Again there was silence. clear soft voice went on. Then the en. "I have always loved him. Ever since I can remember. Do not be shocked, but I loved him even when I married Richard. I was very young, and did it in a sort of desperate revenge because he did not, would not, care for me. I was not punished for my madness, for Richard loved me dearly, and died so soon, poor fellow, that he never discovered the truth. And then it all began over again. Only this time Ward was-different." Another silence followed. Anne did not move or speak. "Do not be unhappy about me, child," said Helen at last, turning on her arm to look at her companion; "all will come right in time. It was only that I was vexed about this evening. For he has not seemed quite himself lately, and of course I attribute it to Rachel: her deadly sweetness is like that of nightshade and tube-roses combined. Now tell me about yourself: how comes on the quarrel with the Llama ?" "But the world is a puzzle, and we often follow several paths before we find the right one. How cold your hands are! The nights are no longer like summer, and the moon is Medusa. The autumn moon is a cruel moon always, reminding us of the broken hopes and promises of the lost summer. I must go, Crystal. You are pale and weary; the summer with the Llama has been too hard. I believe you will be glad to be safely back at Moreau's again. But I can not come over now and tell you romances, can I? You know the personages, and the charm will be gone. To-morrow I am going to ride. You have not seen me in my habit? I assure you even a mermaid can not compare with me. Do you know, I should be happy for life if I could but induce Rachel to show herself once on horseback by my side: on horseback Rachel looks-excuse the word, but it expresses it-sploshy. The trouble is that she knows it, and will not go; she prefers moonlight, a piazza, and sylphide roses in her hair, with the background of fluffy white shawl." Then, with a little more light nonsense, Helen went away-went at last. Anne bolted the door, threw herself down upon her knees beside the bed, with her arms stretched out and her face hidden. There had been but this wanting to her misery, and now it was added: Helen loved him. For she was not deceived by the flippant phrases which had surrounded the avowal: Helen would talk flippantly on her death-bed. None the less was she in "Then it was Mrs. Bannert," said Anne, earnest when she spoke those few words. half unconsciously. "It is always Mrs. Bannert. I do not in the least know what you mean, but-it is always Mrs. Bannert. What did he say about her?" "Of course I can not tell you, Helen. But I really thought it was you." "What should I have to do with it? How you play at cross-purposes, Crystal! Is it possible that during all this time you have not discovered how infatuated our Gregory is with Rachel Ward is only amusing himself; but Gregory is, in one sense, carried away. However, I doubt if it lasts, and I really think he has a warm regard for you, a serious one. is a pity you could not-" It Anne stopped the sentence with a gesture. In such matters a woman can read a woman: there is a tone of voice which can not be counterfeited. It tells all. I do not dream that from those ultimate heights And if I stand there, waiting by thy side, Surely thy heart with some old thrill will stir, "Yes, I see that little ring," said Hel- | And turn thy face toward me, even from her. THEN THEN. HEN the world was a holiday planet, and things were precisely what they seemed, notwithstanding the words of the poet. Then the whole year was May, albeit the season did change occasionally. Then the skies were brighter, the thunder louder, the lightning vivider, the snow whiter, the skating smoother, the waves higher, and the banks sounder than they represent themselves to-day. Then, as a human race, people were specially well-favored. Then we got more for our money than we do at this era of the solar system. Then it was a boon to be alive, and we thoroughly appreciated the privilege. Then the cheeks of maidenhood were tinted with everlasting carnations, and her locks swept round and round with perpetual violet odors. Then we wrote inflammatory verse to blonde Almira or chaste Selina, beginning, "She walks in beauty like the night," persistently ignoring the fact that his lordship of Newstead had said the same thing to somebody else many years before. Then, later, the lovely Emily B—, "That plant and flower of light,” led captive our enamored fancy. Then a week at West Point or Newport (her family sojourning there) made us supremely blest for a whole year. Then we essayed chess that we might be beaten by our landlady's daughter, after tea, in a twilight corner of the parlor. Then we took a few cheap lessons in boxing and fencing, that we might protect ourselves from the other boarders in case we should, for amatory reasons, be attacked in the entry, or unhappily drawn into a defensive duel. Then we studied a moiety of French with Count de la Porte, that we might be equipped for Parisian society, should we ever happen to get into it, which was not at all likely. Then we rode horseback, or endeavored to do so, in Fourth-of-July and other important civic processions. Then we danced as Mrs. Barrymore had