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summer had made them over. Autumn is the spring of the year to me, indeed, who live my days in town.

My friends begin then to come home from the country with their cheeks rosy too and their faces shining with the pleasure of new purposes. The very air that floats in at my windows has a sparkle in it that I cannot resist, and each cloud that I see sailing across the deep blue of the sky might be my ship coming in at last, so full of glorious import does it seem.

With the coming of autumn, too, comes the charm of early twilights, which I never shut out with drawn curtains. For then, after the sun is gone and the color has all faded out of the dark wood-green of my background, I see on every brass candlestick and hanging lamp, on every polished Dutch milk-can and Russian pot, and even on my tongs and shovel, myriads of tiny specks of light beginning to appear, that, as the darkness grows, will gleam like stars until the very room is filled and a new and indescribable loveliness is added to my apartment. My brasses never mean so much to me as at this time. They are like friends whom I know, who hold a sweet remembrance in the heart for the coming of an hour that may be dark on my corner. For it is as though the brasses had absorbed into themselves part of the sunshine that had caressed them all day, that had played and danced and frolicked over their surfaces-sunshine which "by and by black night doth take away," and all is sealed in

rest.

My married cousin Susanna also returns to town in the autumn, bringing, as is her invariable custom, a hundred new plans for rearranging my life. She has never, in fact, come back from a summer without them, and, curiously enough, the more contented she finds me, and the brighter and more cheerful my corner, the more valuable to her seem these plans for my upheaval. Sometimes I have fancied that it worried her to find me happy. It left her in such doubt about the condition of my mind. She is always, at any rate, proposing that I move somewhere else-into her house, into that of her melancholy sister, that I take charge of some charitable institution; for there is not a plan which she has suggested until now that has not had to do with the giving up of my corner, as if I, an old maid, would be anywhere

without a corner! But when Susanna comes home in the autumn, packed full as she is at that time with the vitality and energy lent her by solitude in the mountains, there is nothing which she is not willing to undertake in the management or disposal of my person. She would have me first here, then there, try me in half a dozen places, until I begin to feel like some piece of superfluous bric-a-brac which an energetic young housekeeper keeps moving from room to room. Whenever Susanna, indeed, chances upon an empty place in anybody's life, she immediately thinks that I might "do" to fill it. Sometimes I protest at her attempted control, being content where I am.

"Susanna Peake," I once said to her, amiably, of course, since I know that at least Susanna means well—“Susanna, have you never in some quiet moment regretted not being the wife of a country clergyman and having a whole parish to regulate?" This, I am sorry to say, hurt Susanna's feelings, and she thought me ungrateful. But then Susanna never will realize that no old maid likes being shoved about, especially by the married ones, who do everything for us with a superior air. I control myself, therefore, with my cousin, and have never told her how adorable I thought she would have been at the head of some department of charities in one of our new colonial possessions, before any laws or systems had been established for the regulation of the envoy.

Generally, however, I say nothing in protest to Susanna, because I feel it to be part of my duty as a friend to let her fuss and bother as much as she chooses about me and my premises, knowing what a safetyvalve my corner must be to her. I know this because I know Harry. I find, by the way, that our knowing what the husbands are makes a great difference in our understanding of the wives. But it is only of late that I have realized this. In the old days, when I recognized signs of conjugal trouble breaking out in a family, I used to think it sufficient to feel the pulse of the wife's temperament. Now I like to get a look at the soul of the husband. I borrowed this method from the doctors, who go through a whole household when an epidemic has begun to rage.

