March 4. I like to go to a plain people's play, where the spectators groan and hiss the villain. It is a wholesome sort of clearing house where one may be freed from pent-up emotion under cover of other people's tears and smiles; the smiles triumphing at the end, which always winds up with a sudden recoil, leaving the nerves in a healthy thrill. I believe that I can only comprehend the primal emotions and what is called in intellectual jargon mental dissipation, and the problem play, in its many phases, appeals to me even less than crude physical dissipation.

We have seen a drama of the people played quite recently, having been to New York to spend part of a "midwinter" week's vacation, which father insisted that Evan should take between two rather complex and eye-straining pieces of work. Speaking by the almanac, it wasn't midwinter at all, but pre-spring, which, in spite of lengthening days, is the only uncompromisingly disagreeable season in the country—the time when measles usually invades the village school, the dogs come slinking in guiltily to the fire, pasted with frozen mud, the boys have snuffle colds, in spite of father's precautions, and I grow desperate and flout the jonquils in my window garden, it seems so very long since summer, and longer yet to real budding spring. We arrived at home last night in the wildest snowstorm of the season, and this morning Evan, having smoothed out his mental wrinkles by means of our mild city diversions, is now filling his lungs and straightening his shoulders by building a wonderful snow fort for the boys. Presently I shall go down to help them bombard him in it, and try to persuade them that it will last longer if they do not squeeze the snowballs too hard, for Evan has prohibited "baking" altogether.

The "baking" of snowballs consists of making up quite a batch at once, then dipping them in water and leaving them out until they are hard as rocks, and really wicked missiles.

The process, unknown in polite circles here, though practised by the factory town "muskrats," was taught my babies by the Vanderveer boy during the Christmas holidays, which, being snowy and bright, drew the colony to the Bluffs for coasting, skating, etc., giving father such a river of senseless accidents to wade through that he threatens to absent himself and take refuge with Martin Cortright in his Irving Place den for holiday week next year. Father has ridden many a night when the roads would not admit of wheeling, without thought of complaint, to the charcoal camp to tend a new mother, a baby, or a woodchopper suddenly stricken with pneumonia, that is so common a disease among men living as these do on poor food, in tiny close cabins, and continually getting checks of perspiration in the variable climate. During the holidays he was called to the Bluffs in the middle of two consecutive nights, first to the Vanderveers, and requested to "drug" the second assistant butler, who was wildly drunk, and being a recent acquisition had been brought to officiate at the house party without due trial, "so that he wouldn't be used up the next day," and then to the Ponsonby's, where the family had evidently not yet gone to bed. Here he found that the patient, a visiting school friend of one of the daughters, from up the state, and evidently not used to the whirl of the pool, had skated all day, and, kept going by unaccustomed stimulants, taken half from ignorance, half from bravado, had danced the evening through at the club house, and then collapsed. Her hostess, careless through familiarity with it, had given her a dose of one of the chloral mixtures "to let her have a good night's sleep"; but instead it had sent her into hysterics, and she was calling wildly for her mother to come and take her home. Father returned from both visits fairly white with rage. Not at the unfortunates themselves, be it said, but at the cool nonchalance of those who summoned him.

The butler's was a common enough case. That of the young girl moved him to pity, and then indignation, as he sifted, out the cause of the attack, in order to treat her intelligently. This questioning Mrs. Ponsonby resented most emphatically, telling him "to attend to his business and not treat ladies as if they were criminals." This to a man of father's professional ability, and one of over sixty years of age in the bargain.

"Madam," said he, "you are a criminal; for to my thinking all preventable illness, such as this, is a crime. Leave the room, and when I have soothed this poor child I will go home; and remember, do not send for me again; it will be useless."

Never a word did he say of the matter at home, though I read part in his face; but the Ponsonby's housekeeper, a countrywoman of Martha Corkle's, took the news to her, adding "and the missus stepped lively too, she did; only, law's sakes, by next mornin' she'd forgot all about it, and, we being short-handed, wanted me to go down with James and get the Doctor up to spray her throat for a hoarseness, and I remindin' her what he'd said, she laughed and answered, 'He had a bear's manners,' but to go tell him she'd pay him city prices, and she bet that would mend him and them!"

