tributions from eminent men of science, and from some of the scientific services of the United States Government. Part II. will illustrate the growth of population from 1790 to 1870, of the constituent elements of the population, and of the social and miscellaneous statistics of the census. It will be published soon. Part III. has just been published. It contains eighteen maps and charts illustrating the vital statistics of the census.

- Hon. Robert C. Winthrop writes to the Massachusetts Historical Society of a portrait of Washington soon to come into their possession, to which considerable interest of an accidental sort attaches. A portrait of Washington by some unknown painter of inferior capacity was painted for the Stadtholder of Holland in 1780, and was

captured, together with Laurens, our minister plenipoten

tiary to Holland, in whose care it presumably was, when

on his way to the Hague; the captor was Captain Keppel of the British Navy, who presented the portrait to his uncle, Admiral Lord Keppel, and it thus became one of the treasures of Quidenham Park in Norfolk, the seat of the Earl of Albemarle, the present head of the Keppel family. "The main interest of the portrait," Mr. Winthrop writes, "is derived from the fate which befell it, from the period of Washington's life at which it was taken, and from the broad blue ribbon which is so conspicuous a feature of his costume." The ribbon could not be accounted for by those who examined the picture, and was indeed held to confirm the mistaken notion that Washington was made a marshal of France, when Rochambeau was sent over to our aid; but Mr. Winthrop reminds the society of a paper upon this subject prepared by the late Judge Warren, showing that the blue ribbon was prescribed as the distinctive designation of the commander-in-chief, so that he might be recognized by the troops to whom on his first coming he was so entire a stranger. A fac-simile of this painting and also of the frame have been obtained, mainly through the agency of Alexander Duncan, Esq., of London, formerly of Rhode Island, who presents the picture to the society. All accounts seem to agree that the picture is more curious than valuable. It is a full-length portrait of life size.

- The Alta California gives a curious account of some sonorous sand recently presented to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, from Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands. The sand was sent by W. B. Frink, of Honolulu, who writes concerning it: "The bank which is composed of this sand commences at a perpendicular bluff at the southwest end of the island, and extends one and a

half miles almost due south, parallel with the beach, which is about 100 yards distant from the base of the sand-bank. This sand-drift is about 60 feet high, and at the extreme south end the angle preserves it as steep as the nature of the sand will permit. The bank is constantly extending to the south. It is said by the natives that at the bluff and along the middle of the bank the sand is not sonorous. But at the extreme south end, and for half a mile north, if you slap two handfuls together there is a sound produced like the low hooting of an owl- more or less sharp, according as the motion is quick or slow. Sit

down upon the sand and give one hand a quick circular motion, the sound is like the heavy base of a melodeon. Kneel upon the steep incline, extend the two hands and clasp as much sand as possible, slide rapidly down, carrying all the sand you can, and the sound accumulates as you descend until it is like distant thunder. In this experiment the sound was sufficient to frighten our horses, fastened a short distance from the base of the drift. But the greatest sound we produced was by having one native lie upon his belly, and another taking him by the feet and dragging him rapidly down the incline, carrying as much sand as possible with them. With this experiment the sound was terrific, and could have been heard many hundred yards distant." A sceptically minded person, at this distance from the scene, would be disposed to think the last experiment most likely to be successful. A few na

incline upon their bellies, could be relied upon to make

tives east of the Rocky Mountains, drawn down a steep the earth beneath them sonorous.

The Chicago correspondent of the New York World gives an interesting account of recent explorations made in some of the singular gigantic mounds of the West, which have given rise to so much speculation. The mounds selected were near the city of Rockford, Illinois, and the excavations brought to light a remarkable tablet of Niagara spar, smoothly polished, about a quarter of an inch in thickness, three and one fourth inches long, and two inches wide, covered with hieroglyphics of which the most noticeable is a curiously wrought face, which is said to be very nearly a counterpart of the face in the centre of the great stone calendar of the Mexicans which was captured by Cortez when he invaded Mexico, buried by him, and afterward rediscovered and dug up in 1791. Further researches are shortly to be made.

