Chapter XI: Part 11

Her sister look at her inquiringly. Was there any bravado in this disappointing gayety? Apparently not. Mankind loves a lover, and Clover, especially loving this lover, felt tempted to resentment; but might it not be that Mildred indeed felt more light-hearted than for months past? Why should she be blamed, if she found relief in the knowledge that her home was free from a presence which had been in a way a constant reproach?

"I wish Jack did care for Helen Eames," returned the elder, unconsciously sighing.

"Yes; wouldn't it be convenient?"

"I'm glad you've come home, Milly. The house has seemed so empty."

"Oh, but what lovely flowers!" exclaimed the latter, espying a great bowl of roses in a shaded corner. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"They are not yours, my dear." Clover smiled at her work. "They came last night."

"They are beautiful. Did brother actually remember to have such a sweet substitute sent you on your first lonely evening? I am proud of him. What else interesting has happened?"

"Nothing, I think. Gorham received a characteristic letter from Robert just before he left. He gave it to me to keep, with one that came from Hilda. Perhaps you would like to see it?"

"Indeed, I would. Nice, jolly Mr. Page! I wish they lived next door."

Mildred took the letter Clover handed her. "I'm going to read it aloud. It probably says nice things about you.

"DEAR GORHAM,--So you have won that sweet woman! Blessings on you, my boy! I may be partial, but I believe you are somewhere near good enough for her. Truth compels me to state, however, that your gain is my loss, owing to the overweening satisfaction it is to Hilda. In an evil moment, I underrated her prescience when she prophesied this happy event, and the consequence is that I am considering living at the club until the first blush of her triumph passes over. It flavors the matutinal oatmeal and the after-dinner coffee. I cannot indulge in a short nap without encountering a tall nightmare in which the wife of my bosom pops out from unexpected corners and ejaculates 'I told you so.' She sits opposite me now, writing a letter to go with this. I know those are burning words that are growing with such swiftness. I can almost hear the paper hiss. However, I am just as pleased as she is. Please give Clover my love,--you see I am not slow to use my privilege in naming her,--and tell her I am sure the world will be a better place for such a home as you and she will make in it. Indeed, I feel more than I can say on the subject.

"With kind regards to all,
"Your brother,
"ROBERT."

With the early autumn came the Parliament of Religions,--the congress which, among the many that preceded and followed it, proved, to the general surprise, to be the one of greatest interest to the public. Miss Berry was indefatigable in her attendance; and her young ladies were often with her. The names of those Orientals, whose words she listened to as to music, were impracticable to her; but their dark faces and graceful gestures were fixed in her mind forever. Aunt Love was one of thousands whose complacent generalization of "the heathen" received a blow.

Clover did her share in the entertaining of some of these scholarly delegates from the far East; and Mildred found a totally novel sauce piquante in the society of a handsome coffee-colored Indian, who wore a pink silk turban and mouse-colored robe, and talked transcendental philosophy in the purest English while gazing at her from long, beautiful eyes.

Lieutenant Eames had rejoined his regiment, whether or no hiding a heart-wound, Clover did not know. Mildred said nothing. October, the busiest, gayest month of the Fair, came on. Such of society as had hitherto been obdurate, now returning from seashore and mountains, made one united, belated rush for the widely extolled Exposition. The climax of attendance during one day came on October 9th, Chicago's own celebration, the anniversary of the great fire, when more than seven hundred and fifty thousand persons were in the grounds. The effect, when one could rise to a slight eminence and look down, was such as is observed in a trap so full of flies that there is only a general stir and movement among the mass; no form is visible.

The day was faultless. Not a cloud flecked the azure against which shone the groups of the Agricultural Building, that one edifice which interposed no roof between its superb statuesque decorations and the revealing blue of the firmament. The three mammoth fountains at the end of the Court of Honor played in dazzling sunshine, filling the air with crystals.