I took good care not to repeat this to father, for he would be wounded. He is beginning to see that they use him as a sort of ambulance surgeon, but he does not yet understand the absolute money insolence of these people to those not of their "set," whom they consider socially or financially beneath them, and I hope he never may. He is so full of good will to all men, so pitiful toward weakness and sin, and has kept his faith in human nature through thirty-five years' practice in a factory town, hospital wards, charcoal camp, and among the odd characters of the scattering hillsides, that it would be an undying shame to have it shattered by the very people that the others regard with hopeless envy.

Shame on you, Barbara, but you are growing bitter. Yes, I know you do not yourself mind left-handed snubs and remarks about your being "comfortably poor," but you won't have that splendid old father of yours put upon and sneezed at, with cigarette sneezes, too. You should realize that they don't know any better, also that presently they may become dreadfully bored after the manner of degenerates and move away from the Bluffs, and then companionable, commuting, or summer resident people will have a chance to buy their houses.

Shrewd Martha Corkle foresaw the probable outcome the day that the foundation-stone for the first cottage was laid, even before our prettiest flower-hedged lane was shorn and torn up to make it into a macadam road, in order to shorten the time, for motor vehicles, between the Bluffs and the station by possibly three minutes. Not that the people were obliged to be on time for early trains, for they are mostly the reapers of other people's sowing; but to men of a certain calibre, born for activity, the feeling that, simply for the pleasure of it, they can wait until the very latest moment and still get there, is an amusement savouring of both chance and power.

"Yes, Mrs. Evan," said Martha, with as much of a sniff as she felt compatible with her dignity, "I knows colernies of folks not born to or loving the soil, but just trying to get something temporary out o' it in the way o' pleasure, as rabbits, or mayhap bad smelling water for the rheumatics. (It was the waters Lunnon swells came for down on the old estate.) To my thinkin' these pleasure colernies is bad things; they settles as senseless as a swarm of bees, just because their leader's lit there first; and when they've buzzed themselves out and moved on, like as not some sillies as has come gapin' too close is bit fatal or poisoned for life."

Well-a-day! Evan says that I take things to heart that belong to the head alone, while father says that, to his mind, feeling is much more of a need to-day than logic; so what can I do but still stumble along according to feeling.

A shout from beneath the window, then a soft snowball on it, the signal that the fort is finished,—yes, and the old Christmas tree stuck up top as a standard. Richard has built a queer-looking snow man with red knobs all over his chest and stomach, while Ian has achieved several most curious looking things with carrot horns,—whatever are they? Father has just driven in, and is laughing heartily, and Evan is waving to me.

* * * * *

Calm reigns again. The fort has surrendered, the final charge having been led by Corney Delaney. We've had hot milk all around, father has retired to the study to decipher a complicated letter from Aunt Lot, Evan has taken the boys into the den for a drawing lesson, and the mystery of the snow man is solved.

We do not intend to have the boys learn any regular lessons before another fall, but for the last two years I have managed that they should sit still and be occupied with something every morning, so that they may learn how to keep quiet without its being a strain,—shelling peas, cutting papers for jelly pots, stringing popcorn for the hospital Christmas tree, seeding raisins with a dozen for pay at the end—this latter is an heroic feat when it is accomplished without drawing the pay on the instalment plan—and many other little tasks, varied according to season.

Ian has a quick eye and comprehension, and he is extremely colour sensitive, but healthily ignorant of book learning, while Richard, how we do not know, has learned to read in a fashion of his own, not seeming yet to separate letters or words, but "swallowing the sense in lumps," as Martha puts it.

Yesterday, before our return, the weather being threatening, and the boys, keyed for mischief, clamouring and uneasy, very much as birds and animals are before a storm, father invited them to spend the afternoon with him in the study, and Martha Corkle, who mounts guard during my brief holidays, saw that their paws were scrubbed, and then relaxed her vigilance, joining Evan in the sewing room.

After many three-cornered discussions as to what liberty was to be allowed the boys in study and den, we decided that when they learned to respect books in the handling they should be free to browse as they pleased; the curiosities, rarities, and special professional literature, being behind glass doors, could easily be protected by lock and key. Father's theory is that if you want children to love books, no barriers must be interposed from the beginning, and that being so much with us the boys will only understand what is suited to their age, and therefore the harmful will pass them by. I was never shut from the library shelves, or mysteries made about the plain-spoken literature of other days, in spite of Aunt Lot's fuming. I did not understand it, so it did not tempt, and as I look back, I realize that the book of life was spread before me wisely and gradually, father turning page after page, then passing the task to Evan, so that I never had a shock or disillusionment.

