piece of the United States, however, is [208] Unofficial accepted for only four dollars and eighty- three cents, and the English sovereign for four dollars and seventy cents. We had to go through the Customs-house, of course, but the examinations were made, carefully, it is true, but immediately, and I wish that the Customs-house officers of New York would take lessons in polite ness from the Uruguayans. We found a good hotel, clean and comfortable, where the men do all the chamber-work and where it is a positive joy to give one of them a tip. They accept the same with many thanks and never fail to make use of their ancient expression, " Service is honorable." There is little for the tourist to see in Montevideo, but culture is in the very air in that little city. It has a polish which is truly continental. The women are attract ively gowned. The men have beautiful manners, and after you have left them, the gentleness and cordiality of these people remain with you, in soft colors, like the [209] {Hnoffutal >ecretarp memory of a pastel or a bit of old tapestry. The next day we went on up the coast to Santos. One would need to possess Spartan courage to linger in Santos longer than is necessary, but we stayed long enough to realize, only in a small degree, it is true, the immensity of the coffee in dustry. All day we watched them wash ing, drying, and packing the coffee in such huge quantities that words fail in attempt ing to describe it then on to that beau tiful Bay of Rio, the memory of my first glimpse of which a little over a year ago will leave me never while I live. On Mr. Hensley's plantation we found the overseer to be as refreshingly and enthusiastically American as one could de sire. His name is Ambrough. The Stars and Stripes fluttered from his automobile to begin with, and if that does n't prove his nationality, I don't mind telling you that on the way out to the ranch he in dulged in a few desultory remarks anent 1L\)t {Unofficial the only type of woman which South America affords, and at last confided to me, sotto voce, that I was the first real girl he had seen for five years! Miladi, he took me straight back to the days when we used to go to the " Proms " at Yale and Harvard and West Point. What a martyr my dear mother made of herself by playing chaperon in order that we might attend them! And how vio lently the fellows used to make love to us for one night only ! Then the next year, if we had the luck to be asked again, we went back to do it all over. There would be the same music, the same flow ers, the same light and laughter and danc ing, but another fellow ! Dear, delightful American college man, respectfully I salute you ! We run across you in every land between Pole and Pole, and on all of the Seven Seas, and there is none other like you in all the world! And dear, delightful college days, when Youth takes its last fling before the [211] Unofficial opening up of life's great responsibilities! Those are the days when it is quite in the natural order of things that you should make love to us quite in the natural order of things that we should enjoy it. So you have our august permission to keep on, if you wish, until the end of time, telling us that we are the only girl you ever loved ! You don't mean a word of it, but then we know you don't, so it 's all right. No girl of that age can appreciate a real man anyway! It took about two hours to drive out to the plantation. What a sight it was! The coffee trees, thousands and thousands of them, planted in straight rows and all the same height about eight feet. I asked Mr. Ambrough if they grew no higher. " Yes, they would grow to twenty feet if left alone," he said, " but we cut them. They grow better and it simplifies the picking. The berries can be reached from the ground." [212] ^Unofficial We counted ourselves fortunate to have visited the ranch when we did. The coffee berries are not all ripe at once, and this time we had the luck to see the plantation in three different stages of development. One large orchard was in bloom. Miladi, Japan, as we saw it in cherry-blossom time, was no more beautiful. Another orchard was loaded with green berries. In a third the berries were blood red therefore ripe and ready to be picked. The orchards had been planted at different times and apropos of the planting there by hangs a tale. Every trivial circumstance is taken into consideration when it comes time for the planting. This has to be done during the rainy season because unless the little trees are kept soaking wet they will not live, or if they do, they will not flourish. In Indiana, you know, the farmer will not plant his potatoes unless it is the dark of the moon. Well, here they have to keep a sharp watch for el verano de San Juan [213] fclnoff icial ;%>ecretarp the summer of St. John. This is a pe riod of ten days or a fortnight when the rain sometimes suddenly ceases, or if it rains at all the downfall is not sufficient to save the trees. " But," laughed Mr. Ambrough, " the Indiana farmer certainly has put one over on us. He has ways of finding out when it will be the dark of the moon. With us, not even the most experienced planter knows when el verano will appear. Only two years ago we had the experience our selves. It had poured down for days. We set out a thousand trees. El verano came next morning. Not another drop of rain for two weeks. We dug up the trees and replanted." In the orchard where the berries were ripe the peons were busy picking. One after another they came along with bushel baskets filled with the red berries poised on their heads. One bushel of coffee ber ries will produce ten pounds of cleaned coffee. But the peons of Brazil can not [214] ZHnofftctal &ecretarp be compared with the gauchos of Argentina. They are men you do not like to look at, but what can you expect? Spanish -j- Indian -j- Negro = what? Can any one imagine a worse combination? We had to get back to Rio that night in order that we might, the next morning, catch the Argentina, north-bound for the Barbadoes. We parted regretfully from our fine young countryman and when we were leaving he said (a little wist fully, I thought) : " Are you going back to the States? " I assured him that I was not, whereupon he remarked that if I stayed on his side of the Equator he stood a chance of see ing me again! We had a long restful sail up the At lantic to the Barbadoes, but when we changed there to a little boat to cross the Caribbean Sea, the lovely restfulness dis appeared. I am beginning to think, Mi- ladi, that there must be somewhere in my [215] Unofficial g>ecretat2> ancestry a stray family of Vikings. A rough sea has positively no effect upon me save to send my spirits skyward. This boat tossed every way at once. La Senora Consul surrendered and stuck to the berth. Mrs. B. C. looked as though butter would n't melt in her mouth. Even Mr. Holt acknowledged that he had seen bet ter days. After it got pretty rough I found him stretched out mournfully in a steamer chair and asked him (wickedly) if he did n't feel well. He looked at me a moment and then said grimly, " Go away, Virginia. Clear away where I can't even see