Chapter V: Part 5

"We can't selfishly keep this comfortable house just for our own two selves the next six months."

"I could, just as easy," returned Mildred nonchalantly, dropping into an armchair. "Aren't you glad now that we have lived a life of resorts for two years, and are not under obligations to anybody? Moreover, that we haven't had time to make any intimate friends anywhere? Why, everybody we know here has either rented his house and fled, or is wondering how servants and expenses are to be managed through the summer."

Clover looked serious. "I feel that we ought to do exactly what Mr. Van Tassel would do if he were alive."

"Yes, that is so," agreed Mildred promptly; "but I don't see how you are going to find that out."

"Why, it is perfectly plain that he would entertain his near relatives."

Mildred raised her eyebrows thoughtfully. She began to sing softly again from Sullivan's opera:

"'To say she is his mother is an utter bit of folly,
Heigh-ho, our Strephon is a rogue!
Perhaps his brain is addled and it's very melancholy,
Taradiddle'"--

"Stop that nonsensical song."

"My dear, Gilbert never writes any nonsense. It gives me the utmost pleasure to warble his lays. He is the only librettist in the world who says just what he wants to say, and it happens to rhyme. Pardon me if I appeared to be personal. That was another happening. So you think you ought to have sonny at home. Anybody else?"

"Certainly. Mr. Page."

Mildred pursed her lips into a noiseless whistle.

"Mr. Van Tassel's sister's child," went on Clover firmly. "He has a right to expect an invitation. What is the matter? Don't you like him?"

Mildred made her favorite grimace of faint repugnance, and her head dropped to one side. "I've had a good deal of him by proxy," she answered. "I'm very much afraid he's a worthy young man."

"Well, what of it?"

"Oh, you know I can't endure worthy young men," smiled the girl provokingly.

"Jack says he is a noble fellow," declared Clover with dignity.

"Of course; but alas, if that was only one of those things that go without saying! His sister-in-law adores him madly. Well, then we are to have sterling cousin Page. Anybody else? It seems to me you are drawing about us a possibly charming, but certainly unconventional family circle."

"No, no. There are the other Pages. Of course we must ask the married brother, just as much as Gorham, and we are under obligation to Mrs. Page for kindness to you."

"So she is to be the chaperone. Is it your expectation that she will wish to stay here all summer? What a perfect goose you were, Clover, not to have your bright idea before you let Jeanie go. After you have thought up three meals a day for guests, for about three months, your opinion of the brilliance of that idea will probably decline and fall."

"Just wait," said Clover triumphantly. "You haven't even heard my bright thought yet. It is Aunt Love."

Mildred looked into her beaming eyes uncomprehendingly. "It is nothing to me," continued Clover, "whether Mrs. Page stays one week or six. I am going to ask Aunt Love to come and take Jeanie's place all summer."

"Do you suppose she will do it?"

"Yes, I do. I shall ask her, anyway, before one day more passes over my head,--that is, if you agree, Mildred."

"Oh, if I agree!" repeated the latter with light scorn. "I notice you didn't trouble yourself to consult me about Strephon and cousin Page."

"You would like to have Aunt Love, of course," persisted Clover.

"Yes; but she must be sure to bring Blitzen."

There was only one subject discussed throughout the length and breadth of Pearfield, twenty-four hours after Mrs. Van Tassel's letter reached Miss Berry.

Lovina Berry was going to the World's Fair. Pearfield would be represented, after all. It was a dangerous undertaking. Everybody felt that. The postmaster made himself quite unpopular by doubting whether Loviny ran more risk from desperate characters in Chicago than she would in any other large city; but his heretical opinion was accounted for by a well known contrariness of nature.

Many and solemn were the leave-takings and warnings bestowed upon Miss Berry at the outset of her pilgrimage. She was somewhat astonished herself at her own calmness at the prospect.

"It must be I don't sense it," she declared as she gave her lisle-thread glove a parting wave from the car window. She had planned by letter to have Gorham Page meet her in Boston, and take her to an inexpensive boarding-house where she might remain until she was fitted out for her wonderful trip.

It was a tired and harassed woman that Page met that afternoon, hugging to her, as she stepped from the car, a straining, excited, furry bundle that jumped eagerly to the end of his chain as she permitted him to leap down.

"Such a time as I've had this day," she ejaculated. "I guess I've broke most o' the laws ever made by God and man. By good luck I knew the conductor,--he came from near our place, and he, seein' that Blitzen rampaged dreadful in the baggage-car, let me hold him in my lap. I lost my temper before I'd been out o' Pearfield half an hour, and I haven't found it since. I'm just tuckered out. Miss Bryant made a great point o' my bringin' Blitzen, but law, before I'd have the care o' him from here to Chicago I'd give up the whole undertakin'." Miss Berry looked anxiously at the dog as he bobbed about at the end of his tether as though to expend the energy stored in his lively legs during hours of inaction. "I don't know how I could leave him in Boston," she added, "and yet"--

Page smiled. "You know very well if you left him he would walk on the ties to Chicago. Don't worry, Aunt Love, I'll send him safely for you. You shall not have any trouble."

Miss Berry looked half hopeful, half incredulous.

"Yes, by express. It will be all right," and Page held open the door of a cab, into which Miss Berry stepped with the nervous and astonished Blitzen again caught in her strong clasp.

