They came out presently, and when the "Brigand" found that Carmelina was the only one on whom no contraband had been discovered he smiled and nodded to her, saying, "Good!" For the other two he had no word.

Now the searching of the rooms began. It is needless to go into details; even the painted figure of the Madonna on Archangelo's wall was searched. Drawers, shelves, bureaus, boxes-all were investigated without result. As the hunt progressed things became less strained. There were smiles, and even little jests at the awkwardness with which the carabinieri handled some of the feminine apparel.

But even when Luigi and the other carabiniere were searching Carmelina's room, under the supervision of the "Brigand," the girl failed to give the slightest notice to her former admirer. When questions were put to her by Luigi or the other, she answered to the Maresciallo as though he had addressed her. I fondly fancied Luigi squirming beneath his gorgeous uniform.

The search was almost finished when Luigi, in a desultory hunt through the pockets of a coat that hung upon a hook in the girl's room, found a letter bearing no address. It had a big red seal, and I remembered her having come that morning to ask me for a piece of wax.

"What is this?" asked Luigi, holding it up for her inspection.

"A letter to my sister in Sorrento,” said Carmelina, turning to the "Brigand." "Does it contain anything?" "Only the letter."

"Then you won't object to its being. opened ?"

"But I have no more wax," she protested.

"Perhaps the signore will let you have a little?" smiled the "Brigand."

I nodded.

"But it's only a letter to my sister," objected Carmelina.

I must own that I was surprised at the girl's attitude. It seemed to me that, for the first time, she was nervous. The "Brigand" shot her a quick glance beneath his eyebrows.

"Open it," he said to Luigi.

Luigi ripped the envelope. I sighed with relief, for there was no money. Somehow, Carmelina's seeming anxiousness about the letter had momentarily shaken my faith in her.

She had turned away as Luigi opened it. Her face was red. "Don't let him read it!" she begged the Maresciallo.

He looked at her again beneath his bushy brows.

'Read!" he commanded Luigi.

Luigi began perusing the epistle. It seemed as though the room had suddenly grown hot, for as he read he mopped his brow.

"Well?" asked the Maresciallo sternly. Luigi looked beseechingly at Carmelina's back and hesitated for an instant. "Nothing," he said, addressing his superior. "What does it say?"

"It concerns her personal affairs," said the now crimson carabiniere. "She has quarrelled with her lover. She is most unhappy

Here Jovenina tittered.

A choking sob burst from our Carmelina. With her face in her hands, she rushed from the room.

"Enough! enough!" cried the Maresciallo, glaring savagely at Jovenina, who instantly subsided.

The search was over. The money was not found. The Maresciallo left, saying he would see me in the morning.

I talked the matter over with Adelaide before going on my nightly rounds to see that doors and windows were secured.

"The money's gone forever," she said. "But there's one thing we know about it." 'What's that?" I asked.

66

That Carmelina didn't take it.” "Yes," I agreed; "and whatever has become of it, I think it's well invested." "Vivisection?"

"Well, if that's what you choose to call it, yes. It was surely odd, and Italian and dramatic."

"Forty dollars' worth," reflected Adelaide. Then suddenly: "I tell you! Write about it and get the money back that way.” "Perhaps," I answered, as I started on my door and window locking tour.

The sharp Italian moonlight was streaming in through the French windows leading to the garden. As my hand found the bolt I paused; outside I saw a figure. It was a carabiniere. He stood quite motionless. Then I discovered that he was not alone. His big blue cape sheltered someone else as well-someone whose dark head lay peacefully upon the carabiniere's shoulder.

N

OWADAYS, as is often remarked, we do not grow old. The chimney-corner sees us no more; knitting is a lost art and an old lady's cap an obsolete headgear. The modern grandmother does not renounce a personal interest in pomps and vanities and the modern grandfather plays golf. The old-fashioned grandmother was perhaps not less worldly-minded, in spite of the tradition which makes a saint of her, but hers was a vicarious worldliness. Age versus Youth It was for her granddaughters that she desired frivolities. Plenty of good clothes, plenty of beaux, and in the end to marry plenty of money; that was her ideal; and she set much store by good looks. She was a trifle cynical as to the duration of early attachments. One old lady, who had eloped with the man of her heart, was asked by a granddaughter whether, if she had it to do over again, she would still make a runaway marriage. With the appalling frankness which belongs alike to childhood and old age, she replied: "Yes, but not with Mr. A."

