THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.

New England Conservatory of Music Boston

RESIDENCE OF RUFUS A. JOHNSON.

RESIDENCE OF CHARLES H. BOND.

TOWN HALL.

In 1863 Mr. John Hewlett was elected. He resides in that part of the town called
North Saugus, and was for a long series of years a manufacturer of snuff and
cigars.

In 1864 Mr. Charles W. Newhall was the Representative.

In 1867 Mr. Sebastian S. Dunn represented the District. Mr. Dunn was a dealer in
snuff, cigars and spices, and is now engaged in farming in Dakota.

In 1870 Mr. John Armitage represented the District—the twentieth
Essex—comprising the towns of Saugus, Lynnfield, Middleton and Topsfield. He
has been engaged in the woollen business most of his life; formerly a partner with
Pranker & Co. He has also held other town offices with great acceptance.

J.B. Calley succeeded Mr. Armitage, it being the second time he had been elected.
Otis M. Hitchings was the next Representative, a shoe manufacturer, being elected
over A.A. Scott, Esq., the republican candidate.

Joseph Whitehead was the next Representative from Saugus, a grocer in business. He
was then and still is Town Treasurer, repeatedly having received every vote cast. J.
Allston Newhall was elected in 1878 and for several years was selectman.

Albert H. Sweetser was our last Representative, elected in 1882-3, by one of the
largest majorities ever given in the District. He is a snuff manufacturer, doing
business at Cliftondale, under the firm of Sweetser Bros., whom he succeeds in
business. Saugus is entitled to the next Representative in 1885-6. The womb of the
future will alone reveal his name.

The future of Saugus would seem to be well assured, having frequent trains to and
from Boston and Lynn, with enlarged facilities for building purposes, especially at
Cliftondale, where a syndicate has recently been formed, composed of Charles H. Bond,
Edward S. Kent, and Henry Waite, who have purchased thirty-four acres of land,
formerly belonging to the Anthony Hatch estate, which, with other adjoining lands are
to be laid out into streets and lots presenting such opportunities and facilities for
building as cannot fail to attract all who are desirious of obtaining suburban
residences, and thus largely add to the taxable property of Saugus and to the
prosperity of this interesting locality.

THE BARTHOLDI COLOSSUS.

The project of erecting a colossal statue of Liberty, which shall at once serve as
a lighthouse and as a symbolic work of art, may be discussed from several different
points of view. The abstract idea, as it occurred to the sculptor, Mr. Bartholdi, was
noble. The colossus was to symbolize the historic friendship of the two great
republics, the United States and France; it was to further symbolize the idea of
freedom and fraternity which underlies the republican form of government. Lafayette
and Jefferson would have been touched by the project. If we are not touched by it, it
proves that we have forgotten much which it would become us to recall. Before our
nation was, the democratic idea had been for many years existing and expanding among
the French people; crushed again and again by tyrants, it ever rose, renewed and
fresh for the irrepressible conflict. Through all their vicissitudes the people of
France have upheld, unfaltering, their ideal—liberty, equality and fraternity.
Our own republic exists to-day because France helped us when England sought to crush
us. It is never amiss to freshen our memories as to these historic facts. The
symbolism of the colossus would therefore be very fine; it would have a meaning which
every one could understand. It would signify not only the amity of France and the
United States, and the republican idea of brotherhood and freedom, as I have said;
but it would also stand for American hospitality to the European emigrant, and Emma
Lazarus has thus imagined the colossus endowed with speech:

Now, there can be no two ways of thinking among patriotic Americans as to this
aspect of the Bartholdi colossus question. It must be agreed that the motive of the
work is extremely grand, and that its significance would be glorious. The sculptor’s
project was a generous inspiration, for which he must be cordially remembered. To be
sure, it may be said he is getting well advertised; that is very true, but it would
be mean in us to begrudge him what personal fame he may derive from the work. To
assume that the whole affair is a “job,” or that it is entirely the outcome of one
man’s scheming egotism and desire for notoriety, is to take a deplorably low view of
it; to draw unwarranted conclusions and to wrong ourselves. The money to pay for the
statue—about $250,000—was raised by popular subscription in France, under
the auspices of the Franco-American Union, an association of gentlemen whose
membership includes such names as Laboulaye, de Lafayette, de Rochambeau, de
Noailles, de Toqueville, de Witt, Martin, de Remusat. The identification of these
excellent men with the project should be a sufficient guarantee of its disinterested
character. The efforts made in this country to raise the
money—$250,000—required to build a suitable pedestal for the statue, are
a subject of every day comment, and the failure to obtain the whole amount is a
matter for no small degree of chagrin.

Who and what is Mr. Bartholdi? He is a native of Colmar, in Alsace, and comes of a
good stock; a pupil of the Lycee Louis-le-Grand, and of Ary Scheffer, he studied
first painting then sculpture, and after a journey in the East with Gerome,
established his atelier in Paris. He served in the irregular corps of Garibaldi
during the war of 1870, and the following year visited the United States. It is
admitted that he is a man of talent, but that he is not considered a great sculptor
in his own country is equally beyond doubt. He would not be compared, for instance,
with such men as Chapu, Dubois, Falguiere, Clesinger, Mercie, Fremiet, men who stand
in the front rank of their profession. The list of his works is not long. It includes
statues of General Rapp, Vercingetorix, Vauban, Champollion, Lafayette and Rouget de
l’Isle; ideal groups entitled “Genius in the Grasp of Misery,” and “the Malediction
of Alsace;” busts of Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrain; single figures called “Le
Vigneron,” “Genie Funebre” and “Peace;” and a monument to Martin Schoengauer in the
form of a fountain for the courtyard of the Colmar Museum. There may be a few others.
Last, but by no means least, there is the great Lion of Belfort, his best work. This
is about 91 by 52 feet in dimensions, and is carved from a block of reddish Vosges
stone. It is intended to commemorate the defence of Belfort against the German army
in 1870, an episode of heroic interest. The immense animal is represented as wounded
but still capable of fighting, half lying, half standing, with an expression of rage
and mighty defiance. It is not too much to say that Mr. Bartholdi in this case has
shown a fine appreciation of the requirements of colossal sculpture. He has
sacrificed all unnecessary details, and, taking a lesson from the old Egyptian
stone-cutters, has presented an impressive arrangement of simple masses and unvexed
surfaces which give to the composition a marvellous breadth of effect. The lion is
placed in a sort of rude niche on the side of a rocky hill, which is the foundation
of the fortress of Belfort. It is visible at a great distance, and is said to be
strikingly noble from every point of view. The idea is not original, however well it
may have been carried out, for the Lion of Lucerne by Thorwaldsen is its prototype on
a smaller scale and commemorates an event of somewhat similar character. The bronze
equestrian statue of Vercingetorix, the fiery Gallic chieftain, in the Clermont
museum, is full of violent action. The horse is flying along with his legs in
positions which set all the science of Mr. Muybridge at defiance; the man is
brandishing his sword and half-turning in his saddle to shout encouragement to his
followers. The whole is supported by a bit of artificial rock-work under the horse,
and the body of a dead Gaul lies close beside it. In the statue of Rouget de l’Isle
we see a young man striking an orator’s attitude, with his right arm raised in a
gesture which seems to say:

“Aux armes, citoyens / Formes vos bataillons!“

The Lafayette, in New York, is perhaps a mediocre statue, but even so, it is
better than most of our statues. A Frenchman has said of it that the figure
“resembles rather a young tenor hurling out his C sharp, than a hero offering his
heart and sword to liberty.” It represents our ancient ally extending his left hand
in a gesture of greeting, while his right hand, which holds his sword, is pressed
against his breast in a somewhat theatrical movement. It will be inferred that the
general criticism to [pg
155] be made upon Mr. Bartholdi’s statues is that they are violent and want
repose. The Vercingetorix, the Rouget de l’Isle, the Lafayette, all have this
exaggerated stress of action. They have counterbalancing features of merit, no doubt,
but none of so transcendent weight that we can afford to overlook this grave
defect.

