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the two hotels, they met a gentleman hurrying back alone in the direction of the house they had left, and as he stepped aside for them to pass, Anne glanced at Slade at the moment he recognized her. Neither spoke and both passed on, Slade continuing his walk toward Riggoletti's and Anne returning once more to the room where her mother still calmly combined the small yellow letters. She had been gone but a few moments, yet in those moments she had suffered two buffets of fortune for which, at the time, the world seemed to offer no compensations.

Her acquaintance with Mrs. Hine, however, progressed but slowly. The lady was so much occupied with the diversion of her child that she apparently had no thought of the friendship Anne coveted; but, what was more to the purpose, she spared a little time to Mrs. Rittenhouse, who, toward night, engaged her in a prolonged conversation.

While this conversation was still going on, Anne found herself once more in rose-tinted crape on her way to a large, illuminated building, from which gay sounds were issuing. She was accompanied by the cordial NewYorker who had commiserated Newport on its lack of hotel-life, and, the pavements being wet and the occasion great, they had summoned a half-open landau. Mrs. Rittenhouse had made no demurrer and no motion to join them, but had continued to sit as one whose theories had been shaken, if not as one whose conviction had been accomplished.

Anne, who had driven much more than she had walked, and for whom no mode of conveyance could offer much that was new, had never experienced such a sense of smoothness as on that short journey toward the illuminated house. The air was soft, though damp. Stars looked down from the heavens and up from the sea. The wheels hastened with a gentle rumble. Straight ahead in the distance stood the little station, surrounded by vehicles awaiting the belated train, and on the few schooners at anchor tossed the night-lights. Carriages preceded them on errands like their own, and drew up in front of the huge building, which was tuneful as a music-box. Its mysterious basement, of which Corbin had hinted, was surrounded by a lattice, and the ascent to the veranda was by a broad flight of wooden steps.

As they entered, Anne almost lost track of the amiable New-Yorker and her amiable husband, in observing the crowd about her.

A cloud of fragrant smoke issued from the small room to the left, while in the parlors on the right, numbers of beautiful women gorgeously fluttered. The season was clearly at its height, and its height was clearly best to be seen at the house where they then were. A different, a much lighter and more sanguine atmosphere seemed to prevail, and rising to it for the moment, Anne tried to recall the quiet, musty parlor, where the game of letters went on, and also the indefinable mustiness which had permeated her own close personality. They made the tour of the various halls, meeting more fluttering young women and greater swarms of young men. The amiable New-Yorkers introduced her to some of these, and repairing to the ball-room, they invited her to dance.

The lack of acquaintance among the guests, which had been so marked a feature of the earlier hops, was no longer noticeable, and Miss Markham, Anne observed, had greatly increased her number of partners. Slade, also, whom she occasionally saw, had increased his by a few, and only Barney remained moody and alone. He was seated on the piazza, not far from the window near which Anne sat, with his chair tipped back, his arm on the back of another, his hat over his eyes, which were fixed upon the palpitating sea. His cigar had gone out.

In one of the intervals of the dances, Slade came up and spoke to him, then seated himself by Anne's window, and improved the opportunity for addressing

her.

It was the moment for which Anne had waited, and turning half around, they carried on a short conversation with the window-casing between them. He spoke of the tedious rain, of being at her house the afternoon previous, and of the lady he had called upon. He told some very nice stories about her, to which Barney, on the outside, listened, then abruptly rose and went away. Slade followed his movements a moment, then returned to his narrative, describing the residence of Mrs. Hine, and a visit he and Barney had paid there. Never had he seemed more agreeable, more respectful, more galvanic, but Anne's predisposition to converse with him was strangely paralyzed. She seemed robbed at the critical moment of her powers by influences upon which she had not counted. The strain upon her had been too great, the relief too sudden. She was too glad to see him, and his hands upon the window-sill were too near her shoulder. She no longer cared who he was; but the moment when

expression became possible was robbed of its lightness and its joy by its very excess, and she sat dumb and confused.

