had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with—and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar-but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old windowsash.

TRYING TO UNDERSTAND A WOMAN.

BY W. D. HOWELLS.

SM. DEAN HOWELLS was born at Martin's Ferry, Belmont County, O., March 1, 1837. He is a printer by trade and inheritance, and he early entered newspaper life. He is the author of many novels, sketches, criticisms, dramatic studies, poems and travels.

THE last hues of sunset lingered in the mists that sprung from the base of the Falls with a mournful, tremulous grace, and a movement weird as the play of the Northern Lights. They were touched with the most delicate purples and crimsons, that darkened to deep red, and then faded from them at a second look, and they flew upward, swiftly upward, like troops of pale, transparent ghosts; while a perfectly clear radiance, better than any other for local color, dwelt upon the scene. Far under the bridge the river smoothly swam, the undercurrents forever unfolding themselves upon the surface with a vast rose-like evolution, edged all round with faint lines of white, where the air that filled the water freed itself in foam. What had been clear green on the face of the cataract was here more like rich verd-antique, and had a look of firmness almost like that of the stone itself. So it showed beneath the bridge and down the river, till the curving

shores hid it. These, springing abruptly from the water's brink, and shagged with pine and cedar, displayed the tender verdure of grass and bushes intermingled with the dark evergreens that climb from ledge to ledge, till they point their speary tops above the crest of bluffs. In front, where tumbled rocks and expanses of naked clay varied the gloomier and gayer green, sprung those spectral mists; and through them loomed out, in its manifold majesty, Niagara, with the seemingly immovable white gothic screen of the American Fall, and the green massive curve of the Horse-Shoe, solid and simple and calm as an Egyptian wall; while behind this, with their white and black expanses broken by dark-foliaged little isles, the steep Canadian rapids billowed down between their heavily wooded shores.

The wedding-journeyers hung, they knew not how long, in rapture on the sight; and then, looking back from the shore to the spot where they had stood, they felt relieved that unreality should possess itself of all, and that the bridge should swing there in mid-air like a filmy web, scarce more passable than the rainbow that flings its arch above the mists.

On the portico of the hotel they found half a score of gentlemen smoking, and creating together that collective silence which passes for sociality on our continent. Some carriages stood

before the door, and within, around the base of a pillar, sat a circle of idle call-boys. There were a few trunks heaped together in one place, with a porter standing guard over them; a solitary guest was buying a cigar at the newspaper stand in one corner; another friendless creature was writing a letter in the readingroom; the clerk, in a seersucker coat and a lavish shirt-bosom, tried to give the whole an effect of watering place gayety and bustle, as he provided a newly arrived guest with a room.

Our pair took in these traits of solitude and repose with indifference. If the hotel had been thronged with brilliant company, they would have been no more and no less pleased; and when, after supper, they came into the grand parlor, and found nothing there but a marble-topped centre-table, with a silver-plated ice-pitcher and a small company of goblets, they sat down perfectly content in a secluded window-seat. They were not seen by the three people who entered soon after, and halted in the centre of the room.

Why, Kitty!" said one of the two ladies who must be in any

traveling-party of three, "this is more inappropriate to your gorgeous array than the supper-room, even."

She who was called Kitty was armed, as for social conquest, in some kind of airy evening dress, and was looking round with bewilderment upon that forlorn waste of carpeting and upholstery. She owned, with a smile, that she had not seen so much of the world yet as she had been promised; but she liked Niagara very much, and perhaps they should find the world at breakfast. "No," said the other lady, who was

as unquiet as Kitty was calm, and who
seemed resolved to make the most of
the worst, "it isn't probable that the
hotel will fill up over night; and I feel
personally responsible for
this state of things. Who
would ever have supposed
that Niagara would be so
empty? I thought

the place was throng-
ed the whole summer.
How do you account
for it, Richard?"

The gentleman looked fatigued, as from a long-continued discussion elsewhere of the matter in hand, and he said that he had not been trying to account for it.

THE PORTER.

"Then you don't care for Kitty's pleasure at all, and you don't want her to enjoy herself. Why don't you take some interest in the matter?"

"Why, if I accounted for the emptiness of Niagara in the most satisfactory way, it wouldn't add a soul to the floating population. Under the circumstances, I prefer to leave it unexplained."

"Do you think it's because it's such a hot summer? Do you suppose it's not exactly the season? Didn't you expect there'd

be more people? Perhaps Niagara isn't as fashionable as it used to be."

"It looks something like that."

"Well, what under the sun do you think is the reason?" "I don't know."

"Perhaps," interposed Kitty, placidly, "most of the visitors go to the other hotel now."

"It's altogether likely," said the other lady, eagerly. "There are just such caprices."

"Well," said Richard,

KITTY.

asked Kitty to come to Niagara with us, just to give her a little peep into the world, and you've brought us to a hotel where we're-"

"Monarchs of all we survey," suggested Kitty.

"Yes, and start at the sound of our own," added the other lady, helplessly.

"Come, now, Fanny," said the gentleman, who was but too clearly the husband of the last speaker, "you know you insisted, against all I could say or do, upon coming to this house; I implored you to go to the other, and now you blame me for bringing you here."

"So I do. If you'd let me have my own way without opposition about coming here, I dare say I should have gone to the other place. But never mind; Kitty knows whom to blame, I hope. She's your cousin."

Kitty was sitting with her hands quiescently folded in her lap. She now rose, and said that she did not know anything about the other hotel, and perhaps it was just as empty as this.

"It can't be. There can't be two hotels so empty," said Fanny. "It don't stand to reason."

see the world so much" said

"If you wish Kitty to see

the gentleman, "why don't you take her on to Quebec with us?"

Kitty had left her seat beside Fanny, and was moving with a listless content about the parlor.

"I wonder you ask, Richard, when you know she's only come for the night, and has nothing with her but a few cuffs and collars! I certainly never heard of anything so absurd before!"

The absurdity of the idea then seemed to cast its charm upon her; for, after a silence, "I could lend her some things," she said, musingly. "But don't speak of it to-night, please. It's too ridiculous. Kitty!" she called out, and, as the young lady drew near, she continued, "How would you like to go to Quebec with us?"

"O Fanny!" cried Kitty, with rapture; and then, with dismay, "How can I!"

"Why, very well, I think. You've got this dress, and your traveling-suit, and I can lend you whatever you want. Come!" she added joyously, "let's go up to your room, and talk it over !"

The two ladies vanished upon this impulse, and the gentleman followed. To their own relief the guiltless eavesdroppers, who had found no moment favorable for revealing themselves after the comedy began, issued from their retiracy.

"What a remarkable little lady!" said Basil, eagerly turning to Isabel for sympathy in his enjoyment of her inconsequence. "Yes, poor thing !" returned his wife; "it's no light matter to invite a young lady to take a journey with you, and promise her all sorts of gayety, and perhaps beaux and flirtations, and then find her on your hands in a desolation like this. It's dreadful, I think."

Basil stared. "O, certainly," he said. ingly illogical little body !"

But what an amus

"I don't understand what you mean, Basil. It was the only thing that she could do, to invite the young lady to go on with them. I wonder her husband had the sense to think of it first. Of course she'll have to lend her things."

"And you didn't observe anything peculiar in her way of reaching her conclusions ?"

"Peculiar? What do you mean?"

"Why, her blaming her husband for letting her have her own