taught us, and sang according to Dr. Lowell Mason. Then we could play second flute in a serenade, and have breath enough left for a lively duet afterward. Then we joined several literary and festive societies, where the initiation fees were inconsiderable. Then we subscribed to Callendar's Circulating Library, because she took out books from that establishment. Then Mr. Greenwood's "celebrated museum," with its stuffed adornments of natural history, and its high-toned celebrities with pinguid shining faces, entertained and instructed us. Then the eccentric Dr. Valentine contributed his whimsicalities to our weekly enjoyments, lecturing to us on phrenology, and imitating the Long Island damsel at her piano. Then the tailor, the hatter, and the bootmaker were superior beings in our estimation, and ranked among artists that interested us profoundly. Then we carried a cane made from the old frigate Constitution, and sported gloves of a peculiar and somewhat violent color on the slightest provocation. Then we struggled manfully with our feelings until we could achieve tobacco in its mildest form. Then we affected gilt-edged stationery, and stamped the perfumed wax with a head of Ajax on our glass seal-ring. Then we attached a decorative watch chain to something anchored out of sight that was not in any way connected with the flight of time, but only intended to delude the beholder into a belief that it might be a Frodsham, or a "patent lever" by Tobias. Then half a dozen gold eagles in one's pocket at a time was a pecuniary prosperity. Then we spoke of Stephen Girard with monetary awe, and eagerly discussed what would probably become of so much hoarded treasure. Then we took our first voyage in a steamboat, "all night across the perilous Sound." Then the Astor House, as dominated by Stetson, was our favorite hotel. Then the opera and ballet were fairylands, and the theatre more than real. Then we experienced not infrequently the blessings of a "free admission." Then we began to live. Then we watched the tuneful Mrs. Austin glide away as Cinderella in her pumpkin coach. Then Madame Celeste danced before us in The French Spy. Then Caradori was extant, with her delicate surprises of tender expression and grace. Then a night of unparagoned felicity-we heard, from their melodious altitudes, the memorable tones of Truffi, Benedetti, Formes, Tedesco, Perelli, Steffanoni, Salvi, Marini, and Beneventano-names forever chronicled in our recollections of happy hours. Then we began to talk in society of Bellini, Ros Then that unrivalled artist, James Wallack, made us weep in The Rent Day, and caused us to feel the poetry in As You Like It as we had never felt it before. Then the little Keeley people came floating across the Atlantic to augment our hilarity for a couple of weeks, and suddenly leave us sighing for their never-accomplished return. Then "Paddy Power," the accomplished and fascinating brother of Lady Blessington, the very genius of mirth, came to flood the Tremont boards with his delightful brogue. Then (proud evening indeed!) Mr. Halleck, the poet, took us to see Macready in Macbeth at the old Park Theatre in the great city. Then John Keese, good-natured, merry soul, introduced us to Mr. Man sini, Donizetti, and Auber. Then Jenny | coat. Lind, the living soul of music, was carolling to us out of melodious skies. Then Fanny Kemble was the Portia of our idolatry. Then Mrs. Barrett and the silver-tongued Jarman were for a time the "divinities that stirred within us." Then a merry troup of Viennese children absorbed our attention for a space. Then Ellen Tree, with the caressing voice, a lady "fair as unshaded light," with tones in her laugh it was a luxury to hear, and Charles Kean (only her lover then), enchanted us long after the curtain fell. Then Harry Placide, as Grandfather Whitehead, made us gulp down our emotions as we sat shading our eyes in the pit. Then "Brother Tom," as Bob Acres, on the same evening, restored our counte-ager Mitchell and pretty Mary Taylor benance to its full measure of uproarious laughter. Then Baron Hackett was Rip Van Winkle, and Jefferson (my Jo) had not yet come to the front. Then Cooper, "the noblest Roman of them all," was lingering a few nights longer, prior to folding up his robes forever. Then Warren was a stripling, but just as sprightly on his wellinstructed legs as he is now, and always will be, and that is saying a great deal. Then the elder Booth, incontestably the most electric Hamlet and Sir Giles since Edmund Kean, came and sounded all the depths of human passion and pathos. Then we ran after Master Burke, with the rest of the world, for a season. Then Momus dawned upon us in the shape of exuberant Burton, and informed us how the rogue Autolycus sang, in the Winter's Tale, "When daffodils begin to peer," and how Toodles talked and tumbled about in his daily intercourse with the world. Then Charles Kemble, with ravishing perfection, represented Benedick and Mercutio in their habit as they lived. Then Manager Barry was Master Walter, in The Hunchback. Then Sheridan Knowles took, by right of authorship, the character for a brief space, but we preferred our favorite townsman in the long speeches in that play. Then Gilbert played Falstaff, and Murdock enacted Romeo to