Calverton of my battery, would very much like me to introduce you to her. She is an old friend of your father's, and has wanted to know you for a long time." De Stancy and Somerset crossed over to the lady, and in a few minutes, thanks to her flow of spirits, she and Somerset were chatting with remarkable freedom. "It is a happy coincidence," continued Mrs. Calverton, "that I should have met you here, immediately after receiving a letter from your father: indeed, it reached me only this morning. He has been so kind! We are getting up some theatricals, as you know, I suppose, to help the funds of the County Hospital, which is in debt." "I have just seen the announcement nothing more." "Yes, such an estimable purpose; and as we wished to do it thoroughly well, I asked Mr. Somerset to design us the costumes, and he has now sent me the sketches. It is quite a secret at present, but we are going to play Shakspeare's romantic drama, Love's Labor's Lost, and we hope to get Miss Power to take the leading part. You see, being such a handsome girl, and so wealthy, and rather an undiscovered novelty in the county as yet, she would draw a crowded room, and greatly benefit the funds." "Miss Power going to play herself? I am rather surprised," said Somerset. "Whose idea is all this ?" "Oh, Captain De Stancy's-he's the originator entirely. You see he is so interested in the neighborhood, his family having been connected with it for so many years, that naturally a charitable object of this local nature appeals to his feelings." "Naturally!" her listener laconically repeated. "And have you settled who is to play the junior gentleman's part, leading lover, hero, or whatever he is called?" "Not absolutely; though I think Captain De Stancy will not refuse it; and he is a very good figure. At present it lies between him and Mr. Mild, one of our young lieutenants. My husband, of course, takes the heavy line; and I am to be the second lady, though I am rather too old for the part really. If we can only secure Miss Power, the cast will be excellent." "Excellent!" said Somerset, with a spectral smile. CHAPTER VII. WHEN he awoke the next morning at the King's Arms Hotel, Somerset felt quite morbid on recalling the intelligence he had received from Mrs. Calverton. But as the day for serious practical consultation about the castle works, to which Paula had playfully alluded, was now close at hand, he determined to banish sentimental reflections on the frailties that were besieging her nature, by active preparation for his professional undertaking. To be her high-priest in art, to elaborate a structure whose cunning workmanship would be meeting her eye every day till the end of her natural life, and saying to her, "He invented it," with all the eloquence of an inanimate thing long regarded-this was no mean satisfaction, come what else would. He returned to town the next day to set matters there in such trim that no inconvenience should result from his prolonged absences at the castle; for, having no other commission, he determined (with an eye rather to heart interests than to increasing his professional practice) to make, as before, the castle itself his office, studio, and chief abiding-place till the works were fairly in progress. On the tenth he re-appeared at Markton. Passing through the town, on the road to Stancy Castle, his eyes were arrested by the notice-board which had conveyed such startling information to him on the night of the ball. The small bills now appeared thereon; but when he anxiously looked them over to learn how the parts were to be allotted, he found that intelligence still withheld. Yet they told enough: the list of lady players was given, and Miss Power's name was one. That a young lady who, six months ago, would scarcely join, for conscientious reasons, in a simple dance on her own lawn, should now be willing to exhibit herself on a public stage, as it might be called, simulating love passages with a stranger, argued a rate of development which, under any circumstances, would have surprised him; but which, with the particular addition, as leading colleague, of Captain De Stancy, inflamed him almost to anger. What clandestine arrangements had been going on in his absence to produce such a full-blown intention it was futile to guess. Paula's course was a race rather than a march, and each successive heat was startling in its eclipse of that which went before. Somerset was, however, introspective enough to know that his morals would have taken no such virtuous alarm had he been the chief male player instead of Captain De Stancy; and it was, after all, possible that Paula would not take a part. He passed under the castle arch, and entered. There seemed a little turn in the tide of affairs when it was announced to him that Miss Power expected him, and was alone. The well-known antechambers through which he walked, filled with twilight, draughts, and thin echoes that seemed to reverberate from two hundred years ago, did not delay his eye as they had done when he had been ignorant that his destiny lay within; and he followed on through all this ancientness to where the modern Paula sat to receive him. He forgot everything in the bliss of being alone in a room with her. She blushed and met his eye with something in her own which cheered him. It was not a tear. It was a light expressing that something was understood between them. She said, quietly, in two or three words, that she had expected him in the forenoon. "I moped, and walked to the door; and saw an announcement." "I know-the play that is to be performed." 