work, imperative canons of art, lines traced by experience short of which or beyond which excellence cannot exist. Most of his prose writing has been of a critical description, and it is all faithfully and generously done. The later fame of Putnam's Magazine in this department is due in a great degree to his skillful management, and the pages of many of our best periodicals have been distinguished by his reviews and æsthetic essays during the past ten years. It is not easy to overrate the value of the service he has thus rendered to literature. To convince young authors that fixed principles and proved methods in literary art existed long before American independence declared the right of everybody to compose and print-to point out the discipline that must be applied, and sound the note that must be accorded with, if anything permanently good is to come out of the chorus of national babblement-this is no light or popular function, and it is one to which Stedman has bent all his force and all his conscience. No critical essay of the same length in the English language published during the past decade is finer than his study on Theocritus, contributed last year to The Atlantic Monthly. In its process of bringing the Greek idyllist face to face with the English laureate, analyzing the substance of poetic stuff common to both, tracing their different methods of working with it, disengaging what is human, what is antique, what is modern, detecting imitations and noting

variations for the better, it is a model of patient comparison, acute discrimination, and liberal judgment. It attests his qualifications for the work of translating Theocritus, as yet incomplete, and gives us the right to expect unusual excellence in that performance. Equally thorough and spirited is his critical monograph on Landor's works and genius, introducing the series of papers on the Victorian poets, to be written by him for SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY. We know of no American writer who could have treated the subject with such a glow of enthusiasm, lighting up an analysis so ingenious and clear, and proved to be just by reasons so direct and full. Considering these latest evidences of Stedman's peculiar capacity, and reflecting on his qualities of mind and the range of his studies, we are almost disposed to hope that his future work will be that of the critic rather than the poet. The function of the one is not more important than that of the other, and scarcely more dignified. Were it not that his latest productions attest a growing mastery over the poetic arts, and embody in higher forms his maturing experience of life, we should be tempted, in the interest of letters, to urge upon him our conviction that he has already achieved a reputation assuring his welcome among the "turba seniorum poetarum," and that his riper powers may be worthily dedicated to the high and difficult art of criticism.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH THE HEROINE MAKES AN AWKWARD LITTLE BOW.

THERE stood upon Poplar street in Boston, twenty years ago, or more, one of those great wooden mansions in which our forefathers of Pre-Revolutionary times delighted; the embodied conception to their minds of an elegant house. Progress and so-called necessity, and, above all, the restless spirit of Young America, are now fast sweeping them from sight. This has been gone for years, and a brick school-house reared in its place, where, most appropriately, ideas of progress, utility and irreverence for the old and useless are implanted in the minds of the rising generation.

The street is still narrow, the expansion of mind which has gradually enlarged the borders, the pharisaical spirit of greed and and gain, which has made wide the phylacteries in other parts of the city, having done little or nothing here. It was at that time a line between affluence upon one hand and respectable poverty, looking towards squalor, upon the other. Block after block-with this one exception-of brick or stone houses filled the street; chrysalides, from which the old inhabitants have

long since winged their way to airier and more elegant quarters.

The Earle house, of which we speak, stood upon the right hand, where the street bends to fall towards the glimmer of water lined off with masts, faintly perceptible between the dull rows of ugly houses at their termination. Its face was turned away from the street, and its old eyes stared across the narrow strip of yard upon a blank brick wall. There had been gardens about it once, in the far-off time when the family was rich and held its own; then, too, green meadows stretched away from the garden wall down to the water's edge. In those days, when his Majesty's troops were quartered in the town, Gen. Gates had more than once honored the house with his presence. The wine-glass could still be shown which he had drained, and, smiling down now from among the portraits upon the walls, was a fair Delphine Earle, with powdered hair and in shining brocade, into whose ears he had whispered stately compliments. Ah, how the beautiful garden blossomed with gold lace and scarlet uniforms-a gorgeous century plant, nipped later by New England frosts! But times changed; wealth and power slipped away from the family. The town grew in