-Judge Wallace, of the Cook County (Ill.) Court, has rendered a decision of considerable interest to the Northwestern University, at Evanston, in regard to the amount of its property that is to be exempt from taxation. The university owns several hundred acres of land, including a considerable area in the city of Chicago, on which it has never paid taxes, exemption having been guaranteed by its charter. A large part of the city of Evanston is also held by the university, and leased to occupants who pay no taxes. The question before the court, accordingly, was, whether land owned by an educational institution and leased " with a view to profit" could be taxed, and the decision was in the affirmative - which is certainly in accordance with equity and sound sense, whatever the local law may be. The university has appealed to the Supreme Court for a reversal of judgment. The decision will be looked for with interest at the East, where the question has been agitated of late so seriously that it can hardly be kept out of the courts long. It will be noticed that the point is not of exemption from taxation of property held by an educational institution and occupied for purposes of education, but for such property held for rev

VOL. II.]

HIS TWO WIVES.1

BY MARY CLEMMER AMES.

CHAPTER XXV. ULM NEIL.

THE spring wore on into summer. To Agnes the days were all alike. She had glimpses of the universal splendor without, from the little window where she sat at work, but till past mid-August her old daily communion with the natural world was perpetually interrupted. As Miss Buzzill said, "the work hung on. She never seed nuthin' like it afore."

The bees droned in the little garden. The hummingbirds flashed past the open window. From the early mornings, through the palpitating noons, through the long, luminous midsummer twilights, Agnes worked

on.

She worked as patiently, as skilfully, as successfully, as in the autumn before. Only she knew that her work cost her more inward effort now than it did then. Because her employment had lost somewhat the novelty of a new experience; because it was summer and she longed for out-of-door sunshine and air, for all the sights and sounds by her beloved, from which she was now shut in, she thought this inward reluctance To punish herself for it she doubled her diligence, did as much again as was asked or expected of her, and made the Dufferin milliner more eagerly and widely sought after than ever.

came.

She was not conscious that it was the keen delight which she had experienced in the use of her higher faculties that now made the most delicate work of her hands seem poor and paltry by contrast. Nor did she know that somewhere far down in her soul there was a low, vague pain, which stirred with the accepted conclusion that the Boston publishers coincided entirely with herself in their estimate of her mental work. Worse still, the impartial committee of judges evidently were all of a like opinion. She was utterly honest in her own estimate of it. But it would be pleasant to have some one beside Evelyn differ from her on the subject. How pleasant! That difference would open for her, though ever so little, the enchanted kingdom of thought at whose gates she would fain stand, though she might never enter in. The world was behind her, the door of its delights for her, forever shut. The love of man for her was not, and could never be more.

[No. 14.

pretty manuscript book, which she made fair with such infinite pains, cast into the waste-basket. A tiny waif amid an endless mass whose every unit was more perfect than her own, its fate was inevitable. She knew it from the beginning, but she was sorry just the same. It was inexpressibly foolish, she was sure, yet how could she help loving this boy this boy born equally of heart and brain? But she had no right to expect anybody else to love him. "I do not expect it. I never expected it," she said, humbly. Yet away down in her heart all the time there was an ache for that boy. This same heart gave a leap every time Jim Dare appeared with the mail, for many weeks after the departure of the precious package.

It was impossible for one so inexperienced in its ways, to realize the exigencies of a publishing office, or the inevitable delays attendant upon the reading, acceptance, or returning of thousands of manuscripts. For weeks Agnes was sure of some answer. When she had ceased entirely to expect any reply, it came. It was in late August. She had reached the Pinnacle at last, for her summer rest. Vida was playing in the grass with Snowball, her own cosset lamb. Agnes and Evelyn were sitting on the door-step one Saturday evening, when Jim Dare emerged from the woods, mounted on John, and riding up to the door placed in Agnes' hand a consequential-looking letter. She opened it, and the first thing that met her astonished eyes was a check for one hundred dollars. She then read:

ULM NEIL:

BOSTON, August, 18—.

DEAR SIR, It affords us pleasure to inform you that after a patient and impartial examination of over one hundred MSS. (chiefly from ladies) the committee have chosen "Basil: A Boy," as distinctively worthy of the first prize. The amount, one hundred dollars ($100), by check we now inclose, which please acknowledge.