66 In which you are to be the Princess." "That's not settled. I have not agreed yet. I shall not play the Princess of France unless Mr. Mild plays the King of Navarre." This sounded rather well. The Princess was the lady beloved by the King; and Mr. Mild, the young lieutenant of artillery, was a diffident, inexperienced, rather plain-looking fellow, whose sole interest in theatricals lay in the consideration of his costume and the sound of his own voice in the ears of the audience. With such an unobjectionable person to enact the part of lover to Paula, the prominent character of leading young lady, or heroine, which she was to personate, was really the most satisfactory in the whole list. For, although she was to be wooed hard, there was just as much love-making among the remaining personages; while, as Somerset had understood the play, there could occur no flingings of her person upon her lover's neck, or agonized downfalls upon the stage, in her whole performance, as there were in the parts chosen by Mrs. Calverton, the major's wife, and some of the other ladies. Somerset explained that he had come mured. only that morning from London. After a little more talk, in which she said that her aunt would join them in a few minutes, and that Miss De Stancy was still indisposed at her father's house, she rang for tea and sat down beside a little table. "Shall we proceed to business at once?" she asked him. "I suppose so." "First, then, when will the working drawings be ready, which I think you said must be made out before the work could begin?" While Somerset informed her on this and other matters, Mrs. Goodman entered and joined in a discussion, after which they found it would be necessary to adjourn to the studio, where the plans were hanging. On their walk thither Paula asked if he staid late at the ball. "I left soon after you." "What a question! How could I refuse for such an excellent purpose? They say that my taking a part will be worth a hundred pounds to the charity. My father always supported the hospital, which is quite undenominational; and he said I was to do the same." 66 'Do you think the peculiar means you have adopted for supporting it entered into his view?" inquired Somerset, regarding her with critical dryness. "For my part, I don't." "It is an interesting way," she returned, looking askance, apparently in a state of mental equipoise on the point raised by his question. "And I shall not play the Princess, as I said, to any other than that quiet young man. I assure you of this, so don't be angry. Besides, the King doesn't marry me at the end of the play, as in Shakspeare's other comedies. And "That was very early, seeing how late if Miss De Stancy continues seriously unyou arrived." "Yes. . . . I did not dance." "What did you do, then ?" well, I shall not play at all." The young man pressed her hand, though she made a slight objection. "Are we not engaged, Paula ?" he studio at a slower pace, appeared round asked. the doorway. She withdrew from him without replying. "Shall we tell your aunt?" he continued. Unluckily at that moment Mrs. Goodman, who had followed them to the "No-to the last," replied Paula, hastily. Then her aunt entered, and the conversation was no longer personal. Somerset took his departure in a serener mood, though not completely assured. MY JUNE BOY. SWEET as the pink wild roses wake, And freshness from their petals shake, So from his head to his small feet He wakes, all flushed and dewy sweet. His eyelids like white clouds of morning flee, And clear the heavenly blue for me, for me! The wonder of the baby's eyes! Of pools, where lights and shadows swim, Ye know what things can best compare; Though in his eyes are depths of mystery Which never yet were seen, sweet flowers, in thee. O rose-bud, rose-bud of the South, And can you bud and bloom, O rose-bud, say, And bloom and bud, a hundred times a day! A dimple is an angel's kiss: Were dimples ever placed amiss? O apple blossoms, do not speak, To say you're like the baby's cheek, All white and pink, and fragrant through and through. Have apple blossoms little dimples too? The sunshine's fairest, finest thread Graces and crowns his princely head. Sometimes it gleams a halo