to a city; meadows and gardens disappeared; only the old house, dingy, forlorn a wreck of its former self, remained. It was a cozy, old-fashioned room, where the Earle family were assembled one winter evening, twenty-five years ago. The faded, heavy hangings over the windows, the carved straight-backed chairs, the massive round center-table, with lion's claws for its support, the wide tarnished frames upon the walls, enclosing dim old portraits, even the soft confusion of warm, worn colors under one's feet, told of substantial wealth and comfort-but, alas! of wealth and comfort of a former generation.

A low fire snapped and flamed upon the hearth. Before it, in one of the highbacked chairs, sat the mother of the family. The face, although delicate, was still strong in its outline. The hair, brown and smooth, was put away under a headdress in the form of a turban of lace, which yet suggested a widow's cap. Her eyes rested thoughtfully upon the fire; her thin, shapely hands held a little note as they lay crossed in her lap. Curled into a graceful heap upon the sofa in one corner, her arms under her head, her face turned with eager expectation towards her mother, was Delphine, the eldest of the three children, who, indeed, had outgrown childhood, was eighteen and a beauty. Jack, five years younger, bent over his lessons at the center table, where Katey, almost eight, nestled close to his side, her head hidden in a book so large that she seemed to have vanished behind a folding screen.

"You can go if you care to," the mother said at length, fingering the note in her hand; "but-" Delphine sat upright to clap her hands softly. Jack raised his face. "I hate parties," he said, sententiously.

"How can you say so?" returned Delphine, whose face flamed and shone at the vision the words had called up--the rare bit of color in a dull life. "You would like to go, Katey?"

A pair of great dark eyes in the midst of a pale, absorbed face, a mass of dark hair hastily thrust back from a low, wide forehead, emerged from the covers of the book. "To go where?" and the child gave a bewildered glance from one to the other.

"Why, to Janie Home's party, of course," Delphine explained, impatiently. The bright, fresh nature, with its keen enjoyment of the present, had many a trial in Katey's slow traveling home from a VOL. VII.-5

thousand miles away, where her thoughts seemed always wandering.

"I don't know;" and one little brown elbow rested upon the book-cover, and one little brown cheek disappeared in the palm of her hand as Katey proceeded to consider the subject. But Delphine had already forgotten her question. “I shall have to wear the green pongee," she was saying, with a sigh, "and those dreadful slippers! I only need a cap and bells," she added, with a shrug of her shoulders.

A warm color which was no reflection from the fire rose in Madam Earle's face. Pride is the last to die. "Perhaps you had better stay at home," she said.

But every mortification and pain had its bright side to light-hearted Delphine. "I shall not mind, though, in the evening," she went on; "and perhaps the slippers will be too small by another year, and so fall to Katey. Poor Katey! I'll try and dance them out before that;" and she laughed. No care could rest upon Delphine; no trouble shadow her face for long. The slippers were one of those seeming blessings which prove almost a curse. For a little time, several years before, an old actress had rented a room in the house and one day, in looking over her treasures had come upon these relics of past times, the rather tawdry magnificence of which had struck Delphine's fancy. They were of gray kid, profusely ornamented with gay silk embroidery, somewhat faded, and tarnished gold braid; and when they were presented to the child her joy was full. She could not rest content until she had displayed them upon her feet, a world too large though they were; and one summer day she prevailed upon her mother to allow her to wear them to church. Poor Delphine! it was an experiment; ending as do so many among older and wiser people. Hardly had the great black gate swung to behind her before she became conscious of attracting an amount of attention upon which she had not reckoned. Stares met her, and whispered words, with suppressed laughter, followed her all the way. As she turned into Brattle Street and approached the church where the Earles had worshiped since its foundation, every eye of the gathering crowd seemed bent in surprise and amusement upon her shoes. She might better have been shod with her naked feet. Too proud to turn back, she hastened or until the pew-door made a shelter and a refuge. Then, during the first

