44

A look of disappointment passed over his face, and noticing it Catherine added: "It is not for me to accept or to decline. I am not mistress here." "Then you, Monsieur Savin, will you not-" But before Jacques had finished speaking Savin

As soon as they had gone Catherine said petulantly: "You need no longer fear that I shall be too gay. I could not be so if I tried." "I never objected to your having a good time

"Catherine exaggerates," said he. "There are some things that a wife cannot do without consulting her husband, but she accepts your invitation, I am sure, and so do I, with pleasure. You will please accept from me a roebuck-if Madame le Hausseur allows me to kill one."

Catherine bit her lips in mortification and vexation. But Savin had broken the ice, and when

with an unmistakable accent of firmness.

"But if I am not to dance it will be absurd for me to go to the wedding."

"Nobody will prevent you from dancing." "Yes, so you say to day; but when the time comes you will be just as jealous as ever, and I shall have to suffer for it."

"Why talk so foolishly? You only weary me with this useless discussion."

"I know it."

"But believe me, my child, a woman who will excite her husband's jealousy is either a coquette or a wilful vixen. It rests with you whether Suzanne's wedding-day shall be an agreeable one to us."

Agreeable! I suppose it would be so to you if I neither raised my eyes, nor opened my mouth, nor danced with Bruno, nor Firmin, nor Andoche, or any young man whatsoever. But if old Father Mathieu, or Grassy, or Monsieur the Mayor should be so good as to invite me, then I may accept with alacrity. Bah!"

Savin, who had hoped to pave the way toward a reconciliation, now saw the folly of the endeavor and replied nothing. Whistling to Patachaud and taking his gun, he left the house. "What a wretched existence !" he muttered as he disappeared under the frost-touched trees. Left alone, Catherine raised her arms toward heaven with an expression of utter despair. "Mon Dieu! how dearly would I pay for freedom," she cried.

Savin, on the other hand, soothed by the quiet atmosphere of the woods, flattered himself that upon reflection Catherine would understand the conciliatory spirit which had prompted him to accept the wedding invitation. The wedding would be a diversion for Catherine, and he made up his mind not to dictate to or upbraid her whatever she might do; even if she danced with Bruno or Firmin, both of whom he disapproved. He resolved to bring about a reconciliation if possible, and he thought this little concession on his part would accomplish it. Knowing his wife's love for gayety, he felt confident that a day's unrestrained enjoyment would dispel the cloud and restore her to good-nature once more. And the brave-hearted fellow smiled to himself as he thought of his home again blessed with peace and happiness. (Worthington. 50 c.)-From Debans' · Catherine's Coquetries."

་་

THE GUIDON.

THE guidon told the soldiers in color what the trumpet or bugle said in sound. If, after a long march, the men of each company detailed to carry the guidon were ordered to the front, the hearts of the weary troopers saw them depart with relief, for it meant that, after joining the commanding officer, the little band of men swinging aloft the fluttering pennants would take their place behind the color-sergeant carrying the guidon of the colonel, and afer a brisk little gallop each standard-bearer would be posted at a given point to guide the company as it came up to the place were the tents were to be pitched for the night. The guidon is also posted as a line of march at guard mount, or at drill. The private flag of a general can be of his own design. It is

placed in front of his tent or headquarters, or follows on the march or in battle. If the troopers value their general, and have faith in him as a dauntless soldier, they will rally round his flag in case the fight is so desperate as to endanger the colors.

Markham, an old authority, says: "The guidon is the first color any commander of horse can let fly in the field. It was generally of damask fringed, and usually three feet in breadth, lessening by degrees towards the bottom, where it was by a slit divided into two peaks. It was originally borne by the dragoons, and might be charged with the armorial bearings of the owner."

The present cavalry guidon is a small United States flag sharply swallow-tailed, and mounted on a standard with a metal point, so that it can be thrust into the ground when in use as a marker. (Harper. $1.50.)—From Mrs. Custer's“ Following the Guidon."

OFF TO THE ADIRONDACKS.

"HURRY up-hurry up," called Travers, an hour later, leaping up the stairs; "Uncle Joe is ready to start-don't stop to prink, Ci; we're nearly in the wilderness now."

Cicely, at the top of the stairs with a little bag in her hand, cries, "I'm all ready, thank you; have you your necktie settled to your satisfaction? What a wonder!" Jane comes out of the room occupied by Duke and herself, leading him by the hand and grumbling, "I wish we could stay in this hotel; it's something like, here." Aunt Sarah takes a last look in the bureau drawers to be sure that nothing is left behind, and at last the party is out on the veranda of the hotel, where the boarders are drawn up in full force to see a stage-load of their number set out for Lake Placid.

