of directors, and have been duly issued, to provide for terminal facilities, wharves, etc. And although, during the process of construction, and in consequence of certain extraordinary expenses, the earnings of the Silas Starbuck Oil Company have proved temporarily insufficient to meet fixed charges, the directors of the Allegheny Central Company are convinced that the ultimate value and returns of such improvements will more than compensate for the outlay involved; therefore be it

"Resolved, That inasmuch as the faith and credit of the Allegheny Central Railroad Company have been largely relied upon by the investing public in purchasing said bonds, though not in terms guarantied by said company, your directors deem it proper to definitely guaranty said bonds, principal and interest.

"Voted, That the President and Treasurer of the Allegheny Central Railroad Company be authorized to affix the guaranty of said company, both for principal and interest, upon such bonds of the Starbuck Oil Company as shall be presented at their office for that purpose before the first day of October next."

By Jove! A great light burst upon Charlie, and the paper fell from his hands. He took it up again, and read, lower down in the same column:

"At a meeting of the Silas Starbuck Oil Company held this afternoon, a new board of directors was elected. Phineas L. Tamms was elected President, and the board is the same, with the exception of Deacon Remington, who is replaced in the new board by Adolph Lauer. It is currently reported that the control of this property has now definitely passed into the hands of Messrs. Townley & Tamms."

"Great heavens!" gasped Charlie. Lauer was merely one of their clerks. It was Tamms himself who had been buying all the Deacon's Starbuck Oil stock quietly, unknown even to Charlie; and he had sold all their own Allegheny Central; and then met his senior partner's order by causing the latter corporation to guaranty the former. He had served both God and Mammon, captured the keen Deacon, pleased his partner, and made money at the same

Allegheny Central was down at 73, and the Starbuck Oil had gone up to 140; and the bonds were well above par. And Tamms had secured the reputation of an honorable financier into the bargain!

Charlie began rapidly to calculate. Tamms must have now over ten thousand Starbuck Oil, upon which he had made at least thirty dollars a share; and he had finally got the control besides. He had sold much of their Allegheny Central at nearly the highest prices, averaging 90 or so, making perhaps $200,000 here. Add to this the $100,000 or more they had made originally upon the Terminal bonds, upon which the firm's endorsement was now unnecessary, and

"The Governor is a devilish clever fellow," concluded Charlie. And as he thought of that drive with Mamie, he feared that he himself had been too precipitate.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MAMIE GOES TO THE SHOW.

GRACIE had looked forward with a yearning she would not even to herself allow to the summer and her coming to her father's house once more. There are times when rocks and woods and fields and streams speak to us with sympathy no human being seems to have; why is it, I wonder? When nature was an enemy and men were savages, they seemed unconscious of her and thought only of each other; now that men have all learned human sympathy, and altruism is the cry, some, and those perhaps the gentlest and the noblest of us all, must fly to nature for a refuge yet. But perhaps we have not yet learned human sympathy; or perhaps it is the divine that we should have instead. Perhaps our sympathy is too often one of common objects or of common lusts. Perhaps each one seeks his glory, rather that he may dazzle others with it than lend his light to them.

But Gracie was not complex, nor analytic; it is only the diseased who

so apply the scalpel. If she ever was unhappy, she thought it willed from Heaven; or sought the cause in herself and not in other things. And at all events, she was not unhappy now, save as some lily may be sad for loneliness. Yet who would wish no lilies grew but such as serve in balls or churches? Some will tell you that all lilies are forced; not natural even there. But others of us may believe in lilies still.

And Mamie too had some of Gracie's happiness; some sense of things she had not felt before. They walked, and rode, and read together; and if Gracie dreamed, Mamie would think, more practically. But Mamie, too, had learned to love her cousin; still, perhaps, with some slight shade of patronage. Thus they had been together, until that day when Townley called and brought with him to Mamie the envied savor of the world again. She returned from her drive, full of triumph, to Gracie; and then Gracie had been forced into the thankless attitude of a duenna. Gracie could not have told why she did not quite like Charlie Townley; and Mamie had begun to pout once more. And Mamie had looked for Charlie the next day; but he did not come, nor yet the next day; and Mamie had blamed Gracie with being rude to him.

For Charlie, after reading the paper that night, had almost had his confidence in Tamms restored. He meant to marry some time, and to make his fortune by it; but he had a dread of wedlock, even gilded; as every sensible man must, he thought.

