on Christmas Day that when a man reached fifty it was time he did something more about settling down than talk of it. Satira, on the whole, had enjoyed a very pleasant courtship during the y

of the widow Baker. This veteran, having failed to secure a second spouse for herself, was now trying to checkmate in turn every available man in the county for the benefit of her daughter. The Bakers live

'll pleasure me to give it, but if you want a woman that can rush

o give emphasis to his words. "When I get spliced, it'll hev to be

dy but a young woman? She's

old maids at twenty and women folks turning f

e kinds o' females when it comes to considerin' matrimony: widders that understand us men through 'xperience; just plain nice women folks that know what's necessary about us by intooition, as the Lord meant they should; and old maids that thinks they're dead wise, but all they know's by suspi

y before a man's really caught his grip, like she most knew he was goin' to squeeze it,

d mend the fence up at the farm and reshingle the buildings, she would begin to sew her carpet rags and sheets, and that would give them both time to be ready by Poppea's sixteenth birth

sty's Minstrels that chanced to be in Bridgeton that night, but insisted that

order from attic to porch, was left in her charge, and in the afternoon she read Gilbert's record writ

f to be filled anew with love for the old man who had opened his door. Her quick intuition and rapidly developing mentality scanned between the lines, learning of many acts of self-sacrifice and devotion that Gilbert believed locked securely in his own thoughts. It was the why of it all that rank

ho knows," said Gilbert to himself; "if only the Lord lets he

d she be victor or vanquished? As a girl glides unconsciously into womanhood, the mysteries that surround her are like the intangible, yet re

a darker cloud,-the mystery of the name; and the only rays th

le. Going to the window where Gilbert was sitting, she stood behind him, stroking his hair gently and smoothing bac

acher next summer, and Miss Emmy has asked me to read with them. I want to work hard at my music, so that by and by I can play an organ perhaps, or sing in a Bridgeton choir. And I must help you in the post-office. You've sa

t in order to control

a fortnight or so, to see the city, hear some good singing, the Opery she calls it, and things like that. Wouldn't you like it, Poppy? Yes, I thought so. Well, you go try your wings outside of Harley's Mills a bit, dearie. Mayhap you'll think you've never

the Square. The sound of the traffic from the opposite side where Fifth Avenue and Broadway meet and cross was deadened to a sullen roar

eling about on roller-skates, having a row of small wheels set lengthwise und

s 1874 to 1876, all those who kept private equipages were well known to one another, and if a stranger appeared in Mrs. -- barouche, the identity was soon revealed by the sending out of cards for a more or less stately reception to meet the guest. The informal and irresponsible afternoon teas of the last two decades of the century, their chief motive, as voiced by the Autocrat, being to "gabble, gobble, and git," were as yet unconceived. Sometimes a party of young folks on horseback, followed by an instructor, would come in sight, winding among the trees that separ

uck. Another time, the ladies always being interested in everything concerning the good of the city, had driven across the park and out the west side of it to see where the building of the Museum of Natural History was to be located, the laying of the corner-stone by President Grant having been set for the following June. Continu

young girl's breath come quick and short. She could not keep her eyes from the window and she spoke either in monosyllables or kept silent. Could

o, though Miss Emmy looked as though she would not only have encouraged Poppea in her desire but gone with her if it had not been

een jolted to such an extent that he had been obliged, in order to keep his seat, to adapt himself to circumstances and do something more than sit on the box and hold the reins, a new condition which raised his ire. It may be said with truth that the tyrannical family coachman of

t and eastward to Gramercy Park, a key to which exclusive enclosure had been given to the Misses Felton by one of their many friends in the surrounding houses. She often looked longingly at the girls of her own age who walked in groups of

vistas seen in the pier and mantel mirrors, she felt like some wild thing at bay. The ladies had gone in the carriage to Staten Island to visit a distant relative who was ill, taking Nora with them. Mr. Esterbrook had lunched as us

s. She was too wise now to refresh herself by sitting on the outer doorstep, since the doing of it,

ntion. The playing was spirited and the time good, though imperfect as to technique. The pent-up energy in Poppea began to surge and sway her body to the music. Stepping from the

