heart, which may make people laugh, but | gone out with Francesco and Carita into is perhaps better. the mountain. I may as well pass over the rest of the interview, as it was a strictly personal and private one. With a face full of blushes, but an earnestness which showed me that deep womanly feeling lay under her shy exterior, Cary told me that she could not leave her father, who would be quite alone in the world without her. "And then we are so very poor!" she added, with a little tremor of the voice, which showed how much her pride was wounded by the allusion. "I ought not to marry any one. A marriage should be equal. I never could—” "I am glad to hear it, Mr. Holmes," I said, "as I came to have a private interview with you, and ask your permission to pay my addresses to Miss Cary.' These words written down appear rather cold and matter of fact, but they were not uttered coldly. "I don't know whether Miss Cary will have me or not, Mr. Holmes," I said; "but I love her with all my heart, and she may or may not consent; under any circumstances, I ought to ask your consent first to my addresses. I was surprised recently into saying what perhaps I ought not to have said without first having an interview with you, but—” "Yes," Mr. Holmes said, with his serene smile, "Cary told me; she tells me everything." She turned away her head, and a slight sob followed. A moment afterward she turned her face to me, and looked at me with her great blue eyes swimming in tears. That glance, flitting and evanescent as it was, made my heart beat a thousand times more than before, for I read in it what I wished to read. But then the result was the same. Cary was quite immovable. Love for her father and pride were both against me, and when we reach-mit me to say just what I think, and speak ed the house I had utterly failed in shak- as I feel?" ing her resolution. I spent the whole day with the family, and returned to Glenburney at night, to undergo the torment of my friend Burney's jests. I did not mind them in the least, however, and two days afterward returned to the mountain. As I rode along a path skirting the Shenandoah, and gradually ascending toward the little house in the mountain, I thought over all this, and how singularly controlling that sentiment of shame at her poverty was in Cary. It was not a very common sentiment, I reflected, or at least did not always prevent young ladies from marrying. It was not absolutely crushing in a suitor to be richer than themselves; and these "sensible girls" smiled and said "yes," instead of saying "no." Here, however, was a girl in whom pride was the master sentiment. That flitting glance had told me that her heart would have given me "yes" if she had consulted it only; but there was that fatal, inexorable pride. She, the poor girl in her faded calico, would not wed with the prosperous stranger. It was absurd, unheard of, I said to myself; but then it was noble too. I went straight to the house, and found Mr. Holmes alone. Cary, he said, had | "She was perfectly right in doing so, and I am very glad that she did, as I can speak of her reasons for not listening to me. They are very noble, but I do not think they are reasonable. Will you per Certainly, Mr. Willing." "Her objection to marriage is that she ought not to leave you-in which she is perfectly right-and that she is very poor. I can appreciate her feeling, and if I could respect her more than I do now, this would make me do so. But I think it is very unreasonable. I have plenty of means for both of us, and am doing well at law, and nothing could possibly be more pleasant to me than to have you leave this solitary spot and come and live with us. You see, Mr. Holmes, I come to business; it is necessary to do so. My attachment is so strong that I will say to you what I said to her, that I do not see how I can live without her." Are you really so very much attached to Cary?" he said. "I think of no one else in the world," I exclaimed. "I know I am not worthy of her, but I love her dearly." "I really do not see why you should not be worthy of Cary, my dear Mr. Willing," said Mr. Holmes, with the same smile. "I know you quite well, I think, and your friend Mr. Burney has told me all about you." "Am I to understand, then, Mr. Holmes, that you do not object to my addresses ?" I exclaimed. "I do not see that I have any right to," | quite wild. He had gone backward and he said, mildly. "The time will soon be here when Cary will be alone. She is all to me on earth, but I should not hesitate to give her up-I love her far too much not to do so willingly." 