"Ay, God help me, so I have!" said John Talbot, getting up abruptly to leave the room. “Without counting the cost. "John is like that sometimes," said his wife. "Don't mind him, Aunt Hope; he is really the most indulgent creature living. A true American father, some one called him, who met us at Nice last year. What puzzles me is this holding back about increasing Ellinor's allowance. Of course he must be talked into it. A girl of Ellinor's tastes, indeed! Ellinor must have money." During a mild week in May, about six months after the double wedding, Aunt Hope was again in town. She had called once or twice at the Hotel Guelph before gaining admission. The man in waiting at the entrance door took her card, glanced superciliously at her poke-bonnet, "guess ed" that the madam was not receiving, and after a long delay came back with the information that Mrs. Eliot, at 2 P.M., had not yet left her room. At last Aunt Hope received permission to ascend to her niece's quarters, and being inclosed in an elevator, was carried to the sixth story of a sumptuous apartment-house. A boy in buttons answered her touch upon the electric knob, and conducted her through a long dark passageway into Mrs. Eliot's presence. Ellinor was lying on a couch in the centre of a small room littered with bricà-brac, and crowded with furs, heavy draperies, and costly rugs. What light there was came through thin curtains of amber silk hung beneath massive screens of multi-colored glass. A wood fire was blazing on the hearth, and the air was perfumed to suffocation with the odor of roses and hyacinths, crowded in vases upon every shelf and bracket. A small stand of gilt wicker at Ellinor's side contained boxes of bonbons, fresh heliotrope massed in a yellow jar, the morning papers, and a couple of French novels. Amid all this ill-assorted luxury the young wife lay in an attitude of utter listlessness, her robe of white India silk half hidden by a covering of gold-embroidered Oriental stuff thrown across her couch. "Humph!" said Aunt Hope, sitting boltupright on the edge of the first chair she could find. "I supposed I had got by mistake into the room of some tragedy queen. What would your grandmother Talbot have said to this, I wonder?-she who was up by candle-light winter and summer, sweeping, dusting, cooking, mending, to make both ends meet, and to give your father and the others what education she could afford! Seems to me, child, the size of your rooms isn't in keeping with all this finery. And of course, with a limited income, you have to live high up, but that should be no reproach to you.” "I wonder if you know what we pay for this apartment," Ellinor said, sharply, naming a sum that made the old lady's spectacles fly off in her excitement. That Aunt Hope had much to learn she discovered in the course of this memorable visit. She found in her niece a type of an increasing class, descendants of the thrifty New York merchants of a generation back-cradled in luxury, and yielding to no hereditary nobles upon earth the right to surpass them in personal indulgence of their lavish tastes. On every side in the circle of Ellinor's contemporaries might be seen the same push and struggle for supremacy in the world of fashion-a world of self-constituted aristocracy, whereof the puppets representing men and women danced to the faraway pipings of a social leadership they affected to despise, creating, in a word, a London at second-hand. In such hands the vigor of the American republic is swathed in eider-down and stifled in attar of rose. No wonder that a shrewd old woman like Aunt Hope, whose eyes had been wide open to the interests of her fellows these sixty years past, should pause aghast at the spectacle! A brief interview with her niece revealed far more than Ellinor meant to show. Already the husband and wife had begun to drift apart, both finding in the narrow limit of home companionship meagre food for their restless spirits. Night after night Ellinor went into the world, day after day lounged upon her sofa until the hour arrived for some fresh gayety. The discovery that for the first time in her life money to lavish on her own amusements was not forth-coming was resented as a personal affront put on her by father and husband both. On his side, Eliot, a good-natured and wellmeaning young fellow in the main, waked up with dismay to the reality of his married life. Instead of a helpmeet, he had a princess on his hands. Little by little dreams of domestic happiness took wing. His pecuniary responsibilities overwhelmed him. In despair, he went back to the old society life for solace. "Whose fault is this?" Aunt Hope asked herself, sternly, pinning her little gray shawl to go down the stairs, heart-sick and despondent