long rows of staid, comfortable-looking houses, embowered in trees, many fine churches, and an ambitious custom-house. The huge trains of the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad discharge their freights of cotton and grain directly upon wharves at the steamers' sides, and the unusual facilities are yearly increased and improved. The Norfolkians are beginning to understand the consolidation policy in railroad matters now-a-days. Time was when they could hardly perceive the advantages of a road laid through the treacherous "hummocks" of the Dismal Swamp, and they called the great iron bridge over the Elizabeth "Mahone's Folly" when it was first built, thinking that it would cripple the line. But now that they have grappled hold of the commerce of the West, and have begun to compare their advantages with those of New York, they cannot enough praise the sagacity of those minds that labored until the great through line was an accomplished fact. The importance of Norfolk as a port of the future is certainly indisputable; and it is not at all improbable that within a few years it will have direct communication with European ports, by means of ocean steamers, owned and controlled in this country The Norfolk people have made a consid erable effort to turn the flood of European emigration bound to Texas through their town, forwarding it directly over the lines penetrating South-western Virginia and Tennessee. But, thus far, only a fortnightly steamer of the Allan Line has touched at Norfolk, bringing, usually, a large number of English families for the lands around Charlottesville and Gordonsville. The Elizabeth River is not as lively now as when, at the beginning of the present century, the river could not be seen, so thick was the shipping between the Norfolk and Portsmouth shores. In the huge financial crash which came at that time, sixty Norfolk firms interested in maritime commerce failed; the modern town does not boast as many. of the Atlantic; northward stretches the Chesapeake and its tributaries, navigable nearly a thousand miles; westward is the James, giving communication with Rich mond, and five hundred miles of water way, southward run the canals to Curri. tuck, Albemarle, and Pamlico, communicating with two thousand miles of river channel. She affords naturally the best sea-port for most of North Carolina and Tennessee, besides large sections of Northern Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and the south-west. A thorough system of internai • improvements in Virginia, giving lines leading from tide-water in that State to the northwest, would enable Norfolk to usurp the commercial preeminence of New York Pittsburg and Wheeling Toledo and Co lumbia are geographically nearer the Capes of Virginia than to Sandy Hook; and it is almost certain that in the future the high ways to the sea from the west will run through Virginia, and the ports furnishing outlet to the western cities will be along the Chesapeake Bay. Ingenious minds have already mapped an ocean route from Norfolk to the Holland coast-one possessing great advantages, and it is to be hoped that a company may be formed to place steamers upon it. There are good steamship lines between Norfolk and New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia The Boston steamers carry a great deal of cotton to the New England factories Norfolk received last year four hundred and six thousand bales of cotton, an enormous increase over her receipts in 1872. The amount brought by the Atlanuc, Mississippi and Ohio railroad alone in 1873 was 158,000 bales. The produce business of the port is enormous; during the active season a daily steamer is sent to New York, Boston, and Baltimore, and three weekly to Philadelphia. The "truck farms'. continent, which can find no more convenient cutiet than Norfolk. The Sea-board and Roanoke Railroad penetrates North Carolina, a little above the point at which the trade becomes tributary to its canals, and connects with the Raleigh and Gaston, and Wilmington and Weldon Railroads at Wel don. The Norfolk and Great Western road is a projected route to run through the southern counties of Virginia, touching at Danville, and terminating at Bristol. The natural Norfolk lies within thirty-two miles sea-port of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which, coming *The eastern and southern branches of the Elizabeth River are superior in depth to the Thames at London, or the Mersey at Liverpool. The depth of water in the harbor at Norfolk is twenty-eight feet, or nearly twice that regularly maintained at New Orleans; and the harbor is spacious enough to admit the commercial marine of the whole country. It has been estimated that thirty miles of excellent waterfront for wharfage can readily be afforded. Eastern North Carolina is the natural ally of Norfolk in commerce. Behind the barrier of sandhills, extending along the Carolina coast, lies one of the most fertile regions on the from the Ohio river, penetrates the mountains of Western Virginia, 15, of course, Norfolk. The Albemarle and Chesa peake canal, through which, during eleven years from the 30th of September, 1860, more than thirty-five thousand vessels of all classes passed, penetrates a country rich in cereals, woods, and naval stores, all of which it brings di rectly to Norfolk. The river lines of steamers, running to Yorktown, Hampton, and Old Point, Elizabeth City, and Washington, N.C., Roanoke Island, and other places, ate rapidly re-establishing the local trade of the Chesapeake, and its tributaries, interrupted by the war. The receipts of cotton at Norfolk in 1858 were 6,174 Dales; we have seen that in 1872 they were more than 400,000. i.e., the market gardens in the vicinity, give the shippers business at a time when "all cotton towns are afflicted with dullness. The receipts of truck for 1872 amounted to three and a half millions of dollars; and the value of all the receipts was $21,000,000.