Coming now to the main question, which it is the design of this paper to discuss,
the inquiry arises: What of the colossal statue of Liberty as a work of art? For, no
matter how noble the motive may be, or how generous the givers, it must after all be
subjected to this test. If it is not a work of art, the larger it is, the more
offensive it must be. There are not wanting critics who maintain that colossal
figures cannot be works of art; they claim that such representations of the human
form are unnatural and monstrous, and it is true that they are able to point out some
“terrible examples” of modern failures, such, for instance, as the “Bavaria” statue
at Munich. But these writers appear to forget that the “Minerva” of the Parthenon and
the Olympian Jupiter were the works of the greatest sculptor of ancient times, and
that no less a man than Michael Angelo was the author of the “David” and “Moses.” It
is therefore apparent that those who deny the legitimacy of colossal sculptures in
toto go too far; but it is quite true that colossal works have their own laws and
are subject to peculiar conditions. Mr. Lesbazeilles⁷ says that “colossal
statuary is in its proper place when it expresses power, majesty, the qualities that
inspire respect and fear; but it would be out of place if it sought to please us by
the expression of grace…. Its function is to set forth the sublime and the
grandiose.” The colossi found among the ruins of Egyptian Temples and Palaces cannot
be seen without emotion, for if many of them are admirable only because of their
great size, still no observer can avoid a feeling of astonishment on account of the
vast energy, courage and industry of the men of old who could vanquish such gigantic
difficulties. At the same time it will not do to assume that the Egyptian stone
cutters were not artists. The great Sphinx of Giseh, huge as it is, is far from being
a primitive and vulgar creation. “The portions of the head which have been
preserved,” says Mr. Charles Blanc, “the brow, the eyebrows, the corners of the eyes,
the passage from the temples to the cheek-bones, and from the cheek-bones to the
cheek, the remains of the mouth and chin,—all this testifies to an
extraordinary fineness of chiselling. The entire face has a solemn serenity and a
sovereign goodness.” Leaving aside all consideration of the artistic merits of other
Egyptian colossi,—those at Memphis, Thebes, Karnac and Luxor, with the twin
marvels of Amenophis-Memnon—we turn to the most famous colossus of antiquity,
that at Rhodes, only to find that we have even less evidence on which to base an
opinion as to its quality than is available in the case of the numerous primitive
works of Egypt and of India. We know its approximate dimensions, the material of
which it was made, and that it was overthrown by an earthquake, but there seems to be
reason to doubt its traditional attitude, and nothing is known as to what it amounted
to as a work of art, though it may be presumed that, being the creation of a Greek,
it had the merits of its classic age and school. Of the masterpieces of Phidias it
may be said that they were designed for the interiors [pg 156] of Temples and were adopted
with consummate art to the places they occupied; they have been reconstructed for us
from authentic descriptions, and we are enabled to judge concerning that majestic and
ponderous beauty which made them the fit presentments of the greatest pagan deities.
I need say nothing of the immortal statues by Michael Angelo, and will therefore
hasten to consider the modern outdoor colossi which now exist in Europe—the St.
Charles Borromeo at Arona, Italy, the Bavaria at Munich, the Arminius in Westphalia,
Our Lady of Puy in France. The St. Charles Borromeo, near the shore of Lake Maggiore,
dates from 1697, and is the work of a sculptor known as Il Cerano. Its height is 76
feet, or with its pedestal, 114 feet. The arm is over 29 feet long, the nose 33
inches, and the forefinger 6 feet 4 inches. The statue is entirely of hammered copper
plates riveted together, supported by means of clamps and bands of iron on an
interior mass of masonry. The effect of the work is far from being artistic. It is in
a retired spot on a hill, a mile or two from the little village of Arona. The
Bavaria, near Munich, erected in 1850, is 51 feet high, on a pedestal about 26 feet
high, and is the work of Schwanthaler. It is of bronze and weighs about 78 tons. The
location of this monstrous lump of metal directly in front of a building emphasizes
its total want of sculptural merit, and makes it a doubly lamentable example of bad
taste and bombast. The Arminius colossal, on a height near Detmold in Westphalia, was
erected in 1875, is 65 feet high, and weighs 18 tons. The name of the sculptor is not
given by any of the authorities consulted, which is perhaps just as well. This statue
rests on “a dome-like summit of a monumental structure,” and brandishes a sword 24
feet long in one hand. The Virgin of Puy is by Bonassieux, was set up in 1860, is 52
feet high, weighs 110 tons, and stands on a cliff some 400 feet above the town. It
is, like the Bavaria, of bronze, cast in sections, and made from cannons taken in
warfare. The Virgin’s head is surmounted by a crown of stars, and she carries the
infant Christ on her left arm. The location of this statue is felicitous, but it has
no intrinsic value as an art work. It will be seen, then, that these outdoor colossi
of to-day do not afford us much encouragement to believe that Mr. Bartholdi will be
able to surmount the difficulties which have vanquished one sculptor after another in
their endeavors to perform similar prodigies. Sculpture is perhaps the most difficult
of the arts of design. There is an antique statue in the Louvre which displays such
wonderful anatomical knowledge, that Reynolds is said to have remarked, “to learn
that alone might consume the labor of a whole life.” And it is an undeniable fact
that enlarging the scale of a statue adds in more than a corresponding degree to the
difficulties of the undertaking. The colossi of the ancients were to a great extent
designed for either the interiors or the exteriors of religious temples, where they
were artfully adapted to be seen in connection with architectural effects. Concerning
the sole prominent exception to this rule, the statue of Apollo at Rhodes, we have
such scant information that even its position is a subject of dispute. It has been
pointed out how the four modern outdoor colossi of Europe each and all fail to attain
the requirements of a work of art. All our inquiries, it appears then, lead to the
conclusion that Mr. Bartholdi has many chances against him, so far as we are able to
learn from [pg 157]
an examination of the precedents, and in view of these facts it would be a matter for
surprise if the “Liberty” statue should prove to possess any title to the name of a
work of art. We reserve a final decision, however, as to this most important phase of
the affair, until the statue is in place.

The idea that great size in statues is necessarily vulgar, does not seem
admissible. It would be quite as just to condemn the paintings on a colossal scale in
which Tintoretto and Veronese so nobly manifested their exceptional powers. The size
of a work of art per se is an indifferent matter. Mere bigness or mere
littleness decides nothing. But a colossal work has its conditions of being: it must
conform to certain laws. It must be executed in a large style; it must represent a
grand idea; it must possess dignity and strength; it must convey the idea of power
and majesty; it must be located in a place where its surroundings shall augment
instead of detracting from its aspect of grandeur; it must be magnificent, for if not
it will be ridiculous. The engravings of Mr. Bartholdi’s statue represent a woman
clad in a peplum and tunic which fall in ample folds from waist and shoulder to her
feet. The left foot, a trifle advanced supports the main weight of the body. The
right arm is uplifted in a vigorous movement and holds aloft a blazing torch. The
left hand grasps a tablet on which the date of the Declaration of Independence
appears; this is held rather close to the body and at a slight angle from it. The
head is that of a handsome, proud and brave woman. It is crowned by a diadem. The
arrangement of the draperies is, if one may judge from the pictures, a feature of
especial excellence in the design. There is merit in the disposition of the peplum or
that portion of the draperies flung back over the left shoulder, the folds of which
hang obliquely (from the left shoulder to the right side of the waist and thence
downward almost to the right knee,) thus breaking up the monotony of the
perpendicular lines formed by the folds of the tunic beneath. The movement of the
uplifted right arm is characterized by a certain elan which, however, does not
suggest violence; the carriage of the head is dignified, and so far as one may judge
from a variety of prints, the face is fine in its proportions and expression. I do
not find the movement of the uplifted arm violent, and, on the whole, am inclined to
believe the composition a very good one in its main features. There will be an
undeniable heaviness in the great masses of drapery, especially as seen from behind,
but the illusion as to the size of the figure created by its elevation on a pedestal
and foundation nearly twice as high as itself may do much towards obviating this
objection. The background of the figure will be the

The island is far enough removed from the city so that no direct comparisons can
be made between the statue and any buildings. Seen from the deck of a steamer at a
distance say of a quarter of a mile, the horizon, formed by the roofs, towers, spires
and chimneys of three cities, will not appear higher than the lower half of the
pedestal. In other words the statue will neither be dwarfed nor magnified by the
contiguity of any discordant objects. It will stand alone. The abstract idea, as has
been said, is noble. The plan of utilizing the statue as a lighthouse at night does
not detract from its worth in this respect; it may be said to even emphasize the
allegorial sense of the work. [pg 158] “Liberty enlightening the world,” lights the way of
the sailor in the crowded harbor of the second commercial city of the world. The very
magnitude of the work typifies, after a manner, the vast extent of our country, and
the audacity of the scheme is not inappropriate in the place where it is to stand. It
may be, indeed, that when the statue is set up, we shall find it awkward and
offensive, as some critics have already prophecied: but that it must be so inevitably
does not appear to me to be a logical deduction from the information we have at hand
as to the artist and his plans. It is freely admitted that no modern work of this
nature has been successful, but that does not prove that this must absolutely be a
failure. The project ought not to be condemned in advance because of the great
difficulties surrounding it, its unequalled scope and its novelty. Mr. Bartholdi is
above all ingenious, bold, and fertile in resources; it would be a great pity not to
have him allowed every opportunity to carry out a design in which, as we have seen,
there are so many elements of interest and even of grandeur. It has been said that
“there does not exist on French soil such a bombastic work as this will be.” Very
well; admitting for the sake of argument that it will be bombastic, shall we reject
and condemn a colossal statue before having seen it, because there is nothing like it
in France? And is it true that it will be bomastic? That is by no means demonstrated.
On the contrary an impartial examination of the design would show that the work has
been seriously conceived and thought out; that it does not lack dignity; that it is
intended to be full of spirit and significance. It would be the part of wisdom at
least to avoid dogmatism in an advance judgment as to its worth as a work of art, and
to wait awhile before pronouncing a final verdict.