of better things. Second thoughts induced her to turn her steps in the direction of the remote locality where Grace Fielding had made her home. morning sunlight. Glass, brass, silver, and porcelain caught up and repeated the sparkling effect. Two or three jars of blue Delft held vigorous young palms. A bowl of yellow tulips ornamented the centre of the table, and around the little plot of ground behind the house wistaria, ivy, and honeysuckle made a wall of green to inclose a grass-plot with its central flower bed." The small brick house in unfashionable - Place was blushing in a fresh coat of paint, and the brass dragon knocker on the dark green door shone resplendently. "The wonder of it is, we are, in our A tiny balcony was filled with tulips, hy- modest way, a social success," Grace went acinths, and wall-flowers in pots. From on. "All my girl friends followed me the open windows of the parlor Grace's here, and once a week I have afternoon voice was heard singing at her piano. A tea, and so many pleasant people drop handmaiden whose smile assumed per- in. Now and again a carriage rolls into sonal interest in the caller ushered Aunt the street that brings all our neighbors Hope into the presence of her niece. Grace to the window; but many of mamma's greeted her aunt joyfully, and forthwith friends have contented themselves with began the eager exhibition of a young sending cards through the post. The viswife's first belongings. its of mere form will soon stop, and then Ned and I will settle down to making our own "set," if we are to have such a thing. Think of papa coming, aunty!-papa, who never goes anywhere but to the office and the club. Sometimes he and the children have their Sunday dinner here, and we have great fun. Ned and papa are such friends! (But then everybody is friends with Ned, Aunt Hope.) We see less of mamma, because she is really very busy going out with Ellinor, and then she doesn't like to bring the horses to the east side of town." "No, dear auntie, you can't sit down until you have admired our skill in making sixteen feet square do the work of twenty. No crowding either; we are proud of that," she said, in her rapid, girlish way. "With the book-cases, which, thanks to your blessed wedding present and Ned's college library, we have filled, we defy criticism as to the decoration of our walls. Those engravings and photogravures and the little Florentine mirror look well, don't they, against the Pompeiian red, though 'tis only 'water wash'? The tops of the shelves, you see, have served to accommodate the best of our wedding 'loot,' as Ned calls it, but the china ornaments have by his stern decree gone into one especial press in the dining-room. We are rich in lamps and candelabra, of course, and the horrid little chandelier was banished altogether from this room. A committee of two or three of Ned's artist friends came here and 'sat' upon our affairs while we were furnishing, so we flatter ourselves that the tone of everything is eminently correct. That portière was an extravagance, but don't tell-we exchanged a hideous rug for it that somebody bestowed on us. Now for the dining-room. Isn't it a pretty spot?" Here, instead of the traditional gloom of the modern eating-room, were light, color, fragrance. Two little windows had been knocked out to be replaced by an ample bow, large enough, when required, to contain a tête-à-tête breakfast table. The furniture, of the slender-legged mahogany variety, glittered brilliantly in a bath of They had luncheon, served by the smiling Phyllis upon flowery china, and afterward Aunt Hope fell to sentimentalizing in Grace's æsthetic three-cornered chair by the open bow. "There is nothing like the spring-tide of married life," the old woman mused. "How beautiful is this fullness of faith in the object beloved-this persistent happiness owning no alloy! Bless me, child, I am doting! Give me a cup of tea, and then you may-as I see you are dying to do-talk about Ned's virtues till one or the other of us drops through sheer fatigue, and I know which one of us that will not be." Grace needed no further invitation. She sat down on a cushion at her aunt's knee;, but before the confidence had gone far it was interrupted by a loud knock, followed by the appearance upon the scene of John Talbot, looking pale and worn. "Papa," cried Grace, "you here at this hour! Has anything happened?" "Don't be alarmed, my dear; we are all well at home, thank God," her father said, dropping wearily into a chair. "I am glad to find you here, Aunt Hope, you and Grace-brave women and true. I believe I am a little tired, that's all. The way has been long and hard, but my credit's safe. Yes: no man can say John Talbot has robbed him of a dollar. But for