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shook the leaves free from the rain, piled them into a heap, and, after begging the loan of her cloak as upholstering for the rustic seat, proffered it to her with a playful attempt at his old-time gallantry. She gladly availed herself of it, and, sitting down, leaned her head, turned half in shadow, wearily against the side of the pavilion, and with closed eyes, and her hands clasped in her lap, spoke no word in reply to the avowal her friend had made.

After assuring himself of her comfort, Lane retreated a step or two, and stood, silent and pale, with folded arms. At length he looked out on the wreck caused by the storm. The oaktree that the lightning had struck was cleft in twain to its roots, and its rugged, sturdy trunk shivered in countless shreds. Something of the hush and desolation without was like the feeling of loss in his heart, as though the storm had swept away the final illusion of his life, but which left him with a feeling of freedom, like one who has parted with a burden. Suddenly he heard her speak his name.

Richard!" His heart leaped into his throat at the word, and he saw Ricarda's hand uplifted toward him.

"I think I am strong enough to stand now," she said, and he helped her to rise. She placed her hand on his shoulder, as if not quite sure of her strength, and, looking into his eyes with something of her old-time gleam of mirth, softened by what might readily be concentrated into tears, said:

"Do you think it would be very weak and silly in me to be appropriated by a man since I love him?"

believe. I think the papa will perhaps have much to say, but I hope he will not be displeased. At all events, I think, with you, that we three should not be parted while we live."

During the remainder of the walk Lane was busy thinking how he should make known the great event of the afternoon to James, which half seemed to him, at moments, like a dream, so strange and so beyond all common earthly experiences it was, at least to him.

The sky had partially cleared, and the sun, that had already gone down, had left a flame of color along the sky. Ricarda's father had for the last hour been sitting on the porch of the cottage, enjoying the revivified air, the freshened beauty of the landscape, and anxiously watching for the return of his daughter and Dick. When he saw them slowly approaching, Ricarda leaning on her companion's arm, he felt an intuitive apprehension that something of unusual import had occurred, and he hastened to meet them. When they had come near enough for him to see that his daughter's face was pale :

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'You come very opportunely, papa," she said, slipping her disengaged hand through his arm. "The storm was terrific on the summitan oak-tree near us was shattered by the lightning-and I was shocked so that I lost my strength, and Uncle Dick has been obliged to half carry me home. But I am quite well again, papa." After a moment's pause, she quickly added, as if she had forgotten: "But he is to be Uncle Dick' no more. I call him 'Richard' now."

They had reached the porch, where Ricarda sank into a chair. James looked from her pale "Can this be true, Ricarda?" he asked, his but happy face into that of his friend, as if seekvoice husky with emotion. ing a solution to her concluding remark.

"I know you expected something better of me" (with arch reproachfulness), "but it is true, nevertheless"; and a smile illumined her face. Lane folded her to his heart, and when again they looked in each other's eyes their love shone through tears.

An hour later, as they were walking homeward, and Ricarda was leaning on his arm, instead of tripping lightly along unaided, as was her wont, Lane said, as if in remembrance of their talk in ascending the hill:

"That I am to have you to walk with me always, Ricarda, is to feel like having received an endowment of wings."

"Like Mercury," she laughed. "That must be the latest achievement of electricity." As they neared the cottage, Ricarda said: "I wonder what dear papa will say? We must never be separated from him."

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'It means, Jim," said Lane, extending his hand and frankly meeting his friend's eyes, "that old things have passed away and all things have become new: Ricarda has promised to become my wife, and we three, God and you helping, will never more in life be separated."

James mechanically took the proffered hand, but, soon relinquishing it, sat down by Ricarda, taking her hand in one of his, while with the other he stroked her hair in caressing tenderTears filled her eyes, and, rising, she tenderly embraced and kissed him, and then went to her room for dry raiment.

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'What do you want of a wife, Dick? What has become of the man who if he loved a woman could not have the heart to ask her to marry him? O Dick, to think that you, too, along with Bridget and Patrick and the rest of the vul

gar crowd, should do so common a thing as to marry! I expected something finer, higher, more platonic from you and your disciple."

"Go on, Jim!" exclaimed Dick, blushing and laughing, "you have only begun to enumerate things. They rise before me with the distinctness of crimes in the mind of a drowning man, and are enough in numbers to make a rosary that would girdle the cottage."

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"Very well," laughed James in return, the enumeration is needless, and you may give answer collectively."

"That's quickly done," ejaculated Lane, folding his arms and leaning against a pillar of the porch. "The answer is, that I have learned the lesson you learned years ago-the one that Love teaches."

