Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 22, Number 22, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 21 November 1891 — Page 7

MYRA'S SACRIFICE

By MRS, & LOVETT CAMEBOH.

The Kentish weald lay dim and misty beneath the darkening evening shadows, the air was redolent with the pungent odora of newly gathered hops. Already the fires of the gypsy like encampments of th hop pickers gleamed out redly across the great wide plain below, whilst the furnaces of the oast houses belched oot gwrts of lurid smoke from every cluster of farm buildings far and near"

Presently the wlver moon arose behind the sh«uldrr of the far western hills, and nil the lan became bathed in the tender radiance. The mists cleared away, the dim vague shadows became black and distinct, the open fields shone like silver.

Every

hop garden with its

long trails of ungatbered blooms festooned from pole to pole in graceful garland*, every "pocket" slung hammock wise between two stakes where the day's toil had ended, every little settlement where the gatherers rested, or slept, or talked in low voices together in the gloom, stood out picture like and with a startling individuality in the cold and searching light which flooded the fairewt of Kent's fair valleys from north to south and from eaat to west. "Good ni^ht," said a woman's voice far up the dn of the long rang of h.llrf that guarded the northern boundary of that glorious plain. "Good night," was the an/wer in a man's dcejK.r voice.

Yet they -lid not part. Shu stood leaning upon the railing of the wide veranda that encircled the white house beneath an archway greenly twined with summer ereopors and studded with starlike jaKinine flowers. Her silver gray tyitiu draperies reflected the gleam of the moonlight, and shone with the ehitsto cold colors of Diana. Her face too in that pale radiance seemed to have gathered its almost unearthly beauty from night's pure queen herself. The white brow, th,. Haxen crown of soft hair, the delieato ffiTuri-s, even the palo blue eyes, tender yet a trifle cold and passionless—all worm-din hn mony with the white liennty of the moonlight.

The man stood below her at the foot of the short flight of stone steps, she rem hi out her hand to him: "Ai :er all tbe.-.» years." she said softly, "all these yearn in which I have loved you, whilftt'vou knew it not, at last it has come to me—to be lrippyl" lie lifted the white hand glittering with diamonds to his lips. "1 am not worthy,"

he

he

murmured as

kin ed. "If you knew all"-—-"Nay, dearest." she answered quick'.y, "I do not want to know your past. You have traveled, you have seen the world -—you have lived-—perhaps even you have loved! I will never ask, I will never seek to know. It is enough for me inafc you have returned at last to the one loving heart who has cared for you ever since wo were boy and girl together, in that long a„o before you went asvay, and before I had begpn to live through that dark chapter of my life, which is now, thank God, over for ever. We will both forget the po^d—all ask is to live in the present."

1

"Youareloo good,

too

goiierous!" ho

murmured. Lady Hilton laughed softly. "Oh, no, I am not good. I am only happy, Bernard. It is so easy to seem good Avhen one is happy. Comeeavly to-morrow. Think of me as you ride home. Good night." "Good night, Constance," he said Again.

He walked

quickly

if

Thi'.

h, vc

down the

abort- drive. At the gate a groom waited with his horse. lie sprang lightly into the saddle. "Good night, sir." "Good night." he said once more. The gate clanged to noisily behind him. The man's footsteps died away upon the gravel beyond.

Bernard Harding rode slowly down the hill toward the plain. The road was steep, and the overarching trees cast strange flickering shadows across its whiteness the wood.* on rither s*ide lay darkly shrouded in a mysterious gltMm. Tho horse picked his way 'carefully, and the hormmimt s«vmed cunten! to leave Mm to gnide himself.

Presently the woods cleared away and horse and man stepped out into the ftdl bright nps* of the summer night. The sight of the weald, with the glamour of moonlight flooding it with pale radiance was'so beautiful that instinctively Hanii«g reined in his animal. y,

fKSJt."

rr Ttar.3ing slwaM 1 .» xnjm. After

'rid. v+ I

vf. J" t-s3..-«fe-T-U krsowu •v.v he v.rr?.*. vromstt ir. th* r?*\c:r,s he

1

kVi marr&4 JSU

t:,ra enough to tie lier father, and v?! was now a widow of twenty-six, as a dream, good as an angel, and rie!. n-j a yornrr v.v.low is practically supP°-" bargain. 1 ::il this. Lady Hilton had oai *'frv.ssd to him that of which he h. "ever hr.-l the remotest suspicion, nni r! hiit she Iiad loved himself and only, ever shux* she had been 15, and that it was only when Bernard had gone away ihni sli'j had married in her despair the first good man who had asked for her h.m-1 in marriage, who happened to be poor old Sir Thomas Hilton!

