Helen Van-Anderson

"Society is like a piece of frozen water; and skating well the great art of social life."—Letitia Elizabeth Landon.

"Too bad about Hayden, isn't it?" said one business man to another after the crash came.

"Yes, I am sorry for him, but he is coming out honorably, and I hope he'll commence again before long."

"Well, he is made of the right stuff if he did make one mistake, and I guess he will never make the same blunder again. Too bad though about his house. No insurance at all, and that was a magnificent property."

"Indeed it was, and I hope for his wife's sake he can sell the lot and get another home for her."

"Can't do it now though—real estate is too low for any use in Hampton."

"Yes, that's so. The only way is to mortgage, and that seems a pity in this case—" and they passed on out of hearing.

John Hayden, standing within the doorway of the open store, had overheard the remarks, and while they pained, they cheered him. From that moment his resolve was taken, and as soon as everything was honorably settled he applied for credit of his old friends in the wholesale houses and they gladly gave it, for his reputation was unimpeachable.

Then he rented a modest little store and began anew.

Mrs. Hayden lay sick seven weeks, and arose a weak and nervous invalid, "doomed to carry a still limb all her life," the physicians said. They could not discover why her limb was stiff, but there was no help for it.

How did she bear the change in her life and circumstances? When her husband told her, she just put her arms around his neck and whispered; "All right, John, I shall do the best I can to help you bear it." And from that moment they began life again. She did not even complain when they were obliged to move into a small cottage in the suburbs, but it was hard for her to be ignored and forgotten by the elegant social world, where she had so recently been an acknowledged leader.

Alas! she had no sugar plums for society now, so it soon forgot her existence. There were, however, some exceptions among her former friends, and she was glad to welcome among her few visitors, Kate Turner and Grace Hall, who had grown to love Mrs. Hayden more than they would have thought possible when she seemed so high above them in the social scale.

"She is turning out a saint rather than a sinner," said Kate one evening, as they were discussing the Haydens and recalled the conversation of the night of the party.

"Just wait awhile. Many people can be heroic in great things, but are sadly deficient when it comes to the little things," said Grace, with her usual caution. "I believe I could be a heroine myself, if some grand opportunity came," she added, smiling.

"Oh, Grace, don't trifle so; you know this is a very serious matter with Mr. and Mrs. Hayden, and they are both doing nobly," cried Kate, with tears in her eyes.

"Well, queen Katherine, I don't mean any harm, and you must not think anything of my brusque speeches. As you know, there is a tinge of skepticism in me which I can not help, and my ideals are so much higher than the realities of life, that I am always painfully conscious of the difference."

"Well, what would you wish Mrs. Hayden to be like, for instance, in order to come up to your ideal of the heroic woman?" asked Kate in a softened tone.

"Kate dear, I love Mrs. Hayden as much as you do, and would not for a moment disparage her virtues, but it strikes me as a philosophical fact that as a rule, human nature can and does display wonderful courage in great emergencies, but fails miserably in details, and this ought not to be so. Nothing would please me better than to see one life prove that I am wrong."

"That is all true, Gracie, about humanity in general, but she is lovely, and I am sorry for her having to be lame all her life. It's a perfect shame that she must lose even her health, for of course she will never be strong again."

"Another defect to be noted somewhere in the universal economy. It seems to me we are pretty helpless creatures, generally speaking, for it all appears to be a matter of chance whether we get well or not, when we do get sick," mused Grace, bent upon drawing her own conclusions.

Poor girl! Life had been rather hard for her, and she judged it as it appeared, and there did seem a great flaw somewhere which she was trying her best to solve by noting every phase of life as she found it. Naturally bright, keenly intellectual and very independent, she was a philosopher as well as an artist, and always ready for a tilt with the world on its most petted opinions. Hers was a reasoning mind that observed all inconsistencies and discrepancies in anything she studied, and there was generally a little acidity in her judgment of the world and its bigoted ways.

"I can't see why Mrs. Hayden should not be cured completely," continued Kate, ignoring her companion's last shot, "for it wasn't so bad that anybody knew of until she got up."

"My dear madam," said Grace, striking an owlish attitude, "you have not read the latest opinion expressed by one of the most learned professors in the Allopathic school of medicine in Paris. He stood before the class of graduating students and said: 'Gentlemen, you have done me the honor to come here to listen to a lecture on the science of medicine. I must frankly confess I know nothing about it, and, moreover, know of no one who does. Any one who takes medicine is fortunate if it helps him, but more fortunate if it does not harm him.' Whether our friend is fortunate or unfortunate is a question hard to decide. I move we discuss another subject."

Kate laughed in spite of herself, and Grace got up to take another view of the "Modern Hypatia," which at last was growing into a visible creation under her skillful brush.

"Isn't that a woman for you?" she said, pointing to the picture admiringly, as she held it under the gas light.

"Yes, I like her better than Hebe. She has a look of reserved power about her that is captivating, but there is something in her face that makes me sad, something that is lacking."

"What is it? Tell me, for I can see nothing!" Grace questioned impetuously.

"Wait a minute, perhaps I can define it. There! hold it so. Let me see," and Kate walked off a few paces.

"Yes, it is dissatisfaction, an incompleteness, as though she had not found what she sought."

"Can you see that, Kate? Then I am at the same time the most happy and unhappy creature alive," cried Grace, breathlessly dropping into a chair and holding the picture fondly near her face.

"Why?" said the astonished Kate.

"Don't you know I am forever putting myself into my pictures? And I've succeeded too admirably with this one. The poor thing has caught my unconscious fault of finding defects everywhere. Oh, I must get it out of her some way; how shall I, when to me she looks so perfect?"

"You better get it out of yourself first, if that is the trouble," replied Kate, with a great wave of pity in her voice.

"I wish I could. Oh, why do I have to see everything in the wrong way? It seems to me life would be heavenly, if I could know only the good in everything." Grace put down the picture and gazed at it with stern, accusing eyes. "I shall leave this one and begin another to-morrow," she finally announced in a subdued tone.

"I am glad you won't rub this out, for she is too lovely," said Kate, softly, as she went about, gently putting things in order, picking up her music and arranging the books.

Grace sat there brooding over her life problems with a new thought in her mind. She dimly realized that a woman must have a genuine message herself before she tries to give it to the world. And alas, her message was sadly deficient, she found. Mechanically she took a book from the table and opening it at random, read:

"If the whole is ever to gladden thee,
That whole in the smallest thing thou must see."

"That is not bad philosophy, whose is it?" she thought. She looked at the book. It was Goethe's poems, but she was not in the mood for reading, and she sat thinking till late at night. This was a new sentiment. She would digest it and test its practical truth.