Clover and Mildred were present, attended by the Pink Turban, splendid in his unconsciousness of being regarded on all sides as a sort of embodied apotheosis of the Midway.

The ceremonies of the day began with what Clover's chair-boy naively called a procession of "the hussies," although the Chicago Hussars might have taken exception to the term. From that moment until late evening, the interest was not permitted to flag. A tightrope-walker in cavalier costume ran and pirouetted high in air before the Peristyle, the scarlet and gold of his costume showing jewel-like against the pure columns.

A large chorus sang national hymns. The young liberty-bell pealed. Hundreds of children in fancy costumes marched around the lagoons; but the magnitude of the crowd defeated its own entertainment by the fact that the procession of elaborately prepared floats could not force their way through the avenues.

It was all very wonderful, but greatest of all was the fabulous splendor of the night display. The Van Tassel party viewed it from the roof of the New York Building. Surely, Chicago had earned the right to celebrate herself by bombardments of colored fire, if so it pleased her, and she did so this evening on a scale which trebled previous efforts, and made the heavens as luminous as on that night, twenty-two years ago, when she was the victim instead of the instigator of her pyrotechnics.

Once more the city meant to distinguish the World's Fair by novel and striking accompaniments to its intrinsic grandeur. It was intended that its close should be attended with a metaphorical flourish of trumpets; but close upon this last day, shame and affliction visited Chicago in the murder of its mayor, and all festivities were renounced. The last hours of the existence of the Dream City were mournfully quiet.

"A bubble is always most beautiful just before it vanishes," Mildred said to Clover, as they stood together in the Court of Honor on that afternoon, waiting for the fateful moment.

"It never looked more lovely," replied Clover. They spoke softly, as in a holy place, and with one accord looked up at the infinite message in carven letters, the significant legacy of the summer's grand experience:--

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

A strain of solemn sweetness sounded through the harmonies that poured without ceasing from the orchestra in a neighboring pavilion, touching every heart in that waiting throng.

The rays of the low-hanging sun shot for one moment past the side of the Administration Building, gleamed through the waters of the fountain, and traveled a swift path across the lagoon to illume for an instant the golden Republic.

"It is the swan-song!" exclaimed Mildred.

A long, sullen roar sounded from the east. It was the first peal of the salute which bade the Dream City vanish. The sisters clasped hands, as they had once before in the selfsame spot. The eyes that had sought each other, dark with excitement and anticipation, that day, now saw through mists of tears. The myriad flags they had seen unfurled in gladness now with one accord slipped down from sight, and the music died as the message from the cannon's mouth told the country around that all was over.

Jack had been with them on the opening day. Mildred could recall how earnest and handsome he looked, standing with his hat off, carried away by the spirit of the occasion. A great wave of compassion swept over her heart, and mingled with the yearning and sense of loss in the air. The weather was chill now and cloudy. She was glad to slip her arm through Clover's and hurry home.

Soon after this, Aunt Love returned to Pearfield. There was some discussion as to whether she should take Blitzen; but that sagacious animal, as was usual when anything inimical to his interests was in the air, seemed fully aware of her doubts, lost his high spirits, haunted her like a silent ghost, walked when she walked, sat when she sat, and whined as he gazed at her, until the persecuted woman yielded to his mute entreaties. Electra stayed, and remained the heroine of her latticed inclosure,--an additional reason for Blitzen to prefer returning to his native heath.

Aunt Love's farewell was by no means a sad one. She was radiant as she remarked how soon Clover would be her neighbor.

"And in that way we'll get you, too," she said to Mildred; but that young woman demurred.

"Of course she will come," said Clover.

"I'm not sure," persisted the younger.

"Well now, my dear," said Miss Berry in parting advice, "don't you wander through the woods too long and take up with a crooked stick at last; but, whatever you do, marry a man o' your own color, who wears a hat and coat instead of a turban and a bath wrapper. Remember that."