Lane's reply, although given with no intention of modifying the humor of his friend, quickly sobered him, recalling as it did his own love-life, so sweet, so precious, and so sadly brief. He sat, looking again on the western sky as if he saw in its fading hues the panorama of those brokenhearted days. Then he heard Ricarda's step on the stairs, and rising he gave his hand to Lane, saying with tremulous voice: "God bless you, Dick! May you know all the joy that was mine, and taste none of its sorrow." Turning, he embraced Ricarda, and the three went to their din

ner.

After what had been already won, Lane found himself confronted, in arranging for the future, with differences of opinions and interests that greatly taxed his knowledge and patience. In all probability his business would require him to live abroad, mostly in London, while for James to cross the Atlantic for a permanent abode was like severing him from his own professional connections at a time of life when men claim that they thereafter no longer make friends. And, above all, Ricarda, who felt an unwonted tenderness toward her father, opposed Richard's wish for their immediate marriage. She thought it best to postpone it until the end of the year so that she could adhere to the original plan of doing Europe with papa."

"I can not explain to you why, Richard," she said, in answer to his pleading, "but I feel that it will be a matter of regret to me in the future if I do not give papa all of this year. He seems to me less strong than usual; the journeying may do him good, and he deserves from me a thousand-fold more than I can ever give him. You can join us for a few days at a time throughout the year, and, you know, after that, Richard, that all my life is to be spent with you, and you may find it quite enough," she gayly concluded.

So it was finally arranged, to Richard's dis

comfiture, that the marriage should take place in London after the Continental tour, and James was to remain with them at least a year thereafter, as he could spend that length of time to advantage in seeing what was being done in physical science in London. Further in the future than that they felt it not worth while to make definite arrangements.

When the year's sight-seeing with her father was over, and the two were back in London, Ricarda, who had been listening with amusement to Richard's account of the vexations to which foreigners were subjected in arranging the details of a legal marriage in France and England (their own was to be solemnized at the American Legation on the following day), somewhat surprised the two men by turning the conversation upon the subject of her career.

Through college, the Continent crossed, and through the matrimonial gate," which she archly emphasized, "it is then time, is it not, Richard, to begin one's work in earnest ?—You see, the question is still the same, papa, to be a young lady is to be what to do what? Here in England, where women think and do so much, I should not like to feel like a drone in the hive."

"Marriage itself is a career, Ricarda," remarked her father.

"True, papa; for man also, as for woman. Have you not told me that once upon a time Richard said that for a wife to poise her whole existence on love was to place herself at a disadvantage with her husband? It may be that if I should have no larger sphere in which to grow, and no more active work to do, in being a helpmeet in its best sense to my lord, than to dote on him in his presence and pine for him in his absence, that I should right speedily become a Jerusalem cherry-tree in a geranium-pot."

At this recall of one of his long-ago speeches Richard laughed long and heartily. "What a man sows that shall he reap," sententiously observed James.

46

And none ever more gladly than I in this,” replied Lane, with fervor. “Whatever pursuit Ricarda may choose for mental growth, culture, and her own happiness, shall have my hearty approval. In the summer-time we shall have our botanizing-the flora of these British Isles will afford new fields of delightful discoveries, and I think we may all brighten up our knowledge of natural history with happy results. During the winter there is never lack of intellectual entertainment in London. Moreover, Jim "—for, although Mygatt James was shortly to become his father-in-law, the old name had too many and too deeply rooted associations to be exchanged for a more dignified title-"moreover, I

have carried into effect a notion of mine that I think will make London seem more like home to you, for I believe that home is as much where one's work is as where one's heart is.-But more of this to-morrow, Ricarda," added Lane, while a light passed over his face, and, turning to her chair, he laid his arm about her neck. "You may see in it something that will recall a certain memorable day when you first called me 'Richard,' and which, after all, my wife, was our real wedding-day."

Ricarda smiled questioningly up in his face, but received only the glad light of his countenance in reply.

After the marriage-service was over, and the three friends had become domiciled in the new home which Richard had prepared while Ricarda and her father were on the Continent, he led them into a room which to both father and daughter was a surprise and delight. It was a light and beautiful apartment, adorned with engraved and sculptured portraits of scientific men and women-of Faraday, Franklin, Galvani, Liebig, Wheatstone; of Henry, Morse, Mitchell, Herschel while adjoining was a library of specific scientific works of admirable selection. On long tables and on shelves inclosed in glass were all the needed instruments and mechanisms required in a chemist's laboratory.

"And this beautiful workshop for papa!" exclaimed Ricarda, happy tears of gratitude filling her eyes as she turned them toward her husband.

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'This was too much, Dick," said James, with emotion; for this thoughtfulness on the part of Lane touched him deeply.

