John Marvel, Assistant

"I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be exchanging the ordinary inanities."

She bowed, and then after a moment's silence added:

"I have nothing to say which could possibly interest you, and suggest that we do what I have heard has been done under similar circumstances, and simply count."

I thought of the molten metal pourable down an offender's throat. And with the thought came another: Did it mean that she was going to marry that young Canter? It was as if one who had entered Eden and discovered Eve, had suddenly found the serpent coiling himself between them.

"Very well." I was now really angry. I had hoped up to this time that some means for reconciliation might be found, but this dashed my hope. I felt that I was the aggrieved person, and I determined to prove to her that I would make no concession. I was not her slave. "Very well, then—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—nine, ten, eleven, twelve—thirteen," I said, looking straight ahead of me and dropping every syllable as if it were an oath. She gave me a barely perceptible side glance. I think I had taken her aback by my prompt compliance. She hesitated a moment.

"Or, as that is not very amusing, suppose we cap verses? I hear you know a great deal of poetry—Mr. Wolffert told me. I never knew any one with such a memory as his." I recognized the suggestion as a flag of truce.

I bowed, and as, of course, "Mary had a little lamb," was the first thing that popped into my head with its hint of personal application, I foolishly quoted the first verse, intending her to make the personal application.

She was prompt to continue it, with, I thought, a little sub-tone of mischief in her voice:

she said demurely. There she stopped, so I took up the challenge.

It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I had finished—still, it conveyed my meaning.

She paused a moment and evidently started to look at me, but as evidently she thought better of it. She, however, murmured, "I thought we would quote verses, not make them."

I took this to be a confession that she was not able to make them, and I determined to show how much cleverer I was; so, without noticing the cut of the eye which told of her wavering, I launched out:

To this she responded with a promptness which surprised me:

I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began rapidly:

"Than under her ire," I repeated to myself. "Than under the ire"—what the dickens will rhyme with "wilt less"? We had reached the dining-room by this time and I could see that she was waiting with a provoking expression of satisfaction on her face over my having stalled in my attempt at a rhyme. I placed her in her chair and, as I took my own seat, a rhyme came to me—a poor one, but yet a rhyme:

I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come easily.

"I was wondering how you'd get out of that," she said with a little smile which dimpled her cheek beguilingly. "You know you might have said,

or even,

Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and sense, too."

I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It would never do to let her make fun of me. So I kept my serious air.

I determined to try a new tack and surprise her. I had a few shreds of Italian left from a time when I had studied the poets as a refuge from the desert dulness of my college course, and now having, in a pause, recalled the lines, I dropped, as though quite naturally, Dante's immortal wail:

I felt sure that this would at least impress her with my culture, while if by any chance she knew the lines, which I did not apprehend, it would impress her all the more and might prove a step toward a reconciliation.

For a moment she said nothing, then she asked quietly, "How does the rest of it go?"

She had me there, for I did not know the rest of the quotation.

she said with a cut of her eye, and a liquid tone that satisfied me I had, as the saying runs, "stepped from the frying-pan into the fire."

She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that reminded me, through I know not what subtle influence, of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she could not tell whether I was in earnest or was jesting.

I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that I was getting decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her murmuring so softly as almost to appear speaking to herself:

I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a beguiling little dimple was flickering near the corners of her mouth and her long lashes caught me all anew. My heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my Alice much better than my Dante, so when she said, "You can talk, can't you?" I answered quietly, and quite as if it were natural to speak in verse:

She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she took up the next verse:

I hoped that she was embarrassed when I found that she had taken my napkin by mistake, and she was undoubtedly so when she discovered that she had it.

"I beg your pardon," she said as she handed me hers.

I bowed.

With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to the lady on my other side, with whom I was soon in an animated discussion, but my attention was not so engrossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out of the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on the other side of Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and that she had to repeat every word that she said to him.

The lady on the other side of me was rambling on about something, but just what, I had not the least idea (except that it related to the problem-novel, a form of literature that I detest), as I was soon quite engrossed in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh and her deaf companion, in which my name, which appeared to have caught the gentleman's attention, was figuring to some extent.

"Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?" I heard him ask in what he doubtless imagined to be a whisper.

"Yes, I think so," said Miss Leigh.

"You say he is not?"

"No, I did not say so; I think he is."

"He is a fine lawyer," I heard him say, and I was just pluming myself on the rapid extension of my reputation, when he added, "He is an old friend of your father's, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to represent your father in his case against those rascals.—A friend of yours, too," were the next words I heard, for decency required me to appear to be giving some attention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly wished in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she was telling about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, I did not know, but was ready to damn at a venture.

"He told me he came on your account, as much as on your father's," said the gentleman, rallyingly. "You had better look out. These old bachelors are very susceptible. No fool like an old fool, you know."

To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from which I gathered that her neighbor was a bachelor himself, for he answered in the high key which he mistook for a whisper:

"You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I'll ask you to marry me before the dessert."

I was recalled to myself by my other neighbor, who had been talking steadily, asking me suddenly, and in a tone which showed she demanded an answer:

"What do you think of that?"

"Why, I think it was quite natural," I said.

"You do?"

"Yes, I do," I declared firmly.

"You think it was natural for him to run off with his own daughter-in-law!" Her eyes were wide with astonishment.

"Well, not precisely natural, but—under the circumstances, you see, it was certainly more natural than for him to run off with his mother-in-law—you will have to admit that."

"I admit nothing of the kind," she declared, with some heat. "I am a mother-in-law myself, and I must say I think the jibes at mothers-in-law are very uncalled for."

"Oh! now you put me out of court," I said. "I did not mean to be personal. Of course, there are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law."

Happily, at this moment the gentleman on her other side insisted on securing her attention, and I turned just in time to catch the dimples of amusement that were playing in Eleanor Leigh's face. She had evidently heard my mistake.

"Oh! he is so deaf!" she murmured, half turning to me, though I was not quite sure that she was not speaking to herself. The next second she settled the question. "He is so distressingly deaf," she repeated in an undertone, with the faintest accent of appeal for sympathy in her voice. I again recognized the flag of truce. But I replied calmly:

The color mantled in her cheek and she raised her head slightly.

"Are you going to keep that up? I suppose we shall have to talk a little. I think we are attracting attention. For Heaven's sake, don't speak so loud! We are being observed."