"I don't know," responded Mildred, with a teasing smile. "The Pink Turban says he has a pair of very handsome diamond earrings. Perhaps, if I should have my ears pierced, he would let me wear them a part of the time."

"Go 'way!" exclaimed Miss Berry, with a repudiatory gesture.

The old Scotch housekeeper soon returned, joyful to be back again, and felicitating herself that the Fair was safely over; and life might have been supposed to move on as before, but it did not.

Clover had come into a new state of existence, the deep, constant joy of which she never expressed in words. Except for the framed photograph on her dressing-table, Mildred might have believed her equable sister to be unchanged in thought as well as habit; but Mildred's own mode of life was noticeably changed this season. The winter was a hard one. Cold weather set in in November, and the reaction from the great business activity of the year before caused a depression cruelly felt among the poor. Charitable work was the order of the day, and Mildred entered into it heart and soul.

"Slumming was never so fashionable," she said; and thus lightly accounting for the new direction of her energy, she learned novel views of life, which would modify her character in all time to come. Clover was her efficient aid, and her friend Helen Eames sometimes went on these expeditions too, under the shadow of her wing.

It was rather a grievance with Helen that Mildred never of her own accord referred to Jack, and if questioned, made brief replies. Mr. Van Tassel was a Chicago man and belonged here. He was, in Helen's own phraseology, "perfectly fascinating," and not to be lightly dropped. She intended to keep herself posted as to the probabilities of his return; but Mildred early nipped her plans in the bud.

"We can't reckon on Mr. Van Tassel as a Chicagoan any more," she said. "He is reading law very earnestly now in Boston, and he has lived there so many years, it is home to him. Besides that, he is devoted to Clover, and when she is married to his cousin, that will be another tie to keep him at the East."

Upon which Miss Eames grew thoughtful, and fortune shortly after throwing in her way an invitation to visit a friend in Boston, she incontinently dropped her pilgrimages amid Chicago's back streets, and departed on the most limited train available.

Soon afterward, Mildred received a gay letter from her. Mr. Van Tassel had called, and had been one of the theatre party her hostess had given the night before. She was having a charming time, and hoped dear Mildred would not take something in those dreadful basements before she could return to help her again.

"Wouldn't it be strange," Clover asked, when her sister showed her the letter, "if little Helen should catch Jack's heart on the rebound, after all?"

Mildred returned her look with unusual gravity. "Are men's hearts so unfaithful, do you think?" she asked seriously.

"Sometimes," answered Clover, "when they despair; and women's, too."

"Then they are unworthy," Mildred said quietly.

No winter ever suffered more than this by contrast with the summer. In public print and by private hearsay, the bitter needs of the poor surrounded one. The corpse of the White City lay wrapped in a winding-sheet of snow. The sisters never entered the grounds from the afternoon its spirit departed. They looked askance, in passing, at the buildings, with their cold, silent surroundings, where so recently all had been life and warmth. The same domes and facades upreared under the cold sky. One could only say as he does in glancing tenderly and sadly at a dear, dead face: "How natural it looks!"

Little wonder that plans were innumerable for preserving a portion of that dream of beauty, to be resuscitated and to become the joy of one more summer; but the work of spoliation had begun, and would march on inexorably.

"Miss Mildred has grown awful quiet, Mrs. Van Tassel," said old Jeanie one day in confidence. "It's a wrong you're doing her, I'm thinking, letting her quench all her bright spirits in those holes she visits."

"I think not, Jeanie," Clover replied. "Miss Mildred is having a deep experience; but we can't help the sorrow in the world except by coming close to it."

"I saw tears in her eyes the other night," whispered Jeanie profoundly, "and I asked the poor child why, and what do you suppose she answered?"

"I suppose she had the heartache over some of our new friends."

"Maybe; but if she did, she wouldn't acknowledge it. She said 't was because the Chicago Beach Hotel was closed for the season, and there couldn't be any dances there!"

Clover smiled. "That sounds as if her spirits had not all departed," she remarked.