faint, And turns him to a baby saint. Lo, should I gird him with a little fleece, The infant St. John of the Veronese! I give the palm to his sweet chin; Yet oft his little feet will winSandaled with rose leaves, his pink toes Buds stolen from some careless rose. I count his beauties, as the nun Counteth her beads o'er, one by one. So many ways my fond heart finds him fair, It makes each breath a grateful little prayer. He sweetly breathes in baby rest White eyelids drooped on bluest eyes. Editor's Easy Chair. HERE are two clubs in the city of New I could possibly improve the concerts, there is TH no probability that the society will be enlarged, and the best course for those intending to become members is to be entered upon the list of applicants at the age of three. A Mendelssohn concert is one of the highwater marks of our civilization. The pretty hall, admirably adapted to display a brilliant audience, is filled with a brightly dressed throng, mutually acquainted, so that, unlike the usual gathering at a public concert, there is a certain air of refined sociability. The hum of general conversation, the flitting of gentlemen from group to group, and the mingling of the singers with the audience during the interludes between the songs, pleasantly fill the eye and ear. Youth and beauty hold their evanescent court, and older eyes, touched with the sweet magic of memory, see other scenes and other forms in the bright panorama of the evening. York into which admission is difficult in the degree of its desirability. They are the Century Club and the Mendelssohn Glee Club. There is understood to be a long list of names of candidates for admission always posted in some conspicuous place at the Century, some of which have been posted there for many | months, and even years; and as only a certain number of members can be admitted, the procession of candidates drags its slow length along with infinite weariness. The august committee on admissions doubtless acts with most scrupulous care for impartiality, and is serenely superior to mere personal influence. It weighs the clubbableness of proposed candidates by actual knowledge, and by faith in | the comparative sincerity of recommendations. Probably everybody is commended as the very person whose presence is indispensable to the completion of the due variety and charm of the club; and the committee's anguish, arising Suddenly the conductor enters upon the from the conviction that upon the face of the platform, strikes a few chords upon the piano, papers the club must suffer severely by not and disappears. It is the summons of the admitting immediately everybody proposed, chorus. The active or singing members move may be more readily imagined than described. from every part of the hall, the audience adWith a noble power of self-sacrifice, how-justs itself, seats are resumed, eyes furtively ever, the committee is able to exclude almost follow a manly form, perhaps, and even hearts everybody, and nothing probably is more sur-may flutter at a gay farewell. "Read the lanprising to a man who has been posted for sev-guage of those wandering eye-beams: the heart eral years than the announcement that he has knoweth." But the door at the side of the been admitted to the club. Yet it is a plea- platform opens, and the thirty or forty gentlesure worth waiting for. No club-but this is men who compose the chorus enter, and range dangerous ground, and we will say, therefore, themselves in a double semicircular line, while only that no club in the city has more interest-Mosenthal, the field-marshal, who has thoring traditions than the Century, and that the young member can do nothing better than corner a veteran, and ply him with questions until a rich stream of reminiscence pours from his mouth. In the Laurentian formation of the Century we believe there are relics of the old Sketch Clab yet to be found, still active and animated, and those interested in the primeval formations will have a curious delight in prosecuting the research. oughly and severely trained these troops of tone, and whose ear no flatting or sharping, no shirking nor silence, can escape or deceive, steps quietly and firmly forward to his stand, and with a solid, forcible air, like that of the older and original Strauss, gives the warning tap, raises his baton, and when there is perfect silence in the hall, begins. For it seems that it is he with his beating arm who plays upon a rich and delicate instrument of beautifully But long as the tarrying for admission at blended voices. He has drilled them as Nathe Century may be, we have not heard of any poleon drilled an army, and he inspires them instance there like that of a young gentleman as Napoleon inspired. A profound and conof three years who has been proposed for mem- scientious artist, thorough and accurate, and bership at the Mendelssohn Glee Club. His full of the manly enthusiasm