66 forward, and found that the marble cropped out everywhere, both white and brecciated. He then hurried back, and with the assistance of an old grindstone in an out-house, ground down the slabs, and afterward pol "But you need not give her up," I ex-ished them. I am a very good geologistclaimed. Come and make your home it has been my hobby all my life-and I with us. I need not tell you that you can assure you that this breccia is of the will be a thousand times welcome." very finest quality; altogether harder and "Well, well," said the old gentleman, of closer grain, and consequently easier with his kindly smile, "if Cary wishes to and safer to work, than that used in the be married, we might arrange that. Per- pillars in the old Chamber of Representahaps, however, you might live with me- tives at Washington. Nothing could be in a little villa in the suburbs of the city, more desirable for mantel-pieces, centre say, which I think I should prefer to the tables, and every use to which the finest mountains." breccia is put; and there is the white marble besides. I think I may say with some degree of certainty that I have a fortune in this mine, and that I shall purchase a comfortable villa, and spend my last days in a less solitary spot than this." "I am very glad indeed, Mr. Holmes, to find that the trivial consideration of money, or the want of it, has no effect upon you," I said. "There will be no want of money," he replied, with the same simple and cordial smile. "I am going to be rich, I believe." He rose, hobbled to the sideboard, and took from it two slabs of stone, which he brought back and held out to me. "I said I had some very fine timber on my little estate," he went on. "I did not know until the day before yesterday that I had one of the most valuable mines of brecciated marble in the United States." I took the slabs with very great surprise into my hands and examined them. One was of the purest white, the other a deep red, traversed with veins of white, the red tint shading off into a rich flesh-color edged with rose. The slabs were about six inches in breadth and two inches thick. They had been ground down and subjected to a brilliant polish, which made them resemble mirrors. Even to my own unpracticed eyes it was evident that the specimens were white and brecciated marble of the richest quality. "I ought now to explain how this good fortune came about," Mr. Holmes said, with his unalterable simplicity and suavity. "It is due to Francesco, who in Italy, it seems, followed the trade of a marble-cutter. He came running in, soon after you left us last, exclaiming, 'Broccolata! broccolata! breccia! breccia!' and showed me some rough lumps of stone, which he made me understand he had discovered at the precise spot where you had the fight with your buck. A small stream runs near, it seems, and had washed the marble to view. Francesco seemed I looked at the tranquil and smiling face, and understood for the first time how much noble simplicity lay perdu under this quiet exterior-how truly elevated in character this man must be, who bore good and bad fortune with the same serenity. Before he could reply I heard a step be hind me, and Cary came in, flushed and with radiant eyes. Behind her Francesco and Carita came running, followed by Beppo, who uttered a joyous bark. "Padrone! mio padrone!" cried Francesco, holding up a specimen of jet-black marble veined with white and red. “Altrettanto dell' uno quanto dell' altro!" And pouring forth a flood of speech, Francesco seemed about to go out of his wits, while Beppo barked joyfully in unison. After all, Mr. Holmes was the true prophet. We are living with him in his suburban villa, not he with us; but then it is just the same, since we are all together. There is a very pretty grass-plot in front of the house, where my two boys roll and enjoy themselves in the summer evenings. In this wholesome employment they are generally aided and abetted by a grizzled foreigner, with rings in his ears, who answers to the name of Francesco, and sometimes by a quiet black-haired maiden named Carita, who are our friends; and on the porch sits, in these summer evenings, waiting for me, a young lady in a pretty evening dress, with yellow-auburn hair in a crown upon her forehead, and the largest and bluest eyes that I ever saw. [Taken by Samuel A. Walker, 230 Regent Street, London, at the Deanery, Westminster, in his "At Home" Series of Photographs.] HERE is no accounting for the tastes was born in Africa, where he made wonderful journeys and discoveries that earn AN OLD NORSE CHIEF. ed him world-wide honor; but although he proved himself superior to all the torments of equatorial travel, it was quite natural to suppose that yearly, after his return, he would, on the approach of winter, hurry shiveringly from New York to at least the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. What he really did, however, when seized anew by