* The duties on imports into the district of Norfolk and Portsmouth, from 1866 to 1871 inclusive, amounted to more than $800,000. There is a large negro population in folk, and the white citizens make great struggles at each election to keep the municipal power in their own hands. They have long had excellent free schools, on which they are now expending ten thousand dollars yearly; and their city affairs are in good condition. The estimated real value of assessable property in the city is seventeen millions, and the greater part of the tax thereon is readily collected; the citizens have built fine water-works at a large expense; the shops are excellent; society is exceedingly frank, cordial and refined. bered upon the parapet of old Fort Norfolk, and gazed out over the broad expanse of sparkling water towards the horizon, delicately bordered with foliage, which masked the embouchure of the James; and the black spots further down indicating Crany Island and the entrance to Hampton Roads, where those two seadevils, the Merrimac and the Monitor, had their fierce and tremendous battle. Fort Nor-Norfolk is now, as it was when the Confederates took possession of it, a magazine. The powder captured there at the beginning of the war long defended many a Southern fort. From the quaint walls of the venerable fort* we saw pretty villages and villas; and the noble United States Marine Hospital, on the opposite shore; could watch the schooners coming in with the tide, as the sunset deepened from blood-red until it mingled its last gleam with the strange neutral twilight; the sudden advent of a Baltimore steamer looming up like a specter, with its dark sides and black wheels half shrouded in smoke, could see the rows of mansions sweeping out on to the very water's edge, and the piers jutting from their front doors, with rustic arbors and awnings, where one might sit and woo the fresh sea-breeze, see the gracefully tapering forests of masts, and the massive walls of the warehouses, and could hear the rattling of the chains. and singing of sailors. and singing of sailors. Strolling back, we noted the bare-legged negro boys sculling in their skiffs which they had half filled with oysters, and passed through streets entirely devoted to the establishments where the bivalve, cruelly torn from his shell, was packed in cans. and stored to await his journey to the far West Driv. ing on the hard shell road, later in the evening, we passed long trains of fish carts, in each of which lay a sleepy negro, growling if we asked one half of the road saw the fields where the Confederates prepared to defend Torfolk from ap. proach of the blue-coated soldiery by land -fields occupied by carefully tilled farms. and hard by the cabin and garden patch of the freedman; saw evidences on every hand of growth and progress, and found it hard, indeed, to convince ourselves that half a century had not passed since the war for the Union " closed. This goodly ancient town, with its twenty thousand inhabitants, was laid out more than a century and a half ago, but the British burned it in the Revolution, and it had to grow again. It has seen troublous times since then. The yellow fever has made one or two ghastly visitations, and war has disturbed the even tenor of its way There came a day, too, when Portsmouth, the pleasant town just across the Elizabeth from Norfolk, and where one of the principal naval depots of the United States is situated, seemed enveloped in flame, and when the new-made Confederate on one side of the stream watched with mingled regret and exultation the burning of the vast ship houses and the ships-of-war which the United States were unwilling to allow him to capture. A promenade along the Elizabeth, in company with an ex-Confederate officer, was fruitful of souvenirs. It was towards sunset of a September day when we clam Some idea of the produce business may be had from the following enumeration of the articles which passed through Norfolk, bound mainly to northern cities, in 1872, and the various articles received at the port. The receipts of corn were 1,628,940 bushels of peanuts 544,025 bushels of dried fruit, 346.542: oats, 329.110: peas, 152.420: wheat. 75,210 flour, 100,640 barrels; rosin, 129,586 barrels. turpentine hogsheads. 14.940 barrels: pitch, 3,240 barrels: tobacco. 3.5 in the same 1,520 tieftes, 34,270 cases, and 38.920 boxes. 16 had Few sections of the South have so many genuine recommendations to the consid * It was built in 1912. VOL. VII.