your poor mother and the children I'd not mind. There is a relief in all being known at last.... Talbot and Co. have to-day failed to meet their obligations, and -I'd rather not talk about it just now with Maria and Ellinor and the rest." By the time summer was fairly under way the old farm-house where Aunt Hope had spent so many lonely years was alive with the clamor of young voices. Its long-closed doors had opened wide to receive John Talbot's family, of which the younger members made no scruple in declaring their delight at the exchange of domicile. Mrs. Talbot could not be brought to think of herself otherwise than as a much-injured woman. She wore away the long dull hours of country life in vain repinings for her lost estate, and her one gleam of light was the prospect of a visit with her daughter Ellinor to Newport later in the season. To read in the society journals of Ellinor's appearance at the races at Jerome Park, or of Ellinor's toilet at ball or dinner, was the solace of her present life. Grace and her husband spent their holidays at Hope Farm, and "the boys" rallied there from school and college. Mr. Talbot came but seldom, for a Sunday, when he could. He was back again at the tread-mill round of business, and through the generous support of his friends had every prospect of renewed success. True, Aunt Hope, Grace, Edward, and the family doctor urged upon him rest, but the reproaches of his wife and the goading sense of responsibility to his children made Talbot shake his head and redouble his exertions. For a year this state of things went on, until one day of the following June, Talbot arrived at the farm with a look of rare excitement on his pallid face. "I've got the reins in my hand again, Maria," he said to his wife, before the family. "Affairs are going on better than I dared to hope, and, please God, before long I can give you all I robbed you of." "Father dear, how can you?" Grace cried, covering his trembling hand with kisses and with tears-"you, who have been so generous, so self-denying, so tender. Speak to him, mamma, and tell him this. He wants it from you, not me." "Well, I'm sure everybody knows how well I have borne this trial-" Mrs. Talbot began, but was stopped by an alarmed gesture from Aunt Hope. Grace's arms were around her father, her cheek pressed to his. She did not see the strange look that came into his eyes as he reeled and fell heavily to the floor. By the time they could lift him to a couch it was found that life had fled. As if through a mockery of fate, the following day brought Ellinor Eliot, alone and unattended, to the shelter of her aunt's despised home. Discarded by her husband, and overshadowed by the odium of a scandal with which the newspapers in another day would teem, she had come to her family for shelter. "I shall always think that this misfortune of poor dear Ellinor's would never have come upon her," said Mrs. Talbot, the day after her husband had been laid to rest, "if John had taken my advice about allowing them enough to keep up the position she has always had. But there is enough left, I believe, for us to take a house in town next season, and she, poor girl, will be able to live down the consequences of her father's lack of judgment. One comfort is, she is still the most beautiful creature of her set." For some years the little house in Place continued to be, in the eyes of two people at least, the centre of earthly sunshine. Wooed by the fame of its hospitality, guests came and came again, to go away singing the praises of their hosts. When, at last, to these young people fortune arrived in a measure enabling them to answer the demands of a growing family to widen the borders of their home, the change was made with infinite reluctance. "One thing I can say with truth, Aunt Hope," Grace cried, impulsively, when the dear old lady appeared at the christening of a fourth young Fielding-"that the only tears Ned has brought to my eyes since we were married were shed when he drove me from our home." Aunt Hope smiled, but as she stooped to kiss the baby a tear fell on its face. She was thinking of John Talbot's wrecked happiness, of the mistaken struggle of his life. THE THE train for Cape Ann had left the Boston station, and was emerging from smutty railroad sidings and factories into regions where, beyond fields of broken creamy ice, spotted with dark haycocks, you could make out the line of pale blue sea. Anastasia was applying her face to the cold window-pane, whitened with frost and blackened with cinders, and was trying to make her enjoyment of the view predominate over a not unnatural dislike to the prospect of spending a long day alone upon what her best advisers considered a wild-goose chase. Many times had