tone of bothered meditation, and more to herself than to me. Plainly the care of the head of the house was heavy upon her.

When I entered Mrs. Todd's ugly little parlor on the festal day I found Dr. Parsons already there. Mr. Todd was entertaining her. «Dr. Parsons is telling me about her work of mercy in certain tenement-houses,» he said to me, with a faint stress on the word "doctor,» as if to admonish me not to offend the lady's ears by omitting it, not to do so himself being a point of breeding to which principle must bend.

«I have medical charge of some houses belonging to Mrs. Sam Hartley," said Dr. Parsons, in her tranquil, impersonal way. «It's a new kind of charity she is starting; she pays for the medical supervision of some tenements she owns, and I've got the place.>>

Oh, yes; I remembered now Miss Todd's talk the day she came to see if the « Appeal » would let her write up Mrs. Hartley in the society column.

I asked the doctor if she liked the work, and she answered, « I've just started on it, and there does n't seem much to do; the sanitary arrangements are pretty good; there's one interesting spinal case among the children.» «The practice of medicine among little children,» said Mr. Todd-«that seems like it would suit woman best.» He smiled upon the doctor, and at his own gallant insincerity in taking a tolerant tone.

<< It does n't seem a very good branch for a specialty,» she replied; «people will call on their family physician too much to make it pay generally.>>

Mr. Todd shook his head slowly, looking into space. «Woman ought not to feel that part of the burden of life; she ought not.>>

I saw that he was finding it necessary to air his views; he could no longer endure the suppression of truth.

"I wish she did n't,» said Dr. Parsons, evenly, simply, sincerely, as before; «I wish I did n't have to earn my living.»

Like so many of her class, she plainly was attached to no advanced generalizations on the "woman question »; she was prepared to meet a condition, not a theory.»

<< What would you like to do?» I asked, while Jackson Todd turned on her a pitying gaze of new friendliness.

<«< Well, I don't know; I like medicine, but I'd rather have an income.»>

<< Most people would,» I laughingly declared. «Miss-Dr. Parsons shows her true woman's instinct,» said the man. And Dr. Parsons's clear face gave out the touching information

that Mr. Todd's comment, not mine, pleased her. She had had her womanliness questioned on the ground of her profession, even in New York; and now the Southerner's unexpected reading of feminine delicacies into her familiar sentiments gave her a gratification that was weakened by no sense of discrepancy between his view and hers. She had no such sense; the simplest metaphysical cogitation was not a familiar process to her mind.

Mr. Todd sat next her at table, and was particularly deferential to her and especially instructive, as if he felt sorry for her, and wished to show that he did not discount her personally because of her unfortunate position. He told her a great deal about government and society, -he was quite amazingly logical and able when he became sufficiently abstract, and she listened with just that same flattered, flattering, and non-comprehending indulgence that women usually give when men treat them to such talk. She evidently had not an atom of unfeminine interest in or familiarity with sociology or politics, and the fun of that was that Mr. Todd would have never so far forgotten himself as to launch into such exhaustive researches if he had not felt that Dr. Parsons was inevitably, by virtue of her title, half a man. assumed that she had fortified herself with much consideration of sociology, and he often accepted her vague assent as a surrender. Mrs. Todd did not miss the entertainment she expected. Sue looked and listened with anxious satisfaction.

He

« Brother is very smart,» she said in an aside to me as the others left the diningroom; «and I think Dr. Parsons enjoyed hearing him talk, don't you? If she wanted to, I know she could do a heap to help him. I rather reckon she likes him.>>

When we were once again in the parlor Mrs. Todd had me sit down by her, and held and patted my hand while she watched the others. They were bending together over an embroidered counterpane some great-grandmother had spun and woven and worked. Sue had never thought of showing it to the doctor till Jackson came-Jackson, redolent of the old South.