But she had been quick to observe the alteration in Mildred. Sometimes she hoped that Jack's absence had wrought the fulfillment of his desire, but she did not seek to probe her sister's feeling. If unseen influences were expanding the entrance to the holy of holies in the young girl's heart, what right had she to interfere? Sometimes she feared Mildred was depressed by the prospect of a marriage which would break up this home. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that her sister's interest in society had waned, and the part she kept up in it was perfunctory, and did not extend beyond those efforts which courtesy demanded. She had never been more companionable with Clover, however, and the latter had never enjoyed her so much.

Thus matters stood when the New Year was ushered in. The day was clear and bright, and many thousands took advantage of the fact that Jackson Park passed back to-day into the public jurisdiction. Curiosity seekers and vandals poured down the strangely mute Midway Plaisance and through the avenues of the Park. Clover and Mildred did not swell the number who gayly parodied "After the Ball."

And now was to come the long pull and the strong pull of winter. Mildred wondered in her own mind why the prospect should look so very dreary. No other season had ever seemed like it. Doubtless it was her new and close acquaintance with the griefs of others that had changed the world, and made life a novel sort of struggle.

The new year was less than a week old when Clover received a letter from Jack, announcing his intention to make them a call.

"I won't give any excuses," he wrote; "I admit that I am coming simply because I want so much to see Mildred and you that I believe I shall do better work after indulging in that pleasure."

"Loyal as ever," said Clover, looking up, and Mildred did not raise her eyes from her work, but she was smiling.

Jack had said he could not set a precise time for his arrival, but that in a few days they might expect him to drop down.

When his determination had been taken, Van Tassel pushed forward his preparations with all haste, and his restlessness did not quiet until he found himself, in the early evening of the 8th of January, walking down the old familiar home street once more. As he reached the corner, he suddenly observed that clouds of smoke mingled with large red cinders were rolling up from the south.

"Must be a fire in the Fair grounds," he thought. "I wonder if the girls know."

They were coming out of their door, with their outside wraps on, when Van Tassel came up the steps, and they gave him a greeting in which excitement and cordiality mingled.

"There is a fire in the Fair," they all three said at once.

"You will take me down there, Jack," exclaimed Mildred. "Clover was going, but she hasn't been well and she ought not to."

Clover protested faintly, suggesting some of the rites of hospitality for Jack's benefit; but he would hear nothing save carrying out Mildred's wishes, and after taking a moment to deposit his bag in the hall, he set off beside her.

"How is Gorham, I wonder?" murmured Clover with a comical little smile and plaintive raised eyebrows, as she looked after the figures retreating into the dark. "I feel as if I had been in a whirlwind." She looked toward the once gay hotel; now, its many sightless eyes gazed blankly southward. "I will go there," she exclaimed with sudden determination; and reentering the house, she called Jeanie, and made her hurry into her wraps. The housekeeper obeyed, with many a fussy groan over her mistress' caprice, and soon they were walking northward.

They ascended the dark stairway to the piazza of the hotel, and peered through the door at the office, where one dim light showed. Clover was a bit frightened, but she knocked on the glass. A man appeared behind the office desk, and, picking up the lantern which was the vast hotel's single attempt at illumination, advanced through dark spaces, casting strange shadows on the marble floor as he came.

"May we look at the fire from here?" asked Clover, wishing Gorham were with her rather than Jeanie.

"Yes; I see they've got a fire down there," the man remarked imperturbably, but he stood back for them to enter, and then clanged the heavy door behind them. It echoed in the big empty hall, and Jeanie looked so discomfited that Clover smiled, though she herself thought the situation rather eerie.

The last time she had stood here, the place had been ablaze with electric light, and gay with music and guests. She had ascended with her friends to a balcony to view the lighted White City in the zenith of its beauty, and to revel in the fiery marvels which mirrored themselves in the lake. It flashed into her memory how enthusiastic the crowds had been over the rising of a slender cylinder of light which poised itself aloft, then slowly unrolled until the stars and stripes appeared in the heavens. She could hear again the patriotic salutes from a congregation of boats as Old Glory sailed away across the lake.