Hazlitt tells of a conceited English painter who went to Rome, and when he got
into the Sistine Chapel, turning to his companion, said, “Egad, George, we’re bit!”
Our own tendency is, because of our ignorance, to be sceptical and suspicious as to
foreign works of art, especially of a kind that are novel and daring. No one is so
hard to please as a simpleton. We are so afraid of being taken in, that we are
reluctant to commit ourselves in favor of any new thing until we have heard from
headquarters; but it appears to be considered a sign of knowledge to vituperate
pictures and statues which do not conform to some undefinable ideal standard of our
own invention. There is, of course, a class of indulgent critics who are pernicious
enough in their way; but the savage and destructive criticism of which I speak is
quite as ignorant and far more harmful. It assumes an air of authority based on a
superficial knowledge of art, and beguiles the public into a belief in its
infallibility by means of a smooth style and an occasional epigram the smartness of
which may and often does conceal a rank injustice. The expression of a hope that the
result of Mr. Bartholdi’s labors “will be something better than another gigantic
asparagus stalk added to those that already give so comical a look to our sky-line,”
is truly an encouraging and generous utterance at this particular stage of the
enterprise, and equals in moderation the courteous remark that the statue “could not
fail to be ridiculous in the expanse of New York Bay.”⁸ It is not necessary to
touch upon the question of courtesy at [pg 159] all, but it is possible that one of our critics may
live to regret his vegetable metaphor, and the other to revise his prematurely
positive censure. There is a sketch in charcoal which represents the Bartholdi
colossus as the artist has seen it in his mind’s eye, standing high above the waters
of the beautiful harbor at twilight, when the lights are just beginning to twinkle in
the distant cities and when darkness is softly stealing over the service of the busy
earth and sea. The mystery of evening enwraps the huge form of the statue, which
looms vaster than by day, and takes on an aspect of strange majesty, augmented by the
background of hurrying clouds which fill the upper portion of the sky. So seen, the
immense Liberty appears what the sculptor wishes and intends it to be, what we
Americans sincerely hope it may be,—a fitting memorial of an inspiring episode
in history, and a great work of modern art.

ELIZABETH.⁹

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

CHAPTER III.

IDLESSE.

“Don’t move your head, Elizabeth, keep it in that position a little longer,” said
Katie Archdale, as she and her friend sat together the morning after the sail. “I
wish an artist were here to paint you so; you’ve no idea how striking you are.”

“No, I have not,” laughed the other, forgetting to keep still as she spoke, and
turning the face that had been toward the window full upon her companion. The scene
that Elizabeth’s eyes had been dwelling upon was worthy of admiration; her enthusiasm
had not escaped her in any word, but her eyes were enraptured with it, and her whole
face, warmed with faint reflection of the inward glow, was beautiful with youth, and
thought, and feeling.

“Now you’ve spoilt it,” cried Katie, “now you are merely a nice-looking young
lady; you were beautiful before, perfectly beautiful, like a picture that one can
look at, and look at, and go away filled with, and come back to, and never tire of.
The people that see you so worship you, but then, nobody has a chance to do it. You
just sit and don’t say much except once in a while when you wake up, then you are
brilliant, but never tender, as you know how to be. You give people an impression
that you are hard. Sometimes I should like to shake you.”

Elizabeth laughed.

“That’s the way you worship me,” she answered. “I suspected it was a strange kind
of adoration, largely made up of snubbing.”

“It’s not snubbing,” retorted Katie, “it is trying to rouse you to what you you
might be. But I am wasting my breath; you don’t believe a word I say.”

“I should like to believe it,” returned the girl, smiling a little sadly. “But
even if I did believe every word of it, it would seem to me a great deal nicer to be
like you, beautiful all the time, [pg 160] and one whom everybody loves. But there’s one thing
to be said, if it were I who were beautiful, I could’nt have the pleasure I do in
looking at you, and perhaps, after all, I shouldn’t get any more enjoyment out of
it.”

“Oh, yes, you would,” retorted the other, then bit her lips angrily at her
inadvertence. A shrewd smile flitted over Elizabeth’s face, but she made no comment,
and Katie went on hurriedly to ask, “What shall we do to amuse ourselves to-day,
Betsey?” Another slight movement of the hearer’s lips responded. This name was
Katie’s special term of endearment, and never used except when they were alone; no
one else ever called her by it.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let us sit here as we are doing now. Move your chair
nearer the window and look down on the river. See the blue-black shadows on it. And
look at the forests, how they stretch away with a few clearings here and there. A
city behind us, to be sure, a little city, but before us the forests, and the
Indians. I wonder what it all means for us.”

“The axe for one, the gun for the other,” retorted Katie with a hardness which
belief in the savageness and treachery of the red man had instilled into the age.
“The forests mean fortune to some of us,” she added.

“Yes,” answered Elizabeth slowly, finding an unsatisfactory element in her
companion’s summary.

“Do you mean that we shall have to shoot down a whole race? That is dreadful,” she
added after a pause.

“You and I have nothing to do with all that,” returned Katie.

Elizabeth waited in despair of putting the case as she felt it.

“I was thinking,” she said at last, “that if we have a whole land of forests to
cut down and of cities to build up, somehow, everything will be different here from
the Old England. I often wonder what it is to be in this New World. It must be unlike
the Old,” she repeated.

“I don’t wonder,” returned Katie, “and that’s just what you shouldn’t do. Wonder
what you’re going to wear to-morrow when we dine at Aunt Faith’s, or whether Master
Harwin will call this morning, or Master Waldo, or wonder about something
sensible.”

“Which means, ‘or if it’s to be Master Archdale,'” retorted Elizabeth, smiling
into the laughing eyes fixed upon her face, and making them fall at the keenness of
her glance, while a brighter rose than Katie cared to show tinted the creamy skin and
made her bend a moment to arrange the rosette of her slipper. The movement showed her
hair in all its perfection, for at this early hour it had not been tortured into
elaborateness, but as she sat in her bedroom talking with her guest, was loosely
coiled to be out of the way, and thus drawn back in its wavy abundance showed now
burnished, and now a darker brown, as the sunlight or the shadow fell upon it.

“He’s not always sensible,” she answered, lifting her head again with a half
defiant gesture, and smiling. Katie’s smile was irresistible, it won her admirers by
the score, not altogether because it gave a glimpse of beautiful teeth, or because
her mouth was at its perfection then, but that it was an expression of childlike
abandonment to the spirit of the moment, which charmed the gay because they
sympathized with it and the serious because it was a mood of mind into which they
would be glad to enter. “Stephen has not been quite himself lately, rather stupid,”
and she looked as if she were not unsuspicious of the reason.

“Too many of us admirers, he thinks?” laughed Elizabeth. “For he is bright enough
when he takes the trouble to speak, but generally he doesn’t seem to consider any one
of sufficient importance to amuse.”

“That is not so,” cried Katie, “you are mistaken. But you don’t know Stephen very
well,” she added. “What a pity that you are not living here, then you would, and then
we should have known each other all our lives, instead of only since we went to
school together. What good times we had at Madam Flamingo’s. There you sit, now, and
look as meekly reproving as if you had’nt invented that name for her yourself. It was
so good, it has stood by her ever since.”

“Did I? I had forgotten it.”

“Perhaps, at least, you remember the red shawl that got her the nickname? It was
really something nice,—the shawl, I mean, but the old dame was so ridiculously
proud of it and so perpetually flaunting it, she must have thought it very becoming.
We girls were tired of the sight of it. And one day, when you were provoked with her
about something and left her and came into the schoolroom after hours, you walked up
to a knot of us, and with your air of scorn said something about Madam Flamingo.
Didn’t it spread like wildfire? Our set will call that venerable dame ‘Flamingo’ to
the end of her days.”