It was but a small and insignificant drawback to all these attractions that there should le a small rosy cheeked, ctxx'.y headed Sir Tom. aged 6, who went to oed early, remained for the greater pr.it of the day discreetly out of sight under the care of his nurse, and made his prince in no way unpleasantly conspicuous to his future stepfather.

Yes, certainly, Mr. Bernard Harding w.w a much to be envied individual, and should have been a rfectly happy man.

Yet. was he? Why was it that at that very moment as he stood still autl looked over the moonlit country, every acre of which was to him from his boyhood, why was it that something, he knew not what, cstue flashing back with headlong haste out of the dim vistas of that past which his Constance had said was to remain forgotten for evermore, a something which set his pulses beating and brought with it so vivid and acute a sense of reality, that involuntarily his lips parted and there fell from them one word, clearly and distinctly as a cry for help into the silence of tho summer night: "Myra!"

Then instantly, as if in answer to the word, came a low mocking laugh to the right of him, down somewhere in the darkness of the meadow, dying away and away in front of him along the road into the strange semblance of faintly echoed words:

Myra is dead—dead—dead 1" the weird wailing voice that had begun in laughter seemed to say, and from afar a hollow whisper out of the shadows repeated yet once again: "Dead —dead—dead!"

The horse started violently, and swerved across the road. For a moment Bernard's heart stood still, half paralyzed with an unknown fear. "Ah, I am a fool!" he muttered. "I must bo strangely nervous to-night to twist the cry of a screech owl into human words, and Buch words, too!"

He shivered a little and dug his heelp into his horse's flanks. For some minutes he trotted on quickly down the road soon ho almost laughed, himself out of that vivid flash of resurrected memory. "Why should that have risen agiiin to haunt me to-night of all nights of my life?" he murmured. "For so many years I have forgotten it, why need I have remembered it now?"

He was riding along a straight flat mile of road at tho foot of tho hills. On either side of the hedge lay the hop gardens. In one the hops had been half gathered, and the cleared ground was cumbered with fallen joles and stripDod hi nders. On the other side tho hop poles, garlanded with bloom and graceful foliage, stood erect and dark in long serried ranks of strength and beauty.

Fantastic lights and shadows slot through them, investing them with all sorts of strati go shapes and similitudes. Hero a company of giants seemed nodding their heads together, there a despairing maiden tossed her long arms wildly to and fro, or again, a group of bent backed old women crouched and chattered together under their mantling draperies. And all the color was drenched out of them by the witchery of the night, so that there was nothing to be seen save the whiteness of silver in clear relief against the blackness of ebony.

Suddenly, as he rode along, the figure of a woman sprang forth out of the deep shadow of tho hedge, and st«»l in the road lxiforw him.

SusUitni}/. o* he ro«V atony, thr figure of a irrimttn stprtiry 'Wfft, •'Tell your fortune, my bonny gentleman? Let the iwr gyjwy tell your .fortune?" cried a hi^h quavering voico such might have belonged to a very old woman. "Cms* your palm with silver and let the p*y tell your fortune?" "Stand ft5-.es\ my good woman. It is late. 1 no time for fortune telling. I have two mi W to ride home and it is late." "Not too surely to remember this night ten yesrs ago,"

He reined in Inshore sharply. "What io y.'nmesMtr* whoareyou?'" heexdalaoed. i.ii cly peering forward to look closer at 1 r.