"I haven't thanked you a word," she said when the horse had started, "but you can't think what a help it's been to me to have you manage about the boardin' place and all."

"Hilda wouldn't hear to your going anywhere but straight to her," returned Gorham.

"Oh, that is too much," exclaimed Miss Lovina, flushing with pleasure; and the warm welcome she received when she arrived at Mrs. Page's dainty apartment completed her relief from care and embarrassment.

"I'm sure you never counted on Blitzen," Miss Berry said anxiously, in return to her hostess's greeting.

"But I am glad to see him," responded Hilda. "It is well known that a dog who can wag his tail can knock over lots of valuables in a flat, but Blitzen is a safe and welcome guest."

"We'll let him run in the street all he wants to. Perhaps he'll get lost," said Miss Lovina, regarding the small animal darkly in spite of the confiding and questioning gaze he was bending upon her, as though begging to understand to-day's erratic movements.

"Much more likely to be stolen," remarked Gorham. "I had better send him on to Chicago very soon."

Mrs. Page proved of great assistance to Miss Berry in adding the right articles of dress to her wardrobe, and completing her preparations. It was with a light heart that Aunt Love finally shook hands with Page after he had settled her comfortably in her section of the Chicago train, and when the latter glided slowly and smoothly from the station, Miss Berry leaned back in the cushioned seat and felt happy though excited. She had never been in a sleeping-car before, and every convenience about her excited her wonder and admiration.

She was traveling at Mrs. Van Tassel's expense, and simply followed the explicit directions Page had given her; so she went into the dining-car for her meals, a proceeding which filled her with wonder. Her practical soul yearned to examine the compact kitchen arrangements.

Gorham had charged the porter to attend to her wants, accompanying the exhortation with the only sort of persuasion which appeals to the species, and innocent Aunt Love was in consequence gratefully impressed by her new friend's assiduous attentions.

There is no denying that the gentleman of color had something to endure from the time the train crossed the last state line and entered Illinois. It had been impressed upon Miss Berry that she was to alight at Hyde Park, and her porter earned the money Mr. Page had given him before that station was reached.

"You don't want to get out till you've passed the World's Fair," he said at last in desperation; and Miss Lovina clung to this definite clue with such concentration that when the usual stentorian announcement was made--"World's Fair Buildings on the right," she scarcely cast a glance toward the labyrinth of roofs and domes, but clasped the handles of her bag and shawl-strap, and sat on the extreme edge of the seat.

Soon the porter arrived, took possession of Miss Berry's belongings, and in another minute she stood on the platform, where Mrs. Van Tassel and Miss Bryant met her with open arms.

At least one of Mildred's hands was extended in welcome. The other kept firm hold of a chain to which Blitzen was attached. Instantly the little dog's leaps and grins monopolized the attention of all three. He whined, he actually howled in the fullness of his joy at finding the mistress he had despaired of seeing again.

"For gracious sake!" exclaimed Miss Berry, much embarrassed. "There, there;" she stooped and patted the terrier sparingly. "Yes, here's my trunk-check, Mrs. Van Tassel. My, but you do look well, child. For pity's sake, Miss Mildred, take the chain off'n that dog, and maybe he won't trip me up. Be still, can't you?"

Mildred laughed as she stooped and unfastened the hook from the smart new collar which had gilded Blitzen's misery since his arrival. "Yes, he will not need chains now," she answered; "but we have had to keep him a prisoner for fear he might go back to Boston. It would have been such a pity for you to cross each other on the way."

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*CLOVER'S INVITATION.*

Those who wished to continue to point out the defects in Chicago and her Fair had ample opportunity through a large part of the month of May. It was indeed Chicago's Fair then; no one else claimed it. The exhibits were not all in place, the electric effects were not complete, the weather was cold, Orientals had to wear American overcoats above their white gowns, and they sneezed lugubriously under their turbans. The pleasantest spots in the White City at that season were the open fires in the dignified or dainty club-houses known as State buildings. Only the Eskimos were really comfortable, and some of those poor women wished the incoming and outgoing visitor would not allow the northeast wind continuous entrance to their homes.

But the month was nearly out by the time Miss Berry arrived in Chicago. It was the beginning of that marvelous summer whose weather every Chicagoan will always proudly consider an exhibit worthy to be ranked with any wonder it shone upon. The natural elements, like the human ones, gradually admitted that the Columbian Exposition was not only a worthy but an overwhelming success, and in place of buffeting wind and destructive storm, sent week after week a warm blue sky and a cool east breeze to add the crowning charm to the White City's bewildering loveliness.

Had the human element been as prompt in succumbing, thousands of those who strove in the madding crowd of October might have reveled instead in the fresh beauty of June; but the general confidence had not yet been gained. The same journal which had pictured the vulgar young city vociferating for the World's Fair bouquet had not yet declared that it took off its hat to Chicago, adding that all other shows bore the relation to the Columbian Exposition which Jersey City did to Imperial Rome. A comparatively small army of explorers came from the East as yet, to spy out the land and carry back reassuring reports to their skeptical or timid friends.

Miss Berry, in her comfortable, novel quarters, was from the first charmed with her surroundings. The bright bracing air, the frequent tally-ho coaches that passed the door, their scarlet-coated buglers piping with cheerful unsteadiness, the expanse of tumbling blue-green water that constantly gladdened her eyes, all seemed as festive as the fine house which was her temporary home. She enjoyed the playing of the orchestra every morning on the piazza of an adjacent hotel, and was soon able to hum "After the Ball," that unavoidable, omnipresent accompaniment of the World's Fair summer.