Anastasia hunted that adventurous bird, which had led her over such pleasant hills and dales that she regarded most of these excursions as something better than a waste of time and car tickets. But on this January morning, with no companion by her side, the high spirits began to flag which had supported her through perils of slippery sidewalks and vigils in ladies' rooms. It was too evident that Bessy was not coming, and Anastasia, while the dark hay-cocks flew by, was repeating to herself the time-worn pieces of consolation which on such occasions always failed to console her. "I ought to be perfectly happy," she was reflecting. "I'm doing just what I wanted to do, and the country is very picturesque, I know, only somehow I don't feel it, and it's ridiculous for an art student to mind going about alone, and everybody will be civil VOL. LXX.-No. 418.-36 to me, for I'm in my own country now-" when a touch on her elbow made her turn round sharply, fear and indignation blazing in her eyes. Was this American civility? "Bessy!" cries our student, and folded the new-comer in an embrace quite too fervid for the conventionalities of the car. "Where have you been?-in the wrong car? Never mind; now I have you, I'll take the best of care of you." And Bessy good-naturedly acquiesced, though she was far more capable of taking care of Anastasia. The ice-fields and the blue sea and the snowy pastures, with their streaks of dark grass and rock, now began to assume the most charming appearance in Anastasia's eyes, and she was rummaging in her bag for her stout shabby sketch-book, when Bessy asked to be told the object of the expedition. 'You only said in the telegram, 'Rockport, Thursday, ten fortyfive," "" she observed. "Of course I came. I love Cape Ann as well as you do, and perhaps I love you more than Cape Ann. But I can't help wondering why you chose this particular time." 66 "Why, look here!" cried Anastasia, and she showered upon Bessy's lap all the drawings which illustrate this article, or, to speak more properly, which this article obscures. "Look at all these!" "This one seems to be on the side of a Pyramid in Egypt, judging by the great piled-up rocks," said Bessy. "We're in the wrong direction for that, Nancy dear." "Your guess isn't such a bad one," said Anastasia; "it's the fashion now to say that the Pyramids were hills of rock once, and it's a hill of rock you are looking at. It bears an Egyptian name too, though it's not what the Pyramids were made of." An Egyptian name?" said Bessy, looking puzzled. "Did you never hear of Assouan, that wild town by the first Nile cataract?" said her friend. "It's odd to think that its Greek form, Syene, has been turned into a word so common on our Massachusetts ledges as syenite, which you and I are to hear twenty times to-day." Bessy still looked mystified. "I thought our granite wasn't the real Upper Egyptian syenite," said she. "And I thought Quincy was the place for granite, and we are turning our backs upon Quincy." "You're quite right," said her friend; "but our granite-what they call hornblende granite now-was for a long time called syenite, for all that, so the books say, and the name isn't yet worn out. And we are going to a place where there is a great deal of it. Mr. Crosby says in his State Report that probably Cape Ann exists because of a long granite wall which begins at Natick and ends at Rockport." "But what makes you come out to ex amine this particular granite wall?" said Bessy. "There's plenty more granite in eastern Massachusetts; for instance, the Blue Hills, where the Quincy quarries You see I also have read Mr. Crosby's Report." are. "Why, the artists who made these drawings set my mind upon coming to Rockport," said Anastasia. "They were there last summer. And when I had seen them I felt as if I must go there myself. If only I could do anything like that!" Bessy privately wondered whether Nancy's drawings were likely to be half as good as those in her lap. She went on listening, however, with her habitual and sincere air of sympathy. "And then, besides," her friend was saying, "I've always wanted to know something about granite. You know the old saying that granite and ice are the principal natural products which we Massachusetts people export. To-day, I imagine, we shall see ice enough as well as granite." "Is it true that our granite is so important to us?" said Bessy. "The value of the product of the granite quarries of Massachusetts was nearly a million and a half dollars in 1875," said her friend. "There are only three agricultural products which are so valuable to our State. By-the-way, they put ice down in our State census as an agricultural product: that was worth rather over half a million in the same year. It's |