I wonder if mother had lived if I should think differently, and be more apprehensive about the boys, womanwise? I think not; for I am a sun-loving Pagan all through, really born far back in an overlooked corner of Eden, and I prefer the forceful father influence that teaches one to overcome rather than the mother cult which is to bear, for so much is cumbrously borne in self-glorified martyrdom by women of their own volition.

I know that I am very primitive in my instincts and emotions; so are the boys, and that keeps us close, or so close, together.

Of course illustrated books are now the chief attraction to them in the library, and yesterday, when father went there with the boys, he supplied Ian, as usual, with "The Uncivilized Races of Man," which always opens of itself at the Mumbo Jumbo picture, and as a great treat for Richard, took down the three quarto volumes of Audubon's "Quadrupeds," and ranged them on a low stand with a stool in front of it. Then, being tired after a hard morning's work, he drew his big leather chair near the, fire, put on an extra log, and proceeded to—meditate. You will doubtless notice that when father or husband close their eyes, sitting in comfortable chairs by the fire, they are always meditating, and never sleeping, little nosey protestations to the contrary.

Father's meditations must have been long and deep, for when he was startled from them by the breaking in two of the hickory log, a gory spectacle met his eyes.

Richard was sitting on the hearth rug, which he had carefully covered with newspapers; these, as well as his hands and face, were stained a deep crimson, while with a stout silver fruit-knife he was hacking pieces from a great pulpy red mass before him.

Checking an exclamation of horror father started forward, to meet Richard's cheerful, frank gaze and the request, as he dug away persistently, to "Please wait one minute more, dranpa. I've got the heart all done, that big floppy piece is lungs, an' I've most made the liver. Not the good kind that goes wif curly bacon, but a nasty one like what we wear inside."

Then spying a medical chart with coloured pictures that was propped up against the wood box, father found the clew, and comprehended that Richard was giving himself a practical lesson in anatomy by trying to carve these organs from a huge mangel wurzel beet that he had rolled in from the root cellar. Did father scold him for mess-making, or laugh at his attempt that had little shape except in his own baby brain?

No, neither; he carefully closed the door against Martha's possible entrance, seriously and respectfully put the precious objects on a plate, to which he gave a place of honour on the mantel shelf, and after removing as far as possible all traces of beet from face and hands in his sacred office lavatory, he took Richard with him into the depths of the great chair and told the happy child his favourite rigmarole, all about the "three gentlemen of high degree," who do our housework for us. How the lungs, who are Siamese twins, called to the heart to pump them up some blood to air, because they were almost out of work, and how the big lazy liver lay on one side and groaned because he had drunk too much coffee for breakfast, and had a headache,—until Richard really felt that he had achieved something. So the first thing this morning he set about making a snow man, that he might put the beet vitals in their proper places, nearly convulsing father by their location. Though, as he told me, they were accurate, compared to the ideas of many trained nurses with whom he had come in contact.

But where was Ian during the beet carving? Father quite forgot him until, Richard falling asleep in his arms, he arose to tuck him up on the sofa. A sound of the slow turning of large pages guided him to the corner by the bay window where some bookcases, standing back to back, made a sort of alcove. There was Ian, flat upon his stomach, while before him the "Wandering Jew" legend, with the DorÉ pictures, lay open at the final scene—The Last Judgment—where the Jew, his journey over, looks up at the angels coming to greet him, while little devils pull vainly at his tattered boots. It was not the Jew or the angels, however, that held Ian's attention, and whose outlines he was tracing with his forefinger, but the devils, one big fellow with cows' horns and wings drooping like those of a moulting crow, and a bevy of imps with young horns and curly tails who were pulling a half-buried body toward the fiery pit by its hair.

Father explained the pictures in brief, and closed the book as quickly as possible, thinking the boy might be frightened in his dreams by the demons. But no, Ian was fascinated, not frightened. He would have liked the pygmies to come and play with him, and he turned to father with a sigh, saying, "They're bully pullers, dranpop. I guess if they and me pulled against Corney Delaney we could get him over the line all right," one of the boys' favourite pastimes being to play tug-of-war with the goat, the rope being fastened to its horns, but Corney was always conqueror.