our deepest satisfaction. Then J. R. Scott brought Napoleon before us, with arms folded and rapid speech, striding moodily up and down the stage, and taking huge quantities of snuff out of a leathern pocket in his embroidered buff waist hind the scenes at the small Olympic. Then it was our annual custom to secure tickets to generous old Mrs. Barnes's yearly benefit, not so much because we liked her acting, excellent as it was, but because she was one of the most charitable of Christian beings, and realized in her own cramped means how true it is that " one must be poor to know the luxury of giving." Then Yorkshire Mr. G. H. Andrews was our beau ideal of Billy Lackaday and Dromio of Ephesus. Then Mr. W. F. Johnson in mock-heroic comedy, was equal, in our opinion, to Liston or Munden. Then the pun-inventive Finn was Paul Pry, and Paul Shack, and anybody else as occasion required. Then Tom Comer sang a comic song and Miss MacBride danced a hornpipe habitually at Mrs. W. H. Smith's benefit. Then we committed to memory the whole of "Bombastes Furioso" from the lips of the players. Then those merry mimes, Mathews, Reeves, and Kilner, were filling our eyes with endless tears of laughter. Then the Ravel family, formed by nature to make extremes meet, were busily engaged in similar healthful enterprises, doubling up their anatomies, jumping out of unexpected meal-bags, and down into impossible chimneys. Then that bright-winged creature, Fanny Elssler, was bewitching us with her inimitable "Cracoviennes," and her bewildering "Tarantellas." Then Adrienne was revealed to us. Then we heard, once and forever, that never-to-be-forgotten volcanic utterance in Corneille's Polyeucte, "Je crois!" as Rachel, with eyeballs all aflame, flew with tumultuous passion across the stage. Then came the peerless Bosio, intense and original, both as singer and actress. Then arose and chanted, amid enthusiastic plaudits, the magnificent, broad, sunny Alboni, the superb contralto, of whom it was said there were "corn and oil and wine" in her radiant look. (Affluent, gorgeous creature, how she poured out that luscious song at the Lucretia Borgia supper!) Then Anna Mowatt, with her delicate brier - rose beauty, stepped gracefully forward into the dramatic arena. Then "Gentleman George," as he was called, first swam into our ken, with gay and easy motion. Then Ostinelli, with the shining head, presided in the orchestra. Then Forrest drew our stormy applause in Metamora and Spartacus. Then the elder Vandenhoff, a noble, scholarly gentleman of the old school, played Cato and Shylock for us during a brief season, and introduced his talented English daughter to our lasting regardher to whom Dryden's exquisite lines on the Duchess of Ormond might fitly apply: "O daughter of the rose, whose cheeks unite The differing titles of the red and white, Who heaven's alternate beauty well display, The blush of morning with the milky way." Then we sat spell-bound to Braham's clarion tones in Marmion's splendid charge to Chester-tones that added "a precious hearing" to the ear. (Who will ever sing again to us Arne's exquisite hunting song, "With hounds and with horns I'll waken the day," or "The Bay of Biscay," or deliver with such dramatic feeling "Comfort ye my people," "In native worth," and "Total Eclipse"?) Then we heard Ronconi's consummate rendering of the quack doctor's rôle in L'Elisir d'Amore. Then we listened to the magic of Ole Bull's enchanted violin for the first time, breathless with excitement and "hot expectancy." Then the honeyed voices of Joseph and Mary Wood broke upon us in Sonnambula. Then no public performance ever tired us, and we could sit out the Hail-stone Chorus at an ill-sung oratorio with enthusiasm. Then the circus meant something to our wonderment, as we gazed across the golden sawdust, sparkling with steeds and knights and spangled damosels. Then we were flattered, perhaps unseemly so, by a bow of recognition from a public performer, and boasted of it ad nauseam to our unbelieving companions. Then we trusted in Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank. Then Webster and Clay and Everett and Choate were in their prime strength, and making us their willing votaries through exalted eloquence. Then we travelled long distances to hear Ogden Hoffman, the peer of the highest in his wondrous power to thrill an audience. Then Channing, the "seraph of the pulpit," was weaving a spell of worship around our receptive natures. Then Emerson was another of our "present deities." Then there was no bleak winter in our year, for the reason that Holmes and Phillips and Curtis were gilding the Lyceum from December to April, and William Simmons was holding the divining-rod and interpreting Shakspeare to us on the off nights. Then Thackeray dawned upon us, discoursing with fine instinct of Swift and Steele and Addison and Sterne, revelling night after night in indescribable wit and wisdom. Then James's novels delighted our imagination, and Marryat and Bulwer kept us busy over Japhet and Pelham. Then Dickens was writing Pickwick Papers for us every month, and gloriously supplementing Walter Scott and Cooper. Then Irving was giving us Astoria to travel in, and firing our ambitious resolves to cross the Rocky Mountains. Then Bryant