No one but a man with the heart of a boy could so utterly have entered into the boy nature and life. Hoping that the sales of this charming little book will warrant us in opening future negotiations with its author, Very truly yours, BLANK, BLANK & Co.

we remain

of the mind, poor she was indeed.

In March she sent away her "Basil: A Boy." It was past midsummer now, and she had not received a word concerning his fate. She had ceased to expect any word. Weeks before, her imagination saw the

1 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by II. O. ПOUGH. TON & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

"Oh, Evelyn!" she exclaimed. "I pray God to forgive my ingratitude of distrust. After all, after all, they have taken my story! It seems too much to believe. But it is true, for here is the hundred dollars!”

"Didn't I tell ye? I knowed it all the time. I was sure on it," said Evelyn, forgetting all her later misgivings in the recollection of her early faith. "I told

ye so, you blessed child!" and she snatched Agnes to her heart.

"My mamma ain't a chile!" cried Vida from aloft, where she stood perched on the shoulders of the shouting Jim, who received the fact of the book, and especially of the hundred dollars, as quite a family affair. "Your ma has written a book!" he exclaimed, exultingly. "Will you ever write un, little queen?" "No," piped the small sovereign. "Don't like books. Them's hard."

"Not a book 'bout a boy. I heerd y'ur ma read it. 'Twus jest as plain as a b ab. She's got a hundred dollars for it. What air you goin' to git, baby?"

"A baby for my own se'f, with eyes so," blinking her own. 66 'My baby hain't dot no eyes," in tones of woe, as she struggled downward to inspect the mysterious bit of paper that was to procure her her longedfor idol. Evelyn took her into her arms.

"Your ma has writ a book," she exclaimed with unabated delight. "What does baby think on't?" "Nuffin," replied Vida with an imperial air. "My mamma will write more books, an' buy me a houseful of dolls with eyes so, an' a bell for Snowball, an' me a boo fock."

Her prayer

Agnes had disappeared. She might have been found inside of her own shut door, kneeling by her bed with her face buried in it, just as she knelt years before, when she prayed for grace to subdue the overpowering emotions of her own heart. JIOW was the overflow of loving gratitude. Her heavenly Father was good to her beyond all her doubts and all her fears, and oh, how far beyond her deserts! This thought filled all her consciousness. "What shall I render unto Thee!" she said in silence. "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. So much of power is Thou givest me, of love, of insight, of help, I now do dedicate to the poor, to the afflicted, to the struggling, the lonely, the sorrowful of thy creatures, so far as I may reach them, everywhere. So help me, O Thou God and Father of my spirit."

In September, Agnes went back to Miss Buzzill, and to her little shop at the Corners. But Dufferin, to its prolonged lamentation, that autumn wore the last bonnet fashioned by her hands. It did not forget her when she ceased to serve them.

Stella Moon, a young woman of an inquiring mind, who attended at the post-office and brought the immense weight of her curiosity to bear upon the unravelling of all the family secrets of the municipality, whose position was most favorable to the pursuit of such knowledge, and whose opportunities and talents were generously devoted to the detailing of Dufferin news of the most private and sacred character, -informed the mourners for bonnets that were not, that Jim Dare had taken from the post-office more than one letter directed to "Mr. Ulm Neil," which she knew as well as she wanted to was for Madame Darcy; and that one of them contained a check or draft or bank-bill. She was certain, for she saw it when she held the letter up in a strong light and looked through it. If Madame Darcy was the recipient of drafts and bank-bills under any name whatsoever, of course it was unnecessary for her to make Dufferin bonnets in order to procure means of support.

The only unsatisfactory phase of the fact, and the unsolved mystery of it, was that Madame Darcy did not

choose to spend that money in living on Dufferin Street, but still persisted in burying herself and that beautiful child ten miles from a post-office, in the wilderness at Tarnstone Pinnacle, and abiding in a log-house with a woman who had always been a servant. No informa

tion imparted by Stella Moon could explain these unexplainable facts, nor ever could unless she opened the letters of Ulm Neil as well as looked through them.

