seat, idly looking down at him. There seemed something supercilious in her attitude of criticism, and to be no longer the subject of her contemplation, he entered the tunnel out of her sight. In the middle of the speck of light before him appeared a speck of black; and then a shrill whistle, dulled by millions of tons of earth, reached his ears from thence. It was what he had been on his guard against all the time-a passing train; and instead of taking the trouble to come out of the tunnel, he stepped into a recess till the train had rattled past, and vanished onward round a curve. Somerset still remained where he had placed himself, mentally balancing science against art, the grandeur of this fine piece of construction against that of the castle, and thinking whether Paula's father had not, after all, the best of it, when all at once he saw Paula's form confronting him at the entrance to the tunnel. He instantly went forward into the light where she was: to his surprise, she was as pale as a lily. "Oh, Mr. Somerset!" she exclaimed, impulsively. "You ought not to frighten me so-indeed you ought not. The train came out almost as soon as you had gone in, and as you did not return, an accident was possible." Somerset at once perceived that he had been to blame in not thinking of this. "Please do forgive my thoughtlessness in not reflecting how it would strike you," he pleaded. "I-I see I have alarmed you." Her alarm was, indeed, much greater than he had at first thought: she trembled so much that she was obliged to sit down, at which he went up to her, full of solicitousness. "You ought not to have done it!" she said, petulantly, keeping her face turned away, and trying to calm her agitation. "I naturally thought-any person would-" Somerset, perhaps wisely, said nothing at this outburst; the cause of her vexation was, plainly enough, his perception of her discomposure. He stood looking in another direction, till in a few moments she had risen to her feet again, quite calm. It rather spoiled what had gone before; but perhaps she intended to spoil it. "I was really in no danger; but of course I ought to have considered," he said. "I knew there was no great danger to a person exercising ordinary discretion," she returned, coolly. "I am now going up again. What do you think of the tunnel?" They were crossing the railway to ascend by the opposite path, Somerset keeping his eye on the interior of the tunnel for safety, when suddenly there arose a noise and shriek from the contrary direction behind the trees. Both knew in a moment what it meant, and each seized the other as they rushed off the permanent way. The ideas of both had been so centred on the tunnel as the source of danger, that the probability of a train from the opposite quarter had been forgotten. It rushed past them, causing Paula's dress, hair, and ribbons to flutter violently, and blowing up the fallen leaves in a shower over their shoulders. Neither spoke, and they went up several steps, holding each other tightly by the hand, till, becoming conscious of the act, she withdrew hers; whereupon Somerset stopped and looked her in the face; but her eyes were averted toward the tunnel wall. "What an escape!” he said. "We were not so very near, I think," she answered, quickly, still gliding upward. They reached the top at last, and the new level and open air seemed to give her a new mind. "I don't see the carriage anywhere," she said, in the common tones of civilization. He thought it had gone over the crest of the hill; he would accompany her till they reached it. "No-please-I would rather not; I can find it very well." Before he could say more, she had inclined her head and smiled, and was on her way alone. The tunnel cutting appeared a dreary gulf enough now to the young man, as he stood leaning over the rails above it, beating the herbage with his stick. For some minutes he could not criticise or "It would have been dreadful," she weigh her conduct; the warmth of her said, with faint gayety, as the color re-presence still encircled him. He recalled turned to her face, if I had lost my architect, and been obliged to engage Mr. Havill without an alternative." her face as it had looked out at him from under the white silk puffing of her black hat, and the speaking power of her eyes at the moment of danger. The breadth | to occupy the mind of a young woman: of that clear-complexioned forehead-al- the personal aspect of the situation was most concealed by the masses of brown hair bundled up around it—signified that if her disposition were oblique and insincere enough for trifling, coquetting, or in any way making a fool of him, she had the intellect to do it cruelly well. But it was ungenerous to ruminate too curiously. A girl not an actress by profession could hardly turn pale artificially | as she had done, though perhaps mere fright meant nothing, and would have arisen in her just as readily had he been one of the laborers on her estate. Upon the whole, it was a perplexity. The reflection that such feeling as she had exhibited could have no tender meaning returned upon him with masterful force when he thought of her wealth and the social position into which she had drifted. Somerset, being of a solitary and studious nature, was not quite competent to estimate precisely the disqualifying effect, if any, of her Nonconformity, her newness of blood, and other things, among the old county families established round her; but the toughest prejudices, he thought, were not likely to be long invulnerable to such sweetness of manner, beauty, and brightness of intellect as Paula's. When she emerged, as she was plainly about to do, from the comparative seclusion in which she had been living since her father's death, she would inevitably win her way among her neighbors. She would become the local topic. tune-hunters would learn of her existence, and draw near in shoals. What chance would there then be for him? For The points in his favor were indeed few, but they were just enough to keep a tantalizing hope alive. Modestly leaving out of count his personal and intellectual qualifications, he