Perhaps I ought not to refer to Harry at all, since he is Susanna's husband, and I believe in that kind of loyalty to friends

which, even in secret, does not permit of a judgment of their affairs. But when I see how restless Susanna is, I cannot help feeling that her husband is not that great ocean of delight which she would have me believe him, in whose deep nature she can plunge at any time for her refreshment. I do not care for his hands, with those tight muscles keeping all of his fingers together. I have yet to see them laid in any tenderness on her, even on her cheek or her shoulder. I am quite sure that, though he says but little, he always has his own way. Then he never laughs, being a quiet man in everything, as she expresses it. There is a sound in his throat when you tell him something pleasant or funny, while he lays down his book to listen. Sometimes there is a succession of sounds in his throat, but they are as non-committal in character as the politeness of certain people who have condescended to pause at our approach: it never commits them to anything, and we can translate it just as our vanity prompts. I suppose that my cousin calls this laughter, but I would not, for the lids of his nearsighted eyes are not even drawn together behind his glasses. Real laughter ought never to be over in a moment, without a ripple following. Then, again, Harry takes up his book the very moment you have ceased speaking. When I think of this man, and of what it must have been to one of my cousin's ardent temperament to work faithfully for twenty-five years, as she has done, without being able to get a single spontaneous expression out of him, somehow or other I think that there must be harder things to bear than even having to be a spinster. I understand then, too, why Susanna is so restless, forever beating against that same adamantine rock of a phlegmatic husband's unresponsive nature, and she so pretty, too, when she began. Even a wave will turn in new directions when a way is opened, and my cousin, being an honest woman, turns all her energies in mine. I have learned not to mind it since I began to understand what a relief even an old maid must be after Harry. At least, she knows that I will answer her when she speaks.

When Susanna arrived on my corner this autumn, however, although she brought new plans for me, as was her wont, they differed materially from those of other years. This time, for instance, she does not

LXVI.-40

want me to move,

but to remain in my cor

ner, with my books and my brasses, because she wants to have some old and forlorn people of her acquaintance to come and share my sunshine. She tells me that they will give me such an interest in life. When I parry this attack, she is ready with another-my having certain children to train. They would bring so much to my corner, as she says; and then my books would be such an advantage to them. She saw the very children, in fact, at a summer hotel, and began to discuss the subject with their irresponsible mother. Again, as to-day, I escape with some excuse, and this time she goes to my windows, where my birds are singing on their rubber-tree, and says that she thinks cats so much better adapted to spinsters.

I have made a great mistake, I fear, in not keeping a list of my cousin's suggestions. But then where is the spinster without a cousin Susanna of her own? I believe that if I walked across the street now and asked any other old maid whose rooms I can see from my southern windows, — any other old maid, I mean, who has made herself perfectly comfortable,-she would supply me with a duplicate list made by some interested or devoted or restless or energetic or disappointed friend of her own. For there is that about us who are the old maids (I have never divined exactly what it is) that inspires in the minds of most of our acquaintances (not of all, to their glory be it said) a desire to manage us as Susanna wants to manage me. Every one would have a hand at us. It may be because most people think that, being spinsters, we are unfortunate, and the unfortunate, as well as the poor, I discover, must submit to many managements, else where would be the joy of most charities? It is certainly because we are without husbands. A man in the house serves to keep off many approaches.

Susanna's second grandchild has arrived. The eldest is only eighteen months old, and the little mother but twenty-three. Susanna tells me how sad she thinks it is -so many children and so much care. She cannot say enough about it as she stands looking at my birds.

"But I think that it is lovely," I exclaim at last, in a cheerful tone. Sometimes her tone of depression makes mine more cheerful than its wont. "But I think it is lovely,"

I repeat" all young together, all growing up together, father, mother, and all. What an enchanting family they will make in half a dozen years! Children, too, adore young fathers. Think how they will adore your son-in-law!"

There is no answer from my cousin as she turns, but I know by the drawing in of the lips that there are things which she could say if she would. She goes instead to a vase of mignonette,—she must always be doing something when she is agitated, --and picking out several large stalks, she recrosses my room and puts the mignonette in among my white roses, something she is doing repeatedly, although I am sure she has heard me say a dozen times that I never like anything in with those special white roses of mine except, perhaps, some maidenhair fern. I shall take the mignonette out when she goes, as I have done on every other occasion. In the meantime, as she moves about, I find it delightful to talk to her from my chair.

