her soft hair, all roughened by the wind and curling about her forehead. "I'll go upstairs and put on some dry clothes, and then come down and set the tea table," she said; "and I'm sorry I've been out so long, mother dear." There was a little burst of joyousness in her voice; yet all the while she was wondering whether a reaction would come, and she would find herself capable of taking up her sacrifice again. Then she saw the letter which her mother, in smiling silence, held up to her. Mrs. Sayre's look turned her back into her old reserve; she would read her letter alone.

"I will be down in a moment and set the table," she repeated, and, taking the letter, she slipped out into the chilly darkness of the hall and up to her bedroom.

It seemed to Mrs. Sayre, waiting impatiently for news, that Elizabeth took a long time to read her letter. "'Liz'beth's like you, Susy," she said, "she can't hurry." Indeed, the pause grew so long that Susan offered to go upstairs to see what detained 'Liz'beth. Susan was sensitive about her niece's slowness, because Mrs. Sayre always pointed out in this connection Elizabeth's resemblance to her aunt. "Do, Susy," Mrs. Sayre assented, "and tell her we want to hear what Oliver says." But Susan, when she returned, looked troubled, and did not bring any news of Oliver.

"'Liz'beth's lying down; she says she has a headache. Dear me! I hope the child hasn't taken cold, Jane. Don't you think you'd better give her something hot to drink?"

Mrs. Sayre's solicitude banished instantly all thought of Oliver; she went bustling up to her daughter's room, full of tender anxiety. But Elizabeth, lying white and still upon the bed, would only assure her, faintly, that she was tired; that her head ached; that there was nothing the matter with her; that she didn't want anything. "Oh, nothing! Nothing! Only let me be alone, mother; and—and perhaps I shall sleep. Oh, won't you please go?" Distressed and worried, there was nothing for Mrs. Sayre to do but kiss her daughter, resting her soft old hand upon Elizabeth's forehead, and stroking her hair gently, with little murmuring sounds of love, and then slip out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

When she had gone, Elizabeth Sayre rose, with sudden, violent haste; she slipped the bolt of her door, and then fell upon her knees at her bedside.

Mrs. Sayre knocked gently a few hours afterward, but

there was no answer, and she said to Susan that Elizabeth must be asleep, and sleep was the best thing for her; so she wouldn't disturb her by going in to see how she was. She meant to let her sleep in the morning, too, she told her sisterin-law. But when she went down to breakfast she found her daughter in the sitting room. Elizabeth answered all her mother's inquiries, and kissed her gently, assuring her that she was quite well. A headache was of no consequence, she said; yet it made her absent-minded, and she did not talk very much. Breakfast was almost over, Mrs. Sayre told her son afterward, before Lizzie remembered the great piece of news, and said, with a sort of start:

"Mother, Mr. Hamilton writes me to say that he is very happy. Fanny has promised to marry him. Tom is very much pleased, and I-I am so glad for dear little Fanny."

THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY."

BY JAMES BRYCE.

(From "The American Commonwealth.")

[JAMES BRYCE: An English statesman and author; born in Belfast, Ireland, May 10, 1838. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and at Trinity College, Oxford; was graduated from the latter in 1862, and in 1870 was appointed regius professor of civil law in Oxford. He was elected to Parliament in 1880; was made undersecretary of state for foreign affairs in 1885, and in 1892 was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet of Mr. Gladstone. He wrote: "The Holy Roman Empire" (1864; ninth edition, 1888), "Transcaucasia and Ararat" (1877), "Two Centuries of Irish History" (edited 1888), and "The American Commonwealth" (1888). The last-named book is said to be the best work on the political and social institutions of the nation ever written.]

THOSE merits of American government which belong to its Federal Constitution have been already discussed: we have now to consider such as flow from the rule of public opinion, from the temper, habits, and ideas of the people.

I. The first is that of Stability. As one test of a human body's soundness is its capacity for reaching a great age, so it is high praise for a political system that it has stood no more changed than any institution must change in a changing world, and that it now gives every promise of durability. The people

1 By permission of the Publishers, Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

are profoundly attached to the form which their national life has taken. The Federal Constitution is, to their eyes, an almost sacred thing, an Ark of the Covenant, whereon no man may lay rash hands. Everywhere in Europe one hears schemes of radical change freely discussed. There is a strong monarchical party in France, a republican party in Italy and Spain. There are anarchists in Germany and Russia. Even in England, it is impossible to feel confident that any one of the existing institutions of the country will be standing fifty years hence. But in the United States the discussion of political problems busies itself with details and assumes that the main lines must remain as they are forever. This conservative spirit, jealously watchful even in small matters, sometimes prevents reforms, but it assures to the people an easy mind, and a trust in their future which they feel to be not only a present satisfaction but a reservoir of strength.

The best proof of the well-braced solidity of the system is that it survived the Civil War, changed only in a few points which have not greatly affected the balance of National and State powers. Another must have struck every European traveler who questions American publicists about the institutions of their country. When I first traveled in the United States, I used to ask thoughtful men, superior to the prejudices of custom, whether they did not think the States' system defective in such and such points, whether the legislative authority of Congress might not profitably be extended, whether the suffrage ought not to be restricted as regards negroes or immigrants, and so forth. Whether assenting or dissenting, the persons questioned invariably treated such matters as purely speculative, saying that the, present arrangements were far too deeply rooted for their alteration to come within the horizon of practical politics. So when a serious trouble arises, a trouble which in Europe would threaten revolution, the people face it quietly, and assume that a tolerable solution will be found. At the disputed election of 1876, when each of the two great parties, heated with conflict, claimed that its candidate had been chosen President, and the Constitution supplied no way out of the difficulty, public tranquillity was scarcely disturbed, and the public funds fell but little. A method was invented of settling the question which both sides acquiesced in, and although the decision was a boundless disappointment to the party which had cast the majority of the popular vote, that