for his art which voice is doubtless in full training already, and is the spring and secret of successful mastery, such early devotion is sure to be rewarded. he has produced a very remarkable result. The club, as its name will indicate to our re- The sound is exquisitely shaded and graded, moter readers, is a club of singers, which gives and without losing its variety, its melodic three or four concerts every winter at Chick-sweetness, and its rhythmical charm, he subering Hall-private concerts in the pleasant-dues and softens it to a whisper, fine and true, est sense. Money can not buy the tickets nor almost a shadowy sound, a fairy tone by moonopen the doors. Each member receives a cer- light: tain number of tickets for distribution, and a number which precisely fills the hall; and as an increase of membership would decrease the number of tickets allotted to each member, and as no increase of audience or a larger hall "That strain again; it had a dying fall: Oh! it came o'er my ear like the sweet South, There is a whole realm of part-songs which house, the friend of the celebrated circle which has made the Boston of the middle of this century as justly renowned as the Edinburgh of the close of the last century, the Edinburgh that saw Burns, but did not know him. That curtained corner in the Corner Book-store is remembered by those who knew it in its great days, as Beaumont recalled the revels at the "What things have we seen is revealed by such clubs and societies as the Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtile flame,. As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest!" What merry peals! What fun and chaff and story! Not only the poet brought his poem there still glowing from his heart, but the lecturer came from the train with his freshest touches of local humor. It was the exchange of wit, the Rialto of current good things, the hub of the hub. And it was the work of one man. Fields was the genius loci. Fields, with his gentle spirit, his generous and ready sympathy, his love of letters and of literary men, his fine taste, his delightful humor, his business tact and skill, drew, as a magnet draws its own, every kind of man, the shy and the elusive as Perhaps the musing listener, grateful for an well as the gay men of the world and the selfenjoyment so inspiring, as he watches the quiet possessed favorites of the people. It was his conduct of the leader, and observes the Amer-pride to have so many of the American worican faces of the singers, seems to see visibly thies upon his list of authors, to place there and audibly typified the gracious influence of if he could the English poets and "belles-letthe German musical genius upon American life. tres" writers, and then to call them all perSome future poet will say that of all the good sonal friends. Next year it will be forty years fairies who came to the birth of the free na- since the house at the Corner Book-store istion, none was more generous than Teutonia, sued the two pretty volumes of Tennyson's who brought the refining, elevating, humaniz- poems which introduced Tennyson to America. ing gift of music. Barry Cornwall followed in the same dress. They caught all the singing-birds at that corner, and hung them up in the pretty cages so that everybody might hear the song. Trans Theodore Parker at the same time. The idyl of Brook Farm THE annals of publishing and the traditions of publishers in this country will always mention the little Corner Book-store in Boston ascendentalism and The Dial were active also you turn out of Washington Street into School Street, and those who recall it in other days will always remember the curtained desk at which poet and philosopher and historian and divine, and the doubting, timid young author, were sure to see the bright face and to hear the hearty welcome of James T. Fields. What a crowded, busy shop it was, with the shelves full of books, and piles of books upon the counters and tables, and loiterers tasting them with their eyes, and turning the glossy new pages -loiterers at whom you looked curiously, suspecting them to be makers of books as well as readers. You knew that you might be seeing there in the flesh and in common clothes the famous men and women whose genius and skill made the old world a new world for every one upon whom their spell lay. Suddenly, from behind the green curtain, came a ripple of laughter, then a burst, a chorus; gay voices of two or three or more, but always of one-the one who sat at the desk and whose place was behind the curtain, the literary partner of the VOL LXIII.-No. 374.-20 | It was a very remarkable group of men-indeed, it was the first group of really great American anthors-which familiarly frequented the corner as the guests of Fields. There had been Bryant and Irving and Cooper and Halleck and Paulding and Willis in New York, but there had been nothing like the New Eng |