Now, all was hushed and dark. A second man, who appeared in the office, struck a match and lit another lantern, by whose light he proceeded to pilot the two women upstairs.

Jeanie muttered and grunted to such an extent that Clover relented after the ascent of three flights, and the old man led her to the window of one of the white-sheeted bedrooms, from which she eagerly looked.

"Oh, Jeanie, I am sure it is the Peristyle!" she exclaimed, gazing horror-struck on the volume of fire and smoke visible through the bare ribs of the Spectatorium. "What will--what will Mr. Page say!" Involuntarily she pressed her hand on her beating heart, seeming to hear the roar of those cruel flames.

Meanwhile Mildred and Jack had caught a train, which they left at Sixtieth Street. The young man was glad that the tension of his anticipations had been relieved by the unconventional circumstances of his welcome. To be joined with Mildred in the present excitement was far preferable to the doubtful home evening he had looked forward to. Arm in arm they pressed forward against the cold lake wind toward the shore, and did not pause until they had neared the Music Hall.

Only once Mildred spoke as they hurried on. "I am afraid," she said breathlessly, "that it is the Peristyle."

"It looks like it," said Jack briefly. The hoofs of galloping horses smote the hard ground, and the puffing of fire-engines was borne to their ears before they reached the scene of confusion. There they stood still, Mildred clinging with both hands to Van Tassel's arm, her wide, horrified eyes fixed on the blazing Casino, the building into which the Peristyle merged at the southern end, as it did into Music Hall on the north.

The lagoon was coated with a thin sheet of ice, across which the sparks, after circling around the head of the golden goddess, whirled up the Court of Honor in lines of fire.

Above, the wind bore the glowing brands swirling over the great neighboring buildings. Streams of water fell with no quenching power into the flames.

"Why don't they bend all their energies to saving the Peristyle?" exclaimed Mildred.

"That is what they are doing now. See?"

The dauntless firemen were fighting the flames at close range. A dozen streams of water at once were directed upon the Peristyle; but in vain. The walls of the Casino crashed in; devouring tongues of fire fastened upon the first noble pillar and ate upward.

Van Tassel felt his companion shudder in her furs, and put his hand on hers. The crowd that had gathered in the very spot where they cheered the summer's pyrotechnic display were strangely motionless and silent, watching with fascinated eyes and saddened faces as the fire crept upward, leaping from pillar to pillar, ascending toward the statues which stood serene and fair above smoke and flame long after the watchers expected them to succumb. At last, each white figure in turn, seeming suddenly to become aware of its environment, wavered on its pedestal, hesitated, and with one shrinking look below, plunged downward into the fiery chasm.

"Jack!" gasped Mildred, shivering from head to foot, her dilated eyes never leaving the heart-rending sight.

For an instant, free of smoke and illumined gloriously, shone out for a last time the heavenly promise:--

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

"The Quadriga!" groaned Van Tassel, for the grand arch was seized upon, and swiftly melted away in the furnace. No search-light of the summer ever compared in grandeur with the effect that succeeded to the crumbling of the staff below the famous group, the pride of the noble Peristyle. The iron skeleton supports, laid bare, were invisible in the night. Columbus, his chariot, the outriders with their banners, and the spirited horses led by maidens, stood triumphant in the vivid light. It was a sight of supernatural beauty. In the glare of the leaping flames the snow-white horses seemed to stir restlessly and paw the air, as they arched their necks and gazed proudly down into the glowing chasm.

"Jump, oh, jump!" cried Mildred; then, unable to endure the impending catastrophe, her nerves strained to the utmost, she turned with a wild movement, and sobbing, hid her head on Jack's breast.

He put his arms around her.

"The--the Peristyle has gone!" she exclaimed chokingly,--"gone back--to heaven!"

