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gested to me one of those matrons of the Terror who sat knitting while royal and aristocratic heads dropped into the basket beneath the guillotine. From the date of her arrival, things moved smoothly in her domain, and her excellent cuisine made housekeeping a summer's day. Florence, her friend and comrade, who went about her work singing, in the frilled cap and apron of a heroine of Béranger or Murger, was an extremely pretty girl, silver-voiced and nearly always smiling.

By and by, we began to detect in the long hall leading from the back stairs to our kitchen, stealthy footsteps, arriving daily just as our dinner was going off. Later on in the evening more footsteps, and from afar the sound of muffled voices. It was evident that Susanne's husband did not neglect a diurnal visit to his spouse. Poor M. Dubois, Susanne explained to us, had been unfortunate in his business venture. Madame, she observed, had several mantels needing clocks. Would madame allow M. Dubois the privilege of decorating them with a few choice specimens of his unsold timepieces?

Madame, rashly acquiescing, on returning home one afternoon found every room in the flat adorned with a costly clock, all, ticking and chiming together with distracting regularity; and that evening the number of visitors to the kitchen increased perceptibly, the household bills making a corresponding jump upward in the week.

Soon Susanne and her bosom friend, Florence, had a hot quarrel, which raged until Florence, bouncing into the drawingroom, informed madame that the Duboises had been in the front rank of the horrible "Vengeurs de la République" in the Commune, had fled to America through fear of the guillotine; while our daily caller was none other than the infamous wretch who boasted that his shot had killed the good and gentle Archbishop of Paris, Darboy, in the massacre of the hostages at the prison of La Roquette!

Next day Susanne took her leave, polite to the end, but with a vengeful gleam in her cold eye that boded ill for the informing Florence. The clocks vanished from our mantels, M. Dubois came not again, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had escaped so easily from the hands of the handsome pétroleuse. Next, pretty Flor

ence also took her leave, declaring that she needed "protection," being forced to give up service through fear of the Duboises, and departed bag and baggage. After that we made no more experiments in foreign domestics, contenting ourselves with unadulterated (if domesticated) Irish.

We now found ourselves in a circle of acquaintances alien in political creed, with a few exceptions among the Southerners already established in New York, but most kind and considerate always; and every year the number grew and firmer friendships were cemented.

I cannot pretend to be chronologically exact as to social events of those years, or their sequences. We went out a great deal, as appears from a series of letters addressed to my mother, my most constant correspondent. There is the record of a ball at the Academy of Music of which Lord Dufferin was the bright particular star among the guests, with Sir Tatton and Lady Sykes and some other smart English folk in the party. Mrs. Edward Cooper, of Lexington Avenue, who entertained much and well, had asked us to be of this gathering, occupying two boxes, and to sup at a large table served for her. Lord Dufferin, with his delightful Irish gayety, resembled a school-boy "out for fun." I had been dancing with him, and was sitting afterward, enjoying his sparkling wit, when the movement to supper was inaugurated. At once, he arose, and gallantly offered me his arm, when I stopped him with a sepulchral whisper. "Oh, thank you, but I can't! You are expected to take in Mrs. Cooper, don't you see?" Lord Dufferin did see, and with quick tact rectified his blunder, while kind Mr. Cooper, who I felt mortally sure had never meant to ask me, but had been looking forward to conducting the jolly and handsome Lady Sykes, stepped promptly up and led me off. He had Lady Sykes on his other hand, however, while I had no more of adorable Lord Dufferin, until we were breaking up, when he came back again with a rattling fire of chaff. I have rarely met so agreeable a companion, and the story of the closing in of his honored life amid troubles and distress of mind brought upon him by those whom he had trusted in business overmuch, was a source of real regret.