This lack of knowledge on the subject, accurate and demonstrated, was painful to the Dufferin mind, but what cut it to the heart was that it was never again to wear "a Darcy bonnet." "The middle people" went back to the Lake, "the quality" to Montreal, to London, or Boston, with their custom. Miss Buzzill shut up her shop, doffed her canary bonnet, and went into mourning. 'My fifth cousin is dead," she said, “but 'tain't that; I've no courage to wear yaller, if 'tis plain an' stiddy, when my feelin's ain't in keepin' ; never wus so upsot in my life."

66

The books of the Dufferin Bank showed that she was several hundred pounds the richer for having opened her shop the second time. But to have to close it just as it was beginning to make her "fortin" would have been an aggravation to any business body; but how could it fail to be a double one to a poor soul who, according to her weigher and measurer, Evelyn Dare, carried a "bump" of acquisitiveness on her head" as big as a turkey's egg"? Mixed with her grief at the loss of money was grief for the loss of the mother and child who, together, in her sterile life, had been much to love.

"Little yaller-headed tot! Ef I could only see her runnin' round ag'in 'twould be a comfort, I du declare. I've a feelin' for all young uns. But I couldn't have quite sech a feelin' fur her if her hair warn't yaller, yaller as golden-rod alongside of the road. Jest like Tom Dare's when he went to spellin'-school along o' me. He liked me then. I'm sure on't; an' he'd 'a' liked me still, ef she hadn't 'a' come along with them dancin' eyes o' her'n; an' she knows it, tu, an' she's never forgiven me that he liked me once alwus a-peckin' away at Deary me! What hev I? Not even my bunnit shop! But I hev more money than one on 'em thinks fur, or ever will; an' every cent shall go tu that blessed little yaller-head. I thought of young Tom Dare, but I can't he looks too much like her. When I coax little yaller-head's ma to let her come to the Street to school, I'll hev su'thin' to comfort me, I guess."

me.

Many were the pilgrimages that she made to the Pinnacle. "Jest a sight of little tot does me good, if I do hev to stan' an' take a rakin' to pay fur it," she said, alluding in her remark to Evelyn's criticisms; "picking" at Miss Buzzill being an undoubted pastime of her old-time rival. But the victim thought herself richly rewarded for any infliction, when she bore away "little yaller-head" for a few days' visit at the Corners, as she often did.

"I shall never send her to school while I can teach her what she ought to learn, myself, and when I must, I shall go with her," said Agnes, in answer to Miss Buzzill's entreaties. Nevertheless a tender pity in her heart for the lonely woman made the mother often share her child-treasure with her.

Could Stella Moon have imparted to Dufferin womanhood the exact sum in the letter on which their favorite bonnet-maker had retired into the wilderness, "to live on it," as they supposed, they would have been

very much astonished and considerably disgusted "The fortune from home," about which their imagination played, was a pittance much smaller than the profit of bonnet-making would have been for a single season; nevertheless it was sufficient to provide for her child's and her own wants for several months, while she employed her energies upon more congenial tasks.

It was during the Christmas holidays that Agnes received from Blank, Blank & Co. a letter which decided what her work for the coming year was to be. It was a business letter, personally gracious, positively a "feeler," yet delightfully non-committal. It admitted that "Basil: A Boy" was having "a fair sale," sufficiently fair indeed to induce them to propose to Ulm Neil that he use the same insight, sympathy, and delineating power which he had expended on boy-life and a boy, in characterization of a more complex sort; in depicting men and women in their interplay upon each other, while held together by a net-work of interesting circumstances. The power displayed in the embodiment of "Basil: A Boy" indicated subtler and acuter power in reserve, waiting encouragement and a subject to reveal itself in complete manifestation and assured success. Therefore Blank, Blank & Co. would venture upon a few suggestions. Then followed "hints" for one of those impossible books wherewith the best of publishers are fain to drive their authors stark mad in advance, at the bare thought of producing. This one being the joint product of a trinity of heads as inconglomerate as so many repelling metal balls, all striking toward a common centre of success, but by a route distinct and constitutionally opposite.

Mr. Blank One wanted a book "racy, strong, smacking of the soil, strikingly original." Mr. Blank Two wanted a story of common life told in an uncominon way, the opposite of commonplace, though entirely devoted to common things. He wanted every sentence filled with delicate touches, so delicate yet so astonishing that unawares they would take the reader's breath away, and when he caught it again the first use that he would make of it would be to say, "Nobody ever said such an uncommon thing before about such a common thing."