Neither did Ian forget the imps quickly, as some children do their impressions, but strove to model them this morning, making round snow bodies, carrot horns, corncob legs, and funny celery tails; the result being positively startling and "overmuch like witch brats," as Effie declared, with bulging eyes.

They unfortunately did not perish with the fort, for Richard doesn't like them; but are now huddled in a group under the old Christmas tree, where Lark is barking at them.

* * * * *

I started to record our visit to Lavinia Dorman, but my "human documents," printed on vellum, came between, and I would not miss a word they have to say for the "Mechlinia Albertus Magnus," which father says is the rarest book in the world, though Evan disputes his preference, and Martin Cortright would doubtless prefer the first edition of Denton's "New York."

In past times, when we have visited Miss Lavinia, we have been fairly meek and decorous guests, following the programme that she planned with such infinite attention to detail that free will was impossible, and we often felt like paper dolls.

We had read her lament on the death of sociability and back yards with many a smile, and a sigh also, for to one born in the pool, every ripple that stirs it must be of importance, and it is impossible for outsiders to urge her to step out of the eddies altogether and begin anew, for New Yorkitis seems to be not only a rarely curable disease to those who have it, but an hereditary one as well.

As usual, Evan came to the rescue, as we sat in the den the night before our departure. "Let us turn tables on Miss Lavinia this time and take her to see our New York," he said, "since we are all quite tired of hers. Do you remember the time when we went to town to buy the trappings for the boys' first tree and were detained until Christmas morning by the delay of a cable I had to wait for? After dinner Christmas Eve we coaxed Miss Lavinia out with us and bought half a bushel of jolly little toys from street fakirs to take home, and then boarded an elevated train and rode about the city until after midnight, in and out the downtown streets and along the outskirts, to see all the poor people's Christmas trees in the second stories of tenements, cheap flats, and over little shops. How she enjoyed it, and said that she never dreamed that tenement people could be so happy; and she finally waxed so enthusiastic that she gave a silver half dollar each to four little newsboys crouching over the steam on a grating in Twenty-third Street, and when they cheered her and a policeman came along, we told the dear old soul that he evidently thought her a suspicious character, a counterfeiter at the very least. And she always spoke afterward with bated breath on the dangers of the streets late at night, and her narrow escape from arrest. We came to New York unsated and without responsibilities to push us, and looked from the outside in.

"No, Barbara, you did better than you knew that day six years ago, when we sat in the Somerset garden, and you persuaded me to become a commuter and let you plant a garden, promising never to talk about servants, and you've kept your word. I was dubious then, but now—if you only knew the tragedies I've seen among men of my means and aims these last few years, the struggle to be in the swim, or rather the backwater of it. The disappointment, the debt and despair, the pink teas and blue dinners given in cramped flats, the good fellows afraid to say no to wives whose hearts are set on being thought 'in it,' and the wives, haggard and hollow-eyed because the husbands wish to keep the pace by joining clubs that are supposedly the hall-marks of the millionnaire. New York is the best place for doing everything in but three—to be born in, to live in, and to die in."

"So you wish us to play bachelor girl and man for a few days, and herd Miss Lavinia about, which I suppose is the pith of these heroics of yours," I said, rather astonished, for Evan seldom preaches. "I never knew that you were such an anti-whirlpooler before, and I've at times felt selfish about keeping you at the old home, though not since the boys came, it's so healthy for them, bless them. Now I feel quite relieved," and I arranged a little crisp curl that will break loose in spite of persistent wetting, for men always seem to discourage curly hair, father keeping his shorn like a prize-fighter. This curl softens the rigour of Evan's horseshoe scowl, and when I fix it gives him a chance to put his arm around my waist, which is the only satisfactory way of discussing plans for a pleasure trip.

We arrived in town duly a little before dinner time. It is one of Evan's comfortable travelling habits, this always arriving at a new place at the end of day, so as to get the bearings and be adjusted when we awake next morning. To arrive in the morning, when paying a visit especially, is reversing the natural order of things; you are absent-minded until lunch, sleepy all the afternoon, dyspeptic at dinner, when, like as not, some one you have wholly forgotten or hoped to is asked to meet you. If the theatre follows, you recuperate, but if it is cards (of which I must have a prenatal hatred, it is so intense) with the apology, "I thought you might be tired and prefer a cosey game of whist to going out," you trump your partner's tricks, lead the short suits and mix clubs and spades with equal oblivion, and, finally, going to bed, leave a bad impression behind that causes your hostess to say, strictly to herself, if she is charitable, "How Barbara has deteriorated; she used to be a good talker, but then, poor dear, living in the country is so narrowing."