“I suppose we shall, but I had no recollection that it was I who gave her the
name.”

“Yes, you gave it to her,” repeated Katie. “You may be very sure I should not have
forgotten it if I had been so clever. Those were happy days for all their petty
tribulations,” she added after a pause.

Elizabeth looked at her sitting there meditative.

“I should think these were happy days for you, Katie. What more can you want than
you have now?”

“Oh, the roc’s eggs, I suppose,” answered the girl. “No, seriously, I am pretty
likely to get what I want most. I am happy enough, only not absolutely happy quite
yet.”

“Why not?”

“Our good minister would say it was not intended for mortals.”

“If I felt like being quite content I should not give it up because somebody else
said it was too much for me.”

“Oh, well,” said Katie, laughing, “it has nothing to do with our good Parson
Shurtleff, anyway.”

“I thought not. What, then?”

The other did not answer, but sat looking out of the window with eyes that were
not studying the landscape. Whether her little troubles dissolved into the cloudless
sky, like mist too thin to take shape, or whether she preferred to keep her
perplexities to herself is uncertain, but when she spoke it was about another
reminiscence of school days.

“Do you remember that morning Stephen came to see me?” she began. “Madam thought
at first that Master Archdale must be my father, and she gave a most gracious assent
to my request to go to walk with him. I was dying of fun all the time, I could
scarcely keep my face straight; then, when she caught a glimpse of him as we were
going out of the hall, she said in a dubious tone, ‘Your brother, I presume, Mistress
Archdale?’ But I never heard a word. I was near the street door and I put myself the
other side of it without much delay. So did Stephen. And we went off laughing. He
said I was a wicked little cousin, and he spelled it ‘cozen;’ but he didn’t seem to
mind my wickedness at all.” There was a [pg 162] pause, during which Katie looked at her smiling
friend, and her own face dimpled bewitchingly. “This is exactly what you would have
done, Elizabeth,” she said. “You would have heard that tentative remark of Madam’s,
of course you would, and you would have stood still in the hall and explained that
Stephen was your cousin, instead of your brother, and have lost your walk beyond a
doubt, you know the Flamingo. Now, I was just as good as you would have been, only, I
was wiser. I, too, told Madam that he was my cousin, but I waited until I came home
to do it. The poor old lady could not help herself then; it was impossible to take
back my fun, and she could not punish me, because she had given me permission to go,
nor could she affirm that I heard her remark, for it was made in an undertone. There
was nothing left for her but to wrap her illustrious shawl about her and look
dignified.” “Do you think Master Harwin will come to-day?” Katie asked a few moments
later, “and Master Waldo? I hope they will all three be here together; it will be
fun, they can entertain each other, they are so fond of one another.”

“Katie! Katie!”

The girl broke into a laugh.

“Oh, yes, I remember,” she said, “Stephen is your property.”

“Don’t,” cried Elizabeth, with sudden gravity and paleness in her face. “I think
it was wicked in me to jest about such a sacred thing. Let me forget it.”

“I wont tease you if you really care. But if it was wicked, it was a great deal
more my doing, and Master Waldo’s, than your’s or Stephen’s. We wanted to see the
fun. Your great fault, Elizabeth, is that you vex yourself too much about little
things. Do you know it will make you have wrinkles?”

This question was put with so much earnestness that Elizabeth laughed
heartily.

“One thing is sure,” she said, “I shall not remain ignorant of my failings through
want of being told them while I’m here. It would be better to go home.”

“Only try it!” cried Katie, going to her and kissing her. “But now, Elizabeth, I
want to tell you something in all seriousness. Just listen to me, and profit by it,
if you can. I’ve found it out for myself. The more you laugh at other people’s
absurdities the fewer of your own will be noticed, because, you see, it implies that
you are on the right standpoint to get a review of other people.”

“That sounds more like eighty than eighteen.”

“Elizabeth, it is the greatest mistake in the world, I mean just that, to keep
back all your wisdom until you get to be eighty. What use will it be to you then? All
you can do with it will be to see how much more sensibly you might have acted. That’s
what will happen to you, my dear, if you don’t look out. But at eighteen—I am
nineteen—everything is before you, and you want to know how to guide your life
to get all the best things you can out of it without being wickedly selfish—at
least I do. Your aspirations, I suppose, are fixed upon the forests and the Indian,
and problems concerning the future of the American Colonies. But I’m more reverent
than you, I think the Lord is able to take care of those.”

Elizabeth looked vaguely troubled by the fallacy which she felt in this speech
without being quite willing or able to bring it to light.

“But, remember, I was twenty-one my last birthday,” she answered. “I ought to take
a broader view of things.”

“On the contrary, you’re getting to be an old maid. You should consider which of
your suitors you want, and say ‘yes’ to him on the spot. By the way, what has become
of your friend, the handsome Master Edmonson?”

Elizabeth colored.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Father has heard from him since he went away, so I
suppose that he is well.”

“And he has not written to you?”

“No, he has only sent a message.” Then, after a pause, “He said that he was coming
back in the autumn.”

“I hope so,” cried Katie, “he is a most fascinating man, and of such family!
Stephen was speaking of him the other day. He was very attentive, was he not,
Betsey?”

“Ye-es, I suppose so. But there was something that I fancied papa did not
like.”

“I’m so sorry,” cried Katie. She rose, and crossing the little space between
herself and her friend, dropped upon the footstool at Elizabeth’s feet, and laying
her arms in the girl’s lap and resting her chin upon them, looked up and added, “Tell
me all about it, my dear.”

“There is nothing to tell,” answered Elizabeth, caressing the beautiful hair and
looking into the eyes that had tears of sympathy in them.

“I was afraid something had gone wrong, afraid that you would care.”

Elizabeth sat thinking.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly at last, “I don’t know whether I should really
care or not if I never saw him again.”

Her companion looked at her a moment in silence, and when she began to speak it
was about something else.

CHAPTER IV.

GIRDING ON THE HARNESS.

Later that same morning a gentleman calling upon Mistress Katie Archdale was told
that he would find her with friends in the garden. Walking through the paths with a
leisurely step which the impatience of his mood chafed against, he came upon a
picture that he never forgot.

Great stretches of sunshine lay on the garden and in it brilliant beds of flowers
glowed with their richest lights, poppies folded their gorgeous robes closely about
them, Arab fashion, to keep out the heat; hollyhocks stood in their stateliness
flecked with changing shadows from the aspen tree near by. Beds of tiger lilies,
pinks, larkspur, sweetwilliams, canterbury bells, primroses, gillyflowers, lobelia,
bloomed in a luxuriance that the methodical box which bordered them could not
restrain. But the garden was by no means a blaze of sunshine, for ash trees, maples,
elms, and varieties of the pine were there. Trumpet-vines climbed on the wall, and
overtopping that, caught at trellises prepared to receive them, and formed screens of
shadows that flickered in every breeze and changed their places with the changing
sun. But it was only with a passing glance that the visitor saw these things, his
eyes were fixed upon an arbor at the end of the garden; it was covered with clematis,
while two great elms met overhead at its entrance and shaded the path to it for a
little distance. Under these elms stood a group of young people. He was unannounced,
and had opportunity without being himself perceived, to scan this little group as he
went forward. His expression varied with each member of it, but showed an interest of
some sort in each. Now it was full of [pg 164] passionate delight; then it changed as his look fell
upon a tall young man with dark eyes and a bearing that in its most gracious moments
seemed unable to lose a touch of haughtiness, but whose face now was alive with a
restful joy. The gazer, as he perceived this happiness, so wanting in himself,
scowled with a bitter hate and looked instantly toward another of the party, this
time with an expression of triumph. At the fourth and last member of the group his
glance though scowling, was contemptuous; but the receiver was as unconscious of
contempt as he felt undeserving of it. From him the gazer’s eyes returned to the
person at whom he had first looked. She was standing on the step of the arbor, an end
of the clematis vine swaying lightly back and forth over her head, and almost
touching her bright hair which was now towered high in the fashion of the day. She
was holding a spray of the vine in her hand. She had fastened one end in the hair of
a young lady who stood beside her, and was now bringing the other about her neck,
arranging the leaves and flowers with skilful touches. Three men, including the
new-comer, watched her pretty air of absorption, and the deftness of her taper
fingers, the sweep of her dark lashes on her cheek as from the height of her step she
looked down at her companion, the curves of her beautiful mouth that at the moment
was daintly holding a pin with which the end of the spray was to be fastened upon the
front of the other’s white dress. It was certainly effective there. Yet none of the
three men noticed this, or saw that between the two girls the question as to beauty
was a question of time, that while the one face was blooming now in the perfection of
its charm, the charm of the other was still in its calyx. The adorner intuitively
felt something of this. Perhaps she was not the less fond of her friend that the
charms she saw in her were not patent to everybody. Bring her forward as much as she
might, Katie felt that Elizabeth Royal would never be a rival. She even shrank from
this kind of prominence into which Katie’s play was bringing her now. She had been
taken in hand at unawares and showed an impatience that if the other were not quick,
would oblige her to leave the work unfinished.