"Too much!" exclaimed Richard, laughingly putting his arm about Ricarda, and looking in her face with an expression that needed no translation. "No, Jim, nothing of this sort could be too much. I had a scientific friend make the selection of instruments, and as to the cost-for I know you are thinking of the outlay of moneyit is only the counting out of a set of diamonds as my wedding-gift to Ricarda. So, you see, it

comes from her, after all. I felt sure that, between the two, there would be no hesitancy of choice on her part."

The expressions of delight on the face of Ricarda, and that fell from her lips as she and her father examined one thing after another in the laboratory, had in them all the abandon of her childhood. To watch her lovely face, the grace of her beautiful form, the movements of her deft and exquisite hands as she glided amid the dainty machines, repaid her husband a thousand times over for the trouble and care the room had involved. With her quick discernment she saw that especial attention had been bestowed upon the selection, variety, and beauty of the electrical instruments, and with ready intuition she divined the reason. It was evident that the laboratory had been fitted up as much for her as for his old friend. She appreciated the delicacy of the action on the part of her husband, who in affording a source of great pleasure to her father gave her also the opportunity of pursuing a study for which she had expressed marked inclination, if she should care so to do.

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'I think there is room for a career here, Ricarda," remarked her father, facetiously, as they finished their tour of inspection.

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So there is!" she exclaimed, joyously. 'And here, too," as she put her hand through Dick's arm, and stood at his side. “Being ‘appropriated' is not, after all, to lose one's self, but to find one's self. This is a realization of the dreams of the new era, when marriage means help, growth, and grace to woman as well as to man, when love sanctifies work and makes it joy, and work strengthens and enriches love."

"But all men are not Richards," said her fa

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AT

REFORMS IN ASIATIC TURKEY.

BY ONE WHO HAS LIVED THERE.

Ta time when the British Government adopts a decided policy with regard to the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and when that policy is assailed by the Opposition in Parliament, by public journals, and by speeches at meetings, it is really surprising that so little reliable information should have been obtained on the internal condition of the country under discussion. It seems to be a subject on which the English in general are contentedly ignorant. The practical question at issue is the possibility of reforming the Turkish rule in western Asia so as to warrant our protecting it from foreign assault, and a sane judgment on that point must be preceded by a distinct comprehension of its actual state and susceptibility of improvement.

Newspaper correspondents, however able and conscientious, can only report what meets the eye of a passing traveler or temporary resident. The underlying truths which pervade the whole mechanism of Ottoman provincial administration can not be detected otherwise than by their occasionally cropping up, and they may never come under the notice of erratic and casual observers. Blue-books are not much more satisfactory in the amount of knowledge imparted by them. Since the days of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe ("there were giants in those days") the stature and strength of our embassy at Constantinople have dwindled down to pygmy growth and chronic debility. British ambassadors may thus contrive to live on doubtful reputations for familiarity with all the secrets of Oriental diplomacy, reputations acquired by brief sojourns in obscure corners of the Ottoman Empire during their long-past youth, when sanguine hopes of the regeneration of the Turks were still enter tained, which have since proved unfounded and delusive. They may now be either such survivors of the obsolete Palmerstonian school, traditionally maintaining the robust belief in Turkish progress enunciated by our greatest Foreign Secretary of modern times, or benevolent and credulous recipients of plausible assurances that Turkish provincial rule is immaculate, which their personal experience furnishes them with no facts and arguments to controvert. In neither hypothesis can much be expected in the way of enlightenment on the real state of Asiatic Turkey, and it is hardly to be wondered at that ambassadorial contributions to blue-books, in the form of dispatches and reports to the Foreign Office, should be so moderately instructive. Am

bassadors, moreover, rarely extend their sphere of practical observation beyond the walls of the capital; and a long time must pass before the provinces in Asia can possibly reach even that slender measure of improvement which has some appearance of existing in the central Government. Thus the state of Asiatic Turkey is far from being justly appreciated at our embassy, where friendly contact with individual Turks possessing a superficial varnish of European education induces well-meaning and ingenuous Englishmen to adopt the mistaken notion that Ottoman politicians may really in time become statesmen, while they are only skillful and subtile enough to succeed in throwing a veil of doubt and darkness over every untoward event and embarrassing question that arises in the provinces, whose true bearings they ingeniously disguise in order to deprive diplomatic intervention of all power to hamper the even tenor of the nefarious way of viziers and valis.