Of course if you merely go away to spend the day it is different; you generally keep on the move and go home to recover from it. And how men usually hate staying in other people's houses, no matter how wide they keep their doors open or how hospitably inclined they may be themselves. They seem to be self-conscious, and are constrained to alter their ordinary habits, which makes them miserable and feel as if they had given up their free will and identity. There are only two places that I ever dream of taking Evan, and Lavinia Dorman's is one of them.

When we had made ourselves smart for dinner and joined Miss Lavinia by the fire in her tiny library, we read by her hair that she was evidently intending to stay at home that evening, for her head has its nodes like the moon. She has naturally pretty, soft wavy hair, with now and then a silver streak running through it. I have often seen Lucy when she brushes it out at night. But because there is a dash of white in the front as if a powder puff had rested there a moment by accident, it is screwed into a little knob and covered with skilfully made yet perfectly apparent frontlets to represent the different styles of hair-dressing affected by women of abundant locks.

No. 1, worn at breakfast, is the most reasonable. It is quite plain, slightly waved, and has a few stray hairs carelessly curved where it joins the forehead. No. 2 is for rainy weather; the curls are fuzzy and evidently baked in; it requires a durable veil to keep it in countenance. Evan calls it the "rasher of bacon front." No. 3 is for calling and all entertainments where the bonnet stays on; it has a baby bang edge a trifle curled and a substantial cushion atop to hold the hat pins; while No. 4, the one she wore on our arrival, is an elaborate evening toupie with a pompadour rolling over on itself and drooping slightly over one eye while it melts into a butterfly bow and handful of puffs on the crown that in turn end in a single curl behind.

We had a dainty little dinner, grape fruit, clear soup, smelts, wild duck, salad, fruit, and coffee, and it was daintily served, for Miss Lavinia always keeps a good cook and remembers our dislike of the various forms of hash known as entrÉes.

The coffee was placed on a low mahogany stand by the library fire, and Miss Lavinia herself handed Evan a quaint little silver lamp by which to light his cigar, for she has all the cosmopolitan instincts of a woman who not only knows the world but had heard her father discuss tobacco, and really enjoyed the soothing fragrance of a good cigar.

As soon as we were settled and poor singed Josephus had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, Evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. We were to lodge and breakfast with her, but after that she was to play our way, and be at our disposal morning, afternoon, and evening, at luncheon, dinner, and supper, and the game was to be the old-fashioned one of "follow the leader!"

At first Miss Lavinia hesitated regretfully, it seemed so inhospitable,—she had thought to take us to several parlour concerts. Mrs. Vanderdonk, she that was a De Leyster, was going to throw open her picture gallery for charity, which would give us an opportunity to see her new house. In fact the undertow of the Whirlpool was still pulling at her ankles, even though she had freed her head, and it seemed impossible to her that there could be any New York other than the one she knew.

Finally her almost girlish vitality asserted itself, and bargaining that we should allow her one evening to have Sylvia Latham to dinner, she surrendered.

"Then we will begin at once by going to the theatre," said Evan, jumping up and looking at the clock, which pointed at a few minutes of eight.

"Have you tickets? Isn't this a little sudden?" asked Miss Lavinia with a little gasp, evidently remembering that her hair was arranged for the house only.

"No, I have no tickets, but Barbara and I always go in this way, and if we cannot get in at one place we try another, for usually some good seats are returned from the outside ticket offices a few minutes before the play begins. The downtown theatres open the earliest, so we can start near by and work our way upward, if necessary."

To my surprise in five minutes Miss Lavinia was ready, and we sallied forth, Evan sandwiched between us. As the old Dorman house is in the northeastern corner of what was far away Greenwich Village,—at the time-the Bouerie was a blooming orchard, and is meshed in by a curious jumble of thoroughfares, that must have originally either followed the tracks of wandering cattle or worthy citizens who had lost their bearings, for Waverley Place comes to an untimely end in West Eleventh Street, and Fourth Street collides with Horatio and is headed off by Thirteenth Street before it has a chance even to catch a glimpse of the river,—a few steps brought us into Fourteenth Street, where naming gas-jets announced that the play of "Jim Bludso" might be seen.