But I continued:

"It is very rude of you to go on in that way when I am speaking. You remind me of a machine," she smiled. "Here am I stuck between two men, one of whom cannot hear a word I say, while the other does nothing but run on like a machine." I observed, with deep content, that she was becoming exasperated.

At that moment the hostess leant forward and said:

"What are you two so interested in discussing there? I have been watching, and you have not stopped a minute."

Eleanor Leigh burst into a laugh. "Mr. Glave is talking Arabic to me."

"Arabic!" exclaimed the hostess. "Mr. Glave, you have been in the East, have you?"

"Yes, he came from the East where the wise men always come from," said Miss Leigh. Then turning to me she said in an undertone, "You see what I told you."

For reply, I simply quoted on, though I had a little pang as I saw the shadow come into her eyes and the smile leave her mouth.

"I think that was a very good occupation for you," she said, turning away, with her head very high.

"Will you let me say something to you?" she said in a low tone a moment later, and, without waiting, she added:

"I think it was rather nasty in me to say what I said to you when you first came in, but you had treated me so rudely when I spoke to you on the street."

"You do not call it rude not to answer a letter when a gentleman writes to explain an unfortunate mistake, and then cut him publicly?"

"I did not receive it until afterward," she said. "I was away from town, and as to cutting you—I don't know what you are talking about."

"At the Charity Fair."

"I never saw you. I wondered you were not there."

Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more astounded, and had it opened near me I should possibly have sprung in in my confusion. I had, as usual, simply made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew. At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over and with it I feared my chance was over too.

"Give me a moment. I must have one moment," I said as she passed me on her way out of the dining-room with the other ladies, her head held very high.

She inclined her head and said something in so low a tone that I did not catch it.

King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those cigars smoked that evening. When, at last, the host moved to return to the drawing-room, I bolted in only to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a middle-aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about the Pooles, whom she had heard I knew. She had heard that Lilian Poole had not married very happily. "Did I know?"

"No, I did not know," nor, in fact, did I care, though I could not say so. Then another question: "Could I tell why all the men appeared to find Miss Leigh so very attractive?" Yes, I thought I could tell that—"Because she is very attractive."

"Oh well, yes, I suppose she is—pretty and all that, with a sort of kitteny softness—but——"

"There is no 'but' about it," I interrupted brusquely—"she is just what you said—very attractive. For one thing, she has brains; for another, heart. Neither of them is so common as not to be attractive." I thought of the young tigress concealed in that "kitteny softness" of which the lady spoke, and was determined not to permit the sly cat to see what I really felt.

"Of course, you know that she is going to marry Mr. Canter? He is the best parti in town."

"Of course, I do not know anything of the kind," I said bowing. "Since I had the honor of sitting by her I am thinking of marrying her myself."

"I know it. They all fall at the first encounter!" exclaimed the lady, and I saw she had no humor, and decided to hedge. "I only mean that I do not believe Miss Leigh would marry Mr. Canter or any one else for his money, or for any other reason except the best."

Finally, having escaped from her, I was just making my way toward Miss Leigh, who had been standing up talking to two men who on entering the room had promptly sought her out, when a servant entered and spoke to the hostess, who immediately crossed over and gave his message to Miss Leigh. "Mr. James Canter has called for you; must you go?"

"Yes, I fear I must." So with hardly a glance at me she passed out, leaving the room so dark that I thought the lights had been dimmed, but I discovered that it was only that Miss Eleanor Leigh had left. I could not in decency leave at once, though I confess the place had lost its charm for me, especially since I learned that Miss Leigh's escort for the ball was Mr. James Canter. I had other reasons than jealousy for preferring that he should not be Eleanor Leigh's escort. In my meditations that night as I walked the streets, Mr. James Canter held a somewhat conspicuous place.

James Canter was possibly the most attentive of all the beaux Miss Leigh had, and they were more numerous than I at that time had any idea of. He was prospectively among the wealthiest young men in the city, for his father, who idolized him, was one of the largest capitalists in the State. He was, as the stout lady had said, certainly esteemed by ambitious mammas among the most advantageous partis the city could boast of. And he was of all, without doubt, the most talked of. Moreover, he had many friends, was lavish in the expenditure of his money beyond the dream of extravagance, and what was called, not without some reason, a good fellow. Before I met him I had already had a glimpse of him as he "bucked" against his rival, Count Pushkin, on the night when, dejected and desperate, I, in a fit of weakness, went into the gambling-house determined to stake my last dollar on the turn of the wheel, and the sight of Pushkin saved me. But it was after I met him that I came to know what the pampered young man was. I was beginning now to be thrown with some of the lawyers and this had led to further acquaintances, among them young Canter. At first, I rather liked him personally, for he was against Pushkin and his gay manner was attractive. He was good-looking enough after the fleshly kind—a big, round, blondish man, only he was too fat and at twenty-eight had the waist and jowl of a man of forty who had had too many dinners and drunk too much champagne. But when I came to know him I could not see that he had a shred of principle of any kind whatsoever. His reputation among his friends was that had he applied himself to business, he would have made a reputation equal to his father's, which was that of a shrewd, far-sighted, cool-headed man of business who could "see a dollar as far as the best of them," but that he was squandering his talents in sowing a crop of wild oats so plentiful that it was likely to make a hole even in his father's accumulated millions, and its reaping might be anywhere between the poor-house and the grave. I knew nothing of this at the time, and after I came to know him as I did later, my judgment of him took form from the fact that I discovered he not only did not tell the truth, but had lost the power even to recognize it. Still, I think my real appraisement of him came when I discovered that he was paying assiduous attentions to Miss Leigh. I could not help remarking the frequency with which I found his name in juxtaposition with hers in the published accounts of social functions, where "Mr. Canter led the cotillion with Miss Leigh," or "Mr. Canter drove his coach with Miss Leigh on the box seat," etc., etc., and as my acquaintance began to extend among the young men about town, I heard more than occasional conjectures as to their future. It appeared to be accepted rather as a matter of course that the result lay entirely with the young man. It was a view that I fiercely rejected in my heart, but I could say nothing beyond a repudiation of such a view in general.

