stars and a dog and everything. And a man named Gee hated him, and went and told his father, and then he came and took me away from her; and I'll have his head cut off, and put it up the chimney, and then he won't hate me any more. She 'll cut it off for me. And then I'll stay in the house-and find little Quong Sam-for a thousand years,» finished the Infant, abstractedly. Miss Oo had gone to sleep. The Infant saw her head rising and falling a tiny distance on her chubby chest; but lovely as she was, he wished she would go home. He could not run to the house and leave her, for the Monstrous Rat might come. It was wretchedly uncomfortable, for his father would surely be seeking him. There she sat, with her hands hanging at her sides like a Japanese doll's. He wished the Lady of Cakes and Tea would appear, and take them both away forever on a cloud that would float so high that no one could reach it. He thought of the thousand years, and he was nearly ready to cry. It was really a long time since they had entered the Go-down. The learned Dr. Wing, pacing in Sum Chow's yard, trying to reason out the disappearance of two small children, became aware of faint sounds coming from the direction of the Go-down, and after listening carefully for a while to the story of a little boy laughed softly to himself and departed. There were now people in the yard, the Infant knew-several of them; and one was a man speaking Chinese in a foreign accent. Then some one in a wonderfully lovely voice spoke -a voice the clear, soft tones of which penetrated the Go-down. Surely Hoo Chee had heard that voice before! He grasped the ginger-jar, and crawled excitedly over Miss Oo's feet, and put his head out to listen. Oh, joy! and oh, most marvelous surprise! It was the Lady of Cakes and Tea! He wriggled out as fast as his hands and knees would carry him, jostling the small maid, who murmured sleepily, Miss Oo?» and awoke to see his disappearing heels. Near the door of the Go-down the Infant paused, and peeped through a crack from behind a barrel. He heard his angry father, who spoke but little English, hotly declaring in Chinese that when Hoo Chee should be found he would be tied indoors-for a thousand years. "The fellow's a brute!» said the gentleman who had come with Miss Bayley Arenam, in English. He still pretends to believe that you stole his boy, and he threatens the child with torture-in the same breath. If he is n't careful I'll have the boy removed to the mission." VOL. LII.-67. «He is so dear!» said Miss Arenam. «You don't think his father would hurt him, do you? I do hope that some day I may do something to make Hoo Chee happier! >> << I will teach him mission-school,» Hoo King was threatening, while the Infant trembled and paled, and scarcely felt Miss Oo behind him. «If he does n't come home I will bring police to your house. And there is one who can help me,» said Hoo King, pointing to Sum Oo's father, who had just come hopefully into the yard, after a long search through the quarter. «Oh,» said Miss Arenam, recognizing Sum Chow; «is it your little girl who is missingMiss Oo? Surely no one would harm them! Do you think so?»> «Gone childs,» said the learned Dr. Wing Shee, appearing behind Chow. «Omens says shall be find; shall come from east,» said the doctor, pointing toward the Go-down. «Omens say good times come for that poy, by by.» «She is good little girl,» said Sum Chow, trying to smile. «She is too much-and the mother is too much sad. But we do not think you-» << Why don't the foreign devils go?» said Hoo King. «Why do they loiter on my premises? Do they want to steal me?» The Infant shivered. He saw the Lovely Lady about to depart. She would disappear again-forever-and he would be left alone with his father. Ah, no, no! He rushed wildly out of the Go-down and after her, calling loudly: «Ha-o, Pay-lee! Pay-lee!» "Why, you darling!» cried Bayley Arenam, joyfully. You were hiding?» The Lady took the dusty young person up, and kissed him, and, as fast as she could, came trotting after him the barefooted Miss Oo, who ran to the Lovely Lady, and said demurely: « Miss Oo?» And when the Lady put him down, to look at the Infant and Miss Oo as they stood side by side, the Infant took hold of the Lady's gown, and turned his head back so that he could look beseechingly up into her eyes. « We want to go home with you,» he entreated, with frightened breath. <«<We want to go to the House of Glittering Things. We want to,» he begged, with a pain of suspense. «She'll be good, and I'll be good. We don't want to stay here. We want to go home with you.» And Miss Oo, hearing the Infant talk of going somewhere, decided that he should not suddenly forsake her again. She tightly grasped the tip of Hoo Chee's cue, and looked earnestly into the face of the Lovely Lady. «The darling things! What does he say?» asked Miss Arenam. «He says they want to go and live with you,» translated Mr. Arroway. «You angel!» cried the Lady of Cakes and Tea, kissing him again. «I do wish I could take you!» The Infant laughed aloud. It was all right, then. One could tell from the kiss and the tone, no matter if one knew not a word of what she said. He would go with her to the house, and the thousand years would be left behind. Hoo King was glaring at his son in a rage, but the presence of the gentleman who spoke Chinese restrained what the father might have said. «Good-by," said Hoo Chee, radiantly turning his head to his father, but