you. You are so insultingly healthy ! " But the bad weather lasted only a day. The next morning the sea was blue and beautiful and the flying fish played hide and seek under the yellow sea-weed. A few days later we saw the mountainous coast of Venezuela looming up out of the mist, nine thousand feet above the sea. We got ourselves together and at La Guayra {Unofficial gbecretarp a launch flying a strange flag came out to meet us. I have had a good many experiences in my somewhat eventful career, Miladi, but none to approach the one at La Guayra. Only El Serior Consul's imperturbable good nature and his undeniable credentials kept us from being left on board in dis grace or taken ashore and put in jail. In the United States (I have since learned) any one who wishes to come to Venezuela has to get a permit from the Venezuelan Consul before the steamship company will sell him a ticket. When we had been in spected to a finish we were rowed ashore where we were parboiled in the steaming heat while the officers went to telephone about us up to Caracas, the capital. At last, after all of us had been compelled to sign our names to a piece of paper (Heaven only knows what was on it) and when all of us had separated our selves from what little money we had left about our persons in order to appease the [217] Unofficial sharks who masqueraded in the uniform of porters, we entered the train and climbed up, up, far up the mountain-side, till the hot, steamy air became cool and balmy, and you could look down on the blue Caribbean, stretching away for miles and miles, toward you, Miladi, toward you! We stopped once on the climb and an individual dashed madly through the car and made us sign another piece of paper. Recklessly we attached our signatures to any old thing they offered us. We could n't help ourselves. Then suddenly when we had reached a height of three thousand feet, the train rolled into as pretty a little city as one would wish to see, spread out on the floor of a beautiful valley, with the great, high mountains ris ing all around it and shutting it in. This was Caracas, a city of ten thousand people, delightful of climate and possessed of splendid asphalt pavements, street cars, and electric lights. [218] Unofficial &ecretarp Caracas lies directly in the centre of Venezuela. In the centre of Caracas is a plaza. In the centre of the plaza is a statue, and the statue quite fascinated me. I thought of the man in whose honor it was placed there, who freed all this part of the country from Spain, who was imprisoned by his own people and who died broken-hearted and in exile with the words " I have ploughed in the sea " on his lips Simon Bolivar. Up in the States they teach us to pronounce that name to rhyme with Oliver, Miladi. Down here they call him See-mon. Eo-leev- ar, and it seems to suit him better. We had dinner at the Legation in Cara cas and while en route from the hotel we had a funny experience. We were about to enter the carriage, and as usual I was doing all the chattering, but for some reason had been speaking Spanish. Pres ently a nice-looking man who had been sitting near us came over and said to the Consul (in Portuguese, I will translate) : [219] {[Unofficial &ecretarp " Pardon me, are you not North American? " "Si, Senor," answered Mr. Holt. " Ah, then, perhaps you speak Eng lish! " he exclaimed, whereupon he broke forth in better English than any of us could have spoken if we had been at our best. We all had a good laugh. I do not know what he is doing in Caracas. He is from Bogota, in Colombia, that little, practically inaccessible town in the interior, ten thou sand feet in the air. Colombia has no sea-coast, yet this man calls Bogota the Boston of South America and says that it is the only place on the continent where you will hear the musical language of Cer vantes and Calderon spoken in its purity. He had been several times to the United States and said modestly, " I did my college work at Princeton. Once I should have said I was educated there. I know now that a man's education does n't begin until the doors of his Alma Mater are locked behind him." [ 220 ] ^Inofficial His remark made me think of a story I heard once about a young enthusiast who was walking through the grounds at Har vard with James Russell Lowell. Sud denly the young man exclaimed, " What an atmosphere of learning hovers about this place ! " "Why," said Mr. Lowell, "that's easily explained. Every freshman when he comes brings something with him and the seniors take nothing away! " I have thought a good many times of the remark of the young man from Colom bia. The weak spots in our modern edu cation are already beginning to be felt by all who have had the experience. Now adays, in our rush after the madly prac tical we are losing sight of the things which educate, and every year the schools and colleges are turning out young men and women who know but one thing. Tell me, Miladi, is a man educated be cause he can build a bridge? Is a man educated because he can make a chemical [221] Unofficial s>ecretarp analysis? Is a woman educated because she understands the binomial theorem or because she has " taken a course " in music, nursing, sewing, or dramatic read ing? No. I turn again to my friend Touchstone. He told the shepherd that he was damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side! That is what is the matter with our so-called education of to-day. Of course it is easy to see what lies at the root of the whole business. Miladi, may I pass to the Great Beyond before I believe that the sole aim in life is to make a living! Are the people of our country mad money-mad? The rich, the poor, and all that lie between the two extremes have fallen into line, it seems, in the mad rush after money. And so they begin away down in the kindergarten. There the cry is, " Teach the children to use their hands." From there it goes to the grades, and nowadays when the seventh is reached, it comes again, " Let him take manual [ 222 ] Unofficial training instead of grammar, history, or geography. He must learn the practical. He must make a living." Then into the high school where the mania increases ' What nonsense for a boy to waste time studying his mother-tongue and learn ing the history of his country I Give him the practical. He must make money! " Then the university, where often he is permitted to choose his own studies but always in his brain the thought which has been pounded into him since his cradle " I may not study this which I should like. I must not be lured by that, which is fas cinating. I must get only the practical. I must make money!" Then look for ward into the years, Miladi. See him again when he is fifty. There are lines in his face one would fain rub out, and if he says it not aloud, sadly he acknowledges to himself: " I am not a man. I am a machine. I am good for but one thing to make money." Sometimes he becomes a man of wealth [223] Unofficial and then he deserves the sympathy and pity of his fellow-men. How shall he occupy his leisure time? Has he any re sources within himself on which he may draw in his old age? No. And, Miladi, it was not his fault it was