"Seriously, now," I begin, "why should. you not be glad about Amelia's children, and what is the care compared with the joy of them?" (No answer from my cousin.) "Where's the logic in your attitude?" I go on. "Were one of those little children to die, or both, would you not be tempted to cry out against the Almighty who has sent them? Would you not look at other young mothers with little children and question with rebellious heart why your daughter alone was called upon to suffer a bereavement? And would you not look at old people, and deformed people, and people who are only burdens to themselves, yet who linger on as cares and troubles to those about them-would n't you look at them and question Providence, asking why it was in life that those who were old and infirm should be left to us, while those who were young and beautiful should be taken away?" (Still no answer from Susanna. She has only turned her back, and is looking out of my window.) "And then," I continue, for the subject has now touched upon deeps in my own convictions-" and then, have you never thought what this attitude against the coming of children may lead to? Who knows what the next child may be, what message it may have to carry into this world? Other great leaders have still to be born to us, other discoverers, other poets, other

artists, other teachers. Can't you imagine that the attitude against the coming of children might keep some of the great ones away from our particular doors?"

I was half inclined to believe from the expression of my cousin's shoulders, lifted in silhouette against the panes, that what I was saying had impressed her; but as she turned, when I had finished, it was only to take her gloves from the mantelpiece. and to observe, as she put them on: "You talk like a visionary, as you always do, and as if you did not know what a backache was. My daughter is not strong."

When my cousin says "my daughter" to me, as she has done once or twice, — to me, her old friend, and about Amelia, whom I have carried in my arms, Amelia, whom I have helped to bring up, who is like my own child indeed, -I give up the discussion. It is as though my cousin had not only shut a door between us, but let me hear the clicking of the key as she turned it in the lock.

There are times when this manner of Susanna's disturbs me, but not in the autumn, when everything shines on my corner and the sun of soft October days caresses everything it touches. Besides, I know very well that, whatever the nature of my cousin's exit may be, her return to my corner is sure. I think that away down in the bottom of her soul she likes it-likes it, at least, when she finds me at home. When I chance to be out it disturbs her. She will refer to the subject, if need be, half a dozen times, until she is sure that she understands just why it happened that my corner was deserted. I was sure just now that she would not leave even when I saw her gloves go on, so I did not rise from my seat. And I was right. She stopped at the door, and lifting the metal balls of the harp that hangs there, she let them fall back one by one against the strings, asking me, as she lifted them, whether I did not think that women were uncharitable and critical in what they said. Then I knew that something had been said about my cousin's new way of arranging her hair with those little soft, short curls that she purchased recently. Her own hair had become hopelessly thin on the forehead. But it was not for me to say so, though I think she is much too old for the curls.

"Not when women are left to them

selves," I said from my chair. "When they are critical about one another they are only reflecting the judgments of the men at home-of husbands and fathers and brothers, who are always frightening the women of their families by telling them what other men say. Listen to this," I went on, tucking a cushion under my head. Then I told her of a small boy and girl I had met at a watering-place. He was eleven and precocious, being trusted with his own sail-boat and his rifle. He lived in a college town, and had caught the swagger of the freshman from one of his older brothers. She, the girl, was eight, and came from some quiet village where boys and girls played together. She wanted to play now with the young Elisha, and she used to go after him at all hours to join her in a game of tennis or croquet, and when it rained, a game of authors on her porch. Sometimes Elisha went; sometimes, being a young man, he made his excuses. He was clearly embarrassed by her attentions. Finally he fell ill and went to bed with a cold, and she, the little girl, brought him flowers and candy. When she was not admitted to the house, she would stand under his window waiting for news of him. "Somebody ought to speak to Katharine," he said to his mother. "She's a little bit too fresh. All the boys will be laughing at her." I think he spoke to Katharine himself, for I used to see her, after this, hanging about her porch alone, a melancholy little figure, suffering from her first harsh lesson in self-consciousness before men. Elisha took to fishing every day. He was free then of her advances.

"Tell me frankly," I said to my cousin when the story was told, "has n't Harry said much the same thing to you a hundred times in these twenty-five years? Has n't he said that he did n't want any man saying things about his wife, and that they would say them if you did what the pretty woman across the street was doing? And has n't Harry junior checked the enthusiasms of his sister as many times by saying, 'I can't have the fellows talking about you, and they will talk if they see you speaking to So-and-so'? And would n't Amelia's

husband say much the same thing to her if Amelia herself were not so splendid and so fearless and so big in all her nature, teaching him how to be human and generous and kind, and not to judge people by their acts always, but more by their attitude toward their own acts? Laugh at us who are the spinsters," I continued, "but one reason why our corners are so comfortable is that we reflect no one man's opinion in them."