Only one thing puzzled her for the first few days after her arrival, and this perplexity she set at rest one cool evening, by watching her opportunity and walking clandestinely to the sands at the back of the Chicago Beach Hotel. Here she stooped to the water's edge, dipped her finger in an incoming wave and transferred it to her mouth. Tasting it critically, she looked thoughtful, and after a moment repeated the operation.

"I suppose I've got to believe it," she murmured, rising. "'T ain't salt."

The more cultivated and traveled one was, the more wonderful and beautiful the White City seemed to him. Upon a woman of Miss Berry's narrow worldly experience, its unique characteristics dawned but slowly. For some weeks it is quite certain that the housekeeping duties which Clover at once placed in her hands were more attractive to the good woman than the marvels which lay so near her. She was not insensible to the privilege of being within walking distance of Jackson Park, and now and then she made pilgrimages thither.

"It's somethin' like knowin' there's a big plum puddin' standin' near by, and that whenever I want to, I can go and pull out a plum;" she said; "but law! it would take a whole lifetime to see what they've got down there, and every time I go I realize it more."

Clover carried out her hospitable intention as soon as Aunt Love was fairly domesticated; and one morning a letter from her was handed to Mrs. Page at her breakfast-table.

Her family had just been talking about the World's Fair, and Jack had been answering questions concerning the best locality in which to secure accommodations.

"There is nothing like having an ardent Chicagoan in the house to make one attend to these matters in time," remarked Mrs. Page.

"I am very much afraid you will find you are not in time," returned Jack discouragingly. His advice, given a couple of months before, had not been heeded, and he now proceeded to state a series of facts and figures which were rather appalling.

"You will have to do something about it, Jack," remarked Mrs. Page's husband, who is not so designated on account of any inferiority. He was a stout, sandy-haired individual with a good digestion and disposition, who was accustomed to allow Hilda and Gorham to think for him in all matters not related to the wholesale dry-goods business in which he was engaged. "You say we ought to see the Exposition," he went on placidly, "and it is your affair, in the interests of hospitality, to tell us where in--Chicago we can find the proper quarters."

"I impressed upon you some time ago that you ought to attend to it," returned Jack rather stiffly. The air of lightness and condescension with which his cousin always treated the subject of the Fair grated upon him.

"Yes, he did, you know, Robert," declared Mrs. Page, always inclining, like most of Jack's feminine friends, to side with him.

It was at this juncture that the arrival of the mail created a diversion, and Hilda opened Clover's letter.

She glanced down its pages. "Why, how lovely! How kind!" she ejaculated from time to time. "Listen to this. You are all interested. It is from Mrs. Van Tassel."

MY DEAR MRS. PAGE,--I have been wishing for some days to find the right moment in which to thank you for your kindness both to Aunt Love and me in rendering her so much assistance in coming to us. She seems happy and at home already. I am the more pleased to have secured her that it makes it easy for me, in the absence of my old housekeeper, to entertain guests during the coming eventful summer. I hope you and your husband have not already committed yourselves to another plan for seeing the Fair, for our house is most conveniently situated, and my sister and I would be pleased to have you come to us. Will you extend my invitation to your brother as well? As for Jack, it is not necessary, I am sure, for me to write a separate invitation to him. His room is ready for him, and I count upon his taking possession of it for as long a time as he can make it convenient. Indeed, I wish you all four to choose your own times and seasons for coming, for I have no plan to entertain any one else, and I beg you to consider the house always open to you, and a sincere welcome always ready.

Mildred wishes me to send you her love, and we both hope soon to receive favorable word of your plans. Cordially yours,

CLOVER B. VAN TASSEL.

Mrs. Page, upon finishing, let her pleased gaze rove from one to another of her three companions. Jack's face was eager and happy, Gorham's interested, but her husband was the first to speak.

"I foresee that I am going to fall in love with that woman," he remarked, breaking open his third muffin and handing his cup to the maid for a second cup of coffee. "That is a charming letter."

"Just an ordinary Chicago production," said Jack exultantly. "What do you say, old Reliable?" he added, turning toward Gorham.

"We are in great luck," returned the latter.

"Now, I will admit," said Jack, "that I have been trying to provide for us all at the Chicago Beach; but I will cease my struggles gratefully."

"When do you want to go, Hilda?" asked Robert Page.

"When can you go, is a more pertinent question," she answered.

"July will, I suppose, be the best time. Would it be heresy, Jack, to inquire if the thermometer in Chicago rises above sixty-five degrees in July? I have understood that it does."

"I know of no city in the country where there is no hot weather in summer," returned Jack shortly. "Chicago is, however, a summer resort."

"I suppose you mean a place where summer resorts. That is what I have heard."

"Perhaps you would better not risk your life there."

"Tut, tut, my boy. I am going to see the writer of that whole-souled letter."

Jack, who had already excused himself from the table, here left the room without deigning a reply, and Mrs. Page immediately looked toward her brother.

"What do you think, Gorham? Of course this is a delightful invitation, but ought we to accept it?"

"I don't quite see your objection," he answered.

"It is charming of Mrs. Van Tassel, but it is so evidently a sense of duty which impels her to give such an invitation to a mere acquaintance like me, and a stranger like Robert."