not his fault. He was educated like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. What a difference there is between living and making a living, Miladi. When a fellow hangs on till he gets through col lege things are not so bad. Even if he can not study there the things he would like, the desire is planted and in after years he may take them up. But the schooling of many a man of to-morrow will end with the grades. The schooling of more will end with the high school. What is to become of them? The United States has become a land of colleges and uni versities but where are the schools? Can one build a sky-scraper without a founda tion? Like a huge tidal wave this cry for the practical has inundated the land and [224] ^Unofficial unless it subsides naturally and of its own accord, then take it from me, Miladi, fu ture generations will speak of us as now they tell of " the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome." It was almost as hard to get out of Caracas as it was to get into it, but at last the deed was successfully accomplished. I don't wonder that things seethe in Vene zuela, Miladi. One can't help feeling like a conspirator. I had a wild desire to seize a little flag, rush madly out into the street and cry, " Five la revolution " every minute I was there. Fortunately when we got back to La Guayra they remembered us, so the escape was less difficult than it might have been. You just ought to have seen Mrs. British Consul when we re-embarked! The boat we came over here on was as English as the little lady herself. The minute we crossed the gang-plank our bag gage became our luggage, and instead of a sputtering Spaniard we struck an English [225] Unofficial &ecretarp steward who said " Thank-you-sir-if-you- please-sir," to every man on board, whether he gave him a quarter or verbally consigned him to the lower regions. Now I know you are puzzling over the length of this letter, Miladi, but listen to my confession. On account of our having come from La Guayra (where they have the fever in large consignments) we were sent to quarantine. The king himself could n't have escaped so we accepted the situation without comment. Moreover, we were more comfortable than we should have been at the hotel, for we had a clean, white-painted cottage with a broad porch just opposite the big hospital. Six days must we stay there, so you see I had all the time there was. We have tried to see what we could of the Canal but like all gigantic enter prises it does not show to the outsider the immense amount of work which has been put upon it. We rode through the Cule- bra Cut, where the huge steam shovels [226] g>ecretarp (made in Milwaukee) had cut great gashes in the red clay. I have an alto gether different idea of the Canal enter prise, now, Miladi. Doubtless those who came to work on it first had a pretty bad time of it, but now everything is changed. The swamps and jungle have been drained and cleaned. The men who came then have all sent back for their families. There is nothing at home that you will not find here good schools, good teach ers for them, the opera, the races, base ball games, the ever-present automobile, pretty houses to live in, lovely gardens and a Woman's Club. Panama has al ready become home to these people. Not one of them will ever go back. They have not the air of being in durance vile, only waiting for a chance to escape. Instead, the atmosphere fairly bristles with the spirit of " I have tackled the job. I will see it through." One can not be on the ground and be other than optimistic as to the future of the Panama Canal. [227] Unofficial g>ecretarj> The Consul says that to-morrow we are to go on. On! Does n't that sound de lightfully indefinite? By on, however, I presume he means that we are to travel down the western coast by way of the Pacific. Adios. VALPARAISO, CHILE. "C^ OUR weeks since we left the Isthmus, Miladi, but into those four weeks I think I have crowded four years of experience. I beg to inform you at the outset that the boat we took from Panama was a direct descendant of the historic craft yclept Noah's Ark. In addition to the passengers, we had on board live cattle, poultry on foot, and a gorgeous array of fresh vegetables, all of which we were sup posed to eat en route. Any self-respecting boat could make the trip down to Valpa raiso in ten days but this one was utterly indifferent as to its nautical reputation. [228] ^Unofficial &ecretarp With our little stops it took four weeks. We saw the green shores of Ecua dor only from a distance, for we had been advised that Guayaquil, the port through which passes out more than half the choco late used by the whole world, was full of fever. So we passed it by and made our first stop at Callao, the " down-town," as it were, of Lima, the ancient capital of Peru. They say that more than a thou sand vessels touch at the port of Callao each year, and I can readily believe it. We took the trolley-car for Lima, nine miles up the valley, and from there had one of the most interesting journeys it would be possible to experience a ride on the highest railroad in the world, a road which carries you, within the space of a few hours, to the tip-top of the Peru vian Andes. Let me remark in passing, Miladi, that this railroad was built by a Yankee a typical soldier of fortune named Henry Meiggs. He got into all sorts of scrapes in his own country, made [229] ^inofficial &ecretarp and lost several fortunes, and fled the United States leaving a million dollars' worth of debts. In time he landed in Peru, built the railroad running from Lima to Oroya, and one has to see and ride upon it to appreciate the job. You and I have been on the Great Divide, Miladi, and you know how we got there. We crept gradually up the long but easy as cent from the Mississippi. Here it is not so. You are lifted to appalling heights in so short a time that you can scarcely real ize what has happened. The air is thin and clear and cold and those who have " nerves " and " hearts " begin to have trouble. Neither seemed to bother me. I must have left my nerves in Washington. As for my heart I think it is buried in a garden in Buenos Aires. When we reached the peak we were fifteen thousand six hundred feet above Callao. With the exception of La Senora Consul our little party stood the trip first rate. She, however, felt the altitude [230] Unofficial &ecretarp exceedingly and we were all glad when we began the descent. I was quite prepared to have the little train " take a header " at any moment and land us in a heap at the bottom, but it did n't, and when it got too dark to see longer out of the win dows, I found myself musing on the fas cinating Past which belongs to Peru. Who could help it? As we rode up the mountains that morn ing we could look out and see the old ter raced fields of the Incas here and there a ruined temple reminding one of Chaldee; here and there a village on whose walls are the carved serpents which whisper of Egypt; here and there a convent or monas tery telling of Rome. The myths and legends of Peru awake remembrances of ancient Greece. The tales of sacrificial rites and ceremonies take you