“There,” cried Katie, at last giving the leaves a final pat of arrangement, “that
looks well, don’t you think so, Master Waldo?”

“Good morning, Mistress Archdale,” broke in a voice before Waldo could answer.
“And you, Mistress Royal,” bowing low to her. “After our late hours last night,
permit me to felicitate you upon your good health this morning, and—” he was
about to add, “your charming appearance,” but something in the girl’s eyes as she
looked full at him held back the words, and for a moment ruffled his smooth
assurance. But as he recovered himself and turned to salute the gentlemen, the smile
on his lips had triumph through its vexation.

“My proud lady, keep your pride a little longer,” he said to himself. And as he
bowed to Stephen Archdale with a dignity as great as Stephen’s own, he was thinking:
“My morning in that hot office has not been in vain. I know your weak point now, my
lofty fellow, and it is there that I will undermine you. You detest business, indeed!
John Archdale feels that with his only son in England studying for the ministry he
needs a son-in-law in partnership with him. The thousands which I have been putting
into his business this morning are well spent, they make me welcome here. Yes, your
uncle needs me, [pg
165] Stephen Archdale, for your clever papa is not always brotherly in his
treatment, he has more than once brought heavy losses upon the younger firm. It’s a
part of my pleasure in prospect that now I shall be able to checkmate him in such
schemes, perhaps to bring back a little of the loss upon the shoulders of his heir.
Ah, I am safer from you than you dream.” He turned to Waldo, and as the two men
bowed, they looked at one another steadily. Each was remembering their conversation
the night before over some Bordeaux in Waldo’s room, for they were staying at the
same inn and often spent an hour together. They had drunk sparingly, but, just
returned from their sail, each was filled with Katie Archdale’s beauty, and each had
spoken out his purpose plainly, Waldo with an assurance that, if it savored a little
of conceit, was full of manliness, the other with a half-smothered fierceness of
passion that argued danger to every obstacle in its way.

“You’ve come at the very right moment, Master Harwin,” broke in Katie’s
unconscious voice, and she smiled graciously, as she had a habit of doing at
everybody; “We were talking about you not two minutes ago.”

“Then I am just in time to save my character.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” returned Miss Royal.

Waldo laughed, and Katie exchanged glances with him, and smiled mischievously.

“No, don’t be too sure; it will depend upon whether you say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ to my
question. We were wondering something about you.”

Harwin’s heart sank, though he returned her smile and her glance with interest.
For there were questions she might ask which would inconvenience him, but they should
not embarrass him.

“We were wondering,” pursued Katie, “if you had ever been presented. Have
you?”

As the sun breaks out from a heavy cloud, the light returned to Harwin’s blue
eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “four years ago. I went to court with my uncle, Sir Rydal Harwin,
and his majesty was gracious enough to nod in answer to my profound reverence.”

“It was a very brilliant scene, I am sure, and very interesting.”

“Deeply interesting,” returned Harwin with all the traditional respect of an
Englishman for his sovereign. Archdale’s lip curled a trifle at what seemed to him
obsequiousness, but Harwin was not looking at him.

“Stephen has been,” pursued Katie, “and he says it was very fine, but for all that
he does not seem to care at all about it. He says he would rather go off for a day’s
hunting any time. The ladies looked charming, he said, and the gentlemen magnificent;
but he was bored to death, for all that.”

“In order to appreciate it fully,” returned Archdale, “it would be necessary that
one should be majesty.” He straightened himself as he spoke, and looked at Harwin
with such gravity that the latter, meeting the light of his eyes, was puzzled whether
this was jest or earnest, until Miss Royal’s laugh relieved his uncertainty. Katie
laid her hand on the speaker’s arm and shook it lightly.

“You told me I should be sure to enjoy it,” she said. “Now, what do you mean?”

“Ah! but you would be queen,” said Harwin, “queen in your own right, a divine
right of beauty that no one can resist.”

Katie looked at him, disposed for a moment to be angry, but her love of admiration
[pg 166] could not
resist the worship of his eyes, and the lips prepared to pout curved into a smile not
less bewitching that the brightness of anger was still in her cheeks. Archdale and
Waldo turned indignant glances on the speaker, but it was manifestly absurd to resent
a speech that pleased the object of it, and that each secretly felt would not have
sounded ill if he had made it himself. Elizabeth looked from Katie to Harwin with
eyes that endorsed his assertion, and as the latter read her expression his scornful
wonder in the boat returned.

“Why are we all standing outside in the heat?” cried the hostess. “Let us go into
the arbor, there is plenty of room to move about there, we have had a dozen together
in it many a time.” She passed in under the arch as she spoke, and the others
followed her. There in her own way which was not so very witty or wise, and yet was
very charming, she held her little court, and the three men who had been in love with
her at the beginning of the hour were still more in love at the end of it. And
Elizabeth who watched her with an admiration as deep as their’s, if more tranquil,
did not wonder that it was so. Katie did not forget her, nor did the gentlemen, or at
least two of them, forget to be courteous, but if she had known what became of the
spray of clematis which being in the way as she turned her head, she had soon
unfastened and let slip to the ground, she would not have wondered, nor would she
have cared. If she had seen Archdale’s heel crush it unheedingly as he passed out of
the arbor, the beat of her pulses would never have varied.

CHAPTER V.

ANTICIPATIONS.

It was early in December. The months had brought serious changes to all but one of
the group that the August morning had found in Mr. Archdale’s garden. Two had
disappeared from the scene of their defeat, and to two of them the future seemed
opening up vistas of happiness as deep as the present joy. Elizabeth Royal alone was
a spectator in the events of the past months, and even in her mind was a questioning
that was at least wonderment, if not pain.

Kenelm Waldo was in the West Indies, trying to escape from his pain at Katie
Archdale’s refusal, but carrying it everywhere with him, as he did recollections of
her; to have lost them would have been to have lost his memory altogether.

Ralph Harwin also had gone. His money was still in the firm of John Archdale &
Co., which it had made one of the richest in the Colonies; its withdrawal was now to
be expected at any moment, for Harwin did not mean to return, and Archdale, while
endeavoring to be ready for this, saw that it would cripple him. Harwin had been
right in believing that he should make himself very useful and very acceptable to
Katie’s father. For Archdale who was more desious of his daughter’s happiness than of
anything else in the world, was disappointed that this did not lie in the direction
which, on the whole, would have been for his greatest advantage. Harwin and he could
have done better for Katie in the way of fortune than Stephen Archdale with his
distaste for business would do. The Archdale connection had always been a dream of
his, until lately when this new possibility had superseded his nephew’s interest in
his thoughts. There was an address and business keenness about Harwin that, if
Stephen possessed at all, was latent in him. The Colonel was wealthy enough to afford
[pg 167] the luxury
of a son who was only a fine gentleman. Stephen was a good fellow, he was sure, and
Katie would be happy with him. And yet—but even these thoughts left him as he
leaned back in his chair that day, sitting alone after dinner, and a mist came over
his eyes as he thought that in less than a fortnight his home would no longer be his
little daughter’s.

“It will be all right,” he said to himself with that sigh of resignation with
which we yield to the inevitable, as if there were a certain choice and merit in
doing it. “It is well that the affairs of men are in higher hands than ours.” John
Archdale’s piety was of the kind that utters itself in solitude, or under the
breath.

Katie at the moment was upstairs with her mother examining a package of wedding
gear that had arrived that day. She had no hesitation as to whom her choice should
have been. Yet, as she stood holding a pair of gloves, measuring the long wrists on
her arm and then drawing out the fingers musingly, it was not of Stephen that she was
thinking, or of him that she spoke at last, as she turned away to lay down the gloves
and take up a piece of lace.

“Mother,” she said, “I do sometimes feel badly for Master Harwin; he is the only
man in all the world that I ever had anything like fear of, and now and then I did of
him, such a fierceness would come over him once in a while, not to me, but about me,
I know, about losing me. He was terribly in earnest. Stephen never gets into these
moods, he is always kind and lovable, just as he has been to me as far back as I can
remember, only, of course more so now.”