"Look here," remarked the latter, looking up vaguely. "I don't think I want any flaws picked in that invitation."

"Now you keep still, Robert, like a dear. You don't know her at all, and Gorham does. She is just doing this in Uncle Richard's name; I know it, and I am not willing to impose upon her."

"May I see the letter once again?" asked Gorham.

"Certainly;" Mrs. Page handed it to him with alacrity. He read it through from beginning to end. It sounded like Clover. He could hear her pleasant voice in every phrase.

"She is a thoughtful, deliberate sort of person," he said as he handed the letter back. "Whatever her motive is, it is a sufficient one, and one thing that would influence me to advise you to accept is the effect on Jack. Their relations have been a little strained, and I think it would make things still pleasanter than they are now, if Mrs. Van Tassel and Miss Bryant were to become better acquainted with his people."

"Yes, that is what I think," remarked Mr. Page; but his wife frowned upon him.

"You, and Robert, and Jack, go," continued Gorham. "I won't. That would be rather too much of a good thing; but I can get a room at the Beach Hotel, and that is near by. I propose to spend a good deal of time at the Fair. I want to go through it with some degree of thoroughness. Of course no one will really see half of it. I understand that, giving one minute to each exhibit, it is estimated that it would take thirty-two years for a man to get around."

His brother groaned. He was stout and not energetic save in the matter of wholesale dry-goods.

"Thank Heaven it won't take thirty-two years to see Mrs. Van Tassel," he remarked devoutly.

There were no doubts or scruples in Jack's mind as to accepting his invitation, at least for the present. Indeed, this reconciliation between himself and the Bryants, as he still often found himself calling his old friends, altered the whole trend of his life. He felt a new satisfaction in living; a new desire for home; a willingness which amounted to necessity to shake the dust of Boston from his feet, and once more to make of Chicago a permanent abiding-place. His sense of loneliness, an aching one still at times, abated. His own place waited for him. The friendship of these cousins, kind and helpful in their way, could never be to him like that of those girls, the only sisters he had ever known, who had so long divided with him his father's affection and care. He was going home. It was the first sensation of the sort that he had had for years.

He did not try to conceal his satisfaction from Mrs. Page when he said to her his _au revoir_. He expressed sincere gratitude for her kindness and hospitality, but she saw that he was not sorry to have no plan for returning to Boston, and felt a little piqued despite Jack's enthusiasm over the plan which would soon make them a reunited family party.

"I have not seen Jack so gay since Uncle Richard died," she said that night to Gorham.

"No. His alienation from Mrs. Van Tassel and her sister has worried him a good deal, I know," responded Page. "This final burial of the hatchet must be a great relief to a fellow so sensitive as Jack is."

But this explanation was not sufficient to account to Mrs. Page for Van Tassel's jubilant spirits. He had not sprung up three stairs at a time, and whistled and sung over his packing, just because of obtaining the forgiveness of two young women whose feelings he had outraged.

"Men are stupid," she soliloquized. "I know that Jack is in love."

With this truly feminine solution of her cousin's conduct she was the better satisfied because she would so soon have opportunity of verifying her own perspicacity by ocular proof. But her diagnosis would have been a surprise to Jack. No lover-like haste mingled with the impatience he felt at the lateness of his train on the June afternoon when he reached Chicago; and when finally he found himself on the familiar home street, even its unfamiliarity seemed representative of the pleasant new state of things which had come into his life. His flying visit during the bad weather of six weeks before had not shown the old neighborhood in its present finished condition.

Van Tassel smiled as a coach and six rattled by him, the notes of its "mellow horn" breaking in impertinently upon the strains of an orchestra at the adjacent fashionable hotel. "Can this be quiet little Hyde Park?" he asked himself.

How the long June evenings of his boyhood came back to him as he sauntered down the changed street! How the thrushes used to sing here at this hour! How the boys and girls who could muster anything to navigate, from a scow to a trim canoe or sailboat, used to launch their craft, early in these long evenings, and sometimes lashing the boats together, a dozen in a row, would drift over the rocking waves and sing by the hour beneath a moon which electricity had not yet forced out of a long-established business!

The wild shore was changed, cultivated, and trimmed into order according to fashion now, like the young people who once disported over it in free country fashion.

Jack could not whistle the scrap from "Carmen" against the insistent rhythm of "After the Ball" which was being performed by a uniformed functionary from the hotel who passed him under the old familiar elms.

But Clover was on the piazza to meet him, a gracious genius of home in her blue gown, with the welcoming light in her eyes.

"I told you not to stay for me," said Jack, coming up the steps, his hat in his hand.

"I know," returned Clover, looking down into his happy, handsome face. "I stayed for my own sake as well as yours. I have been at the Fair all day, and did not feel like going down this evening. Mildred went from town with the Ogdens on their drag to take supper in Old Vienna. She wished me to give you an extra shake of the hand for her."

"Thank you, Clover," he answered, and he held her hand a moment as they interchanged a look that had in it reminiscence, but reminiscence from which all bitterness was gone. The sweet summer air seemed throbbing with their love for him with whom every part of this home was connected.

Miss Berry appeared at the house door. She started at the pretty tableau she saw, and the pure white Christmas when she pleaded for this woman with a heart-sore man passed like a vision across the fair June scene.

She would have withdrawn, but Van Tassel saw her. "How do you do, Aunt Love?" he said, and then she came forward to return his cordial greeting.

