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ON THE PIAZZA AT
PIAZZA AT HARWOOD'S.

BY HELEN CAMPBELL.

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E had watched her daily since her coming, but she did not know it. And now they talked together if she found him alone, and always she had a bright nod for him as she settled into the nearest chair and opened her book.

He was an invalid slowly recovering from the disaster that left him partially paralyzed, a rolling-chair his vehicle and the piazza of the old house his present limit. He was well over fifty. She could not be more than twentyfive at most, he thought, looking at her with a certain wistfulness, for her face stirred old memories long buried; twenty-five, probably, for there was experience in her eyes in spite of their girlishness. He added as he made this statement to himself, that at the present day age appeared to be ignored at will, and more and more men and women marched peacefully toward the century line, with no marked or serious diminution of power or enjoyment.

The group on the most desirable portion of the piazza held one of that order; an old lady of magisterial presence, her determined countenance framed in puffs of white hair, her bright dark eyes hard still, and with absolute clearness of mind as to what she wanted or did not want. To her, various other old ladies in rocking-chairs, coming year after year to Harwood's, were in total subjection, and waited timidly her directing word as to the day's topic of conversation, and the people who might or who might not be admitted to the sacred circle.

The girl was a stranger and a presumptuous one, for she wore her pretty clothes with an easy unconsciousness that had roused instant antagonism in the old lady's mind-a girl coming from no one knew where, New York, perhaps, from the way she wore things, but it might even be Chicago, and taking a place near them with no perception, it seemed, that this group stood for Beacon Hill and its passing generation of owners by birthright. All else in the uni

verse was mere tributary; really a quite irrelevant matter when one considered all that being born on Beacon Hill involved.

The girl in the meantime held her place. She had come in from the rocks, a book with leaves still uncut in her hand, and in her eyes the wide, clear look as of the sea itself stretching fair and calm to the far horizon line, a sapphire sheet under a sky blue as Capri. She had settled in this corner just so day after day for the hour before dinner. nominally reading, actually studying this unknown order with an interest that held a growing amazement. The invalid watched them all and he knew. They had views, or at any rate the old lady had, though she suppressed summarily attempt at utterance of any but her own. "The Czar," the girl already called her, for never could there be more absolute autocrat, or more submissive subjects. As to the invalid, his rights were recognized up to a certain point, but he held his corner silently and was considered to be principally asleep. The girl had looked toward him pityingly, as she first saw him, and now smiled and nodded as she came out, but thus far she had made her brief stay without words and disappeared again, her grave, clear look on them all as she slipped away, yet little dimples at the corners of her mouth momentarily visible. The Czar had caught the look and resented it with fury, and her subjects wondered with her what order of being it might be that wore it. She had brought no letters, she named no endorsers. She simply came and went calmly as if the ground were her own, and no one to question.

This was defiance pure and simple, the old lady announced, and the invalid laid down his book as he heard, and gazed in some amazement at this singu

larly belligerent old person, who had risen and was driving her subjects before her like so many sheep.

"Twenty-three years at Harwood's," she said, "and never before have I been subjected to the insolence of an uninvited presence. I shall speak to Harwood. It is really intolerable. Some shop-girl in borrowed plumage, prob

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"That's it. You are yourself,'" and he bowed with charmed recognition of a charming fact. "You are also 'alone,' and as you present no credentials and need none, she puts you under the general head crustacea, or what you like. She demands a tag. It seems to be the way with the people at Harwood's. of them, however, fell from her high estate sufficiently to be a fashionable teacher after her husband died; head of an establishment for turning out replicas of this order."

One

"Oh, a teacher," the girl said wearily. "I have met a good many this summer. And this morning I have been reading something that explains some of them." "Read it, please," he said, for she had opened her book, then closed it with a smile.

"There is no reason why you should be bored," she said, then as she met his gentle eyes, opened it again. "It is a little hard on them, but it accounts for some of the strange lacks in this world of ours, doesn't it? You will see," and

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she read in a voice as simple and charming as her face :

"Their education has not consisted in the acquiring of a state of being, a condition of organs, a capacity of tasting life, of creating and sharing the joys and meanings of it. Their learning has largely consisted in the fact that they have learned at last to let their joys go. They have become the most satisfactory scholars, not because of their power of knowing, but because of their willingness to be powerless in knowing. When they have been drilled to know without joy, have become the day laborers of learning, they are given diplomas for cheerlessness, and are sent forth into the world as teachers of the young."

She paused a moment. "If they're trained in cheerlessness of course they grow old that way and resent its lack in other people. This group of old tabbies are not teachers, but could take diplomas in it. They sit here and scold and chatter like so many magpies, and I have waited and listened for something really human, and heard chiefly genealogies."

The invalid nodded; but his eyes still questioned, and after a minute she went

on.

"I can see now what my father meant when he said the emotional temperament must be before keen moral perception can be. The Czar has, it would seem, no spiritual judgment; dwells on the surface of her world. And this is not said because she despises me with such singular heartiness, but because she is shut up with herself like a squirrel in a cage, and supposes as she whirls in her wheel that she is circuiting the whole round world itself. She is to all intents and purposes;-all the world she can see. It's a type, of course, but I thought it a vanished one."