In view of my knowledge of Mr. Canter, it was natural enough that I should be enraged to find him the escort of Eleanor Leigh, and I fear my temper rather showed itself in the conversation which took place and which soon became general, partly because of the earnestness with which I expressed my views on the next subject that came up. The two or three young girls of the company had left at the same time with Miss Leigh, and the ladies who remained were, for the most part, married women of that indefinite age which follows youth after a longer or shorter interval. They had all travelled and seen a good deal of the world, and they knew a good deal of it; at least, some of them did and they thought that they knew more than they actually did know.

They agreed with more unanimity than they had yet shown on any subject that America was hopelessly bourgeois. Listening to them, I rather agreed with them.

"Take our literature, our stage, our novels," said one, a blonde lady of some thirty-five years, though she would, possibly, have repudiated a lustrum and a half of the measure.

"You differentiate the literature and the novels?" I interrupted.

"Yes. I might—but—I mean the lot. How provincial they are!"

"Yes, they appear so. Well?"

"They do not dare to discuss anything large and vital."

"Oh! yes, they dare. They are daring enough, but they don't know how—they are stupid."

"No, they are afraid."

"Afraid? Of what?"

"Of public opinion—of the bourgeois so-called virtue of the middle class who control everything."

"That is the only valid argument I ever heard in favor of the bourgeois," I said.

"What do you mean? Don't you agree with me?"

"I certainly do not. I may not seek virtue and ensue it; but at least I revere it."

"Do you mean that you think we should not write or talk of anything—forbidden?"

"That depends on what you mean by forbidden. If you mean——"

"I think there should be no subject forbidden," interrupted the lady by whom I had sat at table, a stout and tightly laced person of some forty summers. "Why shouldn't I talk of any subject I please?" She seemed to appeal to me, so I answered her.

"I do not at this instant think of any reason except that it might not be decent."

This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared for a moment to stagger her; but she was game, and rallied.

"I know—that is the answer I always get."

"Because it is the natural answer."

"But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?"

"Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. Your sex were slaves, they were weaker physically, less robust; they were made beasts of burden, were beaten and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure, lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally the idea and age of chivalry came—based on the high Christian morality. You were placed on a pinnacle. Men loved and fought for your favor and made it the guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a mist of adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you as something cleaner and better and purer than themselves; built up a wall of division and protection for you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away, and come down in the mire and dust and dirt?"

"But I don't want to be adored—set up on a pedestal."

"Then you probably will not be," interrupted my deaf neighbor.

"I want to be treated as an equal—as an—an—intelligent being."

"I should think that would depend on yourself. I do not quite understand whom you wish to be the equal of—of men? Men are a very large class—some are very low indeed."

"Oh! You know what I mean—of course, I don't mean that sort."

"You mean gentlemen?"

"Certainly."

"Then I assure you you cannot discuss indecent subjects in mixed company; gentlemen never do. Nor write coarse books—gentlemen never do nowadays—nor discuss them either."

"Do you mean to say that great novelists never discuss such questions?" she demanded triumphantly.

"No, but it is all in the manner—the motive. I have no objection to the matter—generally, provided it be properly handled—but the obvious intention—the rank indecentness of it. See how Scott or George Eliot, or Tolstoi or Turgénieff, or, later on, even Zola, handles such vital themes. How different their motive from the reeking putrescence of the so-called problem-novel."

"Oh! dear! they must be very bad indeed!" exclaimed a lady, shocked by the sound of my adjectives.

"They are," suddenly put in my oldest neighbor, who had been listening intently with his hand behind his ear, "only you ladies don't know how bad they are or you would not discuss them with men."

This closed the discussion and a group of ladies near me suddenly branched off into another subject and one which interested me more than the discussion of such literature as the trash which goes by the name of the problem novel.

"Who is Eleanor Leigh in love with?" asked some one irrelevantly—a Mrs. Arrow—whose mind appeared much given to dwelling on such problems. She addressed the company generally, and possibly my former neighbor at the table in particular.

"Is she in love?" asked another.

"Certainly, I never saw any one so changed. Why, she has been moping so I scarcely know her—and she has taken to charity. That's a sure sign. I think it must be that young preacher she talks so much about."

"Well, I don't know who she is in love with," said the lady who had sat next to me at dinner, "but I know who she is going to marry. She is going to marry Jim Canter. Her aunt has made that match."

"Oh! do you think so?" demanded our hostess, who had joined the group. "I don't believe she will marry any one she is not in love with, and I can't believe she is in love with that fat, coarse, dissipated creature. He is simply repulsive to me."

I began to conceive an even higher opinion of my hostess than I had already had.

"I don't think it is anybody," continued our hostess.

"Oh! yes, you do—you think it is Doctor Capon."

"Doctor Capon! It is much more likely to be Mr. Marvel."

"Mr. Marvel! Who is he?—Oh, yes, the young preacher who turned Jew and was put out of his church. I remember now."

"Is Mr. Marvel a Jew?" I inquired. "Oh! yes, indeed, and a terrible Socialist."

"Ah, I did not know that."

"I heard she was going to marry a Jew," interjected another lady corroboratively, "but I must say it looks very much like Mr. Canter to me."

"Oh! she wouldn't marry a Jew?" suggested Mrs. Arrow. "I heard there was a young lawyer or something."

"She would if she'd a mind to," said our hostess.

"I still stand by Doctor Capon," declared Mrs. Arrow. "He is so refined."

"And I by Jim Canter—I thought at one time it was Count Pushkin; but since Milly McSheen has taken him away, the other seems to be the winning card. I must say I think the count would have been the better match of the two."

"I don't think that," exclaimed the other lady. "And neither would you, if you knew him."

"Possibly, she knows the other," I suggested.

"Oh! no—you see she could get rid of the count, if he proved too objectionable, and then she would still have the title."

"I never heard a more infamous proposal," I said in an aside to our hostess. She laughed. "No, did you—but she was only jesting——"

"Not she!" I was in no mood to tolerate jesting on the subject of Eleanor Leigh's marriage. My aside to our hostess drew the attention of the others to me, and Mrs. Arrow suddenly said, "Mr. Glave, which would you say? You know them both, don't you?"

"I do."

"Well, which would you say?"

"Neither," said I. I wanted to add that I would cheerfully murder them both before I would allow either of them to destroy Eleanor Leigh's life; but I contented myself with my brief reply.

