Holcroft closed the paper and left his seat. He went into a corridor and walked up and down. People were flocking in to their seats, and he could hear the tuning of the instruments. He tried to think and to present the whole matter clearly to himself. Ruth's father was dead. How would it affect her? How would it affect him? One thing was plain: he must go to Salisbury as soon as possible. The impulse to see her was stronger than when it first visited him, as he watched her pass his house on the way to the field. If the impulse were scarcely more intelligent, yet it had at least the added element of a wish in some way to help her. It seemed impossible but that he, a strong man, should in some way cast a shelter about the homeless girl, for homeless he insisted she must be. The whole fabric of the Shaker society seemed, in his mind, to topple over when Elder Isaiah was removed; not that his eldership held it up, but his fatherhood. He connected Ruth with no one else, and instinctively he had resolved the whole frame-work of the association into the relationship of father and daughter. He could not say just what he should do if he now went to Salisbury; that was of less importance than the going, for he certainly could do nothing at all here.

He was not, however, so absorbed in his purpose as to rush out of the house and start on a run for Salisbury. There was no train at this hour, nor until morning, and he was willing to let his mind shape itself under the forming influence of the music. He returned to the hall and took his seat. The orchestra had already begun, and catching the phrase which it sounded as he entered he went on with the piece, the excitement under which he was laboring making the music to be singularly clear and resonant. He sat listening and thinking and seeing nothing individual, when the movement which had been played ceased, and the clapping of hands brought him out of his preoccupied mood. At that moment a door opening upon the gallery not far from where he sat was pushed in, and an usher stood at the entrance holding VOL. XLII. -NO. 252.

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it open for some one to enter who was lingering without. The delay attracted the attention of Holcroft as of others. The music began again, and he turned back to the stage. The second movement was an exceedingly soft andante, in which the theme of the symphony was repeated again and again with a gentle iteration, each time with some new shade of earnestness, as one or another instrument led; and by some curious association he seemed to hear in it a strain which had often struck him in one of the selfrenunciatory hymns of the Shaker brethHe was interested in the coincidence. It was as if one of their rude harmonies had its companion in the full, complex creation of a master in musical art; as if a common humanity inspired each, the plain people of Salisbury and the richly endowed artist. He dwelt upon the likeness, and again there rose to his view the procession of sober-clad men and women, the chanting circle in the middle, the uplifted palms, the illumined faces, the wavering cloud of witnesses. Again he saw the pure face of Ruth Hanway, as she appeared to him at the first, the perfume of the cloud, the breath of the ascending worship.

It cannot be surprising, then, that though not given to superstitious feeling he should, as he turned away from the stage, have been for a moment bewildered at seeing the face of Ruth Hanway herself in the countenance of the person who had shortly before entered, and who now sat alone a little distance from him. Her lustrous eyes were bent upon the orchestra, and her lips, half parted, wore almost a smile. The sight to him was scarcely more strange than familiar. In recalling her face, as he sat at his easel, he had by some willfulness always seen her thus, though he could not say that he had ever caught sight of the exact expression; but he pleased himself with the fancy, as he recorded the look, that it was thus she would appear were the Shakerism to be by some power stripped from her. Carrying out the fancy he had clad her in the world's garments, and substituted for the white kerchief the old, yellow lace of a gentle

woman.

As he saw her now it was the face only which had in any way fulfilled his pictorial prediction. The Shaker garb was still upon her, and he could not avoid seeing that it was this rather than the intense expression of her face which was causing those about her to turn their glances that way. The movement ceased, and in the rustle and murmur of pleasure which followed the young girl sank back in her seat, as if suddenly awaked. Like Poor Susan,

"She hears, and her heart is in heaven; but they fade,

The mist and the river, the hill and the shade; The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,

And the colors have all passed away from her eyes."

Holcroft had not had time to wonder how she came to be in the hall. He felt rather than saw that he must needs speak to her now, for her sake, and passing to a vacant seat by her side he said in a low voice, "Ruth." She turned quickly, and discovered her neighbor. The third movement began, and Holcroft, seeing her intense agitation, said in a whisper, "Listen to this music before you try to speak to me."

He half turned away, as if to give her greater freedom, and tried in vain to hear the music, which was now pouring forth in a lively scherzo, capricious, teasing, as though all the seriousness and aspiration of the andante had been but a summer cloud. It had not gone on long before he heard a whisper from the girl. "I cannot bear this. They are all staring at me. Take me away.”