"Isn't this a queer thing, for me to be in Chicago, Mr. Jack?"

"It is just as it should be," he returned. "Now when we get Gorham and Mr. and Mrs. Page here, we shall be a complete party."

"Mr. and Mrs. Page promise me July," said Clover, "but your cousin Gorham seems to think he would better stay at the hotel. We won't quarrel with him at this distance." She smiled. "Well, Jack, will you go upstairs? Is it to be hammock or Fair this evening?"

"I can scarcely wait till to-morrow for the Fair, yet I don't like to leave you at once."

"Don't mind that. I should enjoy seeing your first view, and should have saved myself for to-night except that I could not escape personally conducting a friend to-day who was very kind to us last year."

"Come in and eat something first, Mr. Jack," said Miss Berry, so anxiously that Van Tassel laughed.

"I am sure, Aunt Love, if I have the good luck to meet you in heaven, the first thing you will do will be to urge upon me some manna or angel's food, or whatever may be on the bill of fare."

"Hush, child. Come straight in, for daylight is precious."

"Thank you, but I knew that, and so I took lunch in the train. I expected only to carom on the house as it were, and then make a bee-line for the great show. We did have the first view of it together, Clover, you know."

The dimple dipped in Clover's cheek just as of old. "It will seem different to you to-night," she answered. "That was impressive and solemn; but now-- No, I won't be so foolish as to try to describe what is incomparable. I will only say, Go. You will be grateful for whatever feeble standards of comparison you have gained by travel."

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE COURT OF HONOR.*

Jack jumped into a Beach wagon as it rolled along from the hotel, and drove down East End Avenue, approaching the gigantic failure known as the Spectatorium, whose bulky, half-clothed skeleton upreared against the sky like a type of blighted hope.

Following Clover's advice, he entered the Park at the Fifty-seventh Street entrance. A band was playing on its aerial perch above the Eskimo village, and Jack smiled to hear the gay, assured strains of "After the Ball" soaring above a vigorous drum accompaniment. He walked across the bridge and looked down where the Eskimos in their white robes with the peaked hoods propelled their slender canoes noiselessly amid the darkening shadows of the willows.

Straight before him to Michigan's brink stretched an electric-lighted avenue, flanked on one side by State buildings, and on the other by that lion-guarded Greek Palace of Art whose columns, even pictured, send a thrill of grateful delight to the hearts of those who have passed within its portals.

The fresh verdure of the lawns showed living green, as Jack passed on to the right until he gained the waterside of the Art Building, and there paused to gaze across at the edifices on the opposite shores. Towers and domes of all shapes and sizes showed amid the June foliage. Every beauty of form and tint surrounded him, divided by broad spaces of rippling water. He was in a city of preternatural loveliness. What wonder that a noiseless boat came gliding to his feet in answer to his wish to explore these distant, fairy vistas. He stepped within, and silently the little craft sped on.

The white loveliness of Brazil, the alabaster lace work of the poetical Fisheries,--Van Tassel glanced over his shoulder as they were left behind, and in a minute more the lofty, winged angels of the Woman's Building blessed his sight.

The dainty conceits of Puck and the White Star melted from his vision to make way for the glories of the Horticultural treasure house, surmounted by its illuminated crystal dome. Lilies, red, yellow, and white, were asleep in the stone-guarded lakelet, upon which smiled the wreathed marble beauty of women and babies on the facade; and in contrast, next sprang to life in electric light the alert equestrian figures of cowboy and Indian controlling restive steed, and peering forth into the night.

But an exclamation escaped Van Tassel's lips as the Transportation Building was passed, and the arched grandeur of the Golden Door shone down upon him. The launch turned, and thus ideally, without sound or effort, he was borne on between Wooded Island and the homes of Mines and Electricity, approaching the vast expanse of the Liberal Arts building, only to turn smoothly again beneath the bridge, and glide on toward that Mecca of all Exposition pilgrims, the unique Court of Honor.

Jack had stood there once in a still, chill time of waiting, and had seen the dead marble city quickened to life. Now the heart which began to beat that day had made all the whiteness to glow. He forgot to breathe as, passing beneath the last bridge, he emerged where the sea horses reared wildly above cascades that went splashing down the stone steps beneath Columbia's triumphal barge.

Through pink and purple, the rippling opaline water in the Grand Basin was losing its sunset hues, and paling, as the fairy boat passed on. The gold of the statue of the Republic was turning to silver. The figures on the snowy palaces that faced the four sides of the lagoon still stood white against the darkening background. Angels poised on soft, strong wings, seemed vivified as the day died. Jack saw their beckoning hands through a mist. He heard the penetrating tones of their silver trumpets through the lingering sweetness of a serenade that proceeded from a distant pavilion. Strange influences were about him, and he was glad that no mortal friend stood by.

His father had worked and planned and striven for this. Did he see the result? Could he know the success that had crowned the efforts of his confreres?

Suddenly, across the spontaneous regret that sprang in Jack's heart at the realization of what Death had snatched from his loved one, came an idea which was like a glimpse of new light. Since such a miracle of beauty as now lay about him was possible in this lower world, might it not be indeed true--

Jack's thoughts became confused. They had followed so long and yearningly out into that unknown country where his father had gone, and about which he had never before troubled himself, that he had grasped for his own consolation a belief that it was a reality; and now something in this stately and beautiful place built with men's hands made him recall vaguely the Bible declaration:--

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

It was with reverence and a species of awe that Van Tassel gazed about him. The Court of Honor had given him his first approach to a realization of the possibilities of the Celestial City.