“But things have gone differently with him and with poor Master Harwin,” answered
Mrs. Archdale. “If you had said ‘no’ to Stephen, you would have seen the dark moods
in him, too.”

The young girl looked at her mother and smiled, and blushed a little in a charming
acknowledgment of feminine power to sway the minds of the sterner half of humanity.
Then she grew thoughtful again, not even flattery diverting her long from her
subject.

“But Stephen never could be like that,” she said. “Stephen couldn’t be dark in
that desperate sort of way. I can’t describe it in Master Harwin, but I feel it.
Somehow, he would rather Stephen would die, or I should, than have us marry.”

“Did he ever say so?”

“Why, no, but you can feel things that nobody says. And, then, there is something
else, too. I am quite sure that sometime in his life he did something, well, perhaps
something wicked, I don’t know what, but I do know that a load lies on his
conscience; for one day he told me as much. It was just as he was going away, the day
after I had refused him and he knew of my engagement. He asked permission to come and
bid me goodby. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Archdale.

“He looked at me and sighed. ‘I’ve paid a heavy price,’ he said half to himself,
‘to lose.’ Then he added, ‘Mistress Archdale, will you always believe that I loved
you devotedly, and always have loved you from the hour I first saw you? If I could
undo’—then he waited a moment and grew dreadfully pale, and I think he finished
differently from his first intention—’If I could undo something in the past,’
he said, ‘I would give my life to do it, but my life would be of no use.'”

“That looks as if it was something against you, Katie.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. Besides, he wouldn’t have given his life at all; [pg 168] that’s only the
way men talk, you know, when they want to make an impression of their earnestness on
women and they always think they do it that way. But the men that are the readiest to
give up their lives don’t say anything about it beforehand. Stephen would die for me,
I’m sure, but he never told me so in his life. He don’t make many protestations; he
takes a great deal for granted. Why shouldn’t he; we’ve known one another from
babyhood? But Master Harwin knew, somehow, the minute after he spoke, if he didn’t at
the time, that he wouldn’t die for his fault at all, whatever it was. And then, after
he spoke it seemed to me as if he had changed his mind and didn’t care about it in
any way, he only cared that I had refused him, and that he was not going to see me
any more. I am sorry for a man like that, and if he were going to stay here I should
be afraid of him, afraid for Stephen. But he sails in a few days. I don’t wonder he
couldn’t wait here for the next ship, wait over the wedding, and whatever danger from
him there may have been sails with him. Poor man, I don’t see what he liked me for.”
And with a sigh, Katie dismissed the thought of him and his grief and evil together,
and turned her attention again to the wedding finery.

“Only see what exquisite lace,” she cried, throwing it out on the table to examine
the web. “Where did Elizabeth get it, I wonder? She begged to be allowed to give me
my bridal veil, and she has certainly done it handsomely, just as she always does
everything, dear child. I suppose it came out in one of her father’s ships.”

“Everything Master Royal touches turns into gold,” said Mrs. Archdale, after a
critical examination of the lace had called forth her admiration. “It’s Mechlin,
Katie. There is nobody in the Colonies richer than he,” she went on, “unless,
possibly, the Colonel.”

“I dare say I ought to pretend not to care that Stephen will have ever so much
money,” returned the girl, taking up a broad band of India muslin wrought with gold,
and laying it over her sleeve to examine the pattern, at which she smiled
approvingly. “But then I do care. Stephen is a great deal more interesting rich than
he would be poor; he is not made for a grub, neither am I, and living is much better
fun when one has laces like cobwebs, and velvets and paduasoys, and diamonds, mother,
to fill one’s heart’s desire.”

As she spoke she looked an embodiment of fair youth and innocent pleasure, and her
mother, with a mother’s admiration and sympathy in her heart, gave her a lingering
glance before she put on a little sternness, and said, “My child, I don’t like to
hear you talk in that light way. Your heart’s desires, I trust, are set upon better
things, those of another world.”

“Yes, mother, of course. But, then you know, we are to give our mind faithfully to
the things next to us, in order to get to those beyond them, and that’s what I am
doing now, don’t you see? O, mother, dear, how I shall miss you, and all your dear,
solemn talks, and your dear, smiling looks.” And winding her arms about her mother,
Katie kissed her so affectionately that Mrs. Archdale felt quite sure that the laces
and paduasoys had not yet spoilt her little daughter.

“Now, for my part,” she said a few minutes later as she laid down a pair of dainty
white kid shoes, glittering with spangles from the tip of their peaked toes to their
very heels,—high enough for modern days,—”These fit you to perfection, my
dear. For my part,” she repeated, “you know that I have [pg 169] always hoped you would marry
Stephen, yet my sympathies go with Master Waldo in his loss, instead of with the
other one, whom I think your father at last grew to like best of the three; it was
strange that such a man could have gotten such an influence, but then, they were in
business together, and there is always something mysterious about business. Master
Waldo is a fine, open-hearted young man, and he was very fond of you.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” answered the girl, with an effort to merge a smile into the
expression accompanying a sympathetic sigh. “It’s too bad. But, then, men must look
out for themselves, women have to, and Kenelm Waldo probably thinks he is worth any
woman’s heart.”

“So he is, Katie.”

“Um!” said the girl. “Well, he’d be wiser to be a little humble about it. It takes
better.”

“Do you call Stephen humble?”

Katie laughed merrily. “But,” she said, at last, “Stephen is Stephen, and humility
wouldn’t suit him. He would look as badly without his pride as without his lace
ruffles.”

“Is it his lace ruffles you’re in love with, my child?”

“I don’t know, mother,” and she laughed again. “When should a young girl laugh if
not on the eve of her marriage with the man of her choice, when friends and wealth
conspire to make the event auspicious?”

“I shall not write to thank Elizabeth for her gift,” she said, “for she will be
here before a letter can reach her. She leaves Boston to-morrow, that’s Tuesday, and
she must be here by Friday, perhaps Thursday night, if they start very early.”

“I thought Master Royal’s letter said Monday?”

“Tuesday,” repeated Katie, “if the weather be suitable for his daughter. Look at
this letter and you’ll see; his world hinges on his daughter’s comfort, he is father
and mother both to her. Elizabeth needs it, too; she can’t take care of herself well.
Perhaps she could wake up and do it for somebody else. But I am not sure. She’s a
dear child, though she seems to me younger than I am. Isn’t it funny, mother, for she
knows a good deal more, and she’s very bright sometimes? But she never makes the best
of anything, especially of herself.”

It was the day before the wedding. The great old house was full of bustle from its
gambrel roof to its very cellar in which wines were decanted to be in readiness, and
into which pastries and sweetmeats were carried from the pantry shelves overloaded
with preparations for the next day’s festivities. Servants ran hither and thither,
full of excitement and pleasant anticipations. They all loved Katie who had grown up
among them. And, besides, the morrow’s pleasures were not to be enjoyed by them
wholly by proxy, for if there was to be only wedding enough for one pair, at least
the remains of the feast would go round handsomely. Two or three black faces were
seen among the English ones, but though they were owned by Mr. Archdale, the disgrace
and the badge of servitude had fallen upon them lightly, and the shining of merry
eyes and the gleam of white teeth relieved a darkness that nature, and not despair,
had made. In New England, masters were always finding reasons why their slaves should
be manumitted. How could slavery flourish in a land where the wind of freedom was so
strong that it could blow a whole cargo of tea into the ocean?

But there were not only servants going [pg 170] back and forth through the house, for it was full of
guests. The Colonel’s family living so near, would not come until the morning of the
ceremony, but other relatives were there in force. Mrs. Archdale’s brother,—a
little patronizing but very rich and gracious, and his family who having been well
patronized, were disposed to be humble and admiring, and her sister who not having
fed on the roses of life, had a good deal of wholesome strength about her, together
with a touch of something which, if it were wholesome, was not exactly grateful.
Cousins of Mr. Archdale were there also. Elizabeth Royal, at Katie’s special request,
had been her guest for the last ten days. Her father had gone home again the day he
brought her and was unable to return for the wedding and to take his daughter home
afterward, as he had intended; but he had sent Mrs. Eveleigh, his cousin and
housekeeper. It seemed strange that the father and daughter were so companionable,
for superficially they were entirely unlike. Mr. Royal was considered stern and
shrewd, and, though a well-read man, eminently practical, more inclined to business
than scholarship, while Elizabeth was dreamy, generous, wholly unacquainted with
business of any kind, and it seemed too much uninterested in it ever to be
acquainted. To most people the affection between them seemed only that of nature and
circumstances, Elizabeth being an only child, and her mother having died while she
was very young. It is the last analysis of character that discovers the same trait
under different forms. None of her friends carried analysis so far, and it was
possible that no effort could have discovered subtle likeness then. Perhaps it was
still latent and would only hereafter find some outward expression for itself. It
sometimes happens that physical likeness comes out only after death, mental not until
late in life, and likeness of character in the midst of unlikeness is revealed
usually only in the crucible of events.