thought of his family. It was an old stock enough, though not a rich one. His great-uncle had been the well-known Vice-Admiral Sir Armstrong Somerset, who served his country well in the Baltic, the Indies, China, and the Caribbean Sea. His grandfather had been a notable metaphysician. His father, the Royal Academician, was popular, though he had unhappily allowed his fortune to drop in the rear of his reputation by reason of his idle and easy nature, so that men with one-fifth his talent easily made ten times his income. But perhaps this was not the sort of reasoning likely in such circumstances of far more import. He had come as a wandering stranger-that possibly lent some interest to him in her eyes. He was installed in an office which would necessitate free communion with her for some time to come; that was another advantage, and would be a still greater one if she showed, as Paula seemed disposed to do, such artistic sympathy with his work as to follow up with interest the details of its progress. The carriage did not re-appear, and he went on toward Markton, disinclined to return again that day to the studio which had been prepared for him at the castle. He heard feet brushing the grass behind him, and looking round, saw the Baptist minister. "I have just come from the village," said Mr. Woodwell, who looked worn and weary, his boots being covered with dust, "and I have learned that which confirms my fears for her." "For Miss Power?" 'Most assuredly." "What danger is there?" said Somerset, with forced backwardness. "The temptations of her position have become too much for her! She is going out of mourning next week, and will give a large dinner party on the occasion; for though the invitations are partly in the name of her relative Mrs. Goodman, they must come from her. The guests are to include people of old Cavalier families who would have treated her grandfather, sir, and even her father, with scorn for their religion and connections; also the parson and curate-yes, actually people who believe in the Apostolic Succession; and, what's more, they're coming. opinion is that it has all arisen from her friendship with Miss De Stancy." My deep grief to me, but I serve One greater "Also of photography," said Dare, with a bow. "Though but an amateur in that art, I can challenge comparison with Two Their paths diverged; and when Somerset reached the King's Arms Hotel, he was informed that somebody was waiting to see him. 66 'Man or woman?" he asked. The landlady, who always liked to reply in person to Somerset's inquiries, apparently thinking him, by virtue of his drawing implements and liberality of payment, a possible lord of Burleigh, came forward, and said it was certainly not a woman, but whether man or boy she could not say. "His name is Mr. Dare," she added. "Oh-that man,” he said. Somerset went up stairs, along the passage, down two steps, round the angle, and so on to the rooms reserved for him in this rambling edifice of stage-coach memories, where he found Dare waiting. Dare came forward, pulling out the cutting of an advertisement. "Mr. Somerset, this is yours, I believe, from the Architectural World." Somerset said that he had inserted it. "I think I should suit your purpose as assistant very well." 66 Are you an architect's draughtsman?" "Not specially. I have some knowledge of the same, and want to increase it." "I thought you were a photographer. M' Somerset looked upon his table. letters only, addressed in initials, were lying there as answers to his advertisement. He asked Dare to wait, and looked them over. Neither was satisfactory. On this account, he overcame his slight feeling against Mr. Dare, and put a question to test that gentleman's capacities. "How would you measure the front of a building, including windows, doors, mouldings, and every other feature, for a ground plan, so as to combine the greatest accuracy with the greatest dispatch ?" "In running dimensions," said Dare. As this was the particular kind of work he wanted done, Somerset thought the answer promising. Coming to terms with Dare, he requested the would-be student of architecture to wait at the castle the next day, and dismissed him. A quarter of an hour later, when Dare was taking a walk in the country, he drew from his pocket eight other letters addressed to Somerset in initials, which, to judge by their style and stationery, were from men far superior to those two whose communications alone Somerset had seen. Dare looked them over for a few seconds as he strolled on, then tore them into minute fragments, and, burying them under the leaves in the ditch, whistled, and went on his way again. Editor's Easy Chair. R. JUSTIN MCCARTHY, in his History of Our Own Times, speaks very freely of England and the British government, criticising it without mercy for its conduct in China, and for its want of intelligence of the American situation during our civil war. Indeed, he writes as frankly, and finds fault with John Bull as cordially, as a Yankee; but, so far as we have observed, John Bull takes it in perfectly good part, and apparently accepts it all as probably true. That Mr. McCarthy is an Irishman has not induced a single sneerer to say, "Of course"; but the acquiescence is obviously due to the consciousness that the historian has no malign purpose, and that the critic is plainly correct. John Bull bears sharp strictures with great equanimity. He has a kind of good-natured, thick-skinned feeling toward other nations, as if they were amusing or insignificant. The typical John Bull is like | Sir Robert Peel in Punch's caricature of the Minister as the King of Brobdingnag holding the droll little Lilliputian Disraeli upon the palm of his hand, and regarding him with fatwitted curiosity. But Cousin Jonathan is of a more sensitive temperament. The London Spectator said the other day that America was very powerful and very prosperous and very peaceful, but that we had done nothing to help other natious when suffering or struggling; in fact, that we had plenty of lodging room, and plenty to eat and drink, and cared little for the spiritual or