still holding tight to the Lady. «I go to the House of Glittering Things. I shall be always happy.» "Ah!» cried Hoo King, beside himself. «Fool offspring! Fool! Come here; they have filled your impious body with devils!» Hoo King made a dash for his son. «No, no, no!» exclaimed Hoo Chee, fearfully, running behind Miss Arenam, with the troubled Miss Oo following after and holding to his pigtail. «No, no, no! Pay-lee! Pay-lee!» But Mr. Arroway caught him. «You belong to your father, little boy,» he said tenderly in Chinese, while Hoo Chee struggled and wept and hated him. «You must stay with him. I am sorry; but the Lady will come again some day--surely! >> Hoo King strode forward and snatched the Infant's hand, tearing his hold roughly from the Lady's skirt; and Sum Chow took the hand of his daughter. But Miss Oo began to sniffle too, resisting with all her tiny strength the loosening of her grasp of Hoo Chee's pigtail. When it was accomplished she broke into a wail. «Miss Oo! Miss Oo!» she cried woefully. Hoo Chee was dragged by his frowning sire toward the house, but the Infant wept no longer. His breath caught and caught, as if his bursting heart was forcing it all from his body; his brain was whirling in a panic. The sun was to be taken from the sky for a thousand bitter years. LONG after the yard was deserted there appeared at the window, just above the sill, a little round face with two red eyes and a mouth drawn very far down at the corners. A wind was sending in a swirling fog. The little red eyes overlooked the Important Town and the waving posies and the ginger-jar with the scattered treasures, and they saw into the empty Go-down. But those whose forms stayed pictured in his memory-Dr. Wing and Miss Oo and the Lovely Lady-they were gone, all gone, forever. They were the only ones he loved, but he should never see them again. The wind slammed the gate and latched it. The little eyes blinked and blinked and filled till they could not see, and the small head bowed on the window-sill. Chester Bailey Fernald. THE DREAMER. THE dreamer cried, «Oh, that it once were mine An all-puissant lay, whose every line Should front some wrong as with a thousand spears, That guard the keep where Truth immured doth pine!»> Sin dwelt unchallenged near his very door, Henry Jerome Stockard. BY WILLIAM M. SLOANE. THE COLLAPSE OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. POLITICS AND STRATEGY-THE END OF THE GRAND ARMY-THE FRANKFORT PROPOSALS THE INVASION OF FRANCE-NAPOLEON'S SUPREME EFFORT THE GREAT CAPTAIN AT BAY. THE GRAY OVERCOAT. POLITICS AND STRATEGY. THE HROUGHOUT the night, after his victory at Dresden, Napoleon believed that the enemy would return again to battle on the morrow. Indeed, the council of the disheartened allies debated far into the small hours whether an advantageous stand could not still be made on the heights of Dippoldiswalde. But the coalition army was sadly shattered, having lost a third of its numbers. Crippled on its left, and threatened on its rear, it began next morning to retreat in fair order toward the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains, and so continued until it became known that Vandamme was directly in the path, when a large proportion of the troops literally took to the hills, and retreat became flight. Then first, at four in the afternoon, Napoleon, having ridden almost to Pirna, issued orders for the single corps of Vandamme, slightly reinforced, to begin the pursuit! Thereupon, leaving orders for Mortier to hold Pirna, he entered a carriage, and drove quietly back to Dresden! These are the almost incredible facts: no terrific onslaught after the first night, no well-ordered pursuit after the second, a mere pretense of seizing the advantage on the third day! In fact, Napoleon, having set his plan in operation, sank at once, to all outward appearances, into a state of lassitude, the only sign of interest he displayed throughout the battle being shown when he was told of Moreau's mortal wound. The cause may have been physical or it may have been moral, but it was probably a political miscalculation. If we may believe Captain Coignet, the talk of the staff on the night of the 27th revealed a perfect knowledge of the enemy's rout; yet the burden of their conversation was execration of the Emperor. «He's a -, who will ruin us all,» was the repeated malediction. If we may believe Napoleon himself, he had a violent attack of vomiting near Pirna, and was compelled to leave everything on that fateful day to others. The sequel goes to show that neither his own sickness nor the bad temper of the army sufficiently accounts for Napoleon's unmilitary conduct; it appears as if he wilfully refrained from annihilating the Austrian army in order to reknit the Austrian alliance and destroy the coalition. Had Oudinot and Macdonald succeeded in their offensive operations against Berlin, and had Napoleon himself done nothing more than hold Dresden, which from the outset he considered as a defensive point, it would have sufficed, in order to obtain the most favorable terms of peace, to throw back the main army of the coalition, humiliated and dispirited, through Bohemia to Prague. But long service under the Empire had destroyed all initiative in the French marshals: in Spain, one mighty general after another had been brought low; those who were serving in Germany seemed stricken with the same palsy. It is true that in the days of their