That day, Elizabeth, from her window overlooking the garden, had seen a picture
that she never forgot. It was about noon, all the warmth that was in the December sun
filled the garden (which the leafless trees no longer shaded). There was no snow on
the ground, for the few stray flakes premonitory of winter which had fallen from time
to time in the month had melted almost as soon as they had touched the ground. The
air was like an Indian summer’s day; it seemed impossible that winter could be round
the corner waiting only for a change of wind. The tracery of the boughs of the trees
and of all their little twigs against the blue sky was exquisite, the stalks of the
dead flowers warmed into a livelier brown in the sunlight. Yet it may have been
partly the figures in the foreground that made the whole picture so bright to
Elizabeth, for to her the place was filled with the lovers who were walking there and
talking, probably saying those nothings, so far as practical matters go, which they
may indulge in freely only before the thousand cares of life interfere with their
utterances. Stephen had come to the house, and Katie and he were taking what they
were sure would prove to be their last opportunity for quiet talk before the wedding.
They went slowly down the long path to the clematis arbor, and then turned back
again, for it was not warm enough to sit down out of doors. Elizabeth watched them as
they walked toward the house, and a warmth came into her own face in her pleasure.
“Dear Katie,” she said to herself, “she is sure to be so happy.” The young [pg 171] girl’s hand lay
on Archdale’s arm, and she was looking up at him with a smile full of joyousness.
Archdale’s head was bent and the watcher could not see his eyes, but his attitude of
devotion, his smile, and Katie’s face told the story.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

GLORIFYING TRIAL BY JURY.

Twice within two years representatives of the highest courts of Massachusetts have
published in the North American Review, panegyrics of jurics and jury trials. The
late Judge Foster and Judge Pitman both concede—what indeed is too notorious to
be denied—that there are frequent and gross miscarriages of justice; but they
touch lightly on this aspect of the question. Being personally identified with the
institution which they extol, their self-complacency is neither unnatural nor
unpardonable. It seems not to have occurred to them, that if a reform of our
judiciary is really needed, they are “a part of the thing to be reformed.” But in
weighing their testimony to the advantages of trial by jury, allowance must be made
for the bias of office and for the bias of interest. In the idolatrous throng which
drowned the voice of St. Paul with their halcyon and vociferous shouts, “Great is
Diana of the Ephesians!” there was no one who shouted louder than the thrifty
silversmith, Demetrius, who added the naive remark, “By this craft we live.”

In the outset of his presentation of the beauties of jury trials, Judge Pitman
says that “certain elementary rules of law are so closely associated with this system
that change in one would require alteration of the other.” Now, these rules of law
are either good or bad. If they are bad, they should be revised; and the fact that
they are so closely associated with trial by jury, that they can not be amended
without injury thereto, adds little lustre to that time-honored institution. One the
other hand, if these “elementary rules of law” are good, it is presumed that courts
will be able to appreciate and apply them quite as well as juries.

Judge Pitman then proceeds to argue that criminal trials without juries would be
attended with disadvantages, because he thinks that judges would have, oftener than
juries, that “reasonable doubt” which by law entitles the accused to an acquittal.
This warrants one of two inferences: either the writer would have men convicted whose
guilt is involved in “reasonable doubt,” or he fears that the learning and experience
of the bar and the bench tend to unfit the mind to weigh the evidence of guilt or
innocence. It is curious that in a former number of the same Review, another learned
writer expressed exactly the contrary opinion.¹⁰ Mr. Edward A. Thomas
thinks that “judges are too much inclined to convict persons charged with criminal
offences,” and that juries are too much inclined to acquit them. And Judge Foster
seemingly agrees with Mr. Thomas upon this point.

Again: Judge Pitman argues that a jury is better qualified than a judge to
determine what is “due care.” And Judge Foster, going still further, says, “common
men belonging to various walks in life, are, in most cases, better [pg 172] fitted to decide correctly
ordinary questions of fact than any single judge or bench of judges.” There are,
unquestionably, many cases in which the main questions are so entirely within the
scope of ordinary men’s observation and experience that no special knowledge is
required to decide them. With respect to such cases, it is true that

But where the questions involved are many in number, intricate and complicated in
character, and enveloped in a mass of conflicting testimony requiring many days to
hear it, is it not manifest that a jury,—not one of whom has taken a note
during the trial, some of whose members have heard as though hearing not, and seen as
though seeing not, the testimony and the witnesses,—deals with such a case at a
great disadvantage, as compared with a judge whose notes contain all the material
testimony, and who has all the opportunity for rest and relaxation that he may
require before filing the finding which is his verdict? With respect to such cases,
it is clear that, as a learned English judge has said, “the securities which can be
taken for justice in the case of a trial by a judge without a jury, are infinitely
greater than those which can be taken for trial by a judge and jury.”¹¹ A
judge may be required to state what facts he finds, as well as the general conclusion
at which he has arrived, and to state upon what views of the legal questions he has
acted.

Judge Foster most justly remarks: “There can be no such thing as a good jury trial
without the co-operation of a learned, upright, conscientious and efficient presiding
judge, … holding firmly and steadily the reins, and guiding the entire
proceedings.” This is what Judge Foster was, and what Judge Pitman is, accustomed to
do. But if the jury requires such “guiding” from the court, and if the court is
competent thus to guide them, it is clear that the court must know the way and must
be able to follow it; otherwise it could not so guide the jury.

Judge Pitman also argues that the jury can eliminate “the personal equation”
better than the judge. But is this so? Does education count for nothing in producing
that calm, firm, passionless state of mind which is essential in those who determine
causes between party and party?

Are not juries quite as often as judges swayed by popular clamor, by prejudice, by
appeals to their passions, and by considerations foreign to the merits of the case?
As Mr. Thomas asks in the article before quoted: “How many juries are strictly
impartial? How many remain entirely uninfluenced by preference for one or the other
of the parties, one or the other counsel, or the leaning of some friend to either, or
by political affiliations, or church connections, or relations to secret societies,
or by what they have heard, or by what they have read? Can they be as discerning and
impartial as a bench of judges, or if inclined to some bias or prejudice, can they as
readily as a judge divest their minds of such an impression?” If it be true that
juries composed of such material as Judge Pitman shows our juries to be largely
composed of, are as capable of mastering and determining intricate questions of fact
as judges trained to that duty, then we may truly say—

According to Judge Pitman, the system which prevails in some of the states, of
trials by the court without juries [pg 173] (with the provision that the trial shall be by jury
if either party demand it), “works satisfactorily.” The testimony of lawyers and
litigants in Massachusetts, Connecticut and other states where this system prevails,
is to the same effect. For ourselves, while far from desiring the abolition of trial
by jury, whether in civil or in criminal causes, we are by no means disposed to
“throw glamour” (as the Scotch say), over an instrumentality for ascertaining legal
truth, which is so cumbersome in its operation, and so uncertain in its results. A
jury is, at best, a means, and not an end; and although much may be said about the
incidental usefulness of jury service on account of its tendency to enlarge the
intellectual horizon of jurors, all that is beside the main question.

Whether a particular occurrence took place or not, is a question which, whether it
be tried by a judge or by a jury, must be decided upon evidence; which consists, in
part, of circumstances, and, in part, of acts, but in part also, and very largely, of
the sworn statements of individuals. While falsehood and corruption prevail among all
classes of the community so extensively as they now do, it is useless to claim that
decisions based upon human testimony are always or generally correct. Perjury is as
rife as ever, and works as much wrong as ever. To a conscientious judge, like Judge
Pitman, “the investigation of a mass of tangled facts and conflicting testimony”
cannot but be wearisome, as he says it is; and, in many cases, the sense of
responsibility “cannot but be oppressive;” but he has so often repeated a
dictum of Lord Redesdale that he must be presumed to have found solace in
it—”it is more important that an end be put to litigation, than that justice
should be done in every case.” There is truth in that dictum; but, like other
truths, it has often been abused, especially by incompetent or lazy or drowsy judges.
More unfortunate suitors have suffered as martyrs to that truth than the judges who
jauntily “cast” them would admit.