He inquired if it were safe for her to sit in the open window; wasn't she thinly dressed for it? It was safer even outside than midway in the draught. He, himself, had He, himself, had on a light overcoat, which he had found not amiss for the past few days. And he drew it together over a dress suit, and over some glittering studs. It was mere good luck, he said, that he had one with him; he had inspected it before he started, and had opened a window to throw it down to one of the men in the yard; but there was no one there to give it to at the time, so he had brought it along,―very fortunately,

too.

Anne admired men who raised windows to fling overcoats to laborers in yards. The collar of the coat in question indicated that his purpose had not been premature, but if there was any one who could afford to appear in garments not strictly fresh, it was a person whose intentions had been thus providentially checked. But before he had time to beg her to share with him the safety of the half-lighted piazza, if such were the drift of his remark, Barney re-appeared, accompanied by the clerk of the hotel, who, with a polite forefinger, touched Slade's shoulder. Slade looked around, recognized both men, seemed to quickly comprehend their errand, excused himself to Anne, rose, and the three withdrew without noise.

Anne waited, her dumb suspense increasing, and as she sat there she became aware of the return of young Corbin, and of his presence at her side. He explained that he had just got in; that he had had enough of yachting, and that, after all, his appropriate place was upon terra firma. He had left the vessel up the coast, returning by rail; getting in, he was happy to find, just in time for the ball of the season; her father had been upon the same train; and would Miss Rittenhouse waltz? When this violence was over, he proposed a promenade; then a little conversation; and, installing himself once more as her friend and guardian, he looked about in search of envy on the faces of his counterparts.

To a degree this served Anne's purpose, and half an hour later she saw Slade once

more.

He was coming down the main stair-way. He had changed his dress, and the overcoat which he had failed to bestow upon the

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followed with a small black trunk, on which the names of many towns and express companies were placarded. A young woman in a brilliant red waist watched him as she mounted the stairs, while groups in the hall below made way for him. Some of them nodded their heads, and, as he passed, seemed to say, "That is he!" The portly clerk, molded in broadcloth, was bowing him out.

At the foot of the steps was a carriage in waiting, in which sat Barney and the two ladies whose relish of the fare at Riggoletti's had been so keen.

The daughter of Henry Sage Rittenhouse watched all this with a dazed expression. Her head was bent forward, and there were two lines between her eyes. In this attitude Slade saw her, as he stood with one hand on the carriage-door; then he retraced his steps, and bowed before her.

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Well," he observed, "I have to go. The contingency has arisen. A telegram came, and I am off." His smile was the same, his manner the same. "I hope I shall meet you again sometime," he assured her. "I have great respect for your father." The clerk looked at his watch. "Whoa!" muttered the driver to his sleeping horses.

"I am glad to have met you," said Slade. "Please present my compliments to your mother."

Anne watched him descend the steps and close the carriage-door, then stood staring at the spot whence he had vanished as if she herself were suddenly lost. She stood in this attitude till Corbin felt it oppressive. He had sat unnoticed during this brief adieu, with his eyes upon his varnished pumps and upon the white polka dots embroidered upon his blue silk hose, the expression of his face changing from the one it had worn before his departure to one devoid of apprehension or chagrin. But he continued to be unnoticed, though the hack bearing Slade away was half-way around the semicircle of the lawn, so he ventured to recall his presence by following unobtrusively the course of the young girl's thought.

"He is a great swell," he softly observed, "or was," he added, "before he went into business. That is the trouble about going into business."

Miss Rittenhouse did not move. She seemed not to have heard him.

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They are both swells," Corbin went on, lower class was across his arm. A porter" he and his Englishman. They are 'most

too great swells for this place. They don't find many of their friends here. They came on account of Miss Markham; Miss Markham is immensely attractive to those who like that sort of thing. She was in London last year. The Englishman, they say, is awfully struck, and Slade came to look after him. I guess he's past help."