and Whittier and Longfellow, with Tennyson and Browning, were opening up for us new realms of song, and inviting us to take possession. Then Hawthorne was beginning to lead us into his New England Arcadias, pearled with the dews of his beautiful fancy. Then Willis was writing Scripture pieces for us, and we were all committing "Absalom" to memory. Then Elia's essays and Christopher's "Noctes," among other delectable things, began to challenge our attention. Then, blushing with ignorance, we sat down to Gibbon's inviting volumes, with a determination to finish them before spring, and ignominiously failed in the attempt. Then we fell upon a pile of old English romances, and succeeded better. Then we habitually quoted Pope and Goldsmith at the debating club. Then Spenser and Wordsworth were too much for Then we thought the plays of Sheridan Knowles were masterpieces of dramatic style. Then, waking or sleeping, we could repeat whole cantos of Byron and Scott. us. Then the summer mornings were full | tain occasion might otherwise be somewhat misunderstood. One other item-as a postscript, as it were, to the above-I should mention. In those times, many country people of the humbler and less cultivated sort, when mention was made of a person afflicted or mental, usually spoke of him or her as of the neuter gender, employing the pronoun it. of singing-birds, always waiting outside our windows to help us begin the day with happiness. Then flowers were born as if to accompany the birds in their benevolent mission. Then all our dreams were pleasant imaginings, Arabian Nights' Entertainments, frolic visions of untroubled joy. Then June was the long-with a native incurable infirmity, bodily est and loveliest month in the calendar. Then we were never depressed by bad weather. Then headache had no lodgement nearer than our neighbor's brain. Then personal rheumatism was unknown to us. Then insomnia had not been invented, and we were not obliged to draw upon the apothecary for vials of sleep. Then we could walk twenty miles a day without fatigue. Then all was gold that glistered. Then we were young! THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES OF "To surrender ere th' assault."—HUDIBRAS. CHAPTER I. majority, of person Mr. (Oglethorpe) Josh Green, so styled to distinguish him from his cousin of that name in Elbert, had whipped out everything in his section, and in search of other conquests he once came some miles southward. It was muster-day for the Dukesborough battalion. A few from the upper borders of the county had heard of his exploits, and one or two had seen him theretofore. A man like him, however, needed not to have friends, or even acquaintances, as, when a fight was to be made up, an entire stranger could easily obtain backers who would see to the maintenance of fair play. When the muster was over, and O. J. G. NOT all, and not a major Youth forty (as he sometimes called himself, and was years ago, at court grounds and muster fields, sprang from personal hostilities, previous or sudden. They were resorted to often as a trial of superior strength, agility, or endurance. In such encounters, one who would seek for a pistol, a knife, or even a walking-stick, was considered unmanly. Not thus, however, at least commonly, he who, when overcome and prostrate, cried "Enough." Such conduct was understood merely as an admission, technically termed "word," that the defeated yielded for the present only, and with reserve of right and intention to renew the combat in other circumstances which might occur, whether on that same or some subsequent day. The victor was expected to suspend his blows at this admission. Sometimes, when the bottom man refused to yield, and seemed to prefer being beaten into a jelly, by-standers, somewhat before such result, would drag off the top man. Then both combatants, though with blackened eyes and bruised faces, panting and hobbling, would repair to the grocery, take a social grog, and, with mutual compliments, have a cordial understanding to repeat the fight at some convenient time after. This preface was due to Mr. Oglethorpe Josh Green, whose conduct upon a cer called by others, for short) had looked calmly upon several fights, he seemed to be disgusted. "You people down here don't 'pear to know how to fight," said he. "It 'pears like you want to have somebody that do know how for to come down here and larn you.” It was a voice loud, harsh, powerful. People looked at him. Indeed, he had already attracted much attention. About thirty or thirty-two years of age, five feet eleven, weighing one hundred and sixty, or maybe more, dark-skinned, his black hair cut short, without an ounce of surplus flesh, from his head to his feet he seemed as if he had been wrought out of iron. As he walked up and down, composedly uttering challenges, there did not seem to be a likelihood that he could find one to encounter him. Bob Hatchett did say that but for his fatigue (having just now had a turn with Bill Giles, and got Bill's word) he would give him a trial, and take a few-jes' a few-of his lessons. The warrior had money, and he exhibited it as a temptation. Holding forth his buckskin purse, he said, after beginning with a dollar, and gradually ascending: "Gentlemen, in this here money-puss |