back to the Druids of England. Ah, well! The key to the history of Peru lies in the difference in character be tween the conquerors and the conquered. [231] Unofficial When the Spaniards, gallant, bigoted, and cruel, fell upon the Indians, obedient, peaceable, devout, holding their rulers, the Incas, in passionate love and reverence, there could be but one result. There is a place in the mountains overlooking Cuzco where every Indian who passes the spot takes off his hat and looks down into the valley as his ancestors have done for ages. Once they could have seen from here their wondrous Temple of the Sun. Later its sacred fires were extinguished, their priests scattered and killed, and their fathers, with broken hearts, looked down upon a Spanish cathedral. Gone were then the days of peace and plenty for the Indian of Peru. And who can ever forget the passing of the last Inca? When the conquerors were in his beloved city and all hope was lost, a dark, athletic figure appeared on the cliff. He cast his war-club from him, wrapped his mantle about him, and threw himself headlong from the battlement. He [232] ecretarp Followed by his army of two thousand Peruvians he fought the Chileans, twice their number, al ultimo cartucho to the last cartridge. There is an avenue in Lima called the Ninth of December and at the end of it is a statue of Bolognesi not a triumphant, victorious warrior such as you see in the other South American cities, but a defeated, beaten soldier, swaying as though about to fall, the right hand hold ing an empty revolver, the left arm wrapped about a tattered flag. The whole statue seems to cry " Defeat! Despair!! Death ! ! ! al ultimo cartucho!!! " I have seen nowhere else such sad-eyed men and women as one sees in Lima, and no wonder. As we walked about the city, we stepped from the white glare of the streets into the old cathedral. What a sight met our eyes there ! Robed in the sombre black manto which all Peruvian women must wear to church we saw these beautiful Limena women kneeling on the stone floor. [235] (Unofficial ^ccrrtarr The manto is not the graceful mantilla of the Spanish lady, but a severely-plain black garment which is fastened about the head and covers the body as well. Rich and poor, they all look alike, but in the after noon we saw some of them again, driving in their little victorias and wearing Parisian gowns and hats which were the envy of all beholders. In the old cathedral all was re pose. Just as we entered the organ began to play and the choir to chant the appeal which we hear so frequently in this Catho lic country: Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners now And in the hour of death! After the service was over we saw the glass case which encloses the bones of Pi- zarro, and the passage-way through which the assassins stole into the palace to kill him. The sacristan told us the story of one of them who stepped to one side to keep out of a mud-puddle. The other [236] Cfje (Unofficial &ecretarp made him go back and walk through it, saying, " He who fears to walk through water may fear to walk through blood! " Arrived at the palace they killed the guard, fell upon the old soldier and stabbed him. As he felt himself dying, Pizarro traced upon the stone floor with his own blood, a Cross. Then he kissed it and died. Ah, Miladi, truly, History is written on the stones in Peru! Mrs. British Consul knew an English missionary in Lima, a woman who has given twenty years to the work. She came to the hotel to see us and I begged her to take me with her on a round of visits. La Senora Consul protested, Mrs. B. C. ad vised against it, and I was in the depths of disappointment. But El Senor Consul said, " Come along, Virginia. I '11 go, too." Miladi, I wish I had n't. No, I don't, either. Mr. Holt has always teased Dr. Thorne a little about what he calls " his hobby." He will never do it again. In his [237] (Unofficial s>ecrctnrp busy life he has not had the opportunity to see things as they are and it is hard to imagine the unseen. Now he has seen. So have I, and surely neither of us will ever forget the poor children of Peru. They sprawl in the roads. They lie on the door steps. They hide in dark corners. They run in the narrow streets. Disease, pov erty, dirt these are rampant. Pathetic little faces, pale, unwashed, large-eyed, telling of cruelty, telling of neglect, telling of hunger, telling of sin, look up at you. We hear often of the sorrows of the child- wives and child-widows of India, Miladi, but do we ever hear of these little mothers of fourteen and fifteen who have never been wives? Worse than all else, there are child slaves in Peru. Our English mis sionary told us that during the great drought of 1904 when the crops all failed and starvation stared them in the face, more than three thousand Indlacltos (little Indians) were sold or given away by their mothers that they are cruelly treated, [238] ^Unofficial &ecretarp starved, beaten, and given work far beyond their strength to do. " Motherhood is a negligible quantity here," she said. ' There is no blossom in the child-life. Children are spawned not born. And it is almost as sad among the better classes as among the poor. The families are just as large. Each child has its own nurse. He has no toys, no amusements. The chil dren are listless, careless, spiritless, ambi- tionless, left entirely to the care of the servants who often are evil companions and sully their thoughts while they are young." And so it goes, Miladi. What wonder that few of the boys grow up with any idea of morality? What wonder that these dark-eyed daughters wreck their lives as their mothers did before them in spite of the barred windows which so carefully shut them in ? I had had already a taste of all this in Buenos Aires, but Mr. Holt was horrified beyond expression. That evening after dinner we were sitting on the balcony of [239] ^Unofficial &ecretarp the hotel. Miss Halvorson, the mission ary, who had had dinner with us, had just gone and a silence had fallen upon us. I was thinking that it was just as well for Dr. Thome's peace of mind that he landed in Buenos Aires instead of in Lima. Mr. Holt was evidently deeply wrapped in his own thoughts but suddenly he startled us all by saying not irreverently, but as if speaking to himself, 44 My God!" La Senora Consul looked up in amaze ment. Mr. Holt was not given to such speech. She thought he must be ill and went quickly to his side. He laughed a little but it was surely the grimmest laugh I ever heard a man give vent to. " Pardon me, my dear," he said, " but if what I have seen this day would n't make a man call upon his Maker I can't imagine anything that would." I felt as though I had had about enough of Peru, but we stopped again at Mollendo because it was the easiest way by which [240] Unofficial we could get into Bolivia. The same war with Chile which had robbed Peru of her nitrate beds robbed Bolivia of her sea- coast and shut her up, tight and fast, in the interior. But there were things to see in Bolivia and we saw them. We took another climb, similar to that we had taken from Lima, on another rail road built by the