"Oh! Mr. Glave is evidently one of her victims," laughed our hostess, for which I was grateful to her.

I came away from my friend's with the heroic determination to prevent Miss Leigh's life from being ruined and to accomplish this by the satisfactory method of capturing her myself. My resolve was a little dampened by reading in a newspaper next day the headlines announcing an "Important Engagement," which though no names were used pointed clearly at Miss Leigh and the hopeful heir and partner of Mr. James Canter, Sr. Reading carefully the article, I found that the engagement was only believed to exist. I felt like a reprieved criminal.

He who has not felt the pangs of a consuming passion has no conception of the true significance of life. The dull, cold, indifferent lover knows nothing of the half-ecstatic anguish of the true lover or the wholly divine joy of reconciliation even in anticipation. As well may the frozen pole dream of the sun-bathed tropic. It was this joy that I hugged in my heart even in face of the declaration of her expected engagement.

Next day I was talking to two or three young fellows when Canter and some episode in which he had figured as rather more defiant than usual of public opinion, came up, and one of them said to another, a friend of his and an acquaintance of mine, "What is Jim going to do when he gets married? He'll have to give up his 'friends' then. He can't be running two establishments."

"Oh! Jim ain't going to get married. He's just fooling around."

"Bet you—the old man's wild for it."

"Bet you—not now. He can't. Why, that woman—"

"Oh! he can pension her off."

"Her?—which her?"

"Well, all of 'em. If he don't get married soon, he won't be fit to marry."

It was here that I entered the conversation. They had not mentioned any name—they had been too gentlemanly to do so. But I knew whom they had in mind, and I was inwardly burning.

"He isn't fit to marry now," I said suddenly.

"What!" They both turned to me in surprise.

"No man who professes to be in love with any good woman," I said, "and lives as he lives is fit for any woman to marry. I am speaking generally," I added, to guard against the suspicion that I knew whom they referred to. "I know Mr. Canter but slightly; but what I say applies to him too."

"Oh! you'd cut out a good many," laughed one of the young men with a glance at his friend.

"No, gentlemen, I stand on my proposition. The man who is making love to a pure woman with a harlot's kisses on his lips is not worthy of either. He ought to be shot."

"There'd be a pretty big exodus if your views were carried out," said one of them.

"Well, I don't want to pose as any saint. I am no better than some other men; but, at least, I have some claim to decency, and that is fundamental. Your two-establishment gentry are no more nor less than a lot of thorough-paced blackguards."

They appeared to be somewhat impressed by my earnestness, even though they laughed at it. "There are a good many of them," they said. "Your friends, the Socialists——"

"Yes. I know. The ultra-Socialist's views I reprobate, but, at least, he is sincere. He is against any formal hard and fast contract, and his motive is, however erroneous, understandable. He believes it would result in an uplift—in an increase of happiness for all. He is, of course, hopelessly wrong. But here is a man who is debasing himself and others—all others—and, above all, the one he is pretending to exalt above all. I say he is a low-down scoundrel to do it. He is prostituting the highest sentiment man has ever imagined."

"Well, at any rate, you are vehement," said one.

"You've cut Jim out," said the other.

The conversation took place in a sort of lounging-room adjoining a down-town café frequented by young men. At this moment who should walk in but Mr. James Canter himself. The talk ceased as suddenly as cut-off steam, and when one of the young men after an awkward silence made a foolish remark about the fine day, which was in reality rainy and cold, Canter's curiosity was naturally excited.

"What were you fellows talking about? Women?"

"No," said one of the others—"nothing particular."

"Yes!" I said, "we were—talking about women."

"Whose women?"

"Yours." I looked him steadily in the eye.

He started, but recovered himself.

"Which of 'em?" he inquired as he flung himself into a chair and looked around for a match for the cigarette which he took from a jewel-studded gold case. "I am rather well endowed with them at present. What were you saying?"

I repeated my remark about the two-establishment gentry. His face flushed angrily; but my steady eye held him in check and he took a long, inhaling breath.

"Well, I don't give a blank what you think about it, or anything else." He expelled the smoke from his lungs.

"Perhaps—but that does not affect the principle. It stands. You may not care about the Rock of Gibraltar; but it stands and is the key to the situation."

He was in a livid rage, and I was prepared for the attack which I expected him to make; but he restrained himself. His forte was insolence.

"You teach Sunday-school, don't you?"

I thought this was a reference to one whose name I did not mean his lips to sully, and I determined to forestall him.

"I do," I said quietly. "I teach for Mr. Marvel."

"I know—the psalm-singing parson who has made all that trouble in this town—he and his Jew partner. We are going to break them up."

"Both are men whose shoes you are not fit to clean; and as to making trouble, the trouble was made by those a good deal nearer you than John Marvel—your precious firm and your side-partners—Coll McSheen and David Wringman."

"Well, you'd better confine your labors to your dirty Jews and not try to interfere in the affairs of gentlemen."

"As to the latter, I never interfere in the affairs of gentlemen, and as to the dirty Jews, I assure you they are not as dirty as you are; for their dirt is all outside while yours is within."

I had supposed he would resent this, but he had his reasons for not doing so, though they were none too creditable to him. Mr. Canter was too bold with women and not bold enough with men. And a little later it transpired that with one woman, at least, he was as tame as he was with the other sex. The woman the young men referred to kept him in fear of his life for years, and he had neither the physical nor moral courage to break away from her.

MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE HIM

Though I had not acted on the principle, I had always felt that a young man had no right to pay his addresses to a young lady without giving some account of himself to her father, or whoever might stand in the relation of her natural protector; certainly that it was incumbent on a gentleman to do so. I felt, therefore, that it was necessary for me before proceeding further in my pursuit of Eleanor Leigh to declare my intention to her father. My declaration to her had been the result of a furious impulse to which I had yielded; but now that I had cooled, my principle reasserted itself. One trouble was that I did not know Mr. Leigh. I determined to consult John Marvel, and I had a sneaking hope that he might not think it necessary for me to speak about it to him. I accordingly went around to his room and after he had gotten through with a tramp or two, who had come to bleed him of any little pittance which he might have left, he came in. I bolted into the middle of my subject.