Only gradually the details of his surroundings impressed him. His boat glided toward the Peristyle, and he began to notice that the water was picturesque with gondolas, propelled by their bright-sashed oarsmen.

Beneath a massive arch he could look out upon the great lake, his lake, his old playmate, now grown grandly alien as guardian of this mystical city. He knew every tone of its voice. He had braved it in its stormy strength, and gone to sleep at night to its lullaby.

Now its surf, breaking against the outer stones, appealed to his moved heart in the song of a past gone forever, and he did not know whether its proximity, the voice of this single friend in a place of strangers, gave the crown of pain or of joy to his tender ecstasy.

And now the royal palaces so lavishly decorated with painting and sculpture began to assume their further nightly decoration of jewels. Tiny incandescent lights ran swiftly in diamond necklaces and diadems about cornice and pediment of buildings, and glittered in long lines close above the waters of the lagoon. The crown of the Administration dome shone out in immobile fire, while torches of flame, "yellow, golden, glorious," flared across its facades.

Van Tassel had no well-meant descriptions of this view to contend against. No one had endeavored to prepare him for what he was to see. To him these wonders were appearing for the first time; one after another spontaneous, unexpected change of scene forming a _crescendo_ of loveliness. More and more unreal grew the fairy spectacle. Less and less did he try to realize the impossible fact that he was in a familiar locality.

He left the boat mechanically because his quiet fellow-passengers--figures also of a dream--did so; and when he paused again, he was standing near a giant horse and plowboy near the water's edge. Behind him stretched the spaces of lawn in front of the Liberal Arts edifice, softly green in the rays of many arc-light moons. He gazed westward toward the Administration Building, before which three great fountains played, and suddenly its regal jeweled dome became more splendid in the surrounding darkness. The cameos upon its surface shone out clear-cut and white in the night. A moment thus, then the carving disappeared, and again the electric jewels stood alone against the sky. That magic, all-revealing light flitted to rest upon the great central fountain where the Muses propelled the barge of Progress through musically plashing waters; and while the erect figure in the chair of state still looked proudly out into the night, all other brightness faded. Even the jewels vanished. The palaces stood dark and mysterious beneath the stars. All at once a light was thrown upon the group which surmounted the Peristyle.

Columbus in his four-horse chariot shone white above the shadowy columns, driving in from the broad waters toward distant, glowing, advancing Columbia.

Van Tassel, spellbound, yielded still more to the mystery of the place and hour, and a subdued murmur caused him to glance again westward. The fountains which flanked the great barge on either side had ceased to play, while a strange beam of light shot heavenward from either one. At last at the foot of the beam a bright liquid bubbling began, which seemed to gather strength, and at last leaped from both fountains high in air. This vivid red changed to violet, to gold, to emerald, to molten silver, breaking in brilliant showers and mists. Apart from the lofty middle jet in each one, circled low whirls of bright water with such swiftness as to stand like sheaves of wheat placed in a ring about the central cascade.

Van Tassel wished to have a fairer view of both fountains, and changed his position to another side of the great horse. Around him were other shadowy beings whom he did not regard. Near his new standpoint and rather in his way was a woman seated. He did not look to see upon what she sat. In his present state of mind he would have supposed it a throne had he thought about it at all; but he did not think about it, and the throne was in his way, so he unconsciously leaned slightly upon it in his effort to see.

The figure in the chair turned her head. "Did you find them?" she asked, then added coldly, "Excuse me," and turned back again.

Van Tassel started like a somnambulist wakened from sleep. Another familiar voice had spoken to him out of the past. At the same moment the search light which had been upon the Quadriga sped to the angel above the pediment of the Agricultural Building. So light her poise, so strong her wings, so beneficent her outstretched arms, it seemed impossible in that mystical irradiation that she should not quit her lightly touched support and float downward to waiting mortals.

A need for sympathy upsprang in Van Tassel's heart. Involuntarily he spoke:--

"Is that not beautiful, Mildred?"

"Jack!" The exclamation in amazed tones as the girl sat up alertly in her wheeled chair. "I was just wondering if you had come. When did you arrive?"

He took the hand she offered. "I don't know," he answered slowly. "Do you see that angel?"

"Indeed I do. That is my angel."

"Our angel then. Let me share it."

"You shall," replied the girl generously. She waited a moment in smiling silence; "but that isn't our hand," she added at last. "That is mine. Haven't you had it a good while, considering it is a loan?"

"Have I? Well," and Jack slowly released it.

"I am in dreamland, Mildred. I am glad to meet you here, whether you are a reality or not."

"Oh! You remind me of those creepy shades in Vedder's picture where one asks the other who he is and the second answers shiverily that he doesn't know. 'I only died last night,' is what he was inconsiderate enough to reply. I have never forgiven him."

Jack stood at her side and leaned an arm on the back of her chair.

"This is a sort of No Man's Land too," he answered, "and when it grows dark here one feels that these marble creatures gain life. See that population on the Peristyle! They belong here. We are only strangers."

"I see the spell of the White City is upon you, else you would certainly express some surprise at finding me alone."