"Dear me!" ejaculated Miss Lavinia, "do people still go to this theatre?
The last time I came here it was in the seventies to see Mrs. Rousby as
Rosalind."

When we took our seats the play, founded, as the bill informed us, upon one of the Pike County Ballads, had begun, and Miss Lavinia soon became absorbed.

It is a great deal to be surrounded by an audience all thoroughly in the mood to be swayed by the emotion of the piece, plain people, perhaps, but solidly honest. Directly in front sat a young couple; the girl, in a fresh white silk waist, wore so fat and new a wedding ring upon her ungloved hand, which the man held in a tight grip, that I surmised that this trip into stageland was perhaps their humble wedding journey, from which they would return to "rooms" made ready by jubilant relatives, eat a wonderful supper, and begin life.

The next couple were not so entirely en rapport. The girl, who wore a gorgeous garnet engagement ring, also very new, merely rested her hand on her lover's coat sleeve where she could see the light play upon the stones.

When, after the first act, in answer to hearty rounds of applause, varied with whistles and shouts from the gallery, the characters stepped forward, not in the unnatural string usual in more genteel play-houses, where victor and vanquished join hands and bow, but one by one, each being greeted by cheers, hisses, or groans, according to the part, and when the villain appeared I found myself groaning with the rest, and though Evan laughed, I know he understood.

After it was over, as we went out into the night, Evan headed toward
Sixth Avenue instead of homeward.

"May I ask where we are going now?" said Miss Lavinia, meekly. She had really enjoyed the play, and I know I heard her sniff once or twice at the proper time, though of course I pretended not to.

"Going?" echoed Evan. "Only around the corner to get three fries in a box, with the usual pickle and cracker trimmings, there being no restaurant close by that you would care for; then we will carry them home and have a little supper in the pantry, if your Lucy has not locked up the forks and taken the key to bed. If she has, we can use wooden toothpicks."

At first Miss Lavinia seemed to feel guilty at the idea of disturbing Lucy's immaculate pantry at such an hour; but liberty is highly infectious. She had spent the evening out without previous intent; the next step was to feel that her soul was her own on her return. She unlocked the forks, Evan unpacked the upstairs ice-chest for the dog's head bass that wise women always have when they expect visiting Englishmen, even though they are transplanted and acclimated ones, and she ate the oysters, still steaming from their original package, with great satisfaction. After we had finished Miss Lavinia bravely declared her independence of Lucy. The happy don't-care feeling produced by broiled oysters and bass on a cold night is a perfect revelation to people used to after-theatre suppers composed of complications, sticky sweets, and champagne.

When we had finished I thought for a moment that she showed a desire to conceal the invasion by washing the dishes, but she put it aside, and we all went upstairs together.

A little shopping being in order, Evan took himself off in the morning, leaving Miss Lavinia and me to prowl, after we had promised to meet him at a downtown restaurant at one.

Little boys are delightful things to shop for,—there is no matching this and that, no getting a yard too much or too little, everything is substantial and straight away, and all you have to do when the bundles are sent home by express is to strengthen the sewing on of buttons and reinforce the seats and knees of everyday pantikins from the inside.

We strolled about slowly, and at half past one were quite ready to sit still and not only eat our lunch but watch business mankind eat his. If any one wishes to feel the clutch and motive power of the Whirlpool let him go to the Mazarin any time between twelve-thirty and two o'clock. The streets themselves are surging with men, all hurrying first in one direction, then another, until it seems as if there either must be a fire somewhere, or else a riot afoot. The doors of the restaurant open and shut incessantly, corks pop, knives and forks rattle, everything is being served from a sandwich and a glass of beer to an elaborate repast with a wine to every course, while through and above it all the stress of business is felt. Of course the great financiers usually have luncheon served in their offices, to save them from the crowd; besides, it might give common humanity a chance to scrutinize their countenances, and perchance read what they thought upon some question of moment, for it sometimes seems as if the eye of the New York journalist has X-ray power. On the other hand, the humbler grade, with less of either time or money to spare, go to the "quick lunch" counters and "dime-in-the-slot" sandwich concerns; yet Evan says that the gathering at the Mazarin is fairly representative.