A dark shawl tvrniph *.- ly muSled the Kvr:jpti's htAX h.r f.v:1 w,%«. in dyjv*t ,*hsi! !\v. Ii" n". I u!!«t but h*r nUi br-^u r*-. vr.x, and nrh ch iv.4 etatcivl at hit

bAt.d claw hoTSf

a

1

•-f- ..ir. sotseiiiir, fxzitly of IsM startled him whirls thjf had fit vii-1-Ivt ixs9 teli ysti *.Nts-vi gestteaaa, tf Th«st

caught it dexterously, and then with & jerk of her wrist sent it spinning up into the air and away orrer the hedge, whore it fell like a glittering star into the darkness of the hop garden.

The strangeness of this action seamed remarkable. But that a gypsy should ask for money only in order to throw it away was an inconceivable thing. "Well," he said encouragingly, "I will listen to you if you will be quick, but I cannot wait long- What about this beautiful lady?" "Ah, the beautiful lady that lives^p yonder," she said, pointing back to tha dark hillside from which he had come. "Yes, she loves you, and you have promised to wed her but you don't love her, sir no, you don't love her." "What do you mean?' "Ah, I dare say you think you do, but you don't. You have not forgotten the past. Can a man who has once loved dark eyes and southern blood love one who has a pale cold face and nothing bat milk and water in her veins? Your hearii is in a coffin, a coffin by which you wept long ago but no coffin and no grave can hold back her soul from yours. She will haunt you on your marriage day when you stand before the altar with your fair, pale bride, she will come between you, her eyes will look into yours, her voice will ring in your ears, her lips will answer to yours instead of the other's, and every echo in the earth and air will cali aloud to you with the clanging of your wedding bells, 'Myra, Myra, Myra!'" "Woman, spirit, devil! who are you that speak to me of Myra?" he cried, wildly clutching at her arm, but she only laughed with that soft, mocking laugh of hers and eluded his grasp, running away before him swiftly down the road. He cantered after her, catching her up more than once and calling out to her, "Stop! stop! What do you know about Myra? Why do you threaten me with her name? Stop, I tell you!"

But she ran on all the faster, and presently, springing lightly to one side, disappeared through a gap in the hedge into the hop garden beyond, where the thick clustering boughs seemed to engulf her at once into an ocean of verdure.

For some minutes he rode backwards and forwards at the spot where she had vanished, calling out to her to come back, to tell him more, to explain her meaning, but there was no voice nor answer, my even the faintest rustle of her departing footsteps.

In the end he gave it up as hopeless', and went on along his homeward roai with a troubled face and a mind full of gloom and perplexity.

Only long after she had disappeared did it occur to him to remember that although he had at first taken her for ah old woman, yet she had fled from him with tho fleetness of an antelope, and that although she had offered to reveal to him his future she had nevertheless done little more save to remind him of his past

Full of a harrowing anxiety concerning he hardly knew what, Bernard Hard

by

own gate. in the moonlight pointed a finger either way. On ono it was written, "To Stanton hall:" on tho other, "To Stanton village." For a moment or two he hesitated, then turning his back upon his own house he trotted sharply down the lane to tho village.

Tho church tower lay dark and somber in the hollow, but from the vicarage windows hard by the lipids within streamed out from the uncurtained windows.

Bernard got off his horse, tied him up to tho gate aud walked quickly up to the door.

It was many years since he had crossed the threshold of the vicarage. Manyyears since he and Arnold Grey had stood face to face alone together yet so in earnest was ho concerning that which he had to say that almost he forgot how strange his intrusion must seem to the man he had come to visit.

A tall, thin man rose at his entrance from the further side of tho table tho lamplight fell upon his pale, stern face and upon the smooth, wide brow from which the dark liair had worn away, and the gravo brown eyes lifted themselves with a strange questioning surprise ujKn the visitor. "Harding!" "Yes, Arnold, it is I. Forgive me for coming here, for disturbing you at such an hour but I want your help."

The vicar held out his tliiu white hand. "If von are in need of me. Bernard, you are welcome."

It was ten years or more since their hands had met: both of fhem were acutely conscious of the fact

Mr. Grey motioned his visitor to a chair, and sat down again himself beside the heavy writing table, covered with books of theology and referer.ee, over which he had been poring under the lamplight.