"It is only one of the good and wonderful things that have befallen me to-night. It seems perfectly natural. I needed you, Mildred. I needed some tie to the time in which life was worth living to assure me that it is so still, and that there is perhaps more use in it than there would be in sinking into the opal water and dying rapturously in this enchanted place."

"Why Jack, kindred spirit; you have it as severely as we have!"

The girl extended her gloved hand impetuously, and Van Tassel accepted it with alacrity.

"Are you going to take it away again immediately?" he inquired, slowly waking to the situation. "I was enjoying holding it before more than I realized until I was bereft. One must have sympathy in a place like this."

"Oh I know it," she said, speaking hastily as she withdrew her hand and looked over her shoulder apprehensively, "and I am afraid every second that Mr. Ogden will come back. When our party left Old Vienna, we separated and promised to rendezvous by the plow-horses, _I_ thought, but Mr. Ogden understood that it was to be at the Liberal Arts entrance, and he has gone now to see if they are there. My chair-boy is over yonder resting his weary bones on the steps. I never can endure to have the poor things stand around any more than they have to."

"I trust the Liberal Arts entrance is a sufficiently ambiguous term to detain our friend some time," returned Jack. "Isn't there some white magic that could be practiced on him? Of course no black art would be possible here, but I must say I should have to come down by easy stages before I could converse with Ogden to-night, and I don't want to leave you."

"I don't want you to, either. I--I especially don't. And I told Mr. Ogden that if we met you here I should have to go with you-- Yes, I put it that way, for I told him we expected you, and it wasn't quite the thing for me to come away; but of course I hadn't the least idea we _should_ meet you."

"And you told him that too, I suppose," remarked Jack dryly, all his dreaminess departed. "You declared it would be your duty to go with me if we did meet, but of course such a calamity for Ogden was improbable. I know just how you put it. Girls know how to smooth a man the right way. Now that we have met, and Ogden is out of the way, you tell me you especially want me to remain with you, and don't want him."

Mildred looked up at the speaker, and after a moment burst into a mirthful laugh.

"Where is our angel?" she asked.

Jack glanced across the lagoon, but all was shadow save for the rosy glow in the colonnade of the Agricultural Building.

"Vanished!" exclaimed Mildred. "Frightened back by your naughty temper just as she was about to fly down to us."

"I don't like to think of you as the least bit of a coquette," said Van Tassel.

"Then don't. It is extremely disrespectful. Oh, Mr. Ogden, you are back again. The unexpected always happens, you see, and truth is stranger than fiction. Here is Mr. Van Tassel, after all."

"Well, Jack." The two men greeted each other, each endeavoring to conceal his dissatisfaction. "It is possible to find a needle in the haymow, then," said Ogden. "Miss Bryant told me you were expected about now. Your first visit? What do you think of our little show?"

"Can't say yet," returned Jack shortly. "I am just going to see another part of it."

"The fireworks, I suppose. They will start, now the fountains have stopped."

"Fireworks? No!" exclaimed Van Tassel in genuine repugnance. What sacrilege for pyrotechnics to paint the lily! His eyes fell upon a revolving globe of light inside a window of the Electricity Building. Its color changed with each revolution. "I think I will wander over in that direction," he said.

"The fireworks are always fine," remarked Mildred. "Are you sure you would not prefer to come to the lake shore and see them? The reflections in the water give beautiful effects." As she spoke, the girl left her wheeled-chair.

"Oh, don't rise, Miss Bryant," begged Ogden hastily. "I will find our pusher. The rest of the party did understand that we were to come to the Liberal Arts entrance. They will meet us at Baker's Chocolate House."

"Don't let me detain you," said Van Tassel courteously. The electric jewels were again running in lines of light around the buildings. Jack could see the expression in Mildred's face as she stood before him.

She waited a moment and Ogden stepped aside to find the guide.

"I don't want to see a rocket go sputtering over this place," explained Jack, for the girl's eyes demanded something.

She gave a short laugh. "You poor, provincial Bostonian," she remarked. "Go your way; and when you discover what the fireworks of the White City really are, perhaps your fastidiousness will not be shocked. Certainly, Mr. Ogden, I am ready. _Au revoir_, Jack."

"Good-by, old fellow," said Ogden, as Mildred resumed her position in the chair. He was beaming again with relief from the apprehended loss of Miss Bryant's society.

Van Tassel moved away in the opposite direction from that they took: but no amount of attempted concentration on his surroundings would restore to him the dreamy delight of half an hour ago. He saw continually the reproach and surprise in Mildred's eyes.

"What right had I to take her away from Ogden?" his thoughts protested. "It was all nonsense for her to think that hospitality demanded it."

Then his reflections passed over from the indignant hazel eyes to Miss Bryant's cavalier. The latter's uneasy devotion had been apparent even in the few phrases Jack had heard him say. The eagerly bent head, the short nervous laughs with which he interspersed his sentences told the story: and instantly curiosity leaped up in Van Tassel's heart as to Mildred's real sentiments toward her admirer.

She had said she especially wanted Jack not to leave her to-night. What did that mean? Jack walked a little faster because he suddenly knew that it was the fact that she had said that, coupled with Ogden's lover-like manner which had made him hold aloof.

He had made a point of giving Ogden his chance, and now he felt ashamed of it. Why should he have felt injured because Mildred had a lover? Probably she had a dozen, and what wonder if she had?