But my cousin only continued to stand by my door, lifting those little metal balls from the harp and letting them fall back against the strings. Then suddenly she turned and went down the hall, with only a good-by tossed back at me over her shoulder.

I never, I confess, have quite the same assurance with Susanna when discussing questions of judgment in the spring, for having then spent the winter under her eye, as it were, she has all my mistakes of the season to point to-a long list sometimes, filled with what I insist are experiments, but which she pronounces failures, as if failures were not experiments, too, proving just as many principles.

But now the winter with all its hopes is before me, and I can keep myself serene, buoyed up by bright anticipations even when my cousin takes me to task. For in the courage of my convictions at this season I have that spirit of eternal hope which comes to us all who live our lives out in towns with the summer once more behind us.

Marion will come, and Mildred and Eleanor, bringing their secrets, and we shall all be girls together as I listen, the logs piled high on my fire. Young Jonathan will come with his merry smile, and Harold, bounding breathless up my stairs, and Clarence, grown as tall as any giant, will try to lift me off my feet by my elbows when he shows me how strong he has become. And Jack will show me his sketches, and Alfred his new book.

And then-then in the autumn Richard yes, my Richard—always comes home again.

No wonder that the autumn is the springtime of the year to me.

U

THE THIRD

BY BARONESS VON HUTTEN Author of "Our Lady of the Beeches "

INDER the glare of the August sun stretched the smooth sea, waveless as if molten. The dead air quivered hotly and reeked with the smell of the tar oozing from the seams of the beached fishing-boats.

Antonio Vestri sat on a bench before his door, mending a net, weaving the shuttle deftly in and out of the coarse brown mesh, the new cord leaving a white track as his hands crept along. The salt caught in the knots sparkled and hurt his eyes.

"Accidenti!" he said aloud, passing his hairy arm over his face. Then he turned and peered into the blackness of the open door behind him. The one window, covered with a bean-flower, let in a faint greenish light, by which the man could see part of a bed and a white plaster St. Joseph on a bracket. The white of the pillow was blurred by a black mass, and the clothes fell in sharp angles as on a dead person. But she was not dead.

""Tonio," she said faintly, "come." The man rose sullenly, his jaw protruding, and went in.

"Chi c'è? What do you want now?" "I am dying, Antonio, and I want Don Benedetto."

"You want to confess. The worst of 'em come to that. Confession-rubbish!"

"My husband! It is not true; that you know. I have told you so often."

He took up his red woolen cap with its long tassel, and drew it over his rough, curly hair.

"Yes, yes, you've told me, and I haven't believed you. You are a cursed liar-and

I loved you. Basta! I'll go and fetch the tinker of souls. He can't keep you from burning afterward."

Then he went out and left her alone in the hot green darkness.

WHEN he came in she was asleep. The sun had slid far down the sky and sent a shaft of orange light athwart the bed, showing up cruelly clear the death-like face, with hollow, long-fringed eyes, on the dingy pillow. The man sat down, his big hands dangling loose between his knees, and watched her.

"Cristo!" he whispered, "Cristo!" His brutal face quivered. “I could hate and yet live, I could love and yet live; but to do both is more than I can stand. There's no God, that's clear, but there is a devil.”

The immaculate statue of St. Joseph simpered down at him across the bar of light, and he raised his great fist in the air threateningly.

"Ed accidenti a voi-" he began furiously, when his ear caught the soft whispering of slow footsteps in the dry sand. He straightened up rigidly and squeezed his cap tight in both hands. "It 's Don Benedett'. And he is to know, by God! and I am never to know!" For a moment he hesitated, and then with a quick movement dropped to the ground and slid quietly under the bed.

"AND I have often been discontented, padre, and cross-che. It's been a hard life. And I 've lied often. I told Sabina Caltri that I had four strings of coral, and

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