"John, I am in love." I fancied that his countenance changed slightly—I thought, with surprise.

"Yes. I know you are."

"How did you know it? I am in love with Eleanor Leigh." His countenance changed a shade more, and he looked away and swallowed with a little embarrassment.

"Yes. I know that too."

"How did you know it?"

He smiled. John sometimes smiled rather sadly.

"I want you to help me."

"How?"

"I don't know. I have to go and ask Mr. Leigh."

"What! Has she accepted you?" His face was, as I recalled later, full of feeling of some kind.

"No. I wish to Heaven she had! If anything, she has rejected me,—but that is nothing. I am going to win her and marry her. I am going to ask her father's permission to pay my addresses to her, and then I don't care whether he gives it or not.—Yes, I do care, too; but whether he does or not I am going to win her and him and marry her."

"Henry," he said gently, "you deserve to win her, and I believe, maybe—if—" He went off into a train of reflection, which I broke in on.

"I don't think I do," I said honestly, sobered by his gentleness; "but that makes no difference. I love her better than all the rest of the world, and I mean to win her or die trying. So, none of your 'maybes' and 'ifs'. I want your advice how to proceed. I have not a cent in the world; am, in fact, in debt; and I feel that I must tell her father so."

"That will scarcely tend to strengthen your chances with him," said John. My spirits rose.

"I can't help that. I feel that I must tell him!" Though I spoke so grandly, my tone contained a query.

"Yes, that's right," said John decisively. His mind had been working slowly. My spirits drooped.

I was not conscious till then how strongly I had hoped that he might disagree with me. My heart quite sank at the final disappearance of my hope. But I was in for it now. My principle was strong enough when strengthened by John's invincible soundness.

I walked into the building in which Mr. Leigh had his offices, boldly enough. If my heart thumped, at least, I had myself well in hand. The clerk to whom I addressed myself said he was not in, but was expected in shortly. Could he do anything for me? No, I wanted to see Mr. Leigh personally. Would I take a seat?

I took a chair, but soon made up my mind that if I sat there five minutes I would not be able to speak. I sat just one minute. At least, that was the time my watch registered, though I early discovered that there was no absolute standard of the divisions of time. The hands of a clock may record with regularity the revolutions of the earth, the moon, or the stars; but not the passage of time as it affects the human mind. The lover in his mistress' presence, and the lover waiting for his mistress, or for that matter, for her father, has no equal gauge of measurement of Time's passage. With the one the winged sandals of Mercury were not so fleet, with the other, the leaden feet of Chronos were not so dull.

I decided that I must get out into the air; so, mumbling something to the surprised clerk about returning shortly, I bolted from the office and walked around the block. As I look back at it now, I was a rather pitiable object. I was undoubtedly in what, if I were speaking and not writing, I should call "the deuce of a funk"; but for the sake of fine English, I will term it a panic. My heart was beating, my mouth was dry, my knees were weak. I came very near darting off every time I reached a corner, and I should certainly have done so but for the knowledge that if I did I should never get up the courage to come back again. So I stuck and finally screwed up my courage to return to the office; but every object and detail in those streets through which I passed that morning are fastened in my mind as if they had been stamped there by a stroke of lightning.

When I walked in again the clerk said, Yes, Mr. Leigh had returned. Would I take a seat for a moment? I sat down in what was a chair of torture. A man under certain stress is at a great disadvantage in a chair. If he be engaged in reflection, the chair is a proper place for him; but if in action, he should stand. Every moment was an added burden for me to carry, which was not lightened when young Canter walked out of the office and with a surly glance at me passed on.

The clerk took my card, entered the door, and closed it after him. I heard a dull murmur of voices within, and then after what appeared to me an interminable wait, he reappeared and silently motioned me in. I hated him for months for that silent gesture. It seemed like Fate.

As I entered, a man past middle age with a strong face, a self-contained mouth and jaw, a calm brow, and keen eyes glanced up from a note he was writing and said:

"Excuse me a moment if you please. Won't you take a seat?"

I sat with the perspiration breaking out as I watched the steady run of his pen over the sheet. I felt as a criminal must who watches the judge preparing to pass sentence. At length he was through. Then he turned to me.

"Well, Mr. Glave?"

I plunged at once into my subject.

"Mr. Leigh, I am a young lawyer here, and I have come to ask your permission to pay my addresses to your daughter."

"Wha-t!" His jaw positively fell, he was so surprised. But I did not give him time.

"I have no right to ask it—to ask any favor of you, much less a favor which I feel is the greatest any man can ask at your hands. But I—love her—and—I—I simply ask that you will give me your consent to win her if I can." I was very frightened, but my voice had steadied me, and I was gazing straight in his eyes.

"Does my daughter know of this extraor—of this?" He asked the question very slowly, and his eyes were holding mine.

"I hardly know what she may divine. I told her once that I thought a gentleman should not—should not try to marry a gir—a lady until he had asked her father's permission, and she is so clear-minded that I hardly know——"

"Does she know of your attachment?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, I told her once—I——"

"I thought you said you thought a gentleman had no right to speak to her until he had gained her father's consent!" A slight scorn had crept into his face.

"Yes, sir, I did—something like that, though not quite that—but——"

"How then do you reconcile the two?" He spoke calmly, and I observed a certain likeness to his daughter.

"I do not—I cannot. I do not try. I only say that in my cooler moments my principle is stronger than my action. I gave way to my feelings once, and declared myself, but when I got hold of myself I felt I should come to you and give you some account of myself."

"I see." I began to hope again, as he reflected.

"Does my daughter reciprocate this—ah—attachment?

"No, sir. I wish to God she did; but I hope that possibly in time—I might prevail on her by my devotion." I was stammering along awkwardly enough.

"Ah!"

"I am only asking your permission to declare myself her suitor to try to win—what I would give the world to win, if I had it. I have no hope except that which comes from my devotion, and my determination to win. I have nothing in the world except my practice; but mean to succeed." I had got more confidence now. I went on to give him an account of myself, and I tried to tell him the truth, though doubtless I gave myself the natural benefit of a friendly historian. I told him frankly of my unfortunate experience in the matter of the contribution to the Trumpet—though I did not conceal my views on the main subject, of the corporation's relation to the public. I must say that Mr. Leigh appeared an interested auditor, though he did not help me out much. At the end, he said:

"Mr. Glave, I have some confidence in my daughter, sufficient—I may say—to have decided for some time back to allow her to manage her own affairs, and unless there were some insuperable objection in any given case, I should not interfere. This is one of the vital affairs in life in which a man has to fight his own battle. I refer you to my daughter. If there were an insuperable objection, of course I should interfere." I wondered if he knew of Canter, and took some hope from his words.