-43 eration of the would-be immigrant as that extending along the splendid highway from the West to the Chesapeake Bay-from Bristol to the Sea. The railroad facilities now possessed by the mountain country of Virginia are superior to those of any region of similar character in either Europe or America, since they place all the most desirable lands within easy access, and bring extensive mineral fields into the market. It is possible that Northern farmers will, in large numbers, enter either the southwestern or the Piedmont district of the State. Capitalists can also find a profitable employment there, and the incoming current of sturdy English laborers, and of thoughtful and accomplished Englishmen of higher rank, will rapidly develop the material resources, which are apparently so inexhaustible. That a very genuine interest in the future of Virginia has been excited in all parts of Great Britain, there can be no doubt; and so long as the political status of the commonwealth is as tranquil as at present, immigrants will flock in, mountain and valley will be occupied and cultivated, and social growth will be constant and encouraging. NOT she, whose fruitless tears avow a youth As her own emptied vase; whose hands enfold The world to doubt if sentence waits on sin. Alone, not lingering to adore or mourn, First seen, She, first forgiven, only blessed, will crave Their heritage in all her dear Lord gave; Grace for crushed hearts, killed by the harsh world's scorn- Softened through sorrow to ecstatic love, Will hail the promise of the golden years When balm shall be distilled from bitterest tears, God's law rule man's, and all who, following her, Love, to be lost, not unredeemed shall err. ent there a Curdy Exp 1 and a her rank rial resu haustible T future parts cle doubt; a f the comm resent, ain and ed, and s encourge CHAPTER XIII. CAP AND BELLS. KATHERINE EARLE. BY MISS ADELINE TRAFTON. THE sick girl did not come down to tea; and after a consultation by her bedside her father and brother decided that she was quite unfit to take a part in the evening's entertainment. "It is too bad," said Minna, when a little later she and Katey had returned to the chamber. Minna was sitting upon the floor before a small trunk, which had evidently seen good service, shaking out a little red skirt in which she was to appear at the concert. "I would sing all your songs if you would only go; but you cannot, I know," she added with a sigh, as she laid back in the trunk the duplicate of the red petti coat. She was silent and thoughtful as she braided her smooth, dark hair anew, tying the thick plaits with scarlet ribbons; then suddenly she turned to Katey, "but you might go in Christine's place.' Katey shrank back from leaning upon Minna's dressing table and watching the deft fingers. "Don't say that you won't," Minna went on," you need not sing. You could wear Christine's dress, and we never take off our hats. You have no friends here to recognize you, and what if you had?" she added proudly. "You could stand back a little when we all rise together, and O, I should be so glad not to go alone with father and Wulf! I believe, after all, I should mind being stared at with Christine not beside me.' Katey was startled by the proposition, which at the first moment appeared too absurd to be entertained. But as Minna used every argument in her power, she began at last to waver, moved more by what had been left unsaid, perhaps, than by Minna's warm pleading. She was indebted to these strange friends of an hour without whom she hardly knew where she should have been now, so little confidence in herself and so little experience in traveling did she possess. She would gladly oblige bright-eyed Minna if she could, and it was true that no one who had ever known her could by any chance be found in the audience. Her friends and acquaintances were not many, nor were they given to wandering; it would be an odd coincidence indeed that should bring them here this night. Dacre might follow her to La Fayette; but he was not upon the train which had brought her here, or he would have appeared to her before now. The little red skirt, the laced black bodice, the dainty white chemisette which Christine was to have worn, would fit her form as well, and perhaps the spice of adventure in the plan when it was once entertained brought a certain charm and intoxication of its own. Such an innocent bit of masquerading as it would be! Only, how could she ever face the staring eyes? "I could not stand before the people," she said hesitatingly. "You will not think of them at all," Minna answered in a gay tone, sure that her point was gained. "I will hide you; and, indeed, as I am to sing all the songs, you must not be surprised if I take all the attention and applause to myself," she added with a laugh. "I hope so, indeed," Katey answered warmly. She unbound her hair at Minna's suggestion, and began to plait it into braids, while the latter ran down to find her father and Wulf, without whose approval, of course, the scheme was not to be thought of. They were only too glad of this unexpected addition to their small company, and the dressing for the parts went on in the long, low chamber, Christine an interested and delighted spectator. The black bodice was laced snugly