Judges may do their best; juries may do their best; they will often fall into
error; and instead of glorifying themselves or the system of which they are a part,
it would be more modest in them to say, “We are unprofitable servants.” Not many
judges have been great enough to say, “I know I sometimes err,” but some have said
it. The lamented Judge Colt said it publicly more than once, and the admission
raised, rather than lowered, him in the general esteem. When he died the voice of the
bar and of the people said, “Other judges have been revered, but we loved Judge
Colt.”

Massachusetts gives her litigants the choice of a forum. All trials in civil
causes are by the courts alone, unless one party or the other claims a jury. If the
reader has a case of much complexity, either with respect to the facts, or with
respect to the law, perhaps he would like to have our opinion as to which is the
better forum. The answer is the same that was given by one who lived at the parting
of the ways, to a weary traveller who inquired which fork of the road he should take:
“Both are full of snags, quagmires and pitfalls. No matter which you take, before you
reach the end of your journey you will wish you had taken the other.” In the trial by
jury, and in the trial by the court, just as in the trial by ordeal, and in the trial
by battle in the days of old, the element of chance is of the first magnitude

PUBLISHERS’ DEPARTMENT.

A century ago the world knew nothing of the art of lithography; color-printing was
confined to comparatively crude products from wooden blocks, most of which were
hardly equal to the Japanese fan pictures now familiar to all of us. The year 1799
gave us a new invention which was destined to revolutionize reproductive art and add
immensely to the means for education, culture and enjoyment.

Alois Senefelder, born 1771, at Prague (Austria), started life with writing plays,
and too poor to pay a printer, he determined to invent a process of his own which
should serve to print his manuscript without dependence upon the (to him) too costly
types.

A born inventor, this Alois Senefelder, a genius, supported by boundless hope,
immense capability for hard, laborious work, and an indomitable energy; he started
with the plan of etching his writings in relief on metal plates, to take impressions
therefrom by means of rollers. He found the metal too costly for his experiments; and
limestone slabs from the neighboring quarries—he living then in
Munich—were tried as a substitute. Although partly successful in this
direction, he continued through years of hard, and often disappointing trials, to
find something more complete. He hit upon the discovery that a printed sheet of paper
(new or old) moistened with a thin solution of gum Arabic would, when dabbled over
printers’ ink, accept the ink from the dabbler only on its printed parts and remain
perfectly clean in the blank spaces, so that a facsimile impression could be taken
from this inked-in sheet. He found that this operation might be repeated until the
original print gave out by wear. Here was a new discovery, based on the properties of
attraction and repulsion between fatty matters (printers ink), and the watery
solution of gum Arabic. The extremely delicate nature of the paper matrix was a
serious drawback, and had to be overcome. The slabs of limestone which served
Senefelder in a previous emergency were now recurred to by him as an absorbent
material similar to paper, and a trial by making an impression from his
above-mentioned paper matrix on the stone, and subsequent gumming, convinced him that
he was correct in his surmise. By this act lithography became an established
fact.

A few short years of intelligent experimenting revealed to him all the
possibilities of this new discovery. Inventions of processes followed each other
closely until in 1818 he disclosed to the world in a volume of immortal interest not
only a complete history of his invention and his processes, but also a reliable
description of the same for others to follow. Nothing really new except
photo-lithography has been added to this charming art since that time; improvement
only by manual skill and by chemical progress, can be claimed by others.

Chromo-lithography (printing in colors from stone) was experimented on by [pg 175] the great
inventor. He outlined its possibilities by saying, that he verily believed that
printed pictures like paintings would sometimes be made thereby, and whoever has seen
the productions of our Boston firm, L. Prang & Co., will bear him out in the
verity of his prediction.

When Prang touched this art in 1856 it was in its infancy in this country. Stray
specimens of more or less merit had been produced, especially by Martin Thurwanger
(pen work) and Fabronius (crayon work), but much was left to be perfected. A little
bunch of roses to embellish a ladies’ magazine just starting in Boston, was the first
work with which the firm occupied its single press. Crude enough it was, but
diligence and energy soon developed therefrom the works which have astonished not
only this country but even Europe, and the firm, which took thereby the lead in their
speciality of art reproduction in color, has succeeded in keeping it ever since from
year to year without one faltering step, until there is no single competitor in the
civilized world to dispute its mastery. This is something to be proud of, not only
for the firm in question, but even for the country at large, and to crown its
achievements, the firm of L. Prang & Co. have this year made, apart from their
usual wonderful variety of original Christmas cards and other holiday art prints, a
reproduction of a flower piece of the celebrated Belgian flower painter, Jean Robie,
and printed it on satin by a process invented and patented by Mr. Prang. For
truthfulness as a copy this print challenges the admiration of our best artists and
connoisseurs. The gorgeous work as it lies before our eyes seems to us to be as
perfect as if it left the very brush of the master, and even in close comparison with
the original it does not lose an iota of its charms.

Of the marvellous excellence of this, the latest achievement of this remarkable
house, thousands who visited the late exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable
Mechanic’s Association and saw Messrs. L. Prang & Co.’s, extensive exhibit, can
bear witness. Everybody who looked at the two pictures, the original masterpiece by
Robie and its reproduction by Prang, side by side, was puzzled to distinguish which
was which, many pointing to the reproduction as the better, and in their eyes,
therefore as the original picture. The same was true with regard to many more of this
justly celebrated firm’s reproductions, which they did not hesitate to exhibit,
alongside of the original paintings. Altogether, their exhibit with its large
collection of elegant satin prints, its studies for artists, its historical feature,
showing the enormous development of the firm’s work since 1856, its interesting
illustration by successive printings of how their pictures are made, and its
instructive and artistic arrangement of their collection, made it one of the most
attractive features of the fair.

What more can we say but that we are proud ourselves of this achievement within
our city limits; it cannot fail to increase the fame our beloved Boston as a town of
masters in thought and art. Honor to the firm of L. Prang & Co.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THE VOYAGE OF THE “VIVIAN” to the North Pole and Beyond, or Adventures of Two
Youths in the Open Polar sea. By COLONEL THOMAS W. KNOX, the author of “The Boy
Travellers in the Far East,” “The Young Nimrods,” etc. Illustrated; 8vo.; cloth, $3.
Harper & Brothers, New York.

A fascinating story for boys, into which is woven by the graceful pen of the
author the history of Arctic exploration for centuries past. The young readers who
have followed the “Boy Travellers in the Far East” will welcome this addition to the
literature of adventure and travel.

LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE AIR, By the authors of “Little Playfellows.” Illustrated;
8vo., $1. D. Lothrop & Co., Boston.

A series of pretty stories of feathered songsters, for little men and women, alike
interesting to the young and children of an older growth.

POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. By CHARLES NORDHOFF, author of “The Communistic
Societies of the United States,” etc. Popular edition; paper, 12mo., 400. Harper and
Brothers, New York.

A series of essays in the form of letters, calculated to instruct the youth of
this country in their duty as American citizens.

A PERILOUS SECRET. By CHARLES READE. Cloth, 12mo.; 75 cents. Harper and Brothers,
New York.

This volume forms one of Harper’s Household editions of the works of this popular
novelist.

THE ICE QUEEN. By ERNEST INGERSOLL, author of “Friends Worth Knowing,” “Knocking
Around the Rockies,” etc. Illustrated; Cloth, 16mo., $1. Harper and Brothers, New
York.

A story for boys and girls of the adventures of a small party storm-bound in
winter, on a desolate island in Lake Erie.

GOD AND THE FUTURE LIFE; or the Reasonableness of Christianity. By CHARLES
NORDHOFF, author of “Politics for Young Americans,” etc. 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and
Brothers, New York.

Paley’s “Natural Theology,” familiar to students, is supplemented by this volume,
which brings the argument down to the present developement of science. It is a book
for thoughtful men and women, whose faith in the immortality of the soul needs
strengthening.

MOTHERS IN COUNCIL. 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

A series of essays and discussions of value to the family circle, teaching how
sons can be brought up to be good husbands, and daughters to be contented and useful
old maids, and many other valuable lessons.

GOOD STORIES. By CHARLES READE, 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and Brothers, New
York.

These short stories by Mr. Reade, some of which have appeared from time to time in
the Bazar, are here gathered in one volume. They are “The History of an Acre,” “The
Knightsbridge Mystery,” “Single Heart and Double Face,” and many others.

I SAY NO; or, the Love Letter Answered. By WILKIE COLLINS; 16mo., cloth,$1. Harper
and Brothers, New York.

The announcement that a new novel from the pen of Mr. Collins has appeared is
enough to insure a large and steady demand for it.