Mr. Blank Two thought well of Ulm Neil, but by no means so well as did Mr. Blank One. There were whole pages in "Basil: A Boy" that bore internal evidence of having been written when the writer was very tired indeed. They were languid, discouraged, tame. He really could not understand how his senior saw a success so surely in a second venture from the same hand. But he must warn Mr. Neil against tameness, minute description, and tell him to be sure to speak of common things in an uncommon way, if he intended to make an incisive mark in the world of letters.

Mr. Blank Three coincided with Mr. Blank One. There were indications - mind, he claimed "nothing more than indications" in this first book of a far higher level of power which the writer might attain in a second, if he chose. These indications he mentioned without the slightest exaggeration. Then if they were never fulfilled, his colleagues would be moved to a less emphatic "I told you so." He did not agree with his colleague in the type of book most sure to bring in substantial rewards to the firm of Blank, Blank, & Co. He wanted a book at once "spicy," "piquant," "brilliant," " fascinating;" a "mirror of society," "full of incident," yet in no vulgar sense "sensational;" in fine, the American novel of the generation. He wished

66

to be sure that Mr. Ulm Neil was left in no mist whatever concerning what Mr. Blank Three wished from his pen.

Then the impalpable" Co.," with ethereal nose in the air, spoke his piece. In his tastes and sensibilities, not to mention his mind, he had nothing in common with realism in literature. He could truthfully remark that he despised it. In nine instances out of ten, realism was simply literalism. Fiction was the realm of romance. The House were aware that he failed to see in Ulm Neil anything which its other members saw. Surely he was not a creator; he was not an inventor; he was not even a revelator; he was simply a copyist, using other people's pigments. "Basil: A Boy" might do for a boy of an ichorous sort. The hand that limned him could never paint a man par to the gods, or a woman aerial as Undine, the only types meet to live in ideal literature. He had nothing to suggest to a writer who would never surpass elemental lines, or the crudest forms of material character; who would never soar above the dead level of every-day things. In the desire of the House to obtain a second book from such a writer he acquiesced with the House, but he wished the House to observe it was not without protest; and he would further remark that an ambitious book from so crude a pen, in his opinion, would prove to the House a dead failure.

The result of this combined conference of Blank, Blank & Co. went into the letter that penetrated the log-house at the Pinnacle. Considering the opposite elements of opinion which entered into it, it is not strange that it seemed doubly cautious and devoid of all positive praise, even for a publishers' letter. Nevertheless it contained a certain request for an impossible book a book not sensational, yet thrilling with sensation; a book real, yet equally ideal; a book uncommon about common things; a book with wings to soar into the empyrean of romance; a book furthermore piquant, pathetic, witty, humorous, spicy, brilliant, taking, readable, absorbing, and, beyond and above everything, a book that would be certain to sell.

"I cannot write such a book," replied Agnes simply to these formidable Blanks, whom she had never seen, but whose supposed images made her quake. "I am not certain at all that I can write any book that men and women will care to read, but I can try. I am not at all sure that I can tell a story,' but I know that I can tell the truth. If you wish me to do so I will begin at once, and call it, The Annals of a Quiet City.""

66

On the receipt of this letter from Ulm Neil, the senior publisher went and took a fresh look at the accounts of Basil: A Boy," and then on his own responsibility, and out of the faith in his individual soul, just refreshed and made stronger, surely, by a glance at his cash account, he wrote to Ulm Neil: Go on and write just what is in you-out; be sure of that; then I'll be sure, when you get it done, to sell fifty thousand copies of your book. Pin this up before you and look at it when you get discouraged - as you will. Everybody does, that has anything in his head and heart worth getting out. If it's worth anything, it is bedded deep, and the getting it out is not so easy. You are a queer sort of a man, to feel that there is an adverse mind against you in this House. Never mind. I am its head, and you are my trump, as the Adverse,' will yet find out. Think of me, not of him; of your copyright, of your fifty-thousand books sold, and you will go ahead you can't help it."

6