to the round figure, the red petticoat allowed the shapely feet to be seen, and Minna crowned the whole with the high-pointed hat, around which she had knotted a gilt cord. "Look, Christine!" cried Minna; and Christine laughed and praised the transformed figure, while Minna danced and clapped her hands, ending the performance with a hearty kiss upon each of Katey's dark, flushed cheeks. You were a grand young lady before," she said, "but you are one of us now;" and with that change of individuality which seems often to accompany a change of costume, making it comparatively easy to act a part when one is dressed for it, Katey felt that she was indeed for the time a part of the odd family. What would Jack say to it all? she thought, as she followed Minna at last to the little parlor. "You are not really Swiss?" she said when they had closed the door and sat down to wait for the little old man and his son, who were still at the supper-table. If she were one of the family it behooved her to know something of its antecedents. "Father and mother were born in Switzerland," Minna replied, "in a village not far from Lake Constance. They came to this country soon after they were married. Father hurt his arm and could not work when Wulf was a baby; so he tried to sing for a living. It was all he could do, and mother had a wonderful voice, they say, but I never heard it, for she died when I was born. They sang in the street at first, but the people all seemed too hurried and busy to stop and listen; so, after a time, when they had earned a little money by different ways, they ventured to give a concert in the public hall of some country town. Father had learned about America by this time, and he had some posters struck off with a picture upon them of himself in the Tyrolese dress, with snowcovered mountains behind him, and holding a long Alpine horn in his hand. Not that he was from the Tyrol at all; but the costume is striking, and it certainly was effective, for the hall was full, and the concert a great success. Mother, too, wore the strange dress, and even Wulf, when he was old enough to appear, and then Christine and I." "It is very striking, as you say," ventured Katey, "and for that reason I should think you would prefer to wear it only when you sing." "So we should," Minna replied, "but don't you see, if we dressed like every one else, people would never come to hear us; we don't sing well enough,-no one of us at least, except Christine, sings well enough to attract them. It is because we look always and everywhere strange, and not like themselves at all, that the people in the round of places where we go have a kind of curiosity and interest in us which does much to draw them to our concerts, I am sure. And we don't feel that we are deceiving them, because deep down in our hearts we are Swiss, even Wulf, and Christine and I, who were never in Switzerland. Do you know-" and the face of the girl kindled and glowed,-" when Christine and I stand up before the peo ple, and sing, as we do so many times, a little old song beginning 'I've left the snow-clad hills, Where my father's cot doth stand, when we look sadly into each other's eyes, as father taught us to do when we were little children, often and often the tears have come to mine. I see it all before me-the cottage where my mother was born, with the vines growing over it; the sloping green hills descending to the valley, where shone a little lake; the mountains beyond, with their white faces laid against Heaven. And I hear, O, above the song we are singing, the tinkle of the bells as the goats come slowly home in the twilight to the milking. I may never see it; but, if I could follow the path up the valley from the village, I should know the place, I am sure." She was silent for a moment, and lost in her dream, then she came back to Katey's words. "We did try it once; when Christine grew to be a young lady, she was ashamed of the dress which strangers stared at; so, to please her, father allowed us to lay it aside. But our concerts were poorly attended; still, for Christine's sake, he persisted. He found a blind man who played the guitar, and hired him to join. us, thinking he might attract the public." And did he?" asked Katey. 66 "No; for the guitar could never be heard beyond the fifth row of seats, unless it snapped a string; and he might as well not have been blind for all the benefit it was to us; nobody would believe it. He rolled his eyes and stared at the audience, and winked and turned his head in the most provoking way, considering the care and expense he was to us. Father tried to persuade him to shut his eyes, and offered to buy him a dog to lead him by a string, and convince people; but he wouldn't listen to it at all. He went on with his ridiculous antics, and all the time finding fault that we did not pay more him when we were earning hardly enough to put bread into our mouths, until we were glad to be rid of him. Then the proprietor of a monkey show wanted to hire us to go about with that; but father said monkeys were low creatures, and not fit company for human beings; and, though his offer was a very good one, he would not accept it. Some time before this, Wulf had an opportunity to take lessons upon the |