At one end of the veranda stood Mr. Moses Higgins, previously engaged by a letter from Uncle Joe, according to the advice of the Congdons. "You're all right," the advice concluded, 'if you fall into the hands of that prince of guides superintendent generally in Keene ValleyMoses Higgins."

So here they were, clustering around Mr. Higgins, who was leisurely shifting his quid from one cheek to the other, and whittling a pine stick, while he held his part in a conversation with Uncle Joe.

"Mr. Moses Higgins," announced Uncle Joe, as his family came up; "and from all accounts, we are lucky to fall into his hands."

Mr. Higgins gave an uneasy roll to the quid tried to throw away unseen his whittled stick, grabbed at his cap, that had a trick of settling over his ears—“I'm pleased to see ye," he said.

"Now begin and settle us, and our traps," said Uncle Joe, in a business way; "and let us get out

of this staring crowd"-sotto voce. "Good gracious! I haven't been a family man so long that I can stand a hotel emptied on the piazza."

Mr. Higgins, alert for action, slouched off the steps and out of sight, appearing presently with two men, who proceeded to load the pile of boxes and trunks on the veranda belonging to the Dodge party, into the large wagon brought for that purpose. "They'll do it all right," he said, coming up the steps to point with his thumb over his shoulder at the workers. "And we might as well

no other vehicle in sight save the wagon into which the baggage was being rapidly loaded. Could it be possible?

"Lands!" exclaimed Mr. Higgins, "I hain't settled such a quiet crowd as you be, I don't know when. They generally squeal and fret, and tease for front seats, and raise a rumpus all round."

"Thank you," said Uncle Joe, up by Eliphalet, and taking off his hat, quite proud of his family. "Now," said Mr Higgins, with a glance at the trim figure in its dark blue travelling dress on

WITH ESSEX IN IRELAND. IN the dreary waste of mediocre, and less than mediocre, fiction of the day, the Hon. Emily Lawless, the author of " Hurrish," that brilliant story of life in West Ireland, has erected a work of art which only a talent of the finest strain could have produced. This is not, indeed, an ordinary novel in form or substance; there is only a slight thread of disappointed love running through the work, which purports to be “extracts from a diary kept in Ireland, during the year 1599, by Mr. Henry Harvey, sometime Secretary to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex." A cautious and orthodox preface and epilogue are supplied by one John Oliver Maddox, M.A., who tells us that Mr. Harvey while at Cambridge was ever more inclined to stray into the Flowerie Paths of Apollo, and is the author of a poem entitled 'Violantilla; or, THE MIRROR OF NOBILITIE,' which, though not of that Durable Stuff likely to survive to a Deathless Immortalitie, yet hath a sweet Delectableness, conjoined to a seemly Simplicitie of Diction, both rare and delightsome to list to."

Mr. Harvey's journal, which has few dates and other formalities of the kind, but runs smoothly along, deserves in the highest degree, for its prose, the praises Mr. Maddox bestows upon his poetry. Rare and delightsome to read, most of all by those who have a feeling for the characteristic style of the Elizabethan era, is Miss Lawless' account of the arrival of the noble but unfortunate Essex in Dublin, and of his campaigns in the south, west and north of Ireland. The charm that lies on the pages of Sir Philip Sidney is reproduced here, seemingly without an effort, as it is without a lapse. We read the very dialect of Shakespeare's time, and have no sense that this is the work of a modern writer, save from the fine art which has removed the worst blemishes in the expression of sixteenth-century English thought, and preserved clearness and simplicity against which Elizabethan authors too often sinned. Well may Mr. Lecky say, in the Nineteenth Century, that since the wonderful picture of the age of Anne which Thackeray has given in 'Esmond,'" the difficulties inherent in a task like this undertaken by Miss Lawless, of reproducing the thought and expression and atmosphere of a distant time," have never been more successfully surmounted than in this most fascinating little volume."

As a picture of the Ireland of 1599, with all its desolations and its cruelties; as a succession of scenes deeply pitiful, like the death of young Gardiner, or poetically supernatural like the fearful gathering of ghosts around Askeaton; as a vivid portrait of the nobleman whom Bacon forsook, and as a reproduction of the very spirit of Elizabethan literature, the book is most note

worthy and admirable. From the Hon. Emily Lawless further great achievements may rightly be expected, even if she does not become, what Mr. Lecky thinks probable, the Scott of Ireland. (Lovell. pap., 50 c.)—Boston Literary World.