Yankee, Meiggs, up to the old city of Arequipa. Nineteen thou sand feet above it, Mount Misti, the dead volcano, looks down upon the town. Are quipa is a centre of learning and a strong hold of the church. It has thirty thousand people and it is said that one in fifty is in the service of the church. To us the most interesting thing in the place, though, was the Observatory maintained there by Har vard University. A team of horses could not have kept Mr. Holt from visiting it, so we drove out to the hills on which it stands and were well repaid. Two Harvard men are in charge and are keeping watch over the southern skies just [241] Ctjc (Unofficial as those at Cambridge do over the north ern heavens. I was surprised when I saw the telescope, for it is more like a great camera. They expose a plate so that the stars can shine upon it. Thus they can lo cate them with a precision which can not be questioned. By placing to-night's plate over that of last night, the trained eye can easily detect a new star should one appear. When the night is clear, the telescope is arranged and the plate set. Then, like the watch at sea, each man goes on duty in turn, to watch the plate as it revolves with the heavens. From Arequipa we took a little boat which was a miniature ocean liner and rode all night across Lake Titicaca, one of the most wonderful productions of Nature in the world. It is a hundred and thirty-five miles long, seventy miles wide, a thousand feet deep, and it lies away up in the moun tains twelve thousand five hundred feet above the sea. On one of the islands lying in this lake the race of Incas is supposed [242] Unofficial &ecretarp to have had its birth, and the ruins of the Temple of the Sun are still there. Once across the lake, we took the train again to La Paz, the city of Our Lady of Peace and the capital of Bolivia. In La Paz I saw a sight which delighted my artistic eye. The ponchos worn by the cholos (Indian workmen) are made of homespun, but they are in color the most satisfying things imaginable soft greens and browns, dull red and old rose. Every time I saw one of these men I thought of an old, soft, rich, Oriental rug. Chile may have taken from this little country her water-edge but there is one thing she could n't take her seemingly inexhaustible mines of tin. When the rail road, now building, connects her with Buenos Aires, Bolivia can snap her fingers at Chile and tell her to look out for herself. It was a long sail down the coast from Mollendo, but early yesterday morning we sighted Valparaiso. Down here they call [ 243 ] ' Ah, that trip across the Andes, Miladi ! As long as I live I shall look back upon it and it will lend color to my grayest day! From Valparaiso we went up to San tiago, the capital of Chile. It is about two thousand feet higher than the city on the coast, and at the eastern end of every street which runs east and west you see the mountains. Everything is very much alive in Santiago. There is an air of get- rich-quick about the whole place. Banks English, German, Italian, Spanish are on all hands, nitrate companies, all sorts of schemes, in fact, to make money. We went to see the nitrate vats at one of the oficinas, and it was hard to per suade myself that that dirty, slimy, whit ish-looking mud was what Chile, Peru, and Bolivia fought the great war about. San tiago is evidently a haven for exiles for there are buildings there which house the English Club, the Deutscher Verein, the Alliance Franchise. There are forty [246] Unofficial thousand people and a beautiful modern railway station, just completed, but San tiago seemed to me insignificant, and I think it was because of the lofty mountains which look down upon it and seem so much more majestic than a city. For some rea son the mountains there looked different from the way they looked in Peru. But Santiago has an interest all its own. It was there that Sarmiento, the great ed ucator of Argentina, spent his voluntary exile and dreamed out the plan of estab lishing in Argentina a system of public schools. Sarmiento was sent by his coun try to Washington and while there news was brought him that he had been elected President of the Argentine Republic. He came back and served for six years, never losing sight of the object he had in view which was to educate " the people." The good old families still stick to the con vents and the parochial schools, but the children of " the people " go in large numbers to the public schools. [247] {Unofficial One day when I was riding with Dr. Thorne in Buenos Aires I saw two famil iar figures on the street. I asked him to stop that I might speak to the two Sisters who had come down with me on the Dom Pedro. I don't know which was gladder to see the other. The Mother Superior begged that I would go out with her to visit the convent over which she had charge; so Dr. Thorne took us out a long walk it would otherwise have been and came back for me later. It was a cool, pleas ant old building and there were many young girls there, but I learned that when their education is complete they have had about as much as the North Amer ican girl has had at the end of the sixth grade. " It is too bad," sighed the Mother Su perior, " but then, they think down here that it is quite good enough for girls! " Well, the youngsters who to-day are at tending the public schools in Buenos Aires will be the men and women of to-morrow, [248] nofficial &ecretarp and then just watch them. Learning 's the thing! We took the train at Santiago for Los Andos, away up in the mountains. On the way we stopped at Llai-Llai, where we had to change to the Trans-Andino R. R. At this place we had another illustration of the thrift of the Chileans. Llai-Llai they pronounce it " Yi-Yi " just as though they were letting out a college yell of some kind is a junction, and the people had congregated in large numbers with stuff to sell to those who came in on the trains. We were glad to see them, though, for the mountain air makes one ravenously hungry and we almost went bankrupt buying everything we saw which looked as though it might be eaten then on up the climb to Los Andos. Here begins the four-mile tunnel through the Andes, and a tunnel eleven thousand feet above the sea level is a thing one does n't see every day. But what a mistake it was to build it there ! True, it would have [249] ^Unofficial gs>ecretarp cost a great deal more money and taken a much longer time to have tunnelled the mountains lower down, but it would have meant fairly good transportation all the way across the continent the year around, which now will never be. When the ter rible temporal (winter blizzard) comes, the tunnel is cut off because the passages are blocked with forty or fifty feet of snow and no one wants to be caught up there during the South American winter. After the first of June one fights shy of the trans-Andean trip. In summer nothing could be more delightful. We did not ride through the tunnel be cause at Los Andos we made the acquaint ance of a young American engineer a man whose business it is to see that the road is kept in good condition, the travel ling made as comfortable as possible, and the