prayer, while the congregation bowed, with anything but a prayerful spirit in her angry heart, she slipped out of the church and ran home through the deserted streets. Since that day the slippers had shone with diminished lustre, and only by gaslight, upon the rare occasions when some of the school-children entertained their friends. Even then they were regarded doubtfully by the girls, and would have won many a taunt and jeer from the boys, who go straight to the mark in such matters, but for Delphine's beauty, which made every boy a courtier; and courtiers are smooth-tongued.

Katey sat quite still, lost in thought, though Delphine's voice, grown merry now, still went on. What is it, kitten?" whispered Jack, struck at last by the strange attitude and absorbed face. "Don't you want to go to the party?"

She turned her eyes gravely upon him without speaking. Then she stealthily pushed her little foot out from under the short gown. There was a yawning rent upon one side of her shoe. "I have no others;" and the dark eyes displayed a depth of despair which touched Jack's heart. He thrust his freckled fingers into the red-brown hair hanging over his forehead, and stared at the page before him. Poor Jack! Poor Jack! What wild impossible schemes were conjured up in his brain at that moment as he felt the weight of that hardest of all poverty to bear-the poverty which goes hand and hand with pride-good, honest pride, too, which is not to be scoffed and sneered at.

"I'll have them mended!" he whispered in sudden inspiration, coming down from a vision of dainty pink satin slippers to the practical and possible. I'll take them to old Crinkle the first thing in the morning."

"Will you?" Katey nestled nearer to him. Dear old Jack! He made many a crooked way straight to the little feet. Then I can go,' and her face shone; "but I never saw a party in my life. What is it like?" she added curiously, as though it had been some strange kind of an animal, for instance.

"Like—oh, like—like—” but, failing in a simile, Jack came to a pause. He was bashful to a painful degree, and shrank always from notice. The party, from which there was no escape if Delphine were really going, was anything but a pleasure in anticipation, and yet he could not check Katey's eager interest.

"Why they just swell round, you know, and show their fine clothes," he said at last.

"But we have n't any fine clothes!"

This was too true to be denied, and Jack was silenced for a moment; but a certain pain in the dark eyes made him go on hiding his own forebodings, and holding up only what was bright and pleasant before the child.

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And they play plays."

"Do they?" exclaimed Katey eagerly. Then, after a moment's pause, "though I don't know any plays."

And then there's the supper," Jack went on, almost persuading himself, as Katey's face brightened more and more. "That is best of all-ice cream and oranges and things, you know. Heigho!" he sighed, "I wish it was over," forgetting his part suddenly; but the sigh was lost upon Katey, who bent forward with clasped hands and upturned, glowing face, picturing it out in her mind, herself too insignificant a part of the bright vision to disturb her fancy. She drew a long, trembling breath. "I am sure I shall like it," she said softly, returning to her book, from which, however, she soon emerged again. "Will Dacre Home be there?"

"I suppose so," Jack answered rather gruffly. He was deep in his lessons again by this time and did not care to be disturbed.

"He's an awful boy," whispered the child solemnly.

"That's so;" and Jack allowed his thoughts to wander again from the page before him. "Do you know," he went on in a burst of confidence, "I believe he'll be hung yet."

Katey's eyes opened round and horrified at the scene conjured up by his prophecy. "Then they'd bring home his head," she added after a moment.

"Bring home his head?" repeated Jack. "Yes; I read somewhere about Sir Thomas More; how they brought home his head to his family. I think," she added circumstantially, "that it was tied up in a napkin."

"He wasn't hung at all," said Jack, from the depth of superior wisdom, "he was beheaded."

"O!" Katey replied humbly. From Jack's final judgments she never appealed.

Jack was true to his promise, and carried the little shoe to be mended the next morning before breakfast. When he rap