NEW ENGLAND 200 YEARS AGO. Up to a recent period the histories of colonial New England dealt mainly with the religious and political aspects of its collective life, with the struggle to maintain ecclesiastical independence and local self-government. Of late, the institutions, which were at once an effect and a perpetuator of the specific New England character, have been made a principal subject of study. The economical and social features of New England life were not wholly overlooked-they received, for instance, a good deal of incidental attention from Mr. Palfrey-but they deserved deliberate and consecutive portrayal. The Puritan settler was not only a church-goer and sturdy upholder of his chartered rights against the encroachments of crown officials; he was also a business man, a gregarious, companionable creature, who gave, after all, the largest part of his thoughts to keeping, and, if possible, improving his place in the community. It is this phase of colonial evolution which receives for the first time detailed and continuous interpretation in the two volumes entitled " Economic and Social History of New England from 1620 to 1789," by William B. Weeden. The keynote to the tenor of this narrative is struck in this sentence of the preliminary chapter, apropos of the great migration under John Winthrop in 1630 to Massachusetts Bay: "The majority of those men and women left home and braved terrors of sea and wilderness to better their condition economically and socially." To tell how this purpose was fulfilled is the purpose of these volumes, which touch but lightly on the religious and political aspirations and vicissitudes with which previous historians have been so largely occupied.

The first of these volumes covers the ninetythree years between the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth and the peace at Utrecht. There is not one of its chapters, or even of its pages, which is not stored with curious and illuminative facts. One is embarrassed to select where every paragraph seems worthy of selection. But since a choice must be made, we will confine ourselves at this time to indicating the rôle of wampum in the early trade of the colonists, the development of land communication and maritime commerce; and the manners, morals and domestic life of the New Englanders at two several epochs, to wit, in 1650 and in 1710. The second volume will be noticed in a separate article.-M. W. H., in N. Y. Sun.

CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK. CAPTAIN CHARLES KING'S volume bearing this title is a fit companion to Mrs. Custer's" Following the Guidon," brought out by the same publishing house. It is the story of the campaign of the Fifth Cavalry against the Sioux in 1876, and is a fitting tribute by the Adjutant of the regiment "to the soldier who had been our commander in the wild days in Arizona, our leader from the Platte to the Yellowstone, and our comrade in every hardship and privation-Brigadier-General George Crook, United States Army." The volume has more than the interest which attaches itself to the history of a campaign, and one element of its permanent value consists in the

SUNSET PASS.

CAPTAIN KING is a genuine story-teller. Whatever scholarly critics may find amiss in his style, or his disregard of some of the later theories formulated as necessary to perfect novel-writing, Captain King has the faculty of making his characters so interesting that the little shades of imperfection are overlooked in the absorbing desire to find out what is coming next. In "Sunset Pass" he shows all his old capacity for interesting his reader from the first sentence to the last. Captain Gwynne, U. S. A., who has just lost his wife, starts to go East with his two children and their Irish nurse and a few faithful attendants. His fellow-officers fail to persuade him

fact that it gives clearly the estimate which the Indian fighter of the United States Army placed on the Indian. Summed up in a single sentence, this estimate is that the Indian is a savage and a brute. The soldier cannot despise the Indian's courage or his skill in war; that he was adroit and at times desperate, he cannot forget; but on the other hand his cruelty to his prisoners, his unnameable brutalities to white women whom he captured, his torture of children, are always present in the mind of the Indian fighter when he attempts to estimate Indian character. Captain King wields a facile and graphic pen; his story is one profoundly interesting, and he certainly has no sympathy with the theories of certain selfconstituted defenders of the Indians to the effect that Indians were made to be coddled and American soldiers to be killed. (Harper. $1.25.) Boston Traveller.

not to go overland, and they bid him goodby with many misgivings. They have not been long out, when they meet Indians. The most thrilling part of the story occurs in the Sunset Pass, the party living through a succession of wonderful adventures. The volume is brought out as one of the American Author Series, and forms a thoroughly wholesome addition to a series which ought to meet with instantaneous success. Another good book already published in it is "Los Cerritos," an exquisitely poetic romance, by Gertrude Franklin Atherton, telling of an abandoned ranch in southern California upon which a number of poor white people and Mexican half-breeds have squatted, whose heroine is the daughter of a bandit. "Los Cerritos" and "Sunset Pass" are typical American stories of a kind much to be desired. (United States Book Co. ea., 50 c.)