But Bernard Harding did not sit down. He only stood very still and erect just where he had stood when he first came in, and said with a certain harsh abruptness: "Can yon give me news of MyraT

The other started violently. For a moment his whole face became broken up by some strong internal emotion grief, pain, indignation chased each other rapidly across his features. Then with a shaking voice be answered: I "And yon ask this of me? yon who told me she was dead! You who robbed me of her and then killed herf

Harding, disregarding these cruel rejicoaches, merely waved his hand as I though to dismiss them briefly. "Yest but did «be dief boasted eager(y. WasH true that she died! Boouia* her that I was away. I never saw her dead, only the elowd ooffin in which, the wosistt* of the tedgfeg- hcmm told m# they fead pai 'V? 1»dy. Can ft have1 fcacti a trick, ya-a tMakf She knew i'.ui ta&rrmtt with her trcsaM be flit*! i" v: vi wealth, Oaaabe »way aasl allowed oa® to t»». here bet t&sl my isthst might 3 vvtj tfclak se§" -•Wfc. £•-.• qmiafi&am

k--: ,\

a ah* if tot* met- irsmwa i» the

jFERRE HAUTE SATURDAY EVENING MAii*

ing he hardly Knew what, uernara tiara- xnero was a

road, not two miles from hare, who—who spoke to me of Myra." The clergyman started to his feet. "That is why I have come to you, thinVing that all along you may have known more than 1 have done. IE Myra had not really died, and had desired to find a friend to keep her secret, surely it is to you, Arnold, that she would have come?"

The other bowed his head. "Thanks* for those words, Bernard. But," lifting his face again swiftly, "I can tell you nothing save what you know already. From the hour that she came to your mother's house to be brought up with your poor sister, a little elfin gypsy waif,

desejted

and left on the high road

by her own people, I loved her. She was so wild, so wayward, so sweet with it all. She grew up like a beautiful half tamed creature, yet with me she always seemed gentler and more womanly." "And yet you used to tell her she had no soul!" "God only knows if she had! Sometimes indeed I almost believed that old saying concerning gypsy women to be true of that strange wild creature, and that she was in truth born soulless. Yet for all that I loved her, and I looked forward to making her my wife. I would have given her my whole devotion, and a home that at least would have sheltered her safely. And then you came. You took her from me, with your handsome face and smooth words in a few days you undid the patient work of years." "Why recall it, Arnold?" "You remember how they turned her out of the hall that night when you were away? How they drove her out into the darkness alone and unprotected, because they found out that for your idle amusement you had made love to her?" "Ay but you forget that when I came home I cursed them for it, and swore never to see them again, and that I followed her up to London" "And ruined her!" "No, no! As there is a God above us, I swear to you that I married her."

For a moment they stood speechless, facing each other, one on either side of the table. Then in a low choked voice Arnold Grey said "Is that the truth?" "That is the truth, Arnold. I can prove it to you if you wish it." "Then why in the name of heaven have you suffered your wife's name to be blasted? Why did you keep your marriage secret?" "Because you know as well as I do that had my father known of it he would have disinherited me. She herself wished it. Alas! Arnold, my happiness only lasted a few months. One day I had to go away for a week she fell ill in my absence. When I came home they told me she had died, and they showed me her closed coffin. I believed her to be dead I have mourned for her as dead. At times, indeed, horrible doubts have assailed me because I did not look upon her dead face. I have remembered that there was a sick woman in the house

SICK

ing reached at length the .cross road that where we lodged, and that .the coffin led by a short quarter of a-mile to. hisi'miglit have been hers. But these have

quarter sign post gleaming white been only shadowy fancies, for s:nce Myra has gone, and never come bac: to me again, why should I doubt that sho is dead? And then, as you know, I w^nt abroad for years, and only came back after my father and mother were both dead." "If you believe hor to be dead why do you not let her name rest for ever?" asked tho clergyman after a pause "why rake up dead ashes that were best left to sleep?" "Because I am about to marry again, and a doubt, however faint, that I mny not bo free to do so is enough to ruin my life as well as" "Lady Hilton's?" "Yes, Lady Hilton. She has this evening consented to marry me." "And owning to these doubta-you could ask her to become your wife?" "I swear to you, Arnold, that at the moment I asked her I had no such doubts.