greatness they had commanded choice troops, and that now the flower of the army was reserved for the Emperor; but it is likewise true that then they had fought for wealth, advancement, and power. Now they yearned to enjoy their gains, and were embittered because Napoleon had not accepted Austria's terms of mediation until it was too late. Moreover, Bernadotte, one of their opponents, had been trained in their own school, and was fighting for a crown. To Blücher, untamed and untrustworthy in temper, had been given in the person of Gneisenau an efficient check on his headlong impulses, and Bülow was a commander far above mediocrity. Such considerations go far to account for the disasters of Grossbeeren, Katzbach, and Kulm, which made it insufficient for Napoleon to hold Dresden and throw back the main army of the allies, and which thwarted all his strategy, military and political. The first of these affairs was scarcely a defeat. Oudinot, advancing, with 70,000 men, by Wittenberg to seize Berlin, found himself confronted by Bernadotte with 80,000. The latter, having fixed his eye on the crown of France, feared to defeat a French army, and had suggested abandoning the Prussian capital. But the Prussians were outraged, and a show of resistance was imperative. On August 22 a few skirmishes occurred, and the next day Bülow, disobeying his orders, brought on a pitched battle at Grossbeeren, which was waged, with varying success, until nightfall left the village in French hands. Oudinot, however, lost heart, and retreated to Wittenberg, pursued as far as Treuenbrietzen by the enemy. On August 21, Blücher, aware of the circumstances which kept Napoleon at Dresden, determined to attack Macdonald. The French marshal, by a strange coincidence, almost simultaneously abandoned the defensive position he had been ordered to hold, and advanced to give battle. On the 25th the two armies came together, amid rain and fog, on the Katzbach. After a bitter struggle, the French were routed with frightful loss. A terrific rain-storm set in, and the whole country was turned into a marsh. For five days Blücher continued the pursuit, until he reached Naumburg, on the right bank of the Queiss, where he halted, having captured 18,000 prisoners and 103 guns. To these disasters the affair at Kulm was a fitting climax. No worse leader for a delicate movement could have been selected than the reckless Vandamme. «If there were two Vandammes in my army,» Napoleon once said, "nothing could be done until one had killed the other.» As might have been expected, the headlong general far outstripped the columns of Marmont, Saint-Cyr, and Murat, which had been tardily sent to support him. Descending without circumspection into the plain of Kulm, he found himself, on the 29th, confronted by the Russian guard, and next morning, when attacked by superior force, he was compelled to retreat through a mountain defile toward Peterswalde, whence he had come. At the mouth of the gorge he was unexpectedly met by the Prussian corps of Kleist. Both sides were surprised, and rushed one upon the other in desperation. The Russians soon came up, and Vandamme, with 7000 men, was captured, the loss in slain and wounded being about 5000. Saint-Cyr, Marmont, and Murat halted and held the mountain passes. leon's great strategic plan. In no way responsible for Grossbeeren, or for Macdonald's defeat on the Katzbach, he was culpable both for the selection of Vandamme, and for failure to support him in the pursuit of Schwarzenberg. At St. Helena, Napoleon strove to account for the crash under which he was buried after Dresden by the sickness which made him unable to give attention to the situation, by the inundation which rendered Macdonald helpless at the crossing of the Bober, and by the notification from the King of Bavaria that, after a certain date, he too would join the coalition. This was not history, but an appeal to public sentiment, carefully calculated for untrained readers. The fact was that at Dresden the gradual transformation of the strategist into the politician, which had long been going on, was complete. This is proved by his next step. Hitherto his basal principle had been to mass all his force for a determinative blow, his combinations all turning about hostile armies and their annihilation, or at least about the production of a situation making annihilation possible. Now he was concerned, not with armies, but with capital cities. Claiming that to extend his line toward Prague would weaken it, in order to resume a strong defensive he chose the old plan of an advance to Berlin; and Ney was sent to supersede Oudinot, Schwarzenberg being left to recuperate unmolested. The inchoate idea of political victory which turned him back from Pirna was fully developed; by a blow at Berlin he could alarm Prussia, separate her army from that of the other allies, and then plead with Austria his consideration in not invading her territories. In spite of all that has been written to the contrary, there was some strength in this idea, unworthy as it was of the author's strategic ability. Ney was to advance immediately, while he himself pressed on to Hoyerswerda, where he hoped to establish connections for a common advance. This would have been possible if for a fortnight Macdonald had been able to hold Blücher, and Murat to check Schwarzenberg. But the news of Macdonald's plight compelled Napoleon to march first toward Bautzen, in order to prevent