He felt humiliated, and convicted of disloyalty. Milly Bryant had wanted defense from something, and had appealed to him in vain.

Jack had passed along the side of the Electrical Building and crossed the bridge to Wooded Island by this time, and, deciding to postpone further exploration, determined to walk straight up through the Cornell Avenue entrance and go home. But as thousands of people, know to the cost of their groaning muscles, getting on Wooded Island and getting off it are two very different things. Jack wandered about for some time before he found another bridge, and when he did so, it led off to the east, and his aimless walk brought him to the lake shore. Cannon-like reports were sounding upon the air, and superb bombs bursting high above the water broke into lavish showers of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The shore was black with a watching multitude, and Van Tassel found himself drawn to its outskirts to watch and wonder with the rest. Volcanoes and serpents of flame, bouquets of a hundred rockets at once, filled the night with brightness, paling the stars, and illuminating the surging water; and when a succession of fiery white cascades slowly unrolled their graceful curves and stood poised in air, showering a light as of day upon the scene, Jack joined in the cheers that, with whistles from a congregation of boats saluted the gorgeous spectacle.

"I'm a fool," he said, as he resumed his walk northward. "I am sure Mildred would have given me her hand again on that."

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*A MASSACHUSETTS CELEBRATION.*

"I see by the paper there's some sort o' doin's at the Massachusetts house to-day," observed Miss Berry to Clover, as the two stood in the dining-room one morning after breakfast was over.

"A day when you ought to visit the Fair then, surely," replied her companion.

"Why, yes. I don't know but I will," returned Miss Lovina ruminatively.

"And you ought to make an early start, Aunt Love. You are not the only loyal Yankee in town."

"Just so," said the housekeeper placidly. "Mrs. Van Tassel, we must have a chocolate puddin' pretty soon. Mr. Jack was fond o' chocolate from a child. I well remember"--

"Yes, I want to hear all about it some time; but you know how hard it is for you to get an early start for the Fair. Let me attend to your department to-day, and you go down to the Massachusetts house and have a good time."

"My dear, I shall get there in good season. Don't you worry a mite. Independence is won. The country's safe and my bein' on hand at just such a minute don't signify. I'd rather go through my reg'lar routine. I'm happier that way."

Thus it was that when Aunt Love stepped leisurely through the Cornell Avenue turnstile, taking her way down between Kentucky and West Virginia and around Pennsylvania's edifice, she saw that the Massachusetts Building was surrounded by a crowd.

"That's clever," she murmured, in nowise disturbed by the evident fact that she could not approach near enough to hear the speeches. "There's plenty o' folks to show an interest."

The wreathed facade of New York's palatial home rose beside her, and she ascended the broad marble steps, passed through the hall, and out upon the eastern porch. A fountain plashed coolly in its centre, wicker rocking-chairs stood about, dull blue portieres were looped between its pillars. Miss Berry was warm and tired from her walk. The chairs looked inviting. She sank into one of them, and listened to the lulling tone of the fountain while she looked across the street at the more energetic patriots or more curious idlers, who lined the way to the Hancock house in the hope of seeing the dignitaries of the occasion pass in and out.

A fine band stationed in the yard of the mansion began to play inspiringly. As Miss Berry grew refreshed under the influence of the silvery falling water and her comfortable chair, her anxiety to see and hear increased. Her point of view was unsatisfactory, and yet the idea of joining the crowd of spectators was not attractive.

"I wonder if they'll let you go upstairs in this grand, big place," she pondered. "One o' those blue fellers'll stop me quick enough if I can't. They know a good deal better what a body can't do than what she can."

Miss Berry might be excused for grumbling. She had made her acquaintance with the Fair City at a date before the Columbian Guards had learned their points of compass; and she would have to become lighter on her feet before she could forgive them the unnecessary walking which their blundering directions had caused her to perform.

She left the shady stone porch, and, passing through the spacious apartment which led to the hall, began to ascend the stairs. No one protested, and she took courage to remark her surroundings.

"The New Yorkers seem to like any color so it's red," she mused, noting the Pompeian glow of the wall. Of course a Massachusetts woman on this day must not be uncritical of her neighbor's efforts.

But when Miss Lovina entered the banquet hall she stood amazed. Only for a moment, however. It was an unrighteous place. She felt it. She refused to be dazzled by its prismatic glass and its painted cherubs. There was an unholy luxury, a theatrical suggestion about its velvet boxes. Miss Berry, looking straight before her, hastened swiftly as she dared across its polished floor and through the light room beyond, out upon an upper balcony which overlooked the festivities of her own substantial and respectable State.

Yes, Miss Berry could breathe out here. Coming from the seductive shadow of the dim hall, the sunlight seemed doubly clear. The heavenly blue of the firmament bent above snowy and golden domes, flying flags, and winding waterways, while the bewitching sparkle of Lake Michigan's electric blues and peacock greens seemed more vital as one listened to the rhythmic harmonies poured forth on the summer air by the musicians below. It was a season of delight. The whole atmosphere seemed charged with gayety.

A man leaning his elbows on the rail of the balcony was thinking this when Miss Lovina emerged from the doorway. She glanced at him, then glanced again, then gazed.

"Of course 't ain't him; but if it don't look like him!" she mused.

The more she looked, the stronger grew the resemblance of that back to one she knew. The man was interested in the celebration over the way. Why should she not stand beside him a minute?