<< Poor Sue! » said her mother; «her heart's in her mouth, she's so dreadfully anxious to get the doctor to help us out with Jackson. M-m-m,» she mused, after a pause; «I wonder if I could help her out. Does it strike you» -she began her sentence with unusual emphasis, looked at me suddenly, then stopped

-«no, it never would strike you »—she returned to her usual sweet, amused drawl

"you are too smart ever to have the right things strike you-like Jackson.>>

I thought this was very «mean,» and said so, as it was my particular pride that I did grasp realities-that I was not like Jackson. << Which way do you go from here?» Mrs. Todd asked by way of reply.

«Down-town.»

"So does the doctor. I wish, my dear, if you'll pardon me and take an explanation later, that you 'd go first, and say you are going up-town. If you don't say that, she'll go with you.»>

I said there was nothing delighted me more than to be part of a plot, even though I knew not what part or what plot; and I took myself off.

Now it so fell out that two weeks later Dr. Parsons and I saw something more of each other. The «Evening Appeal» was always changing hands and policy, and just now Mr. Samuel Hartley bought a controlling share of its stock, and the editorial staff were obliged to find entirely new lights on the question as to whether or not he stole the railroad; and it fell to me to write a «special» on Mrs. Hartley's management of her tenement-houses, particularly illuminating the philanthropic care she showed for her tenants' health. I made a tour of the houses with Dr. Parsons, and we found one case of pneumonia that the doctor pronounced interesting. I thought the patient-a beautiful four-year-old baby girl-interesting; her mother, with a new baby, was lying helpless in the same room, and I was troubled that the child should lack proper nursing. Finally I saw a chance to add new features to my article, and perhaps save a life (it might perhaps better be lost, but to reason at all seems to be to reason too curiously for this world), and I said I'd sit up that night with the baby. Dr. Parsons promised to call again after I returned.

Mrs. Hartley's tenements were in Leroy street, and into that grimy but fairly wellintentioned quarter I came alone on this raw March evening.

The O'Grady family, whose interests had combined with those of the «Appeal» to bring me here, were a pleasing company, and I feel inclined to stray from my text and tell how «Chimmy,» aged nine, and by profession a bootblack, tended the new baby, and how Mary, my patient, turned her lovely, longfringed dark eyes here and there to follow it about, as if new babies were as rare and precious as diamonds in Leroy street; but all that went, and more properly, into the «Ap

peal,» and now my business lies chiefly with other people. Dr. Parsons disappointed me; anxious hours passed, and she did not come. At last, after midnight, she entered the O'Grady front door. She had been called out of town, but had come to Mary's rescue and mine as soon as she could get back; there was another patient in the next house that she wished to see, too. She examined Mary, went out and made her other visit, came back, and said she was going to stay till morning. I protested, but protesting against such impersonal obstinacy as Dr. Parsons's seemed a feeble process. She said her cars had stopped, Mary was in a critical state, another new baby was imminent two floors above, it was snowing, and she was going to stay; also she was going to get all the sleep she could, and she made up the fire in the stove, spread her ulster and mine on the floor, and settled herself for a nap.

Toward daylight she slept soundly, and she was undisturbed till the O'Grady family were astir and Chimmy was again busy with the baby. Then she arose, said Mary was better, and we had better go home; but just then she was called to the case two floors above, and I waited for her-there was a good deal to be done for the O'Gradys if one wished to do it. Chimmy and I made conversation about the weather; it was still snowing.

Well, it was rather an important matter, read in the light of future events, that that baby should have chosen just that time to get himself born. He seemed to be a businesslike baby, and caused no unnecessary delay; but when the doctor and I finally did start home, to start was all we could do. We might have made the journey an hour earlier, but now it was nearly nine o'clock and we were facing the «big blizzard »-the historic blizzard. We did not face it long; we let ourselves be blown back into the entry, and there very thankfully caught the breath that had been knocked out of us. «What can we do?»

"What will those poor O'Gradys do?»

Chimmy just then blew in upon us; he had started out after milk, had been unable to reach the grocer's, and had crawled home on his hands and knees.