Then he had seen old Mr. Townley one day at Lenox. "I fear I did Mr. Tamms a great wrong that morning, Charlie," he had said. "He was too proud to defend himself; but I suspect he had all the arrangements made, even at that time, and felt deeply the injustice of my strictures." Charlie had thrust his tongue in his cheek at this, but had held his peace. He did not tell that Tamms had sold 12,000 Allegheny Central first. For Charlie had made a flying visit to the office; and there he saw enough to convince him that Tamms was already buying back his Allegheny Central stock again. And indeed it was obvious enough that he would have to

do this in order to retain the control of the great property against the next election.

"The Governor is certainly devilish smart," said Charlie to himself; "but I fear he's almost too smart to last out my time." And the next day Charlie drove over to Great Barrington again. So his drive with Mamie was many times repeated; and though Gracie did not like it, what could she do? for, as Mamie told her, laughing, she would yield to her in anything but this. For, of what her course in the world should be, Mamie considered herself much the better judge. And Gracie could not bring herself to write and bear tales to her aunt, who was growing old, indeed, while Mr. Livingstone was still less to be thought of. For men and women, for youths and children, for mobs and voters, there is a something absurd now about all the constituted authorities; and so we laugh, and the dance goes on.

Since the affair with Deacon Remington, Tamms had taken Charlie quite into his confidence; and on the first of September surprised him with conferring the firm's signature. But, though Charlie was now a partner, he had no capital; and his added dignity gave him little more than a closer knowledge of the firm's business-and a liability for the firm's debts. But this last responsibility did not disturb his slumbers; and he continued to be as attentive as ever to Miss Livingstone.

One day, late in the month, Charlie ran up to Great Barrington for a Sunday, and, to his surprise, found Mr. Derwent there. Now, what the deuce might this fellow be doing? thought he, and looked at him askance. Derwent filled up the entire parlor, as Charlie afterward put it to Mamie, and it was impossible for him to get a word with her. I thought you had gone to British Columbia," said Charlie to him, at last, suggestively.

"Did you?" replied the other, simply. "My afternoon was quite spoilt, and I had come up from New York on purpose," complained Charlie, the next day, to Mamie; and by this time the speech was really true. Courting is a pleasant sport while it lasts, and Miss Living

stone was a very pretty, bright young girl; and had it been merely flirting-but, as time went on, Townley began to take some interest in the chase for the game's sake, and not for sport only. And Charlie had come up for a special purpose, which was to get Miss Mamie to go with him to the first meet of the Bronx hounds, to be held at their kennels in the Sands country the following Tuesday.

The day before, they had had a great scene in the office. Mr. Tamms had for several weeks been off in regions unknown to Wall Street, upon his own vacation, and had just returned. Hardly had he torn open and roughly disposed of his morning mail, when in came Deacon Remington. "I am informed that Mr. Tamms is returned," he announced. "I desire to see him."

"How do you do, Deacon Remington?" said Charlie, stepping forward. "I haven't seen you since Ocean Grove, I think," he added, politely.

"I desire to have an interview with Mr. Tamms." The Deacon continued to speak with precision, ignoring Charlie's courtesies as uncalled for and unbusinesslike.

"Mr. Tamms is in his private office, I think," said Charlie, blandly. And he inducted the earnest Deacon into that apartment, and closed the door upon him, with much the feeling that one has who shuts up a monkey in a parrot-cage. This done, Charlie resumed his desk and his occupation, which latter was nothing more arduous than the writing of a note to Mamie Livingstone. "Everybody will be there," he wrote; "and I hope

"Do you remember the day?" "It was the day after my return from Long Branch-three days after our drive to Ocean Grove."

"You see, Deacon?" said Tamms, in the meek tones of a Christian unjustly wronged.

'Oh, yes, I see," said the Deacon.

"And am I right in stating that Mr. Townley's attitude was most peremptory?" Charlie nodded. "That he went so far as to threaten a dissolution of partnership unless his orders were instantly complied with?"

"He made me mail the circulars and send one out over the tape the same afternoon," said Charlie.

Again Tamms looked to Remington. There was a silence of some minutes, rather embarrassing to two of the company, at least.

"Well, well," said Remington, at last, "I may have done you wrong, Tamms." And without the formalities of any leavetaking, he rose and shuffled out of the shop.

Tamms watched him, almost regretfully, and when he disappeared down the street, turned to Charlie.