Still he and his observations commanded no recognition, and he pushed on, thinking the line of her thought might have run in advance of these feeble statements.

"They received one of the original grants under Lord Baltimore," he went on. "Manors, they called them, and they spelled their name S, 1, a double y, a double d, and double e, for all I know-Welsh, you see. But that was a good many years ago. They seem to have forgotten all about it now. They have sold their land, and they live in an old part of town,-old, but very respectable. I told you 'most everybody here stood high. It sometimes seems as if the most important persons who come tramp around the quietest with their newspapers and fish-poles. All they seem to want is some old clothes, a skipper, and their regular meals. When you do meet them, though, they are very friendly. very friendly. There is Captain Fithian-he is with that party. He is a captain of engineers. I heard him say it bored bored him, at these places, to see SO many young women sitting about in such a heavy state of mind. He said he never saw a beautiful girl moping alone on these piazzas that he didn't feel as if he ought to go and say to her, 'My name is Fithian. I am from Ohio. I am a decent sort of fellow. If you want to walk out among those variegated plants, come along.' Slade told him he doubted if he would try that experiment more than once. I didn't see myself that he often diminished his attentions to Miss Markham in that way. That is what is troubling the Englishman."

The silence was still ominous, and, lifting his chin from his cane, he glanced for the first time at the young girl whose preoccupation was so profound. Never had she seemed smaller, more delicate, more quiet, more given up to the Inexpressible, more closed to diversion from without, or more in need of it within ; but her silence was not the silence of tranquillity nor the silence of dullness. It occurred to Corbin that he had been prattling. His voice had a noisy, empty sound, and he hesitated before jingling it further. The soft folds of Anne's

dress clung about her as if fondly adoring an affluent young-ladyhood in the season of its giddiest joy; the stones in her ears shone with dazzling intent, and the waterlilies in her belt seemed to wait for a moment of light through tender transfer. But the spirit staring undisguisedly out from beneath her dark eyelashes was in strange disarray. The lines were still in her forehead, her hands were folded, and there was a slight throbbing motion in her throat. The young man could not make it out. It seemed to him that she would never have anything more to say-as if, somehow, the small gift of expression with which she had heretofore experimented had met with some untoward accident, or as if, with her, language as a means of conveyance had suddenly proved a permanent failure.

While he hesitated, Mrs. Rittenhouse advanced from the musical interior of the house, her black satin dress sweeping behind her and her glance searching the groups in the shadows. Even after recognizing Corbin and her daughter, the slight search went

on.

Corbin, who had risen, offered her a seat, repeating the thought which had last occurred to him.

"We were talking of Mr. Slade," he said, feeling vaguely that in calling attention to himself he was doing his companion a favor.

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"You do not look," observed the lady, as if you were saying much good of him -not as much as I have recently listened to."

She glanced at Anne as if she had come prepared to make acknowledgments whose importance outweighed their disagreeable features; but Anne's expression was not that of a person whose convictions had triumphed.

"I was telling her the best I knew," continued Corbin. "I was telling her about his smelting-works down on the Jersey coast. He is wedded to business now, they say."

"We have heard of them," Mrs. Rittenhouse briefly declared. "We know him slightly. I believe he has called several times upon my daughter."

"Twice, mother," said Anne, faintly.
"More than that, I think."
"Twice," insisted the girl.

"You have seen him at the beach. It is the same thing."

"Only once," murmured Anne.

She seemed desirous of denying, with

passion, his attentions, and her mother turned from this mystifying circumstance, and once more addressed her remarks somewhat aimlessly to Corbin.

"He has a friend at our hotel," she informed him," and it seems that Mr. Rittenhouse knows him too, or, rather, he knows of him. Mr. Rittenhouse came to-night, but he was very tired. He would like to meet him when he feels more rested. I confess he did not impress me; I am opposed to meeting men of whom we know nothing, -ten chances to one they owe hundreds of little bills; but one cannot know everybody. I realize that. I am glad to have found out about Mr. Slade in time."