We were a houseful of women, children, and sick persons besieged by the storm. There was no visible male head to the O'Grady family (O'Grady had chosen this time, I understood, for a not unprecedented holiday from domestic cares), and the men who were, so to speak, on duty had departed before the blizzard had shown its true character. We

went back to the O'Grady home and considered. Before we arrived at any conclusion something new happened: Mr. Jackson Todd, snow-plastered and panting, came upon us. I was dumfounded; Dr. Parsons was not; she turned from bending over Mrs. O'Grady's bed, the new baby in her hands.

«Why, Mr. Todd!» she exclaimed quite placidly.

"Angels of mercy!» said Jackson, his voice uneven with feeling. «Now that I know I have found you, I'll go beat some of this snow off.» «How in the world did he know we were here?» I exclaimed.

<< Why, I told them there yesterday that you were going to stay here last night; I suppose they thought you might need help.» Mr. Todd, as he turned his steaming self about before the rusty cooking-stove, said: << My mother thought you would be here, Dr. Parsons; she said she knew you'd hate to leave Miss Addington when you got around here-so late, too.»

Dr. Parsons smiled sweetly, remarking to me, «I told Mrs. Todd I had to go out of town; I went from her house.»

I did not conceive that Dr. Parsons had stayed on my account, and I was puzzled, trifling as the matter was, to hear of Mrs. Todd talking such nonsense.

Before we could think of getting away ourselves, something must be done for the people about us. Mr. Todd showed to advantage in his hearty desire to help everybody. He was happy in the whole thing, for he took the storm as a fair example of Yankee weather, and all helplessness against it as evidence of Yankee inefficiency.

«Now there 'll have to be some more coal here pretty soon,» said he, hefting the halfempty sack beside the stove; «and everything is getting blocked up pretty fast. It is a singular thing to me that Yankees don't seem to know how to meet their own climate better.» «'T ain't never like dis before,» declared Chimmy, showing a remarkable comprehension of English, and a wounded vanity as touching as surprising. But neither Mr. Todd nor Dr. Parsons heard him; they were talking about coal and milk, and canvassing plans for our escape. He buttoned up and wrapped up and tied up to go on errands with winning cheerfulness. He staggered back under a load that won him the patronizing approval of two or three men of the house who had managed to return to their homes. There was a busy hour spent in victualing the garrison, for Mr. Todd stirred up every one with his lurid views of the siege,

and organized labor to that end. At first all the aborigines were inclined to wait till it let up.» Mr. Todd gazed at them with the commiseration of intellect for childishness. «But if it don't abate?» he inquired. And in the teeth of what was going on no one rose to combat his fixed idea that weeks of such weather were to be expected in a Northern winter. All acquiesced finally in his measures for meeting an arctic age. the help of some borrowed money the house laid in fine supplies, and I suppose neighboring houses, when the time of dearth came, suffered the more for these efforts of ours; but philanthropy never bears examination.

With

Anyhow, it was all very becoming to Dr. Parsons; she warmed into a human vivacity and sensibility beyond my previous notion of the possible.

«Now you must go and find some way to take care of us,» she declared at last, speaking merrily to Mr. Todd. «You remember the way to that block I told you about? I'm sure I don't know what would become of us if it were n't for you. And while you are gone I'll get the baby to sleep.» And suiting the action to the word, she took up the baby and began unscrupulously rocking it.

"Of course the baby was asleep,>> I said to myself, in idle, passing wonderment. <<What is there about the study of medicine that takes all the natural woman instinct out of women? She'll wake that baby next!»

Mr. Todd reconnoitered as far as Greenwich Avenue; that he did not get hopelessly lost down there, where the oldest inhabitant may miss his way in fair weather, is a fact creditable to his inherited instinct for a trail. He returned with a thrilling tale of whitened beings sliding down the columns of the elevated road in escape from snowbound trains. We-the doctor and I-could not hope to reach our homes, and he had found for us a nearer haven in a lodginghouse, a kind of queer hotel, such as might be looked for in that quarter. Mr. Todd proposed to convey us one at a time to this many-odored port.