road kept open just as long as it can be. " Surely," he said to El Senor Con sul, " you are not going back without see ing the 'Christo?'" [250] {Unofficial >ecretarp We told him that if there was anything to be seen which we had not seen we were not going back without seeing it! So he volunteered to go with us up to the Pass of Uspallata, and had we not taken his advice, Miladi, we should have missed the most impressive thing we saw in all our journey. There on the sublime heights of the Andes we came to the boundary line between Chile and Argentina, and in this pass over which the heroic San Mar tin led his army in 1817, far up among the lonely crags, on the very crest of the Cumbre, deserted, isolated, storm-swept in winter, majestic in its lonely dignity, is a heroic figure of The Christ, standing beside a Cross. One hand is holding the Cross, the other is stretched out in bless ing as though He said, " My peace give I unto you ! " The statue was placed there when Chile and Argentina signed their peace agree ment. On the pedestal two figures stand, back to back, one pointing to Argentina, [251] ^Unofficial s>ecrctarp one to Chile, and on the base I read the sculptured words: Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than shall the people of Argentina and Chile break the peace which they have sworn at the feet of Christ the Redeemer. I turned and looked into the faces of our little party. The deepest of silence had fallen over us. It was bitter cold but the men had taken off their hats. La Seriora Consul was weeping silently. Mrs. British Consul's eyes were also wet, and as for me, Miladi, all the prayers I ever forgot to say came into my heart at that moment. Nothing can ever oblit erate the memory of that hour. The drifting snows of the Andean winter may blot out those rock-hewn words, but ah, the ideal for which that statue stands is there, and from its lofty peak on the very roof of the world the spirit of it will breathe a blessing down on all mankind. You have often heard about gliding [252] Unofficial out of one country into another, but, Mi- ladi, did you ever hear of sliding out of one country into another? I have been guilty of some ludicrous and idiotic things in my life but the prank we all partic ipated in the day we climbed the pass was the prize episode in my career. When we got to the top of the peak (where Chile stops) our young American insisted that we must slide down the mountain side into Argentina. He said everybody did it. It was quite the proper thing. At first we thought he was joking, but he was n't. He showed us how it was done, and I want to assure you, Miladi, that the feat was accomplished with great eclat. There were some minor difficulties to be overcome in our case. Some of us were lady sliders and our skirts bothered us a little. But we put on our rain coats and tied a cord around our skirts just be low the knee. Then each of us sat down, stuck his or her foot under the arm of the one in front, and thus firmly attached, [253] ecretarp had Fortune chosen me to play football with? What had I done? What could there be in the mention of my grand mother's little bungalow on the Choptank River which could so affect this man and this woman? But after all, Miladi, for once I had seen him as he really is. Affection, strength, protecting tenderness, all the things which woman loves in man, things which this man in his daily life keeps so carefully out of sight, came forth from the depths where they had been in hiding, and ah heaviest thought of all what would not the love of such a man as he mean to a woman such as I ! A step on the path brought me out of my thoughts and back to stern realities. I saw him standing before me in the moonlight. " You are entitled to an explanation, Miss Leigh, " he began. "No!" I said. "You need not tell me. I don't know what I could have said, [261] Unofficial &ecretarp but whatever it was it has distressed Aunt Val and made you unhappy. I am sorry." " Don't say that," he answered. " You do not understand. What you have said to-night may be the means of bringing us peace. Who knows? Will you listen?" " Of course, if you really wish it." " I do." He sat down also on the edge of the basin. There seemed to be nothing for me to say so I waited for him to begin. " It all seems long ago now, Miss Leigh. My grandfather came out to the States from England when Aunt Val was twelve years old. With him came also my grandmother and my mother who was a baby in her arms. There had been three sons between my mother and Aunt Val but all had died in England. My grandfather settled in Baltimore, but his wife did not survive the transplanting. She died within the year. So Aunt Val was the only mother my mother ever knew, as well as the only mother I have ever [262] Unofficial g>Ecretarp known myself. And no man could have had a more devoted mother than she has been to me God bless her ! " He paused a little but I still was silent. It was npt for me to speak. " Well, things ran along evenly for a good many years. Aunt Val's youth was sacrificed to the making of a home for her father and sister, but at last my grand father died, and afterward Aunt Val met and loved a man and was to have been married to him. She was twenty-nine then. He was thirty-two. Everything was in readiness, and a day or two before the wedding, my mother, then a girl of eighteen, came home from school. " From here on it 's an ugly story, Miss Leigh, and a sad one. Aunt Val suspected nothing, but when the day for the wed ding came, neither her lover nor her sis ter were to be found. She was alone with her grief. She shut herself up in her lit tle house and fought it out by herself. " A year went by. One night after she [263] ccrctarj> had retired she heard a knocking at the door and asked who was there. A weak but familiar voice answered, 11 ' It is I, Val, Janet.' " She threw open the door and there stood my mother, the wreck of her beau tiful, girlish self, with me in her arms a four-weeks-old baby. " ' Val,' she said, ' I Ve come all the way to give you this ' and she laid me in her arms." He rubbed his forehead wearily as though his head ached, and there was an other long silence. Then he continued: " I have tried since I came here not to think about it any more, but to-night it all seems very real again. Aunt Val got my mother to bed and begged her to rest and be quiet. She, realizing perhaps that her hours were few, wanted to talk. She wore no wedding ring and seeing that Aunt Val observed it she said: " ' We were married, Val, truly we were at a little English Church in. [264] (Unofficial g>rcrctarp Maryland Choptank ' Aunt Val turned to look at her, but she was dead." That little English Church in Chop- tank Parish, Miladi ! Don't you remem ber it well? It could have been no other, I am sure. We Ve been there to church many a time, you and I. Dr. Thorne went on with his story. ' The name of that place escaped her memory, Miss Leigh. For thirty-five years she tried in vain to recall it. Aunt Val had a small fortune which was all her own. She spent almost every dollar of it trying to find out, until at last I begged her to forget it and