To the Academy of Music we repaired for public balls and operas. Till late at

night on those occasions quiet, sleepy Irving Place would resound with the roll of fashionable carriages, and the hoarse call by the doorman of fashionable names or their equivalent numbers. And, oh! the songbirds caged for our delectation in that dear old Temple of Music! There Patti, Nilsson, Gerster, Pauline Lucca, Annie Louise Cary, Kellogg, Minnie Hauk, Parepa Rosa, Brignoli, Capoul, Campanini, Del Puente, and a host of others, sang our hearts out of our bodies many a time. Once when Campanini had caught sight of the great Salvini sitting in a box near the stage while he was taking the part of Don José in "Carmen," he rose to the occasion in quite an extraordinary way, acting and singing superbly. After he was disposed of by the toreador's dagger, and came back to life before the footlights in the usual way, we all saw that he was pallid with real emotion. The house sprang upon its feet, handkerchiefs waved, roar after roar of applause went up; but Campanini's eyes sought those of Salvini only. The tragedian, leaning forward, clapped his hands until he could do no more. It was an event in musical recollection.

XIII

I WAS connected with a musical movement in New York society, inaugurated by a number of gentlemen, of which Mr. George Templeton Strong was the president. It was called the Church Musical Association, the director, Dr. Pech, an Englishman thoroughly trained in such conductorship. We had one hundred volunteers, including many people in society and fifty paid singers in the chorus; with an orchestra of one hundred musicians, many of them from the Philharmonic orchestra, of which Mr. Strong was also, or had been, president. Our rehearsals-solid hard work, no shirking or favoritism anywhere -were held in some rooms belonging to Trinity Chapel. Dr. Pech, a cold, rather sardonic man, thoroughly knew his business, and brought us on rapidly. Particularly did we progress in sight-reading, and the hours of deciphering those grand masses were a keen pleasure.

Mr. Edmund Schermerhorn, of West Twenty-third Street, used to give musical afternoons where one was sure of hearing only the best talent, professional and ama

teur. There, also, were enjoyed charming duos from his nieces, Misses Charlotte and Annie Schermerhorn, whose refined style and perfect technique reflected credit upon their instructor, Mme. Bodstein, much in vogue among the old families of New York.

Mr. Roosevelt, who lived on Broadway near Grace Church, an uncle of the future. president and father of Mr. Hilborne Roosevelt, afterward the maker of fine organs, was, like Mr. Edmund Schermerhorn, a musical virtuoso of a very high order of merit. When we went to his parties we found him confined to a rolling chair, indeed, but very much alert in directing and controlling his performers and audiences. Woe betide the fashionable chatterer who dared to venture a word out of season while music was going on.

While all the world was going daft over the exquisite singing and virginal loveliness of Christine Nilsson, no less than the ineffably gallant and delicate acting of Victor Capoul in his various rôles as her lover, my teacher, old Ronconi, invited me to see a rehearsal of Italian opera at the Academy. We had the big dusky auditorium pretty much to ourselves, with a few others, to see the cast of the following day's performance of "Sonnambula" go through their paces in walking dress, with overcoats, hats, sticks, etc. Amina (was she Gerster? I am not sure) in furs, with her jacket tightly buttoned, tripped over the bridge with reluctant footsteps, and everybody sang a demivoix. Rather disillusionizing certainly, but not so much so as my talk with the elegant M. Capoul, who was presented to me when he came strolling around into the house. In the course of it I spoke of the diva, Nilsson, her perfect voice, her fine art and great personal beauty.

"The only trouble with Mlle. Nilsson," responded her ardent swain, with a malicious twinkle in his eye, "c'est qu'elle a les mains d'un crapaud" (the hands of a frog).

"Oh! oh!" I protested, in veritable distress, "Faust to say this of his Marguerite!" and Faust laughed with a glee borrowed from Mephistopheles.

Nilsson was, at the time, a great favorite in society. She had head-quarters at the Clarendon Hotel, where in her free moments she was surrounded by an adoring clique of young matrons and maidens, who

found her frank cordiality and good fellowship a great attraction.

The Philharmonic Society's concerts, and their final rehearsals held on the day previous, were occasions when the Academy of Music was packed to its utmost capacity. At the rehearsals, women and girls crowded in till the lobbies were unpleasantly congested with eager and palpitant femininity. In spring and summer, all the world resorted to the open-air concerts of the wizard Theodore Thomas, at the Central Park. His orchestra, like its leader, was in the first rank of musical excellence. In the stroll during the entr'actes, the fashionable world met and discussed the programme and each other. No old-time New Yorker of true musical sympathy but will answer to the rippel of the charming Mendelssohn Glee Club. The first concert I attended given by this distinguished amateur association of male voices was in a small room or hall on Broadway somewhere near Grace Church, when Mrs. Arthur, wife of the future president, sang the soprano solo for their chorus. Mr. Mosenthal conducted with the vigor and knowledge that kept this organization upon a high plane of excellence for many years. I think it might have been twenty years later, after I had been hearing them off and on during that time, that I was present at one of their concerts, to outward appearance much the same, save that the leader had lost the slenderness of youth and the hall was some grand up-to-date interior.