woman wiw uuuoo

The past seemed to me to be indeed dead, and perhaps you may loathe me for saying so, but I have in a great measure forgotten Myra. I loved her with the passion of a yotmg man's first love, but neither passion nor love last for ever. Life brings changes other interests, other faces have come between me and my past romance. One's own nature changes. Why do you look so sternly at me, Arnold? Am I not speaking the truth? Does human love last for ever, do you think?" "Not such love as yours perhaps," answered the clergyman with ill concealed scorn. "Bnt do not let us discuss this. You want me to help you? What is it I can do for your "I want yon to find out in the morning for me whether the woman who spoke to me to-night in the road knows anything really of poor Myra, or whether it was a mere coincidence, and she had only put scrape of gossip together to startle me as these fortune telling women do so cleverly." "On whose land was she?"' "Farmer Reed's. It was from those hop gardens beyond the mill that she seemed to spring out of the earth upon me, and it was on this side of the hazel copee that die disappeared." "That would be still on Reed's ground. Well, Bernard, I will do what I can for you. I kaow most of those poor creatures who come down from London in the hopping season it i* my business to go and talk to them. I will go that way in the morning."

He took up his hat and walked oot to the gate with Ms visitor. A high box hedge divided the garden from the wad. Whilst Harding was mtfing his horse from the gate the clergyman said to him suddenly: "If Hjra were not dead, if yon foond her alive and well, what then?"

Harding laughed shortly. "My de^r fellow, I. don't mind owning to .yon that tnreh would put- me ihn very time* of hole." "Woald you disown herv tb.mr "How coTiIsir I? Did I ttoi l-ri W®« $av wife? 3*0, I IMymtm."

JkfZfM tires to*! horao'a seek. his SfeldJc: th* JX!'.:"-:---' irwbfed.face «»y

shadow of the box hedge outside could have seen every line upon it "You mean, then," said the other man slowly, "that you would rather that Myra were dead than that she were still alive? You, who say that you loved herl" "Why go back to all that, Arnold?" said the other soothingly "I did love Myra if she had lived I should doubtless love her still in any case no second love ever is like the first. But as a matter of fact I have believed her to be dead so long that I should find it extremely inconvenient to discover her alive. I dont love Myra now—and—I want to marry Constance Hilton."

And so they parted, Bernard Harding riding swiftly homeward through the shadows of the lane, and Arnold Grey returning slowly and with dragging footsteps into his lonely house. "And I who would have hunted tho whole world over but for a hope however faint of finding her," he muttered brokenly as he fastened up the shutters of his window and went slowly upstairs to his bed.

By and by, when it was all dark and still, when the moon had sunk to rest and the night was closely folded in a thick mantle of rest and stillness, something —a mere shadow—crept from beneath the deep shelter of the vicarage hedge and dragged itself wearily to the door of the house.

Here, upon the threshold, it sank down and down till it lay in a huddled mass upon the doorstep. It was the form of a woman.

Hours went by. Presently tho first gray glimmer of morning lightened the dense shadows of the night.

The woman raised her head and shivered. The red shawl that covered her dark head fell back, disclosing a thin, haggard face that, in spite of its prematurely aged and worn appearance, still retained traces of great beauty. H^r large uark eyes, filled with unutterable woe, fixed themselves upon the faint gleam of the dawn in tho eastern sky. "Poor Myra," she murmured in a low plaintive voice. "Poor Myra slio is dead she died long ago—long ago, in the days when sho was happy then she died so that he might be rich now sho dies so that he may bo happy, but ho will nover know. She had no soul it does not matter she is better dead—better dead!"

By and by life began to return to the silent world, a little breeze stirred the fluttering leaves, the birds awoke and began to chatter in the branches, and presently the great golden sun flamed forth in his glory abo-v tho edge of tho distant horizon, but tho first human faco in Stanton parish that his long level rays rested upon that morning was one that could never moro be roused or warmed into life again, for it was the face of a dead woman.

At the doors of Stanton hall very early that morning the parson stood knocking and ringing, and Bernard Harding, who was always up betimes, liimself opened the door at his summons. The clergyman's faco was pale as ashes, and there was the shadow of a great and dreadful awe in his dark eyes. "Great heaVens, Arnold!" cried Harding, fearing he knew not what, ns his eyes took in the terror stricken face, tho disordered dress and the evident agitation of his early visitor, "something dreadful has happened? Wliat is it?"