Few as are the British consuls and vice-consuls in Asiatic Turkey, they should obviously be selected in the manner most likely to secure their efficiency. Those appointments, like that of ambassador at the Porte, have been held of late years by various classes of men. There are English consular officers in Asiatic Turkey who are able, upright, zealous for the public service, and possessed of every qualification required for a satisfactory discharge of their duties, but these are "rari nantes in gurgite vasto." The majority of those occupying British consular posts in western Asia are mere Levantine Englishmen, owing their selection to a colloquial smattering of the languages of the country-for none of them can read or write any of those languages

while they are not endowed with one particle of the essentially English qualities which produce public servants of independent character, whom the Turks can look up to with respect. Educated among abject natives who think the only way to hold their own is by adulation of pashas, they regard it as suicidal to expose local abuses of power. They have hardly even acquired a sufficient command of the English language, its grammar and syntax, to render their reports readable when the subject of them gives them any value or interest. There are also fullblood Englishmen in the consular service of England in Asiatic Turkey who can not greatly edify the readers of their published reports on the state of the country, simply because their igno

rance of its languages prevents their acquiring an adequate knowledge of it. Like an English lady long resident in Italy, who was asked if she had picked up the language of the country, and answered that she had escaped wonderfully well considering how much she had heard of it, they seem to avoid all occasions of intercourse with those who do not speak any European language. They are thus obliged to receive at second hand every word that is addressed to them by the Turkish authorities and by most of those transacting business at their offices. As they know so little of the peoples among whom they live, it is difficult for them to obtain a sufficient insight into the more complicated questions affecting those populations, and their opinions, laid before the embassy and inserted in blue-books, are consequently of little assistance to inquirers on those subjects. Some consuls and vice-consuls find it almost impossible not to fall an easy prey into the hands of designing native dragomans, who, being unpaid, derive ample incomes from protecting in their chief's name, though without his knowledge, the claims and causes of Ottoman subjects before the Turkish authorities. The latter, hoping to make friends in influential quarters, readily shut their eyes to such irregularities, which are masked by a transfer of the interests at stake to the dragoman, who enjoys British protection. Thus these native dragomans and the Turkish authorities play into each other's hands, and their mutual self-interest forms a solid foundation for a superstructure of dragomanic corruption and impunity, which governorsgeneral encourage in order to give a color in their favor to consular reports founded on the intelligence brought by the dragomans. The consular chief is hoodwinked and the embassy misled that pockets may be kept full, which our Government should duly replenish by salaries sufficient both for the necessary expenditure of consuls and vice-consuls, and for the employment of a superior class of paid dragomans. Under these circumstances it would surely be desirable that reforms in our own establishment in Asiatic Turkey should precede those which we wish to induce the Porte to adopt.

The pivot on which the questions regarding reforms in the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire all turn, is the manner in which the attempt should be made to apply them with the best prospect of success. If any degree of certainty can be attained that the means to be employed will produce the desired effect, the problem may be considered as solved. The suggestion made, of appointing three English commissioners in each province to direct the working of the police, judicial and financial departments, seems likely to meet the requirements of the

case, provided those commissioners belong neither to the class of Levantine Englishmen, nor to that of Englishmen not knowing Oriental languages. The remarks passed above on those two classes, as composing unsatisfactorily the majority of the British consular establishment in Asiatic Turkey, are applicable a fortiori to a staff of superintending commissioners. It is hard to see that the object in view can be attained by any other means; and, however difficult it may be to find eligible persons, it will be necessary to make the most of the best men who are at the disposal of the Government. A few facts may throw some light on the question whether or not the Augean stable to be cleansed by them may be found to contain such a mass of accumulated filth that not even a triple river can flow through it.

There is no branch of the Turkish provincial administration in western Asia which calls more loudly for reform than the police establishment. The constabulary force is not regularly paid, and every opportunity is taken of supplying the place of wages by accepting bribes. Arrested persons are allowed to escape for a dollar. Beasts of burden are seized for forced labor by hundreds when only fifty or sixty are required, and those in excess of the requisition are liberated for two dollars a head. Demands are made for the payment of taxes in arrear, and gratuities are received for postponing the collection thereof, which is intrusted to constables. Recruits for the army are summoned to draw their lot at the military conscription, and, when the number drawn is for active service, they are, on payment of an amount proportionate to their means, rejected as being physically disqualified. In short, the police find many ways of doing without their pay, which accumulates on paper, and may be made good to them at some future time. When quarrels occur in the streets, and blows are exchanged, a solitary Turk surrounded by non-Mussulmans has nothing to fear from the police, which is always ready to fight for him, whether he be in the right or in the wrong; and his defeated adversaries are finally mulcted by the constables, and dismissed. In order to substantiate so sweeping a charge against the Turkish authorities of the Asiatic towns under Ottoman rule, it is necessary, of course, that recent cases in point should be mentioned. Thus, an officer of police was informed by one of his men that a Christain shopkeeper was disputing with a Mussulman about a piece of false coin offered to him by the latter for an article which he had purchased. "Take the infidel to jail at once," was the order given to the constable, who perfectly understood its meaning, and soon returned with several pieces of money sent to the officer by the Christian in payment of his liberty. A Jewish money

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