One can't fail to experience a sense of regret that the great swelling wave of noble professional music from the foremost artists of the world has long ago swept away every trace of amateur attempt to appear before a critical audience of New York society. With the present abundance and accessibility of operas and concerts large and small, there is literally no room for music of the second grade.

Already the aspect of New York social life had begun to show token of coming radical changes. The lines of the old régime revealed a certain elasticity toward families previously excluded. It is curious to recall patronizing sayings, that have stuck in memory, by conservatives of the old school concerning some of those who have since pushed them to the wall, and stand before modern eyes as symbols of the high aris

tocracy of the metropolis. For my own part, I could never see that these arbitrary distinctions of our society, the shutting out of one family and snatching another to its bosom, had any raison d'être in a republic. The enormous influx of outside wealth brought to New York by after-the-war prosperity started the fashion of huge dinners given at Delmonico's and elsewhere, where splendor of decoration and extravagance of food and wines flashed like electric lights before the eyes of old-time entertainers. To wonder about these novelties, was to go and enjoy them. Mrs. Potiphar and Mrs. Gnu of Mr. Curtis's satiric chronicle were soon left behind in the race, though we were still reminded of these characters at receptions given in Fifth Avenue establishments with brown-stone fronts and rather dreadful picture galleries, where, in a glare of gas-light, we were jostled by hundreds of people standing around a supper-table from which floated searching odors of fried oysters served with mounds of chicken salad, and accompanied by champagne that flowed like water. This ceremony accomplished, and a tour of the rooms made, there was really nothing left to do but to begin. the mad rush through the upstairs dressingrooms in search of coats and hats and take one's leave!

Generally, the "social events" in question were presided over, on the doorstep, under the canvas awning, by Brown, whose gruff tones in calling and despatching carriages mingle with all such recollections of that day. His function, when off church duty, was that (wittily applied to his sonin-law and successor) of "the connecting link between society and the curbstone." Possessed of native humor and an aggressive spirit, Brown became in time very lawless in his methods with his employers; always inclined, however, to temper justice with mercy in the case of his earlier patrons, the old families whom he considered actually of first importance. I remember driving with one of these ladies to a reception at a fine new house where Brown stood near the carriage door, and greeted us. "Many people here, Brown?" asked my friend, casually.

"Too many," was the answer in a sepulchral tone tinged with melancholy. "If you ladies will take my advice, you'll go on to Mrs. 's. This is mixed, very!”

Once, when we were entering Grace Church to go to our pew for Sunday morning service, we passed, kneeling in the aisle near the door, his head bent in prayer and crossing himself devoutly, an Italian laborer in rough garb who had strayed in from Broadway, all unconscious of alien faith, to make his devotions. His feet, extending behind him, were of extraordinary size, clad in cowskin boots of formidable thickness. Brown, nudging my husband in the arm, said in a hoarse whisper with a glance at these appendages, "Them's beetle-crushers!"

But he did not interfere with the suppliant until his prayers were done!

A visiting clergyman, who was to occupy the pulpit of Grace Church on a Sunday afternoon, consulted Brown as to the usual length of the sermon on such occasions.

"Well, I should say, sir," said the despot, looking the stranger over with a cool and

critical gaze, "you'd better make it twenty minutes; our people won't stand much more."

When we were seeking a house for ourselves upon leaving the apartment, Brown visited my husband in his office to offer him his own dwelling, which he was anxious to rent.

"I can only tell you, Colonel Harrison," he said with entire solemnity, "that it suits me exactly. It's a perfect bejoo."