"You, studying types at your age!" the invalid said involuntarily. But that was part of the amusement, I suppose. Isn't it a little lonely to be here as you are ?"

"It is something that has never happened before and I think I like it in a way. I misread a date, and came here a month, almost, too soon. I wanted to see this old house and the place, for my father met my mother here long ago, and I am seeing it all, and am busy with a task, the price of which would have to be a little loneliness. These people, it seems, take the rooms from year to year, and it bars out those who would be happier in all this beauty."

I

"Yes, it bars them out," the invalid said absently. "It is good you came. have had a respite in looking at you, and there is something familiar in your face. You remind me of a friend of my college days'

He stopped short, for the Czar was moving ponderously toward her seat, and having taken it, bent commanding eyes upon the pair.

"I trust you are not being exhausted by unnecessary conversation, Mr. Brower. This young woman unfortunately lacks the training that would make her see how unsuitable her presence is at this point and—”

"I can't have it! I can't have it!" a voice cried from the rear, and the smallest of the old ladies, a face like an agitated white rabbit, pattered close behind, and laid a shaking hand on the imperial shoulder. "Such a nice girl," she said, " and such pretty clothes that have been a treat to see. How can you, Deborah ? How can you?"

"God bless her!" under his breath. tion."

said the invalid, "It's an insurrec

"How can I ?" the Czar began. "How can I not ?"

But the girl had made an impulsive movement forward, and taken the white rabbit's hand. "Thank you so much," she said. "I thought you were different from the others."

"I have looked at you a great deal, my dear," the old lady said, holding to her as if for protection. "You look like a friend of my youth, a very noted man, my dear, but, perhaps, you have not heard of him-Governor Chauncey, who died a long time ago."

The girl paused a moment, and the

dimples were in full evidence. ""Yes, I have heard of him," she said slowly, "but I never saw him. He was my grandfather, and my father was named for him."

"What!" shrieked the Czar from her chair. "Don't fabricate ! Mrs. Harwood said you were from the West somewhere. You're not. You can't be his "

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"I am Eleanor Clement, and my mother was Eleanor Chauncey," the girl said, and now, as she met the invalid's twinkling eyes, she laughed, a soft laugh compounded of many things. 'Forgive me for being alive," she said. "I really can't help it;" but the Czar had beaten a hasty retreat, and the little old lady was in tears.

'She'll never get over it, never," she said. "I've often told her she was too severe to people. This is a great blow."

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"It isn't a permanent one. She'll recover, for I am leaving this afternoon," Miss Clement said. so you will have no more trouble. I suppose Madam Brewster has arranged for a reserved piazza in heaven, and that Beacon Hill has a special sealed compartment. But I am certain you will look over the top; perhaps even climb out, and I'll help you, if you like."

66

"I shall never go into it, never!" said the little old lady, as if the opportunity has already been offered her. Really. I should not," but the girl had vanished with a pat as she went, and the invalid, lying back in his chair, laughed wickedly, then opened his book again.

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"I knew her mother in her youth," he said. She is like her. I wish we had known."-Christian World.

AUTUMN.

The world puts on its robes of glory now,
The very flowers are tinged with deeper dyes,
The waves are bluer, and the angels pitch
Their shining tents along the sunset skies.

The distant hills are crowned with purple mist,
The days are mellow, and the long, calm nights
To wondering eyes, like weird magicians, show
The shifting splendors of the northern lights.

The generous earth spreads out her fruitful store,
And all the fields are decked with ripened sheaves;
While in the woods, at autumn's rustling step,
The maples blush through all their trembling leaves.
-Albert Leighton.

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the daily desire to wreak vengeance upon her. Those who feared Japan's victories would result in a big head for the little yellow man now see such fears were groundless. Japan has shown herself great as a warrior, and modest in her demands as a victor. Something of the feeling of the Russian peace party toward her may be gleaned from the following from an editorial by Prince Oukhtomsky, in the Viedmosti :

"Notwithstanding the difficult circunstances under which the negotiations commenced, M. Witte carried out his task with the greatest skill, and obtained from Japan the utmost she was prepared to give. But though M. Witte wrested out of defeat these advantageous terms, the moral advantage rests with Japan. She will be recognized in the eyes of the East and Europe as the victor, and she has acquired a predominant position in

Asia, while Russia's prestige has suffered a correspondingly heavy blow."

Undoubtedly this will not express the sentiments of all parties in Russia. But whatever sentiments prevail, the great cause for thankfulness remains that homes are no longer called upon to offer their loved ones to the gory chances of

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war.

Says an American daily: "Had the Government insisted on an indemnity, it is clear that the war would have continued. The objects for which the war was waged already have been more than achieved, and to continue the war for a pecuniary consideration would not have been worthy of Japan."

Nevertheless one feels a good deal of sympathy with the masses of the Japanese people in their discontent with the terms of the peace, though it is a subject for much regret that in their indignation the Japanese have attacked the Christian Church that throughout the war has been praying for their welfare. We trust their blindness will be of short duration. It is evidently a case of a people loving their emperor enough to die for him, and an emperor loving his people enough to risk their displeasure rather than let them die.

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