be content with life as it is. " Of course during my childhood I knew nothing of all this. Occasionally one of the boys would say something I could n't understand, but when I asked Aunt Val she made always the same re ply. ' Your mother died when you were born, my dear. Are you not my son? Am I not your mother? ' And I was satisfied. [265] *Tf)c Unofficial j>ccretarp ' When I was ready I went to Har vard. Then I studied medicine at Rush Medical College in Chicago and had a year at Johns Hopkins afterward. It was here that the blow fell. The year was just over. We had passed all our exam inations and one day a lot of the fellows were standing in the lecture-room talking over the examinations and congratulating those who had made the honors, of whom I chanced to be one. Among them was a man who had been at Rush when I was there and who had come also to Johns Hopkins. I never liked him. He was n't the right sort, you know, and once or twice I had had the luck to pluck some thing he was after. Consequently he did n't like me either, though we had been outwardly friendly. He was going to marry a Baltimore girl with whom I used to play when I was a child, so I had tried to be decent to him. Well, every body was in fine, good humor that day ex cept him. Suddenly I felt as though the [266] Unofficial g>ecretarp earth was crumbling beneath my feet, for he was saying, '"Oh, it's all right, Thorne. You may carry things with a high hand while you 're in college, but if you 're thinking about practicing in Baltimore, take my ad vice. Don't.' " Dead silence fell. I can see the fel lows yet, closing in around me, leaving him standing by himself. " ' Why not? ' I asked. * I don't know that I shall practice in Baltimore but I can see no reason why I should not if I choose.' ' There is a reason,' he sneered. ' Baltimore society will close its doors on one whose mother saw fit to disregard the marriage ceremony! ' " I suppose I should have killed him if the fellows had not held me back while two of them pushed him out at the door and down the stairs. Then they all talked at once, assuring me that they knew he was lying that even if he spoke the [267] Unofficial truth, what difference could it make to them? They were my friends. " I flew to Aunt Val only to find my worst fears realized. My mother had told her before she died that she was mar ried. She believed her. She did not know! She had even told her where, and she had tried so hard to remember the name of that place but could not. She had spent so many years and so much money trying to find out. Alas, why had she not told me herself! She had not foreseen what might happen if she did not ! " I thought I was going mad, Miss Leigh. Something pounded within me till I felt as though my brain would burst, but at sight of Aunt Val's distress, I grew calmer and tried to look the thing in the face. " Unless you understand the English pride of race, you can in no way compre hend what it all meant to me, Miss Leigh. True, I was born and brought up in the States, but family pride is like original [268] Unofficial &ecretarp sin it is hard to eradicate. All my life I had been taught that through all the generations behind me the family page had been kept clean. Now, my own mother! " " Surely you don't believe " I began. " No. I don't," he broke in. " I, too, have faith in her, but / don't know. You can not imagine what it means to a man like me to bear a name which he is not sure is his own a name he dare not of fer to a woman ! " Miladi, I have shocked you a good many times by a remark such as I am about to make now. Take one more shock, will you? If there are no excep tions to the statement that the sins of the fathers are to be visited on the children, just write me down a heretic. " After a while I thought it all out and one night I said to Aunt Val, ' I 'm going away.' " ' Without me? ' she asked. " * Not if you '11 come with me,' I said. [269] Cfje {Unofficial >ecretarp " So we sold the home in Baltimore and started to England, but as we crossed, we met on the boat whom do you suppose? " "Captain Starr?" " Right. He was then on a boat which sailed from Liverpool. He told us about this beautiful country, of its possibilities for all young men and for one of my pro fession in particular. Instead of carrying out our original intention we changed boats at Liverpool and came here. We were thirty-five days at sea. We have lived our own lives here. I have been busy, I might say content, until " He rose and stood looking down into the water of the fountain. I rose also and said, "Until what?" " Until you came," he said, brokenly. " All has been different since then. The skeleton will not stay in the closet. At night the ghost walks. Now, I must know. I shall do what I can to end Aunt [270] Unofficial &>ecretar|> Val's long martyrdom and mine. Meanwhile " He took my hands in his own and lifted them to his lips but said no more. We went back to the hotel and I did not see him again while I was in Buenos Aires. But before I went to sleep that night I wrote again to Mr. Holden. I asked him to go personally over to the little church in Choptank Parish and look up the record for 1874 and if he found this marriage recorded there to send a copy of the parish register to Dr. Thorne. The next day we took the boat and came back to Asuncion. There was work in plenty awaiting us, thank Heaven! But Miladi, I am the mooniest creature in all South America. I can settle down to nothing. I seem to be on edge, waiting, watching,, listening for something (I wonder what) tormented with doubts and fears. Oh, what if he should not find it, Miladi ! It would be worse than death la morte dans I'ame for us both. [271] Unofficial 5>ccretarj> In my Garden, BUENOS AIRES, S. A. T_JT AS there never been a moment in your life, Miladi, when you have said to yourself, " It was for this I have waited: it was of this I have dreamed?" Well, they say that all things come to him who waits, and sometimes one's dreams come true. I have seen it myself, Miladi, that little piece of paper which meant so much to three people, to Aunt Val, to Dr. Thorne, to me. This is what it said : Married, June loth, 1874, by the Reverend William White, Rector of Choptank Parish, Maryland, Janet, daughter of the late Alan Rex- ford of Baltimore, to Burton Thorne, M.D., of Albany, New York. " Donald McLean, Curate, _... T^U TJ c c Witnesses. Thomas Hayes, bexton. J It was such a long time coming. Mr. Holden was away from Washington when my letter arrived. I heard nothing from him or from Dr. Thorne, but I knew that down in Buenos Aires he was fighting [272] ^inofficial the fight. I had almost persuaded myself that we had heard nothing because there was nothing to hear, yet I could not help feeling that even if Mr. Holden had been unsuccessful he would make known the fact to me. One morning I found on my desk a letter from Buenos Aires. I tore it open and then sat staring at it. There was not a word about the thing uppermost in my mind. It was merely a line reminding me of a promise I had made before we went on our vacation. The opera season was about to begin. He hoped I had not for gotten that I was