"It is quite in time," repeated Anne, in her fervent, constrained little tone; "but he has gone."

"He has just driven off," echoed Corbin. In the silence which followed, the hack in which Slade had departed returned to the hotel, and Barney descended, followed by Miss Markham and a lady somewhat older. Their coming made a little stir, and a gentleman waiting on the piazza assisted with their wraps. It was Captain Fithian. "Can't we go?" Anne asked, as they passed within. "It must be time."

"I'll call a carriage," said Corbin. "My poor child!" said Mrs. Rittenhouse, when he had gone. "My poor Anne! And to think that it was my mistake!" "Dear mother," cried the girl, “ he never noticed you. He never thought of either

of us."

And, in truth, all the facts imparted by Corbin were lost in the knowledge which had come to her, together with an intelligence beyond the power of a factitious education to develop, that Slade had never for a moment had a single sentimental thought of her; that his desire to meet her, his concessions to the prejudices of her mother, his observance of his opportunities, his understanding with Mrs. Hine, and all the signs of his preference for which she had watched, had been but a fiction of her imagination, suggested by Corbin, and kept alive by the working of her own heart. Even his calls upon her had been accidental, his conversation casual; the days when she had missed him, which had played so much the larger part in her romance, had been by him unnoted, and his very scant attentions had been paid, not to the woman of his unpretentious fancy, but to the daughter of a man who commanded his respect.

The Attack on the President.

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

AT first view, it would seem that the murderous attack on the President was without political significance. It is true that it was not the result of a conspiracy. It is true that there was no widespread political discontent of which the foul deed was the expression. It is true that it was not committed by a party enemy. Still, there was a cause for it, and no one can fail to remember that it occurred simultaneously with a shameful struggle in progress at Albany, based upon a personal difference with the President. There can be little question that Guiteau sympathized with the factious warfare led by Mr. Conkling for his own personal ends. The ruffian wanted Mr. Arthur to be made President, so as to "restore unity to the Republican party." Now, while we do not hold Mr. Conkling responsible for Guiteau's crime, we do not believe it would have been committed had it not been for the personal issue he had made with the President. The air was full of faction. The atmosphere was charged with passion, generated at Albany, and the poor fool in Washington, half-starved, a disappointed applicant for office, was excited by it in the most natural way, and moved to this deed of blood.

This fight of Mr. Conkling with the President

has been a disgusting nuisance from the day in which he came strutting home, looking for a vindication. An example of such coarse self-conceit, preposterous presumption, and insult to the Presi dent and the people, could hardly fail to have its effect upon a weak and disordered mind, that was sympathetically watching it. We cannot doubt that the President was shot by one weak man because another weak man was trying to injure his power, and in the attempt was disturbing his own party with factious warfare. This will not be a pleasant medicine for Mr. Conkling to swallow, but it must be taken, and we hope it will cure him of his folly. There was no conspiracy of wills in the matter, but there was a conspiracy of causes and results, which the people have recognized with an instinct both swift and sure. The assassin's bullet ought to have punctuated with a full stop the political squabble. The country had already had enough of it, and will never forgive its author.

There have been some very pleasant things connected with this tragedy which ought to be noted. It quenched throughout the land all animosity except that to which we have alluded. There were not elements of decency enough in that for any such issue. The fight at Albany could stop for nothing.

But from North and South, from East and West, came nothing but expressions of grief and the tenderest concern for the stricken President and his family. Party animosities were all forgotten in the The sentiments of humanity and brotherhood. same sympathy was felt for the sufferer all over the world, and full and prompt expression was given to it.