The only thing that gave me encouragement was that he said, just as I was leaving:

"Mr. Glave, I used to know your father, I believe. We were at college together." I think I must have shown some feeling in my face, for he added, "We were very good friends," and held out his hand. I came away drenched with perspiration; but I felt that I had made a step in the direction of winning Eleanor Leigh, and almost as if I had gained a friend. At least, I liked him, as self-contained as he was, for he looked at times like his daughter.

That evening Miss Leigh observed something unusual in her father's expression, and finally, after waiting a little while for him to disclose what he had on his mind, she could stand it no longer.

"Dad, what is it?" she demanded.

Mr. Leigh gazed at her quizzically.

"Well, I have had a rather strenuous day. In the first place, I got a letter from Henry Glave." Miss Eleanor's eyes opened.

"From Henry Glave! What in the world is he writing to you about?"

"He has offered me assistance," said Mr. Leigh. He took from his pocket a letter, and tossed it across the table to her, observing her with amusement as her expression changed. It, possibly, was not the Henry Glave she had had in mind.

As she read, her face brightened. "Isn't that fine! I thought he would—" She stopped suddenly.

"You wrote to him?" said Mr. Leigh.

"Yes, but I didn't know he would. I only asked his advice—I thought maybe, he possibly might—knowing how he liked you. This will help us out? You will accept his offer, of course?"

Mr. Leigh nodded. "I am considering it. It was certainly very good in him. Not every man is as grateful these times. My only question is whether I ought to accept his offer."

"Why not?"

Mr. Leigh did not answer for a moment, he was deep in reflection, reviewing a past in which two older men who bore my name had borne a part, and was trying to look forward into the future. Presently he replied:

"Well, the fact is, I am very hard pressed."

For answer Eleanor sprang up and ran around to him, and throwing her arm about his neck, kissed him. "You poor, dear old dad. I knew you were in trouble; but I did not like to urge you till you got ready. Tell me about it."

Mr. Leigh smiled. It was a patronizing way she had with him which he liked while he was amused by it.

"Yes. I'm—the fact is, I'm pretty near—" He paused and reflected; then began again, "What would you say if I were to tell you that I am almost at the end of my resources?"

The girl's countenance fell for a second, then brightened again almost immediately.

"I shouldn't mind it a bit, except for you."

Mr. Leigh heaved a sigh which might have been a sigh of relief.

"You don't know what it means, my dear."

"Oh! Yes, I do."

"No-o. It means giving up—everything. Not only all luxuries; but—" He gazed about him at the sumptuous surroundings in his dining-room, "but all this—everything. Horses, carriages, servants, pictures—everything. Do you understand?"

"Everything?" Eleanor's voice and look betrayed that she was a little startled.

"Yes," said her father with a nod and a sigh. "If I assign, it would all have to go, and we should have to begin afresh."

"Very well. I am ready. Of course, I don't want to be broke; but I am ready. Whatever you think is right. And I would rather give up everything—everything, than have you worried as you have been for ever so long. I have seen it."

"Nelly, you are a brick," said her father fondly, looking at her in admiration. "How did you ever happen to be your Aunt Sophy's niece?"

"Her half-niece," corrected the girl, smiling.

"It was the other half," mused Mr. Leigh.

"Tell me about it, father. How did it come? When did it happen?" she urged, smoothing tenderly the hair on his brow.

"It didn't happen. It came. It has been coming for a long time. It is the conditions——"

"I know, those dreadful conditions. How I hate to hear the word! We used to get them when we were at Miss de Pense's school,—we had to work them off—and now people are always talking about them."

"Well, these conditions," said Mr. Leigh smiling, "seem a little more difficult to work off. I am rated as belonging to the capitalists and as opposed to the working class. The fact is I am not a capitalist; for my properties are good only while in active use, all my available surplus has gone into their betterment for the public use, and I am a harder-worked man than any laborer or workman in one of my shops or on one of my lines."

"That you are!" exclaimed his daughter.

"I belong to the class that produces, and we are ground between the upper and the nether millstones. Do you see?"

Eleanor expressed her assent.

"The fire, of course, cost us a lot."

"It was set on fire," interrupted his daughter. "I know it."

"Well, I don't know—possibly. It looks so. Anyhow, it caught us at the top notch, and while the insurance amounts to something, the actual loss was incalculable. Then came the trouble with the bank. So long as I was there they knew they could not go beyond the law. So Canter and the others got together, and I got out, and, of course——"

"I know," said his daughter.

"They asked me to remain, but—I preferred to be free."

"So do I."

"I had an overture to-day from the Canters," said Mr. Leigh, after a moment of reflection. "I do not quite know what it means, but I think I do."

"What was it?" Eleanor looked down with her face slightly averted.

"Jim Canter came from his father to propose—to suggest a modus vivendi, as it were. It means that they have started a blaze they cannot extinguish—that they are having trouble with their people, and fear that our people are coming around, but it means something further, too, I think." Mr. Leigh ceased talking, and appeared to be reflecting.

"What?" said the girl, after waiting a moment.

"You know—your aunt—however—" He paused.

She rose and faced him.

"Father, I wouldn't marry him to save his life—and I have told both him and Aunt Sophia so." Mr. Leigh gave a sigh of relief.

"You, of course, declined the proposal they made?" said Eleanor.

"I did—I think they have broken with the Argand interest. I saw your aunt to-day, and had a talk with her. I think her eyes are opened at last. I told her a few plain truths."

He dropped into reflection and a quizzical expression came into his eyes.

"I had a very remarkable thing happen to me to-day."

"What was it?" demanded his daughter.

"I had an offer of marriage made me."

Eleanor Leigh's face changed—at first it grew a shade whiter, then a shade redder.

"I know who it was," she said quickly.

"Oh!" Mr. Leigh shut his lips firmly. "I did not know."