"Yes, darling," he answered close to her ear. "My rival. Forgive me, but you are making me so happy I can't realize anything except that I have you in my arms. What does it mean? only that you are overwrought?"

Mildred lifted her face slightly, but away from the burning pyre.

"Your rivals are all gone, Jack," she said, as steadily as she could speak. "Even I do not count."

Half an hour afterward, Clover heard them enter the house, and hurried down to the parlor.

When she pushed aside the portiere and entered, she paused in amazement and her heart leaped up, for Jack's arms were about Mildred and his lips were pressed to hers.

They saw her, and in another instant she was beside them, her hands clasped in theirs.

As she gazed at her sister, mute for joy, Mildred regarded her with a tender version of her beautiful smile.

"I believe," she said, "this lifts the last cloud from Clover's horizon."

"Yes," answered the latter rather unsteadily; "the world never looked so bright to me as now. I think, Jack," turning to him, her face aglow, "heaven itself must have grown happier to-night."

Van Tassel's eyes shone wistfully. "I hope he knows," he answered gently.

* * * * * * * *

*STANDARD AND POPULAR*

*BOOKS OF FICTION*

*PUBLISHED BY*

*HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.*

*Thomas Bailey Aldrich.*

The Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. Marjorie Daw and Other People. Short Stories. With Frontispiece. Marjorie Daw and Other Stories. In Riverside Aldine Series.

These volumes are not identical in contents.

Prudence Palfrey. With frontispiece. The Queen of Sheba. The Stillwater Tragedy. Two Bites at a Cherry, and Other Tales.

*Jane G. Austin.*

Standish of Standish. Betty Alden. A Nameless Nobleman. Dr. LeBaron and his Daughters.

Colonial Novels, including above. 4 vols.

The Desmond Hundred. David Alden's Daughter, and other Stories.

*Edward Bellamy.*

Miss Ludington's Sister. Looking Backward: 2000-1887.

*Helen Dawes Brown.*

Two College Girls. The Petrie Estate.

*Clara Louise Burnham.*

Young Maids and Old. Next Door. Dearly Bought. No Gentlemen. A Sane Lunatic. The Mistress of Beech Knoll. Miss Bagg's Secretary. Dr. Latimer.

*Edwin Lassetter Bynner.*

Zachary Phips. Agnes Surriage. The Begum's Daughter.

These three Historical Novels, in box.

Penelope's Suitors. Damon's Ghost. An Uncloseted Skeleton. (Written with Lucretia P. Hale.)

*Mary Hartwell Catherwood.*

The Lady of Fort St. John. Old Kaskaskia.

*Rose Terry Cooke.*

Somebody's Neighbors. Stories. Happy Dodd. The Sphinx's Children. Stories. Steadfast. Huckleberries. Gathered from New England Hills. Short Stories.

*Charles Egbert Craddock [Mary N. Murfree].*

In the Tennessee Mountains. Short Stories. Down the Ravine. For Young People. Illustrated. The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. In the Clouds. The Story of Keedon Bluffs. The Despot of Broomsedge Cove. Where the Battle was Fought. His Vanished Star.

*James Fenimore Cooper.*

Works. New _Household Edition_. With Introductions to many of the volumes by Susan Fenimore Cooper, and Illustrations. In 32 volumes.

Sea Tales. First Series. New _Household Edition_. With Introductions by Susan Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated. In 5 vols.

Sea Tales. Second Series. New _Household Edition_. With Introductions by Susan Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated. In 5 vols.

Leather-Stocking Tales. New _Household Edition_. With Portrait, Introductions, and Illustrations. In 5 vols.

Cooper Stories. Narratives of Adventure selected from Cooper's Works. Illustrated. Stories of the Prairie. Stories of the Woods. Stories of the Sea. 3 vols.