With increasing enlightenment in matters of hygiene the period of old age is deferred, and the tides of life now flow strongly at a time when our forefathers and, still more, our foremothers were laid on the shelf; and yet, put it off as we may, it is bound to catch up with us, unless we be of those whom the gods love. To the earlier period of meek acceptance belongs the assertion, so often repeated as to be sometimes carelessly taken for truth, that contact with youth more than anything else makes old people forget their age. Never was a more mistaken statement. In a way, it is true that the society of young persons does keep their elders young, by stimulating their pride and preventing them from giving way to certain foibles incident to their time of life. It is in the nature of a salutary discipline; and those persons who are brought in contact with the little segregated communities of old men and old women who are collected in "Homes" will probably agree that it is a discipline which is most desirable. For of all the pitfalls which lie in wait for old

age, the most distressing is that lack of selfcontrol which lays bare the weaknesses hitherto kept under cover by a normally strong will. The constant presence of the younger generation is at the same time a moral goad and a support.

The very instinct of self-preser

vation leads one to adapt oneself to their standards. If you would not be unpleasant to look at, you must cultivate the niceties of the toilet. Not for you, madam, any "sweet neglect." At your age, "robes loosely flowing, hair as free" are not as befitting as a well-preserved figure and a trim coiffure. Not for you, sir, an overindulgence in slippered ease. Beware the trousers that bag at the knees and the wrinkled waistcoat. If you would not be an unwelcome companion you must constantly bear in mind that "brevity is the soul of wit." You must be sympathetic, but discreet; wise, but not too wise; modern enough to be companionable, but old-fashioned enough to be suitable. And you must not expect to be understood. Youth believes itself to be misunderstood, age knows itself to be so. But for your comfort you may know that the vigorous discipline to which you subject yourself undoubtedly retards the progress of senile decay.

As for your children and grandchildren, they are charming creatures; so handsome and gay and clever, so affectionate and so full of pretty ways with you, and as sympathetic as their limited experience of life will permit. You love their very inexperience and in your secret heart you think them a great improvement on what you were at their age. But as for feeling young in their presence, that is another matter. For that you must seek the society of someone older than yourself; someone who calls you by your first name, or, better still, by a nickname; who gives you advice and thinks your clothes are too old for yousomeone, in short, who from the vantageground of superior years bullies you a little. And when the last person is gone to whom you were always young, then, indeed, you know the loneliness of age,-model grandparent though you may be, adoring your descendants and adored by them.

Some Advantages of Unreformed Spelling

We have been growing careless of late. Once upon a time we took shame to ourselves if we made errors in spelling and we were in haste to devise excuses for our shortcomings. It was a slip of the pen, we said; or if we acknowledged our weakness we maintained that good spellers were born, not made, and tried to brazen it out in that way. Nowadays, when a high priest of spelling reform tells us that the student is no longer obliged to sit "with a dictionary at his elbow" and that the traveller need no longer "pack one with his linen and his Bible," we feel that we are not called upon to be slaves to the vagaries of twenty-six letters; that it is of no consequence whether we spell the English language correctly or not; and that, in fact, so irregular and illogical a language does not deserve any consideration at our hands-to such ease of conscience have we arrived. True, we are still cowardly enough to anticipate criticism by saying in a casual way to whomever it may concern, "You know I don't pretend to know how to spell"; for nothing so disarms criticism as to confess one's sins before committing them.

It is doubtless a fine thing not to be obliged to worry over a vowel put in or a consonant left out, but we seem to be coming to the end of this happy, care-free period, for now we are to be brought up with a sharp turn. Ironclad rules are to be laid down which, if we follow them, will give to our most serious and eloquent pages an appearance at once barbarous and would-be funny, reminding us of the methods of the early school of American humorists. Perhaps the only thing necessary is to get used to these changes; but shall we of the present generation ever succeed in getting used to them? Shall we ever be able to take the literature of the future seriously? Protests come from those who treasure that "nice and delicate sense for visual symbols which has been built up through centuries"; but what chance have we old fogies if Capital is to finance spelling? And not only is it proposed to give us a changed spelling, but we are even

offered a new alphabet, so dotted over with cabalistic signs that it may be warranted to ruin the strongest eyesight!