"Go out by the door through which you came," he replied, "and I will follow you." They rose, and were presently in the corridor. The usher looked curiously at them. Holcroft motioned Ruth to follow him up the next flight. "There is a gallery above this," said he; "there are very few people there, and we can speak without interruption." obeyed, and entering again the hall he placed her in a corner free from observation and sat beside her. He said nothing for a moment, for he saw that she was regaining her self-control. Presently she spoke,

She

"My father is dead." Holcroft bowed silently. "The house where I had lived was burned. That you knew. It was very hard to live there — there were reasons things were not as they were at least," she went on more hurriedly. "I thought it wise to come away for a time. I was once before here in the city. I had an aunt, and she lived at No. 30 Spring Street. I bade the coach take me there. The man stared. Everybody looked at me, and I was frightened. He drove me here. I said, 'This is not my aunt's house.' It is 30 Spring Street,' said he. Then people began to gather, and I was frightened.

Very well, I will go in,' said I. I read that there was music within, and I suddenly thought, for men and women were going in, I will go in there, for it will be safe among so many people, and then I will ask some kind-faced woman to help me.' I followed the rest until I came to a little gate, and they asked for my ticket; and when I said I had none they sent me to another place, where I bought one and went back. I wanted so much to get inside of the house. But I did not understand at all. They took my ticket and tore off a little bit and gave it back to me, and I thought perhaps I could not get away unless I showed that, so I kept it tight; and as I was standing doubtful a young man asked to see the bit, and then he told me to go up-stairs, and there another young man looked at it and bade me go in and take the seat he would show me. I did not dare disobey, and I did not dare go in, but I could not stand by the door; and then the music began, and I thought I might hear it and nobody would see me, and I could look for some kind woman. oh, what music!-what music! I forgot everything else; I forgot where I was, I forgot until it ended and you spoke to me, and then I saw all the people; and when the music began it seemed as if it were laughing at me, and I could not bear it."

But

As Ruth, with her soft, melodious voice, told off this tale, her hands calmly folded in her lap, Alden both followed the recital and sent his mind on in search

of wisdom. When she ended, he looked at her with a smile, and said,

"Do not be troubled; I think I can find the way for you. Sit here now, if you will, and listen to the rest of this piece."

There was something in the trust of the girl which moved him strongly. She asked no questions, but seemed to resign herself to his care. When the symphony was ended, he asked her for her aunt's name, and getting such data as he needed he bade her keep her seat until he should return in a few moments. She sat and endeavored to listen, but was perplexed and disturbed. The music chanced to be one of Liszt's wild passages, and she was excited by the rush of windy sound; but she was frightened also. The door behind her opened, and she turned to see Holcroft, but it was a stranger, who gazed hard at her, as had others. She shrank from his glance, and looked at the great audience below her. Never had she imagined such a sight. The lights shone upon gayly dressed women, and everywhere men and women were talking together, bowing, smiling. Groups stood about the doors, fans were fluttering, and a restlessness pervaded the house in such utter contrast to any gathering she had ever seen that she was bewildered with the dazzling effect. To her mind there was a horrible publicity about it all. Then, as the music ceased again, there was a pause, when a singer came forward to sing. She was dressed in white, and was received with hearty applause. Ruth looked, as in a trance, at the beautiful creature, and was seized with a timidity, as if she herself had been suddenly placed on the stage; but when the notes came forth full and free, as from a bird's throat, she forgot all else and tears stood in her eyes. There was a loud tumult of applause. The singer bowed, and Ruth bowed too, unconscious of being the only one thus to respond. Alden returned at that moment, and found Ruth standing in her place looking eagerly toward the departing singer. She turned as he came down the aisle, and showed her radiant, dewy face.

"Oh, did you hear her?" she exclaimed. "Did you hear her? It was like one of the angels."

She spoke so clearly as she stood there, that her voice as well as her attitude began to attract the notice of people, and faces were uplifted from different parts of the house. Holcroft saw it, and spoke hurriedly: "Yes, I heard her, and it was indeed beautiful. But come with me."

"Oh, will she not sing again?" asked Ruth, and looked down upon the stage. Then she caught sight of the faces directed toward her, and a burning blush covered her face. "Take me away," she whispered; "take me away."

Holcroft gave her his hand and led her again into the corridor. The door closed behind them, and they were alone in the passage. She came close to his side in her sudden fright. He still held her hand, and drew her arm beneath his. It was a simple movement, but he could not trust his voice for a moment; never before had any one come thus close to him. For her, who had never before thus been held, there was for that moment no other thought than of security from she knew not what fancied danger. They passed silently down the staircase and out into the street.

"I have your aunt's street and number," said Holcroft, when they were in the air. "This hall has not long been built, and doubtless her house stood here and was removed to make a place for it."

"Yea," said she. "I remember something of this place, and I certainly remember the green yonder. I was but eight years old when I was here before, and then not for long."

"I hope your aunt will not be troubled," said Holcroft, with a vague sense that this new relationship was to remove the girl farther from him than she had been before.

"She does not know that I am coming," said Ruth, simply.

"And do not the Shakers know that you have come away?" he asked, in surprise. He would have recalled the words, if he could, the moment he had spoken them.