"Get your things on, Miss Addington; I'll take you first, if you like.>>

I looked at the doctor, as one will in such a case, not replying instantly; and she said promptly:

«I'll go first, if you 'd rather; I'd just as soon.>>

I had no preference about it, so she did go first.

«I'll get back as soon as I can, Mrs. O'Grady," she said, standing by the bed as

she put on her gloves. «I'll send some medicine by Mr. Todd when he comes back for Miss Addington. Good-by, baby.» And she picked up the infant, and resettled its wrappings, and put it down again, all in a very cuddling way. << I'll help her in her good works all I can,» said Mr. Todd, warmly; and he was so preoccupied with this little feminine domestic by-play that he shook hands with me and bade me farewell in sheer momentary obliviousness of my existence. Mrs. O'Grady called the doctor an angel, and prayed that the Blessed Virgin might watch over her. When they were gone she said to me:

«Sure the doctor 's a nice leydy; but it's wannerful, ain't it, the differ it makes in her whin the man she's in love wid comes roun'?» And that was the first I knew about it. «Indade and indade,» Mrs. O'Grady continued, sitting up, and shifting the baby from one arm to the other, «she niver so much as looked at him before ixcept in consideration of the colic.>>

«How could she help loving him!» I exclaimed, in accents touched with indignation, and was rewarded by some further expression of Mrs. O'Grady's observations.

« Well, ye saw yoursel' she niver did,» she answered; «but it 's no harrum I'm wishin' her. She's a nice leydy, an' she's got a good chanct at him now, luck to her! She was aiger to go furrst-ye saw that? It gives her the better chanct whin she 's got him alone over there.»

I asked if she thought Mr. Todd was in love too.

« Och-him!» said Mrs. O'Grady; «it 'll be all the same if she makes 'im think he is, won't it? He's a nice gintleman, but I don' believe he 'd iver know wan pitticoat from anither onnly as it was p'inted out to 'im.»

A week later I got a note from Sue telling me of the betrothal. She said:

« Brother is so happy that of course we are too.>>

But when I saw Mrs. Todd she said:

« Well, we 've got Jackson provided for, have n't we? Sue and the doctor and I made the match, but it was my idea. And now I apologize for sending you away that day with a fib in your mouth. I sent Jackson with the doctor, and I did what I could to keep them together after that. Propinquity is the stronghold of match-making-I know that much, if I have made such a poor hand at it with Sue. I consider I 've redeemed myself with Jackson. After a bit she really wanted him, strange as it may seem; but she was

rather helpless about it, if she is a Yankee doctress, and I don't know that we ever could have brought it about if it had n't been for the blizzard. That was a mighty help. We had tried to get him to go with her to the train the night before, but he forgot all about it, and when my back was turned he drifted out of the house before she left. She told me that baby was expected and she might stay there all night. That gave us a great chance, and I reckon we both did our part.» Then, quite innocently: «She ought to be grateful to me.»>

I suppose I looked queer, for Mrs. Todd added, with a touch of unaccustomed asperity: « Well, she wanted him, did n't she? And Jackson is a gentleman. She comes from very plain people, and he 's as good as he can be. He'll learn to darn her stockings by way of showing how wives should be subject to their husbands in all things. A girl in that position could n't expect->>

She stopped, looked hard at me, and said grumpily that there was a draft somewhere I must have left the hall door open. But I had already learned the news that even Mrs. Todd was human, and also that her conscience was not quite easy.

«And Jackson-does he like it?» I said, when I had shown that the hall door was shut. «Oh, Jackson-> But at that moment Jackson entered.

«I 've been telling about your engagement,» said his mother.