Miss Lavinia was bewildered. Her downtown visits to her broker's office were always made in a cab, with Lucy to stay in it as a preventative of the driver's taking a sly glass or a thief snatching her lap-robe—she never uses public carriage rugs. She clung to the obsolete idea that Wall Street was no place for women, and saw, as in a dream, the daintily dressed stenographers, bookkeepers, and confidential clerks mingling with the trousered ranks in the street, not to mention the damsels in tidy shirtwaists, with carefully undulated hair and pointed, polished finger nails, who were lunching at near-by tables, sometimes seemingly with their employers as well as with other male or female friends.

"I wonder how much of all this is bad for uptown home life?" Miss Lavinia queried, gazing around the room; but as she did not address either of us in particular, we did not answer, as we did not know,—who does?

A spare half-hour before closing time we gave to the Stock Exchange, and it was quite enough, for some one was short on something, and pandemonium reigned. As we stood on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, hesitating whether to take surface or elevated cars, faint strains of organ music from Trinity attracted us.

"Service or choir practice; let us go in a few moments," said Evan, to whom the organ is a voice that never fails to draw. We took seats far back, and lost ourselves among the shadows. A special service was in progress, the music half Gregorian, and the congregation was too scattered to mar the feeling that we had slipped suddenly out of the material world. The shadows of the sparrows outside flitted upward on the stained glass windows, until it seemed as if the great chords had broken free and taking form were trying to escape.

Now and then the door would open softly and unaccustomed figures slip in and linger in the open space behind the pews. Aliens, newly landed and wandering about in the vicinity of their water-front lodging-houses, music and a church appealed to their loneliness. Some stood, heads bowed, and some knelt in prayer and crossed themselves on leaving; one woman, lugging a great bundle tied in a blue cloth, a baby on her arm and another clinging to her skirts, put down her load, bedded the baby upon it, and began to tell her beads.

The service ended, and the people scattered, but the organist played on, and the boy choir regathered, but less formally.

"What is it?" we asked of the verger, who was preparing to close the doors.

"There will be a funeral of one of the oldest members of the congregation to-morrow, and they are about to go through the music of the office."

Suddenly a rich bass voice, strong in conviction, trumpeted forth—"I am the resurrection and the life!" And only a stone's throw away jingled the money market of the western world. The temple and the table of the money changers keep step as of old. Ah, wonderful New York!

* * * * *

The afternoon was clear staccato and mild withal, and the sun, almost at setting, lingered above orange and dim cloud banks at the end of the vista Broadway made.

"Are you tired? Can you walk half a dozen blocks?" asked Evan of Miss
Lavinia, as we came out.

"No, quite the reverse; I think that I am electrified," she replied briskly.

"Then we will go to Battery Park," he said, turning south.

"Battery Park, where all the immigrants and roughs congregate! What an idea! We shall catch smallpox or have our pockets picked!"

"Have you ever been there?" persisted Evan.

"Yes, once, I think, when steamship passengers lathed at the barge office, and of course I've seen it often in going to Staten Island to visit Cousin Lucretia."

Evan's only reply was to keep on walking. We did not cross the "bowling green," but swung to the right toward Pier I, and took the path between old Castle Garden and the sea wall at the point where one of the fire patrol boats was resting, steam up and hose nozzles pointed, lance couchant wise.

Ah, what a picture! No wonder Miss Lavinia adjusted her glasses quickly (she is blindly nearsighted), caught her breath, and clung to Evan's arm as the fresh sea breeze coming up from the Narrows wheeled her about. Before us Staten Island divided the water left and right, while between it and the Long Island shore, just leaving quarantine and dwarfing the smaller craft, an ocean liner, glistening with ice, was coming on in majestic haste. All about little tugs puffed and snorted, and freighters passed crosswise, parting the floating ice and churning it with their paddles, scarcely disturbing the gulls, that flew so close above the water that their wings touched, or floated at leisure.

The sun that had been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon Liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to glimmer far and near, the night breath rose from the water, and the wave-cradled gulls slept.

"Do you like our New York?" asked Evan, turning to go.

"Don't speak," whispered Miss Lavinia, hanging back.

But we were no sooner on the elevated train than she found use for her tongue, for whose feet should I stumble over on entering, quite big feet too, or rather shoes, for the size of the man, but Martin Cortright's, and of course he was duly presented to Miss Lavinia.