It really is not wise to subject even youth to a too sudden shock to its "delicate sense for visual symbols." One would not willingly arouse laughter when one is in dead earnest. Take, for instance, the case of my friend Justus, who felt obliged, the other day, to write a letter of admonition to his graceless nephew. Now my friend is not a spelling reformer, but, although a man of education, he has always been an indifferent speller, and he does by no means sit with the dictionary at his elbow. The double consonant is his stumbling-block. When he sat down to write his letter he was in a severe frame of mind, and as he wrote his indignation grew-a righteous and well-justified indignation too; and since he does not lack a command of concise and forcible language he did not fail to make his opinion of the boy's behavior clear. The boy, who is by no means irreclaimable, found himself very unhappy upon the receipt of this letter. He knew quite well that he had made a fool of himself and his uncle's scorn cut deep. As he read, he had a despairing sense that nothing was very much worth while any more, that no efforts could make up for the past, and that "foolishness" (how much more contemptuous a word than folly!) was more irremediable than sin. And then suddenly, as his eyes followed the lines, the tension was relieved and he burst out laughing. For my friend Justus, at the climax of his scorn, had written "apetites" for appetites. "Apetites!" chuckled the boy, and after that could bear to be told that his debts were "appaling." Of course you and I, who have a sneaking kindness for the boy, are glad that the sting was drawn; but the effect was not what my friend Justus intended.

Our friends the spelling reformers intend, I understand, to make their spelling conform to our pronunciation; but there seems to be some danger that it will be the other way about, and that long before we have got used to their indicatory dots and lines our pronunciation will have become hopelessly vitiated.

Who that has heard program pronounced progrum can be free from this apprehension? Can even the ingenious suggestion that the silent letters should be made to do their duty and that we should sound the final ugh avail to save us?

EASTMAN JOHNSON-HIS LIFE AND

H

WORKS

OLLAND, the country above all others to which art owes gratitude for the creation and maintenance of sane traditions of painting, rendered a signal service to American art some half century ago in the solid technical training which it gave to Eastman Johnson. The education of our earlier painters had been various. When the nineteenth century was nearing its middle period there was a general exodus of students to Düsseldorf, and it was to pursue his studies there that in 1849 Eastman Johnson took ship for Europe. The vessel on which Johnson sailed, bound for Antwerp, was detained at Flushing; and it is to be regretted that no written record has been made of the story which Johnson delighted to tell, and told so well, of how he and his comrade, George Henry Hall, who survives him-impatient young pilgrims desiring to plunge at once into the promised land of art-left the vessel and, ignorant of the language and customs of the country, trudged on foot along the River Scheldt toward their goal. On their way each step revealed to their New-World eyes some detail filled with romance and promise, until after nightfall they found themselves before the closed gates of the city of Antwerp, which was then a walled town obedient to the old custom of curfew.

After an amusing parley in conflicting tongues the capital of Flemish art received them kindly, and henceforward the art of Flanders and Holland made so direct and sympathetic an appeal to Johnson that his sojourn in Düsseldorf was comparatively brief and its lessons had little or no visible effect on his life-work. His earlier student stage passed, he settled at the Hague, where his success was so marked that when after an absence of long duration he determined to return to the United States, his patriotic purpose was carried out in the face of a temptation to accept the formal proffer of the position of court painter at the Hague. It may be said in passing that a singular good for

tune has rewarded the efforts of many of our painters abroad, a good fortune made the more conspicuous, perhaps, by our lack of appreciation of many of the same men at home. Stuart's renunciation of a position hardly second to Reynolds' in order that he might transmit to posterity the features of Washington, Vanderlyn's success in Paris, Allston's deliberate return in the face of a strong probability that he might inherit the position and influence which Benjamin West had so long held in London, and Morse's turning from his brilliant début abroad to found at home the National Academy of Design, are all instances of Americans taking a position in the art of the Old World that proves the trite axiom that our prophets are not without honor save in their own country.