He drew him hastily into the house. "Myra is dead!" said tho other with a long, gasping breath. It was indeed tho refrain to which heaven and earth seemed to be set to Harding's ears. "Dead?" ho repeated vaguely, not understandini:. "I found her this morning dead upon my doorstep!" "Good Godl Myra—Myral Upon your doorMep?" "She lay upon the very threshold, ,her poor dead faco against the ground, her beautiful eyes closed for ever. Oh, she is changed, Bernard!—changed almost past belief," he cried brokenly, hiding his face in his hands. "Great heavens! she has not died of starvation?" cried the other, stricken to the heart by a sudden agony of remorse. "No, no, not that. But it is perhaps even worse. I fetched the doctor at once her lips were stained and blue in her clenched hand he found some crushed berries of a deadly nature. Myra has poisoned herself." "What for? In heaven's name what for? Why has she hidden herself ad these years, only to come home at last to kill herself?" "It is what we shall never know in this world," answered the clergyman with a deep sadness, "I think she has suffered much, and I know that to those who have suffered infinite mercy shall be shown. Who are we, Bernard, to dare to limit that mercy?"

So no one, least of all the two men who_had loved her, the one so faithfully and'the other so carelessly, ever, guessed tho riddle of Myra's life and death. Blind and unreasoning as she had been, the "soulless" gypsy girl had yet been capable, through long years of self abnegation and through the dark tragedy of her self sought death, of the one thing without which love is but a valueless thing of dross, and yet with which love may dare to claim to be divine. Rhe bad been capable of sacrificing herself absolutely and entirely for the man she loved.

Bernard Harding was deeply shocked, for a time at least, at the tragedy of his early love that had played itself out in such a terrible manner. Yet, after be frjul, Ilka an honorable gentleman, told all the sad history of Myra's life and death to Constance Hilton ,and when she, sweet, gracious woman, had conaoled and comforted fofm and in a happy wifehood found it as eamj task to forgive and to pity her deatf rival, then the shock of Myra's death woreitae!/ faint in Bernard's memory and he became too contented in the happy present to troobl* Mraw?lf mncbfl#*sr the I imm..

a

Ike..1,?

«t. uw on noon*

lit i,-b' if he wanders out among?* tha I hop gardtti*. there are voices in th© air I and "breezes amcrig^t the fo-fli'-i: "\r»? *cs«a to tntmmxr

t. hi% the dirg# like echo of

jabvg- uR rcf-Aiu: "Myra- dcz'J Myra deadf rax. wm.

SHOULD SHE MAKM?

THIS QUESTION IS ASKED ABOUT THE BUSINESS WOMAN.

Here Is a Writer Who Thinks Sho Should Remain a Spinster—An Opinion Which. Many Men and Women Will Not Agree

With—A Question with Two Sides.

It is perhaps because the press and the public think that the woman who sets out to earn her bread has a good deal on her hands already, that they discuss at such length her private affairs. The presumption is that she has no time to think about them herself.

They prescribe a suitable dress for her— a hideous affair which suggests at onoe a bathing suit, and the costume of a Mexican greaser. They tell her how to behave, and advise her how to get on in the world. They point out her privileges and enlighten her as to her supposed rights, and now they have fallen to discussing her matrimonial chances.

At the outset this seems superfluous. It is perfectly obvious that the woman who goes to work does marry—sometimes with a degree of speed and an amount of success fairly disgusting to t.ho one who must achieve her destiuy through the ordinary social machinery. For, sentimentalists to the contrary, propinquity has a great deal to do with our poor human affections, and if matches are arranged in heaven, some beneficent angel takes ood care to plan them so as to save mortals any Kro.tu sum for traveling expenses.

Whenever men and women of approximately the same social grade work side by side there is sure to be an undue proportion of weddings. Tho disenchantment ot familiarity, the continued friction which is the inevitable accompaniment if even the pleasantest daily toil, the gradual diminution of the novelty which makost the new friend moro interesting, if not more esteemed, than tho old—fit these forces are powerless beside th«* ronget one of mere propinquity.

HEK WVOMJTTON.