the fever of travel, was to cross the Atlantic and go as near to the north pole as the route by land would allow. For five years he remained within or near the arctic circle; and although thousands of his admirers declared that his imprudence would cost him his life, he returned in enviable health, having entirely escaped even the rheumatism that is supposed to claim for its own all travellers from milder climes. One important re sult of his trip is a large and extremely neously in America, England, Germany, France, Sweden, and Denmark-an inci dent unparalleled in the history of book publication. Like the author's other works, The Land of the Midnight Sun derives much of its charm from the novelty of the scenes and people described. Portions of Scandinavia have at times exerted mighty influences on the remainder of Europe, so it would seem that at least the southern parts of Sweden and Norway would have attracted the attention of many writers. To Mr. Du Chaillu, however, belongs the honor of having written the first comprehensive sketch of the country and its inhabitants. The Scandinavian peninsula now devotes its attention strictly to its own affairs. It is not on the road between the remainder of Europe and anywhere in particular; so, excepting a few English sportsmen and an occasional party whose first desire is to see the sun at midnight, their second longing being to get back to their comfortable homes as soon as possible, the foreigner is seldom seen in the land, so the natives are simply what their own surroundings have made them, and their dress, customs, and homes are in great part unlike those of any other country. Where else in the world is the buyer trusted to make out his own bills? Where else do parents go to bed at night before their daughters' lovers arrive? In what other part of Europe are there prov inces where all the peasants bathe weekly, where there are jails that never are occupied, where the annual death rate is not one per cent., and where jurymen Lapland, *The Land of the Midnight Sun. Summer and and Northern Finland. By PAUL B. DU CHAILLE, author of Explorations in Equatorial Africa, A Journey to Ashango-Land, Stories of the Gorilla Country, etc. In Two Volumes. With Map and 233 Illustrations. New York: Harper and Brothers. London: John Murray. are elected by the people, instead of being drawn hap-hazard from among such citizens as are not smart enough to shirk jury duty? Nearly every one of Mr. Du Chaillu's descriptions of the people compels the reader to believe that if the descendants of the Vikings are so honest, industrious, peaceable, and hearty, the dreaded incursions of alleged marauders did not do England any great harm after all. The most striking quality of Scandinavian character seems to be hospitality. Throughout Norway, Sweden, and the far North the author was heartily received by every one, from the king in his palace to the Laplander in his tent. During five years of almost incessant travel, in the course of which every part of the peninsula was visited, Mr. Du Chaillu was coolly treated only once. The Swedes and Norwegians have the reputation of being reserved and cold, but this is true of them only when they meet strangers of the class best suggested by the word "tourist." To any one whose interest in them can not be measured by a stare or two and a few impertinent questions they are unsuspicious and communicative, as well as cordial to the verge of affection. Mr. Du Chaillu went among them freely. conversed with them in their language, wore garments like their own, and took part in their labors, sports, and ceremonies. The treatment he received in return causes him to speak most enthusiastically in praise of their sociability and kind ness. As in all other countries that retain primitive habits, hospitality in Scandinavia always implies eating and drinking. The poorest farmer or fisherman always has something to offer the visitor, and lack of appetite is generally construed as a slight. The author mentions one occasion on which, to avoid hurting any one's feelings, he ate thirty times in two days, and drank thirty-four cups of coffee. Often strong cheese is offered just before a meal to provoke appetite, and in the cities a formal dinner is preceded by a smörgås, or lunch, at a table crowded with alleged appetizers. On a single smörgås table the author noted smoked reindeer meat, smoked salmon with poached eggs, raw salmon freshly salted, hardboiled eggs, caviare, fried sausage, anchovy, smoked goose breast, cucumbers, raw salt herring, several kinds of cheese and as many of bread, and a salad made of pickled herring, boiled meat, potatoes, eggs, beets, and onions. There were also three kinds of spirits on the table, and RUNIC STONE AT TJÄNGVIDE. |