The inquiry naturally arises as to what can be done in the future to protect the lives that are of such incalculable value to the nation. It is mockery to say that one man's life is no more valuable than another. In one aspect, perhaps, it may not be so. To President Garfield, life was no more precious than it is to any reader of this page, but the importance of his life to the country was greater than the life of any other man. The policy of the nation for the next four years-the constituency of the administration in its various departmentsdepended on the continuance of his life. Unhappily, the Vice-President was a man comparatively unused to public business. He was surrounded, too, by personal influences which were reasonably regarded with deep public suspicion. It would have been a strain upon the loyalty of the nation to its institutions to see power pass into the hands of the man who had been chosen to receive it. To the extent in which this was the case was the fact a warning against all future trifling with vice-presi dential nominations. Henceforth, under no circumstances, and for no reasons, should any man be nominated for the vice-presidency who is not fit to be President. That which may be a satisfactory sop to a disappointed political boss may be a very bitter morsel to a nation compelled to eat it.

But this has no relation to the question as to what is to be done to protect the lives of men of paramount importance to the nation. To say nothing of the interests of the country in the matter, there is a duty which it owes to the man himself. We elect a President, and we then place him in a position of peculiar danger. Events have proved that it is not necessary that a President should be offensive or unpopular to make his position one of peril. Any crazy man, or disappointed loafer, who holds his life at a cheap price can find easy access to the highest man, whose life is of incalculable value to millions of people, and can murder him without let or hinderance. This thing ought not so to be. We are not sure that the "Tribune's " suggestion-that the President should always be accompanied by a body-guard when out of his own house is not a good one. We can understand how offensive this would be to a President trusting the people and endeavoring to serve them well and treat them justly; but insane men and fanatics are not to be trusted anywhere. We presume that it is not pleasant for the general of an army to keep out of the way of bullets in a battle. He would rather lead than direct his army, but he must take care of himself, that he may be able to take care of his troops. So the country cannot afford to permit its highest officer to expose himself unprotected to all the insane impulses abroad in the community.

VOL. XXII-62.

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We doubt whether the person of the president of a republic is as safe as that of an emperor or a king. The divinity that hedges a king has its effect upon all the minds bred under the influences of a monarchy. There is no divinity " about the office of a president. He is a creation of the people. He is chosen and placed in power by them, and they feel a certain sense of property in him and power over him. He is from the people; and a low, disordered mind, with a personal resentment to gratify, would not hesitate to put a bullet through his body.

We remember a short railway ride, taken a dozen years ago, from Potsdam to Berlin. A quiet-looking carriage stood upon a side-track, waiting the arrival of the train. We were told that it was the royal car. It was added to the train, and all the way to Berlin we saw the people taking off their hats to this car. On its arrival at the station in Berlin, the train stopped just at the end of the depot, and King William leaped out alone and walked to his carriage waiting at a private place of exit, and was immediately whirled off to his palace, unattended. We believe he could do such a thing more safely than any President could do that, or anything like it.

We are sure that something ought to be done to give better protection to the lives of men so important to us, whom we have placed in dangerous positions. When there is political disturbance in the country, as there was when Lincoln was murdered, a President is to blame who does not try to take care of himself, and deny opportunity to the plotters of mischief and murder; but in times of peace, when he can see no reason for withholding himself from the public and placing restrictions upon his movements, he should, we are sure, be controlled and protected in the interest of the national safety. Now is a good time to pass a law and establish a regulation which every President hereafter will be bound to observe, in all his move. ments-not to protect himself from the cheap bullets of dead-beats and notoriety-hunters, but to insure to the nation, so far as possible, the life that is so valuable to it.

Southern Literature.

ATTENTION has recently been called to the large number of Southern contributions to the magazines. No less than seven articles contributed by Southern writers appeared in a recent number of SCRIBNER, and we are glad to recognize the fact of a permanent productive force in literature in the Southern States. The South has cherished its writers hitherto with an unreasoning idolatry. Every writer that displayed talent has had accorded to him a local reputation at once; and his admirers have been impatient with the rest of the country because his recognition was no wider. Candor compels us to say that the characteristics of the Southern school of writers, in the years preceding the war, were floridness of style, sentimentality of material, and an unmistakable provincial flavor. It was not widely accepted, because it did not deserve to be. The South had

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