The pretty typewriter, tho graded school teacher, the cashier, the government clerk, all show fairly conclusive evidence that tho woman who is a bread winner marri easily—that is, quickly. Tho only question to discuss is whether she really achieves tho happiness which it may be taken for granted sho'has in view when sho alters her condition. As there are no statist ics, all one can do is to run briefly over tho logical probabilities of tho case.

In the course of hor evolution from the strictly domestic type, the woman hei'suu has undergone certain changes. To begin with, sho has proved herself as belonging to ono of th 3 two great classes into which all women who have to come to a hand to hand struggle with the world are dividod— tho womnii who can take care of herself and tho woman who cannot. Doubtless the latter is tho moro pitiable spectacle, but sho is hardly less agreeable than tho other.

A woman can learn the a of commercial principles-—sometimes much more than this sho can school herself to such manner that the man of whom alio buys house or to whom she sells a lot will forget to take refuge in the absurd tactics which tho sterner

Bex

resorts to when it

wants to turn an honest penny without doing violence to its chivalrous istlncts sho may learn to be Impervious "x oritl elsm and oblivious to Impertinence, but whoever says she can get these things without loss of others equally valuable proves that he has not made an exhaustive study of this kind o£ feminine success.

It is a mistake to describe this change by saying that a woman Becomes "masculine." Tho real fact is that she becomes objectionably feminine. Traits which lio dormant under moro fortunate conditions now become very unpleasantly active. Tho woman of affairs must be a hypocrite 11 she would succeed. Bhe must consistently affect to liko the things she despises and to despise the onesshe likes. If sho can do this well she will ultimately make her fortune but in the greater number of cases the woman who attempts it produces much tho same Impression as would an ambitious fish who should gasp groat, breaths ot dry, fresh air and cry, "Oh, how delightful I"

It is all very well to say that a woman lays down the weapons of her own sex when she takes up a sort oi work in which sho competes with the oilier but, if she does so, she does it in the face of the strongest temptation to use them under cover and where they will be most effective.

KfTKCT OK WMKBTWITY.

The reversion to tho domestic type from which she had so laboriously differentiated herself is a feat of which only one woman in a thousand is capable. The original change is hard enough, but to retrace her steps I— Domesticity is like innocence once lost, it cannot be regained.

Though it is unwise for a woman who has forsaken tho usual paths wherein hor sex is appointed to walk to marry any man, the case is made especially unfortunate when she chooses, as we have seen sho is very likely to do, a helpmeet who has worked side by side with her. It is true that be will respect her capacity for affairs —aometimes to the degree of throwing off all responsibility with regard to the practical needs of the family—but the best that she can hope for from him forever and ever is that Ije will continue to be her very good comrade. He will assume that because she can take care of herself there is no need tbal bo should take care of her.

He will not worry when she travels alone, or make dear little Jbkes about her practical incapacities or criticise the way she keeps her account books or attempt to instruct her in public affairs by mild lectures made up of political milk for babes. In short, he will not do any of the things which make life worth living and lovo worth having to ninety women oat of every hundred.

No, qp the whole, the business woman bad better not marry, Bhe had better content herself with the knowledge that she has attained that feminine bliss of having "plenty of chances," and rest secure In the honorable order of Spinsters by Choice— ber own choice, and not some one's else,— Efiaim Dorr in Kate Field's Washington.

filtl» HurpttM ih« Hn}*.

At JowaeoHege a c&refol rwoord turn been kept of the comparative standing of the young women aad men in dam work. From this the interesting tectn have btsen gteansd that the arprage standi og of the jotuig Wfjmm hm been aixms that of the yemfig mm in every term bnt one is nine fears in the sophomore eis»# in *vc*y ttrm aad in the senior eiasa In every term but t*n, th'it i", in* average standing of the young v.-- rT:««u higher than that of the i:fluas mm ihlrif-twa tita«s out of thlrtyttix. ~F.i ursuv:.

Br en i/rit'Wifftt* #.bouWl m* first washed 'i *trofiic iy-' of alum, in tr,* .t"r-r Son o-jnee of aiom to a pint t.: dry rub with leather tripoH, This will give to bras* the brilliancy of gold.