led to see a reflection besides her own, that of a young man of perhaps eight and twenty, of medium height, clean shaven at a time when this wa

colored servitor was standing transfixed, one hand raised in warning,

ere, Miss Poppy; I 'lowed Mar

s the girl slipped past him and flew rather th

cin' to keep up her spirits. Do set down, Marsa Winslow; the ladies should shuah be back by now and they'll feel powerful bad to have misse

s' pleasure," and Caleb bowed the young man out, laying the silver salver with the bit of pasteboard in a spot upo

live color already," was Winslow's mental comment as he went down the steps, hesit

gle sash, threw one of them wide open, and kneeling on the floor so

Misses Felton they had such a delightful bit of news to impart that she forgot even to ask his name. The following

had a box been secured for the night, but Stephen Latimer and his wife were coming to complete the party, in spite of the fact that there were some who thought the witnessing of all dramatic perfor

but its complication baffled her and she had to content herself with persuading Nora to continue their walk from Gramercy

ic day came and with it the Latimers, Mrs. Stephen dimpling under a bewitching spring bonnet entirely of her own manufacture, a cherished possession

ngs, your hair loosened into a crown of puffs with the pink feather at the side, and the coral comb. The coral necklace and the white lace

le knife, for the times had been hard and houseworkers scarce at Harley's Mills that winter; while the other was pricked deep from the sewing of harsh

etermination, and eight o'clock saw the party of six gathered in the opera-box, th

f good taste. Miss Emmy wore pale blue satin with much fine lace and pearl ornaments; though pale in the morning

nd brooch, her only ornament, covered all but her slim white throat. Her hair was parted in bandeaux and coiled at the back of her head as usual, the only addition being two waxy white camelias tucked into the mass. During the last two years, however, a decided thread of silver had woven itself am

hen Latimer back of her. From the moment of their entrance, he had busied himself in explaining the great building to her, from the arrangement of the seats, boxes, and orchestra, to the use

to a climax of trumpets and trombones, then fading away to silence again. With a word here and there to focus the story of the libretto, Latimer called Poppea's attention to the new t

glimpse of visible active romance, and through the scenes that followed came her primal

gown sat with strained eyes and parted lips scarcely breathing. Once heard, this motif never left her ears, whether it was whispered by the wood-wind instruments, the horn, or proclaimed by t

faded from it, until, finally, when the boat, now guided by the Dove of the Grail, bears Lohengrin, its knig

, he had to go away; suppose, oh, suppose-?" Poppea turned her head from him, but Latime

and all the new things she sees and feels exaggerate it. I know how it is; last night, at first I loved my fine feathers and then they pricked like pins, and I thought, 'Oh! suppose I should have to wear them always and play a part and turn into

e indoors and be shut in by these double windows and never get back to Daddy and the post-off

anything they want them to forget. At home I can always keep a worry in one place and needn't

it of it. The house hasn't been so gay in my memory, besides, I'm having Nora and the seamstress turn he

lipped on her going-out things and, closing the front door, made her way quickly across the square to where the omnibus passed that Mr. Esterbrook had taken the day they two had left the carriage in Central Park. Once in the park

, but mebbe you'd fancy an apple or a bit of spruce gum, and not be able to lay hand on it without buying, or need a penny for an organ monkey, for they do say that all the organs that goes throu

h the park to the northern outlet was easy, but after that, the other mile was broken and irregular; for though there were old country houses here

that another large building set in ample grounds that they could see to the northward was the asylum, and that if in going back she would walk down the Bloomingdale Road (Broadway) a piece, she w

trying to lick the rough woollen of her coat, and crawling between some rails, reached the bank that she ha

ts upon it, but one was hers, built by 'Lisha Potts, and one was Hugh Oldys's, and they two were deciding which boat they should use, and whether both should row or only Hugh, for often they rowed together. Then the second boat disappeared, and Poppea rowed her boat,

ightened and would not be swallowed. Scrambling to her feet she took one final look up and down before turning homeward, and, as sh

not be a graveyard with only a single stone. Going near she looked for

nother mystery of a na

ke clearness, the voice of Gilbert, calling to her as he often did when she stayed out late in the bank garden below the orchard: "Come home, Poppy, i

who asked if she might go h