"She is a cat! She has been sending me flowers and opera tickets all winter, and deluging me with invitations. I knew she was up to something." She spoke with growing feeling, as her father's eyes rested on her placidly with an amused expression in them. "I wouldn't be such easy game. Why, dad, she'd bore you to death—and as to me, I wouldn't live in the house with her—I couldn't." She stood with mantling cheek and flashing eye, a young Amazon girded for battle.

"I will relieve you," said her father. "It is not the feline-natured lady you have in mind; but a person quite different." Miss Eleanor looked relieved.

"Dad—it couldn't be—it was not Aunt Sophia? That would explain a lot of things. You know I think she's been laying some snares lately. She even forgave me when I told her the other evening that that was the last time I would ever accept an invitation from Mr. Canter, even as a favor to her. Dad, she'd make you miserable. You couldn't."

"No," said Mr. Leigh. "In fact, it was not a lady at all. It was a person of the opposite sex, and the proposal was for your hand."

"Dad! Who was it? Now, dad." She moved around the table to him, as Mr. Leigh, with eyes twinkling over his victory, shut his mouth firmly. "Dad, you'd just as well tell me at once, for you know I am going to know, so you might as well tell me and save yourself trouble. Who was it?"

Mr. Leigh took her firmly by the arms and seated her on his knee.

"Well, it was a young man who appeared quite in earnest."

"It wasn't—no, I know it wasn't he—he wouldn't have done that—and it wasn't—" (she pondered) "no, it wasn't he—and it wasn't—" She suddenly paused. "Tell me, what did he say? How did you like him? What did you say to him?"

"So you have settled who it is. Perhaps, you sent him to me?"

"Indeed, I did not, and I don't know who it was. What did you tell him?"

"I told him you were of age——"

"I am not. I am twenty."

"No, I told him you were too young—to think of such a thing——"

"I am twenty," repeated the girl.

"That is what I told him," said Mr. Leigh, "and that I thought you were able to take care of yourself."

The girl rested her chin on his head and went off in a reverie.

"Dad, we must hold together," she said. Her father drew her face down and kissed her silently. "The man who takes you away from me will have to answer with his life," he said.

"There is no one on earth who could," said Eleanor.

THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM

It is a terrible thing for a man with a wife and children to see them wasting away with sheer starvation, to hear his babes crying for bread and his wife weeping because she cannot get it for them. Some men in such a situation drown their sorrow in drink; others take a bolder course, and defy the law or the rules of their order.

The Railway Company, still being forced to run their cars, undertook to comply with the requirement, even though the protection of the police was withheld. The police were instructed, indeed, to be present and keep the peace, and a few were detailed, but it was known to both sides that no real protection would be granted. Coll McSheen's order to the force bore this plainly on its face—so plainly that the conservative papers roundly denounced him for his hypocrisy, and for the first time began to side decisively with the company.

The offer of increased wages to new men was openly scouted by the strikers generally. But in a few houses the situation was so terrible that the men yielded. One of these was the empty and fireless home of McNeil. The little Scotchman had had a bitter experience and had come through it victorious; but just as he was getting his head above water, the new strike had come—against his wishes and his vote. He had held on as long as he could—had held on till every article had gone—till his wife's poor under raiment and his children's clothes had gone for the few dollars they brought, and now he was face to face with starvation. He walked the streets day after day in company with a sad procession of haggard men hunting for work, but they might as well have hunted on the arctic floes or in the vacant desert. For every stroke of work there were a hundred men. The answer was everywhere the same: "We are laying men off; we are shutting down."

He returned home one night hungry and dejected to find his wife fainting with hunger and his children famished. "I will get you bread," he said to the children, and he turned and went out. I always was glad that he came to me that night, though I did not know till afterward what a strait he was in. I did not have much to lend him, but I lent him some. His face was haggard with want; but it had a resolution in it that impressed me.

"I will pay it back, sir, out of my first wages. I am going to work to-morrow."

"I am glad of that," I said, for I thought he had gotten a place.

The next morning at light McNeil walked through the pickets who shivered outside the car-barn, and entered the sheds just as their shouts of derision and anger reached him. "I have come to work," he said simply. "My children are hungry."

The first car came out that morning, and on the platform stood McNeil, glum and white and grim, with a stout officer behind him. It ran down by the pickets, meeting with jeers and cries of "Scab! scab!" and a fusillade of stones; but as the hour was early the crowd was a small one, and the car escaped. It was some two hours later when the car reappeared on its return. The news that a scab was running the car had spread rapidly, and the street near the terminus had filled with a crowd wild with rage and furiously bent on mischief. As the car turned into a street it ran into a throng that had been increasing for an hour and now blocked the way. An obstruction placed on the track brought the car to a stop as a roar burst from the crowd and a rush was made for the scab. The officer on the car used his stick with vigor enough, but the time had passed when one officer with only a club could hold back a mob. He was jerked off the platform, thrown down, and trampled underfoot. The car was boarded, and McNeil, fighting like a fury, was dragged out and mauled to death before any other officers arrived. When the police, in force, in answer to a riot-call, reached the spot a quarter of an hour later and dispersed the mob, it looked as if the sea had swept over the scene. The car was overturned and stripped to a mere broken shell; and on the ground a hundred paces away, with only a shred of bloody clothing still about it, lay the battered and mutilated trunk of what had been a man trying to make bread for his children, while a wild cry of hate and joy at the deed raged about the street.

The men who were arrested easily proved that they were simply onlookers and had never been within fifty feet of the car.

The riot made a fine story for the newspapers, and the headlines were glaring. The victim's name was spelled according to the fancy of the reporter for each paper, and was correctly published only two days later.

The press, except the Trumpet, while divided in its opinion on many points, combined in its denouncement of the murder of the driver, and called on the city authorities to awake to the gravity of the situation and put down violence. It was indeed high time.

Moved by the similarity of the name to my friend McNeil, I walked over that afternoon to that part of the city where he had lived. It was one of the poorest streets of the poor section. The street on which I had lived at the old Drummer's, with its little hearth-rug yards, was as much better than it as the most fashionable avenue was better than that. The morass, like a moving bog, had spread over it and was rapidly engulfing it.