We did not avail ourselves of this privilege, and I never heard who occupied the bijou, which I have no doubt was a comfortable residence. Brown's peculiar relation to things social, and his intelligence and judgment about people, caused the wits of the time to attribute to him the possession of a list of "dancing young men" of respectable connections, upon which hostesses not well established in New York, would draw for the uses of their balls.

THE END.

CLAIRVOYANCE

By Frederick van Beuren, Jr.

EYES of a dear child-angel, blue and bright,
Sweetened by love and warmed by tenderness;
Lightened by laughter, soft with gentleness,
Tempered with tears and lashes of the Night;
Seeing the impure, pure; no wrong in right;
Fearing no harm and daring to confess

The wonder of your heart that none might guess,
How has your vision rectified my sight!

Whether the wind be kind or bitter keen

And Fortune hold me here or send me there,
Whether my fate to live or die unseen,
Unloved, unhonored; yet, Dear, everywhere
And every time, 'mid seasons white or green,

Life, through your eyes, seems always good and fair.

A

N older brother who had been making his first excursions into philosophy told my small self that he would give me a dollar for every pair of apple leaves I brought him exactly alike. I had several uses for dollars and the task seemed absurdly easy. His superimpositions of my specimens, his accuracy of measurement, his observations on the discrepancies of outline, veinlets, midrib, and stem, were extremely disillusioning. "They are as different as man and wife," he finally remarked, at which a great light broke in upon me and I retorted that he had been reading the thing called "novels." Another day, finding me playing at anagrams, he picked out the O's and N's, the H's and C's, and remarked ex cathedra: "Everything alive is made up of oxygen and nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon. It all depends on how you arrange them. Sometimes the most harmless elements combine into the rankest poisons; sometimes an element has the dormant value that comes out only in partnership."

The Human

Pair

Too unsophisticated to recognize the style of the text-book, I again opined that he had been reading "novels," the "partnership" recalling the disappointing apple leaves, "as different as man and wife."

These episodes occurred in the centuriespast time of childhood, but the combinations of man and wife have ever since acted on my subconsciousness, leading me to note how every human pair from its peculiar angle of observation must deal with life uniquely. Age cannot wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of the theme, and it is only a poorhearted chronicler who withholds from a tale because some one else has told it well.

Plutarch says that it is often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest that distinguishes a person's character more than the greatest signs or the most important battles. It is a pity he did not give women a chance in his inimitable gallery. He had a superior wife himself, loved her devotedly, admired and praised her. I picture her as small, and can almost catch the twinkle in his eye as from his Athenian stand-point he notes that Archidamus was fined in Sparta for marrying a little

woman.

Elsewhere he explained that in Romulus's time a wife could be divorced for having her husband's keys counterfeited, that sin ranking with adultery or poisoning her children. I wish that Plutarch with his openness and flexibility of mind had left us a portrait of Aspasia, the first woman of classic times to assert the right of the wife to be educated, that she might live not as the slave but as the peer and companion of her husband. Pericles loved and admired her, and Socrates advised his friends to send their sons to be educated by her. Aspasia was one of the notable instances of the classic world that women sprang, as the witty Frenchman said, "from the side of Adam, and not from his feet."

But Adam, what unhackneyed experiences must have been his! When his remarks as recorded by Milton expand too obviously into a sermon, Eve in the most discreet manner steps softly away and refreshes herself with slumber. Bagehot, commenting upon the fact, suspects that conversation must have been difficult between these two because they had nobody to talk about. Happier was the situation of the modern male sermonizer who, in a picture gallery, stood before a white-robed Psyche towed across Styx by a naked Charon. "Ah," said the man, "Lord Ullin's Daughter"! a smile of welcome recognition on his lips. The lady was deeply interested, receiving his elaborate details with wifely interest.

In olden times certain wells were resorted to by newly married couples. The first to drink the water was to be the head of the house throughout life. Southey describes how a bride outwitted the bridegroom.

After the wedding I hurried away
And left my wife in the porch,
But i' faith she had been wiser than I
For she took a bottle to church.

Other brides, other customs! Judge Sewell's lady was a buxom lass whose father on her wedding day actually put her on the scales and weighted the other side down with Pine-tree shillings. "It is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver," he commented. This father, Captain Hull, made the shillings for the

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