"There, I fear, goes a man who will be a chronic bear upon the Allegheny Central," said he. Tamms had fallen into a way of making these semi-confidences to Charlie; and the latter was struck with the justice of this remark.

This scene was fresh in Charlie's mind the next day when driving with Mamie through the calm, deep woods that clothe the Berkshire hills. Ah! Shakespeare's heroines had a simple time enough; what would they do in these days, when Shylock masks as Romeo, and Othello, turned soldier of fortune, seeks distinction at his mistress's mouth? I fear me even Portia would have found her match.

But Mamie would go to the meetyes, she would. Where love, inclination, and social ambition coincide, what prudent counsels of a country girl like Gracie could resist them? She wrote that evening, thanking Mrs. Gower for

her invitation, and only on the next day told Gracie what she had done. Gracie knew Mrs. Gower only slightly; though, had she known her a thousand years, she would not have known her well. The kennels were at the "Bogardus Farm," and after the meet there was to be a hunt dinner and a hunt ball. Mrs. Gower had many mansions, many places in which to lay her pretty head and the heads of her guests-and now, it seems, she had a cottage near by, in which Mamie was to go. And the other guests, as Flossie wrote, were to be only Lord Birmingham, Kitty Farnum-and Mr. Wemyss.

For this meeting was indeed "select;" only of the very gayest, choicest few, those of whose prominence there could be no question in the race after pleasure, only those whose purses and whose persons kept the pace that fashion, for the time, demanded. And both the horses and the dogs were also of the choicest breed and blood, and were worth, each and all, his hundreds or his thousands; and the human beings, too, if of their blood we dare not say so much, were of breeding à la mode, and worth, I dare say, any sums you like. John Haviland was not here, nor Lionel Derwent, nor even poor Arthur yet-but only those who made, or seemed to make, the very lightest little game of life.

Should I attempt to describe all this, I should be expected to speak a little of the ladies' dresses-but chiefly of the horses, I am sure. For this fashionable life of ours, the life of so many of those with whom our lines have, thus far, been cast, seems founded, in its last analysis, upon the horse alone. That noble animal, in all his varied uses, under the saddle, in a four-in-hand, at Mrs. Gower's carriage traces-take him all in all, he stands for everything; he is almost the protagonist of Flossie Gower's little play. Sculptors, historians, students of social science, would, in ages yet to come, I am sure, term this the age of the Horse; they would, I say, if Mrs. Gower and her set shall even leave a wrack behind. But the wracks they leave behind are, alas! too often not their own. And to others, perhaps, to Jem Starbuck and the workers in the Allegheny country, as well as to the

future historian, this age may rather seem the age of Coal.

So Mamie Livingstone went to the show, and the show was very fine indeed. First there was a pack of fox-hounds

real fox-hounds-and then there was a pack of beagles, sixteen or more, with little curly tails; and the gentlemen and ladies rode some miles behind them, on a scented track, and jumped several fences. And Charlie looked very smart in his pink coat, and took the leaps most daringly; and thereupon Mamie did admire him very much, and began to think seriously of him for a husband.

And the dinner was exquisitely cooked, and quite bright and gay; and the men had all red coats and the women all white throats; and when the ladies left the table the fun was even faster. For when the stories were all told, and they could not talk of the ladies, both because many of the husbands were there and because the subject was a bore at best-and the best of it is surely tête-à-tête-and when even horses had been talked about enough, did not witty Tony Duval go out and come back with the Earl's one black coat? And he tossed it on the damask cloth before them. "A fox!" he cried. "Worry it!" And they worried it; with knives and forks they worried it; perhaps once for the joke, and twice because it was Birmingham's, until of the silk and broadcloth garment some few shreds were left, and the table-cloth a thing of slits and scratches. And then they went into the ball-room, did these merry dogs, and danced with these fine ladies; only some of them chose to walk in the lawns and over the turf steeplechase course, where there was shrubbery, and hurdles, and much helping over of carefully preserved stone walls.

Have you had a good time, reader? Here we have been a hundred miles on the outside of a coach, and quite three weeks in the open air, and, Î am sure, have had dinners and balls galore. Take your last deep breath of all these joys, for all, even of our lines, may not fall in such pleasant places. What we shall not say we are tired of it--we who have been with the fortunate few? Why, who can make more, who could make more, of life than they? Is it not a pleasant play?