*Mary Hallock Foote.*

The Chosen Valley. The Led-Horse Claim. Illustrated. John Bodewin's Testimony. The Last Assembly Ball, and the Fate of a Voice. In Exile, and Other Stories.

*Arthur Sherburne Hardy.*

But Yet a Woman. The Wind of Destiny. Passe Rose.

*Joel Chandler Harris.*

Mingo, and other Sketches in Black and White. Nights with Uncle Remus. Illustrated. Baalam and his Master, and other Stories.

Uncle Remus and His Friends. Old Plantation Stories, Songs, and Ballads. With Sketches of Negro Character. With 12 illustrations by Frost.

*Miriam Coles Harris.*

Writings. New Edition, uniform.

Rutledge. Frank Warrington. The Sutherlands. Richard Vandermarck. St. Philip's. Missy. Happy-Go-Lucky. Phoebe. A Perfect Adonis. An Utter Failure.

Louie's Last term at St. Mary's (for Young People). Happy-Go-Lucky.

*Blanche Willis Howard.*

One Summer. New Popular Edition. Illustrated by Hoppin. Aulnay Tower. Aunt Serena. Guenn. Illustrated. The Open Door. A Fellowe and His Wife. Collaborated with William Sharp. No Heroes. A Story for Boys. Illustrated.

*William Dean Howells.*

Their Wedding Journey. Illustrated. A Chance Acquaintance. Illustrated. A Foregone Conclusion. The Lady of the Aroostook. The Undiscovered Country. The Minister's Charge. Indian Summer. The Rise of Silas Lapham. A Fearful Responsibility, etc. A Modern Instance. A Woman's Reason. Dr. Breen's Practice. The Sleeping-Car, and other Farces.

*Rev. George A. Jackson.*

The Son of a Prophet.

*Oliver Wendell Holmes.*

Elsie Venner. The Guardian Angel. A Mortal Antipathy.

*Augustus Hoppin.*

Recollections of Auton House. Illustrated by the Author. A Fashionable Sufferer. Illustrated by the Author. Two Compton Boys. Illustrated by the Author.

*Henry James.*

Watch and Ward. A Passionate Pilgrim, and other Tales. Roderick Hudson. The American. The Europeans. Confidence. The Portrait of a Lady. The Author of Beltraffio; Pandora; Georgina's Reasons; Four Meetings, etc. The Siege of London; The Pension Beaurepas; and The Point of View. Tales of Three Cities (The Impressions of a Cousin; Lady Barberina; A New-England Winter). Daisy Miller: A Comedy. The Tragic Muse. 2 vols.

*Sarah Orne Jewett.*

The King of Folly Island, and other People. Tales of New England. In Riverside Aldine Series. A White Heron, and Other Stories. A Marsh Island. A Country Doctor. Deephaven. Old Friends and New. Country By-Ways. The Mate of the Daylight, and Friends Ashore. Betty Leicester. Strangers and Wayfarers. A Native of Winby.

*Ellen Olney Kirk.*

Ciphers. The Story of Margaret Kent. Sons and Daughters. Queen Money. Better Times. Stories. A Midsummer Madness. A Lesson in Love. A Daughter of Eve. Walford.

*Flora Haines Loughead.*

The Man who was Guilty. The Abandoned Claim. A California Story for Young People.

*Elizabeth Stuart Phelps [Mrs. Ward].*

The Gates Ajar. Beyond the Gates. The Gates Between. Men, Women, and Ghosts. Stories. Hedged In. The Silent Partner. The Story of Avis. Sealed Orders, and other Stories. Friends: A Duet. Dr. Zay. An Old Maid's Paradise, and Burglars in Paradise. The Master of the Magicians. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. Come Forth. Collaborated by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. Fourteen to One. Short Stories. Donald Marcy. The Madonna of the Tubs. With Illustrations. Jack the Fisherman. Illustrated.

*F. Hopkinson Smith.*

Colonel Carter of Cartersville. With Illustrations. A Day at Laguerre's, and other Days.