Blücher from annihilating the army in Silesia. Exasperated by this unexpected diversion, the Emperor started in a reckless, embittered temper. On September 5 it became evident that Blücher would not stand, and Napoleon prepared to wheel in the direction of Berlin; but the orders were almost immediately recalled, for news arrived This was the climax of disaster in Napo- that Schwarzenberg was under way to Dres den. At once Napoleon returned to the Saxon capital. By September 10 he had drawn in his forces, ready for a second defense of the city; but learning that 60,000 Austrians had been sent over the Elbe to take on its flank any French army sent after Blücher, he ordered the young guard to Bautzen for the reinforcement of Macdonald. Thereupon Schwarzenberg, on the 14th, made a feint to advance. On the 15th Napoleon replied by a countermove on Pirna, where pontoons were thrown over the river to establish connection with Macdonald. On the 16th Napoleon reconnoitered, on the 17th there was a skirmish, and on the 18th there was again a push and counterpush. These movements convinced Napoleon that Schwarzenberg was really on the defensive, and he returned to Dresden, determined to let feint and counterfeint, the system of hither and thither,» as he called it, go on until the golden opportunity for a crushing blow should be offered. Blücher meantime had turned again on Macdonald, who was now on the heights of Fischbach, with Poniatowski on his right. Mortier was again at Pirna; Victor, Saint-Cyr, and Lobau were guarding the passes from Bohemia. This was virtually the situation of a month previous, before the battle. Schwarzenberg might feel that he had prevented the invasion of Austria, Napoleon that he had regained his strong defensive. While the victory of Dresden had gone for nothing, yet this situation was nevertheless a double triumph for Napoleon. Ney had advanced on the 5th, in obedience to orders. Bernadotte lay at Jüterbog, his right being westerly at Dennewitz, under Tauenzien. Bertrand was to make a demonstration on the 6th against the latter, so that behind this movement the rest of the army should pass by unnoticed. But Ney started three hours late, so that the skirmish between Tauenzien and Bertrand lasted long enough to give the alarm to Bülow, who hurried in and turned the affair into a general engagement. At first the advantage was with the Prussians; then Ney, at an opportune moment, began to throw in Oudinot's corps, a move which seemed likely to decide the struggle in favor of the French. But Borstell, who had been Bülow's lieutenant at Grossbeeren, brought up his men in disobedience to Bernadotte's orders, and threw them into the thickest of the conflict. Hitherto the Saxons had been fighting gallantly on the French side; soon they began to waver, and now, falling back, they took up many of Oudinot's men in their flight. The Prussians poured into the gap left by the Saxons, and when Bernadotte came up with his Swedes and Russians the battle was over. Ney was driven into Torgau, with a loss of 15,000 men, besides 80 guns and 400 train-wagons. The Prussians lost about 9,000 killed and wounded. This affair concentrated into one movement the moral effects of all the minor defeats, an influence which far outweighed the importance of Dresden. The French still fought superbly in Napoleon's presence, but only then, for they were heartily sick of the war. The Prussians, seeing the great French generals successively defeated, and that largely by their own efforts, were animated to fresh exertions; even the reserves and home guard displayed the heroism of veterans. On September 7, Ney advised Napoleon to withdraw behind the Saale, and his opinion was that of all the division commanders. Throughout the country partizans were seizing the supplytrains; Davout had found his Dutch and Flemings to be mediocre soldiers, unfit at crucial moments to take the offensive; the army had shrunk to about 250,000 men all told; straggling was increasing, and the country was virtually devastated. To this last fact the plain people were, in their larger patriotism, amazingly indifferent; the «hither and thither» system tickled their fancy, and they dubbed Napoleon the <<Bautzen Boy.» Uneasiness pervaded every French encampment; on the other side, timidity was replaced by courage, dissension by unity. This social transformation seemed further to entangle the political threads which had already debased the quality of Napoleon's strategy. Technically no fault can be found with his prompt changes of plan to meet emergencies, or with the details of movements which led to his prolonged inaction. Yet, largely considered, the result was disastrous. The great medical specialist refrains from the immediate treatment of a sickly organ until the general health is sufficiently recuperated to assure success; the medicaster makes a direct attack on evident disease. Napoleon conceived a great plan for concentrating about Dresden to recuperate his forces, but when Blücher prepared to advance he ordered Macdonald to make a grand dash. Driving in the hostile outposts to Förstgen, he then spent a whole day hesitating whether to go on, or to turn westward and disperse another detachment of his ubiquitous foe, which, as he heard from Ney, had bridged the Elbe at the mouth of the Black Elster. It was the 23d before he turned back to do neither, but to secure needed rest on the left bank of the Elbe. But if Napo |