The sidewalks were filled with loafers, men and women who wore the gloomiest or surliest looks. As I passed slowly along, trying to read the almost obliterated numbers, I caught fragments of their conversation. A group of them, men and women, were talking about the man who had been killed and his family. The universal assertion was that it served him right, and his family, too. I gleaned from their talk that the family had been boycotted even after he was dead, and that he had had to be buried by the city, and, what was more, that the cruel ostracism still went on against his family.

"Ay-aye, let 'em starve, we'll teach 'em to take the bread out of our mouths," said one woman, while another told gleefully of her little boy throwing stones at the girl as she came home from outside somewhere. She had given him a cake for doing it. The others applauded both of these. The milk of human kindness appeared to be frozen in their breasts.

"Much good it will do you! Do you get any more money for doing it?" said an old man with round shoulders and a thin face; but even he did not seem to protest on account of the cruelty. It was rather a snarl. Two or three young men growled at him; but he did not appear afraid of them; he only snarled back.

I asked one of the men which house was the one I was seeking. He told me, while half a dozen hooted something about the "scab."

When I came to the door pointed out I had no difficulty in recognizing it. The panels and sides were "daubed" up with mud, which still stuck in many places, showing the persecution which had been carried on. Inside, I never saw a more deplorable sight. The poor woman who came to the door, her face drawn with pain and white with terror, and her eyes red with weeping, would not apparently have been more astonished to have found a ghost on the steps. She gave a hasty, frightened glance up the street in both directions, and moaned her distress.

"Won't you step inside?" she asked, more to get the door closed between her and the terror of the street than out of any other feeling; and when I was inside, she asked me over again what I wanted. She could not take in that I had called out of charity; she appeared to think that it was some sort of official visit. When she found out, however, that such was my object, the effect was instantaneous. At first she could not speak at all; but after a little she was calm enough and poured out all her woes. She went over anew how her husband had come over from Scotland several years before and they had been quite comfortably fixed. How he had gotten work, and had belonged to the union, and they had done well. He had, however, been obliged by the union to strike, and they had spent all the money they had, and in addition to that had gotten into debt. So, when the strike was over, although he obtained work again, he was in debt, and the harassment of it made him ill. Then how he had come North to find work, and had had a similar experience. All this I knew. It was just then that her last baby was born and that her little child died, and the daughter of the employer of her husband was so kind to her, that when her husband got well again, there was talk of a strike to help others who were out, and she made him resign from the union. Here she broke down. Presently, however, she recovered her composure. They had come to her then, she said, and told her they would ruin him.

"But I did not think they would kill him, sir," she sobbed. "He tried to get back, but Wringman kept him out. That man murdered him, sir."

There was not a lump of coal in the house; but her little girl had gone for some cinders, while she minded the baby. She had to go where she was not known—a long way, she said—as the children would not let her pick any where she used to get them.

When I came out I found that it had turned many degrees colder during the short time I was in the house, and the blast cut like a knife. The loafers on the street had thinned out under the piercing wind; but those who yet remained jeered as I passed on. I had not gotten very far when I came on a child, a little girl, creeping along. She was bending almost double under the weight of a bag of cinders, and before I reached her my sympathy was excited by the sight of her poor little bare hands and wrists, which were almost blue with cold. Her head, gray with the sifted ashes, was tucked down to keep her face from the cutting wind, and when I came nearer I heard her crying—not loud; but rather wailing to herself.

"What is the matter, little girl?" I asked.

"My hands are so cold—Oh! Oh! Oh!" she sobbed.

"Here, let me warm them." I took the bag and set it down, and took her little ashy hands in mine to try and warm them, and then for the first time I discovered that it was my little girl, Janet. She was so changed that I scarcely knew her. Her little pinched face, like her hair, was covered with ashes. Her hands were ice. When I had gotten some warmth into them I took off my gloves and put them on her, and I picked up her bag and carried it back for her. My hands nearly froze, but somehow I did not mind it. I had such a warm feeling about my heart. I wonder men don't often take off their gloves for little poor children.

I marched with her through the street near her house, expecting to be hooted at, and I should not have minded it; for I was keyed up and could have fought an army. But no one hooted. If they looked rather curiously at me, they said nothing.

As I opened the door to leave, on the steps stood my young lady. It is not often that a man opens a door and finds an angel on the step outside; but I did it that evening. I should not have been more surprised if I had found a real one. But if one believes that angels never visit men, these days, he should have seen Eleanor Leigh as she stood there. She did not appear at all surprised. Her eyes looked right into mine, and I took courage enough to look into hers for an instant. I have never forgotten them. They were like deep pools, clear and bottomless, filled with light. She did not look at all displeased and I did not envy St. Martin.

All she said was, "How do you do, Mr. Glave?" It was quite as if she expected to find me there—and she had. She had seen me stop little Janet and put the gloves on her. She was on her way to the house, and she had stopped and waited, and then had followed us. I did not know this until long afterward; but I asked her to let me wait and see her home, and so I did.

That walk was a memorable one to me. The period of explanations was past. I dared harbor the hope that I was almost in sight of port. When I put her on the car, she was so good as to say her father would be glad to see me some time at their home, and I thought she spoke with just the least little shyness, which made me hope that she herself would not be sorry.

When I left her, I went to see my old Drummer, and told him of the outrages which had been perpetrated on the poor woman. It was worth while seeing him. He was magnificent. As long as I was talking only of the man, he was merely acquiescent, uttering his "Ya, Ya," irresponsively over his beer; but when I told him of the woman and children, he was on his feet in an instant—"Tamming te strikers and all teir vorks." He seized his hat and big stick, and pouring out gutturals so fast that I could not pretend to follow him, ordered me to show him the place. As he strode through the streets, I could scarcely keep up with him. His stick rang on the frozen pavement like a challenge to battle. And when he reached the house he was immense. He was suddenly transformed. No mother could have been tenderer, no father more protecting. He gathered up the children in his great arms, and petted and soothed them; his tone, a little while before so ferocious, now as soft and gentle as the low velvet bass of his great drum. I always think of the Good Shepherd now as something like him that evening; rugged as a rock, gentle as a zephyr. He would have taken them all to his house and have adopted them if the woman would have let him. His heart was bigger than his house. He seemed to have filled all the place; to have made it a fortress.