material starvation of the world beyond. The Spectator has received a great many American slaps in consequence. Nobody shall say an ill word of us without a reply. So, also, Mr. Richard Grant White recently raised the question about the city of New York, whether growing bigger is growing better-whether, except in no more. size, we have made such immense progress. | perhaps, finer; but again, as our critic remarks, Indeed, as laudator temporis acti, Mr. White it was not our own domestic production. It made a very pretty plea for the days that are was an exotic. Most of the music that we But he has been "picked up" on all hear, except at the minstrels', is an exotic. sides, and the neat Latin phrase for laureate | Malibran was an exotic, and Braham, and Grisi, of departed days has been sententiously trans- and Jenny Lind, and Knoop, and Caradori Allated "grumbler." The year 1881 has no iu- | lan. The critic does not deny it. We undertention whatever of acknowledging that any stand him to ask us only why we take airs earlier year had any advantage, and the critic upon our currant bushes because we tie.roses who whispers that if Gerster and Bernhardt to them. are very well, yet that Malibran and Rachel were not ill, is evidently regarded as a mummy, a fossil, an antediluvian, a prehistoric fly in amber. But why should we turn our backs so severely upon the past? Mr. White suggests, for instance, that the City Hall is as pretty a piece of architecture as the Post-office. But he is not a Goth for holding that opinion. He says that those who heard Sontag and Jenny Lind (hear! hear!) heard quite as charming singing as any that the New-Yorker in the present year of grace hears. If any preux chevalier wishes to break a lance upon that point, the Easy Chair will gladly enter the lists, wearing the colors of the diva Lind. He also asserts that the Philharmonic orchestra is mainly composed of Germans, and that, in fact, very much of our music is a foreign migration, and, as it were, a foreign camp upon | our soil. Is his assertion incorrect? We might prefer to call it seed rather than camp, and seed cast upon the kindliest soil; but how many of our chief musicians are not, as he says, Germans or other countrymen? Doubtless the Germans, bringing gifts of music, have taught us what and how to admire. They found a kindly soil, we say, and they have cultivated it well. But it was a cultivable soil, and it has brought forth fruit, some fifty, some an hundred fold. As we recall the evenings at the Handel and Haydn, we do not remember a single score in the hand of any listener. Yet, sitting where we could overlook the great mass of the great audience at the late performance, we saw that there were scores of scores, if not hundreds of them, in the hands of ingenuous youth; and even Hortensia, who sleeps severely and reprovingly at the frivolous Italian opera, held a large book and her eyes solemnly open, during the whole evening at the Oratorio. The immense advances of a generation in our musical taste and cultivation are due mainly to the German raiders. We do not suppose that Mr. White means to question that there is a general or a very extensive musical atmosphere which was unknown in the days when the Hermann brothers sang, and when there were orchestral concerts at the old City Hotel, and when the Shirreff gave operas at the old National at the corner of Church and Leonard streets, and when Malibran, and, later, Manvers and the Giubileis, sang at the old Park, and Cinti Damoreau at Washington Hall. This musical atmosphere is due, undoubtedly, in great part, to the large mingling of the European element in our society. It helps to make the audience as well as the performers, and therefore, when we pride ourselves upon our progress, we must at least scrutinize the word "our"—says Mr. White. We do not complain. We gladly own it. We are exceedingly obliged to Mein Herr for coming over the sea, and bringing Bach and Handel and Haydn and Beethoven and all the tuneful masters with him. We are very glad that their welcome has been such as to prove that we appreciate the great works as well as the hearers of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, or the Paris Conservatoire, or the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The immense trooping hitherward of the artists of every degree is a noble tribute to the land and to the city. But the fact, nevertheless, remains as Mr. White points out. But then all this migration "has come to It is Mein Herr who conducts and plays, and stay." This audience of various nationalities it is Jonathan who listens and pays. The oth- is constantly merging and coalescing into one er evening, during the holidays, the Easy Chair nationality. The camp is blending with the heard a delightful performance of the Messi-nation, and the exotic of yesterday will be acah. A great many evenings ago, in the holidays of other years, it heard the same oratorio in Boston, sung by the Handel and Haydn Society of that musical city. If the numbers of the more recent chorus were greater, if the "attack" was somewhat more vigorous, and the shading more delicate, and if in Mr. Henschel there was a master of that style of music, it is still true that the earlier performance was wholly domestic. It was virtually a Boston work. In the more recent performance, the chorus was doubtless largely native, but the orchestra and the conductor and the chief solo singers were not. The performance was, VOL. LXII.-No. 370.-40 | climated to-morrow. The New York of Mr. White's reminiscence was an American New York. The New York of to-day is the largest Irish city in the world, and it is a very large German town. It is not less a New England community. "The Yankees and other interlopers," says the St. Nicholas orator, ruefully, "have divided us up, and we seem to live by sufferance upon our own estate." Our Rome is no longer a village upon the Tiber; she is becoming mistress of the world, and gathers her miscellaneous children with all-embracing But such glimpses of her homogeneous youth as those of Mr. White are very alluring. arm. |