«Congratulate me,» said he, with such a sweet glow on his face that he looked charming. «Yes; you know how unspoiled her womanly nature is, in spite of all corrosive influences; but I think her helplessness that day in the storm brought out her sense of dependence, and helped me to win her. It's an old simile, but it's a good one, about the vine and the oak.>>

I was ashamed of myself, but I could n't help asking, <<Will she give up her profession? >>

«Oh, no,» I was pleasantly answered; «<not now, anyhow. It gives her room to do a great deal for others, and that makes it dear to her heart, though she feels with me that even this peculiarly sanctified profession is outside woman's ideal sphere-at least as usually practised. But with me to protect her, I know-» He hesitated for his phrase.

«You are sure she will never lose such delicate bloom as she has kept till now,» his mother helped him out.

«Never,» said Mr. Todd, with cordial emphasis. Viola Roseboro'.

N

10 one can examine the records of Presidential Conventions, with their personal successes and failures, and easily escape the conviction that there is far more of tragedy than comedy in our national politics. There are touches of humor here and there, but the dominant note is that of pathos. Behind every great success there is to be seen the somber shadow of bitter disappointment, of wrecked ambition, of lifelong hopes in ruins. As one pursues through biography, autobiography, and memoir, the personal history of the chief figures in the conventions that have been held during the sixty years which have passed since that method of nominating Presidential candidates came into use, he finds it almost invariably ending in sadness and gloom. Not one of those seeking the Presidency with most persistence has succeeded in getting possession of that great office, and few of them, when final failure has come, have shown themselves able to bear the blow with fortitude.

The practice of nominating Presidential candidates in National Convention began in 1831. The Anti-Masonic party, one of those ephemeral political movements whose birth and death occur in a single campaign, first set the example. The National Republican party, which closed its career in the same campaign, was the first real party to use the new method, nominating Henry Clay unanimously in a convention at Baltimore in December, 1831, and recommending the convening of a national assembly of young men at Washington in May of the following year. When this body, afterward known as «Clay's Infant-school,» came together, it also nominated him unanimously. General Jackson, who was then a virtually unopposed candidate for a Democratic renomination, with that quick instinct for "getting close to the people» which seldom failed him, saw in the new method great elements of popularity, and hastened to attract them to himself. He directed that a convention be called to nominate a candidate for the Vice-Presidency on a ticket with himself, and this was done, the nominee being Van Buren, who was Jackson's choice. It is a curious fact that this first convention of the Democratic party adopted the

VOL. LII.-39.

two-thirds rule, requiring that proportion of votes to effect a nomination, which has since prevailed in that party's conventions in spite of many attempts to repeal it. In the next following campaign the Democrats nominated their candidates in convention, under Jackson's advice and direction; but General Harrison, the chief candidate of the divided opposition, was put forward in the old way; that is, by State meetings of various kinds, including legislatures. By 1840 the convention system had come into full use, and the result was one convention of exceptional interest-that of the Whigs in December, 1839.

CLAY'S DISAPPOINTMENT AND WRATH.

THIS Convention was held in a new Lutheran church in Harrisburg, Pa., and it is a safe assertion that never before or since has a house of God been made the scene of so much and so adroit political manoeuvering as went on there for the purpose of preventing the nomination of Henry Clay for the Presidency. The chief manipulator was Thurlow Weed, who appeared there as the friend of Governor Seward, and the future member of the powerful firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley. This firm was, indeed, the outcome of the ensuing campaign. Greeley was at the convention, — "a deeply interested observer,» he styles himself,-little dreaming that the campaign which was to follow would give him the opportunity for developing the qualities which were to make him the first editor of his time, and lead to the foundation of a great newspaper to be forever linked indissolubly with his name. Weed went to the convention with the determination of defeating Clay. He says in his «Autobiography » that he had had the New York delegation instructed for Scott to keep it from Clay, his real candidate being Harrison. He entered into an agreement with friends of Webster, on the way to Harrisburg from New York city, to act together for Clay's defeat. Webster was in Europe at the time, and had sent word to his friends declining to be a candidate, primarily because of Weed's refusal to support him. After detailing these facts, Mr. Weed goes on to say that, on reaching Harrisburg, « we found a decided plurality in favor of Mr. Clay,» but that, « in the opin

305