This may be deliberately written even in view of what we deem here to have been the successful career of Eastman Johnson, and may be enregistered without bitterness as a necessary sacrifice on the part of all those honorable men who have laid the foundation of our present and future art. If we had to-day an institution possessing the authority of the Institute of France, addressing a public sufficiently enlightened to accept the lifework of a sincere and gifted artist as an important part of the accrued intellectual wealth of our country, an exhibition might be had of the work of Eastman Johnson like those which in the year following their death gather together a comprehensive and representative showing of the life-work of the greater artists of France within the galleries of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. This summer sees such exhibitions there of the work of FantinLatour and J. J. Henner; good painters both, but no more important to the art of their country than is Eastman Johnson to ours.

Such an exhibition would show that returning home shortly before the Civil War Johnson was, as Aaron Burr wrote of Vanderlyn at his return (I quote from memory), "the best trained painter that is or has been born upon our shores." Chronologically, the most important evidence of a higher de

'gree of technical skill in drawing, painting, and composition that any of our men at that time possessed may be found in the "Old Kentucky Home," now in the Lenox Library in New York, though a number of smaller pictures, notably a "Prisoner of State," may have preceded this. At about the same period must be noted some very remarkable studies and drawings made among the Indians in the Northwest.

As he was thirty years ago so Eastman Johnson remained to the last. He was seventyfive years of age when, returning from the decorous revels by which the Century Club of New York at long intervals celebrates the Twelfth Night, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. He was dressed in the costume of a Dutch burgomaster, his ruddy face emerging from a "cartwheel" ruff. It was three o'clock in the morning, but as he himself told the story, the effect of light under the gas tempted him, and procuring a canvas, he then and there painted from his reflection in the glass until dawn, producing a spirited portrait that many of his younger contemporaries could well envy, and that more than one of the old Dutch masters could regard with an approving eye. A full-blooded, honest painter, close kin to a great and virile race, when the time comes that present accomplishment shall have triumphed over false and temporary fashion, and it is recognized that we must honor our own men, his place will be assured.

WILL H. Low.

THE example set by Eastman Johnson, both as a man and an artist, is one worthy of the consideration of all artists.

As a painter he has for many years stood among us, acknowledged both by the men of the older and the younger schools as an able technician and as a worthy exponent of the art we have developed on this side of the ocean. Mr. Johnson began his career as a draughtsman, doing his first portraits in crayon, and his work was throughout characterized by recognition of form. It is a matter of interest to note that in the history of painting, with but very few exceptions, every producer of work emphasizing drawing and a knowledge of form has scored, even though color was not a dominant or even strikingly perceptible accompaniment. In the case of Mr. Johnson, however, color was an accompaniment of no mean proportion and was

handled in a manner which, technically, commanded the respect of those of us who had come from the schools of Paris, where the pâte and the coup-de-brosse were held in the highest esteem. His method of work was one known to our predecessors and esteemed by us, though differing from that which I had myself been taught in the atelier of Carolus Duran. It was one of the warm, transparent shadows sustaining lights and half-tones painted with vigor and impasto. Thomas Couture was perhaps the best exponent of this method in France during the period preceding my study there. Eastman Johnson practised this formula of painting with extreme dexterity, using both warm and cool lights in delicate contrast to half-tones of pearl and cool gray, the whole backed by warm, rich, luminous shadow painted transparently. This method of painting, in the hands of a man who was a practised draughtsman, gave a means of expression which only required to have back of it a mind in touch with humanity and of high ideals to produce works of art above the average, and such were the works of this artist. In telling the stories of our American people, both in New England and the South, he never descended into the trivial, he was never simply anecdotic. The art conveyed to the canvas always prevailed over the simple story. The work of the painter was dominant. Be it in "The Glass with the Squire" or in the "Corn Husking," one felt the merit of the man who handled the brush above the sentiment of the subject, and it is this quality in Eastman Johnson's work that makes me glad to write of him as an artist. He tells his story in a strong and forceful manner, unheeding the clamor for detail and triviality. Such have been the characteristics of men like Jean François Millet and Winslow Homer, who being men absorbed by and devoted to their art, have felt that its superiority must be maintained over the theme presented, thereby making their canvases of that lasting quality which the mere recital of an incident in paint never attains.

In portraiture Mr. Johnson was both forceful and sympathetic. Some of his heads of men are as strong as any that have been produced in our time. I recall with the greatest pleasure a head of Dr. McCosh which was in the collection of his work exhibited at the Century Club a few years ago. Laid in with great skill, this canvas both in