to give him the pleasure of hearing the music with him. The Consul looked up and said, " Hear from Thorne, Virginia ? How's the hospital?" "I why " I stammered, " he has n't mentioned it." Mr. Holt leaned back in his chair and roared. Then he came across, still laugh ing, and said, [273] Unofficial &ecretarp "Might I ask without impertinence, you know what he did mention? When Thome forgets to talk about the hospi tal " " It is only an invitation to come down to the opera, but I think I won't." "Why?" " Oh, there 's a lot to do here " He closed the door which connects his own with the outer office. Then he came back and stood beside me again. " Things have n't been going just right for you lately, have they, little girl? " he said. "Do things ever go just right?" I replied. " Sometimes they do. Listen, Virginia. You know how glad Mrs. Holt and I were to have you come to us. Nothing can ever take away the grief that touched us a few years ago when we lost all that was our own, but the sting has been less sharp since you came. And we should have been glad to have you just come and [274] Unofficial ^>ecretarj> be one of us to do for you what your father and mother would gladly have done for our daughter had the case been reversed. But you yourself did not wish that and I liked your spirit. Besides, I thought you would be happier if you were busy. Was I right? " " Of course, quite right." ' Well, what I am trying to say now is that you must not feel riveted to the job. You have been of great help to me on account of your peculiar fitness for the work to be done, but I will manage things. Run along and hear the music. It will do you good. Besides " "What?" " there's going to be war in Para guay." " I was afraid is it really true? " ' Yes. It 's coming just as surely as that the earth moves. Already Paraguay has been notified by Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay that they will not see Asuncion destroyed. But you know the unrest [275] Unofficial here. I am glad to have you go down to Buenos Aires for a while." "But Mrs. Holt?" I asked. He paused and his voice grew soft as he answered, " She knows. We have talked it all over. She will not be persuaded to leave me. She will stay." I took the train next morning and my heart' was heavy as I looked out over the smiling land. Poor little Paraguay ! God help her if the experience of '65~'7O is to be repeated! The very day I arrived in Buenos Aires Mr. Holden's letter came also. It beat me by a few hours, but I might say with the Irishman that we arrived " simulta neously and all at wance ! " The train was late, as usual. There was little more than an hour in which to get dressed, have din ner, and get to the opera. When I emerged from the little room to which Aunt Val, in a state of subdued excite ment, had shown me, Dr. Thorne was [276] {Unofficial standing by the fire-place. All of a sud den something happened. I found myself so close in some one's arms that I could scarcely breathe, and a voice dearest voice in the world, Miladi ! was saying things in my ear. I might have tried to escape but I knew it would n't be worth while. Had n't he told me that he played tackle on the football team all the time he was in college? Besides, it was such a good place to be. Moreover, I knew very well that I should not be there had not all been well with him. We flew to the opera. Caruso was at his best. The great Sextette from " Lucia " as I heard it that night will ring in my ears forever. When I saw Dr. Thorne again in the morning he said, " I shall have to go away for an hour. When I come back will you go somewhere with me? " "Anywhere with you," I answered. I did not realize how fatal a promise [277] Unofficial I was making, Miladi, but may I take with me to the next world the remembrance of what came into his face! Aunt Val went with us. Over on the other side of town is another little English Church, and we were married there yesterday morning. I had a chance the very first day to put into practice some of my beautiful theories about being a doctor's wife, Miladi. When we returned from the church the telephone was ringing away like mad. He hurried away and, will you believe it? I saw my lord and master no more till nine o'clock last night. After dinner Aunt Val asked to be excused, said she hoped I would not find it lonely, and went to her room. I went into the garden. Again I sat down on the edge of the basin and thought of the many things that had happened since that other night so many weeks ago. I heard a door open and close again quickly and in a moment more he came running down the steps. I was in his arms [278] Unofficial ^>ccrctnrj> inside of two seconds and he was saying, " Has it been a long day? " "Centuries!" I asserted dramatically. He laughed like a school-boy. It was good to hear him, Miladi. The years seem to have fallen from him in a day. He has grown youthful again. " What have you been doing all day? " he asked. " Well, first I wired the Consul. Re signed my position. Told him I had ac cepted a better one." " Did you tell him what it was? " N no, but " "What?" " I signed my name as is. That ought to help some." "What else?" " Nothing much just thinking. This garden is a good place in which to think thoughts and to dream dreams." " May your dreams be happy, Dear est," he said, " not like mine when first I came. What have I not suffered in this [279] ^Unofficial ^>ecretarp garden ! Why, I used to call it Geth- semane ! " "Oh," I cried, "but never again! " " No. Never again. I looked about me here and you know what I found. My own troubles seemed small in com parison and I gave myself no time to think about them. I got things started at the hospital " " Our hospital " I thought. " and after that, how could I think of anything else? Sometimes people think me over-enthusiastic about the hos pital, but see, Beloved, I did not know then, and I thought always of my poor young mother just a girl like them, and perhaps betrayed, like them " "Don't!" " Oh, it was horrible. The thought was maddening, but it made all women sacred to me. Now I have you, Dearest, you will help, won't you? " I could n't speak, Miladi. Something came into my throat and kept back the [280] Unofficial &ecretarp words, but surely, in the silence which fol lowed, the Angel recorded the answer in the Book. We lingered a moment longer by the fountain. All around us was the splen dor of the night. It was like the first movement of Beethoven's " Moonlight Sonata " with illustrations such as Nature alone can give. The moon had turned all the garden's green to silver. The night winds whispered to the trees. The tall ferns swayed in the breeze and wooed and kissed each other. The waters of the fountain rippled and laughed and sang love songs to the flowers. The voice of the man I love was in my ears. My dreams have all come true. Adios, Miladi dear. Adios. It 's a glorious old world after all! MAR 1988 DATE DUE H1GHSMITH 48- 102 PRINTED IN U.S.A. PS3535 I3U6 1912 Mann, Mary Ridpath, 1867- The unofficial secretary UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 250 609 3 UNIVERSITY OF C II Illl RIVERSIDE LIBRARY 3 1210 00655 9981