'Lisha," if indeed our seniors knew him by any more formal appellation. Each year, about those days when the schoolboy listens for the little bird whose note gives the welcome warning "Time to go a-fishing!” Blind 'Lisha was wont to make his appearance, whence coming we knew not; that and his passing, after a short sojourn and round of visiting in the village, are now most delightfully shrouded in mystery. He again crossed the orbit of our tranquil world and its interests in the autumn, doubtless then on his return to winter quarters with some relative. I only know that he could bring my mother gratefully received news from distant cousins and seldom seen friends who lived in the Purple Land of the hillward prospect. He was also made the depositary of all the most interesting recent occurrences in our neighborhood, beside being charged with many messages for those living yet farther than ourselves from the delectable Purple Land. Sitting at evening upon our doorsteps, to all that was thus imparted and enjoined he maintained an attitude of intent listening, slightly leaning forward, and always with the subtle characteristic smile of the blind playing over his handsome old face. But none of these details, however significant now, was the one which my childhood regarded as of first importance. To me the remarkable thing about Blind 'Lisha's appearance was the slender silver trumpet which hung by a cord around his neck; and yet more attractive than the trumpet itself were the trumpet's decorations, knots and loops of various-colored ribbons, these ribbons no sooner disappearing than replaced by others as bright and as talismanic. Disappearing, I repeat, for on his arrival. among us the children of the neighborhood at once flocked around him, and, expectant, raised the expected clamor, "'Lisha, please give us a ribbon!" But beyond the joy which this boon afforded was that anticipated in the question, "'Lisha, won't you

tell us the name of the trumpet?" Invariable was the answer: "Penelope. And remember, children, it was Penelope gave you the ribbon, with her love."

The trumpet had its own good reason for being. It was, so to speak, the blind man's "voice crying in the wilderness ;" for if on the well-known road of his summer wanderings any perplexity overtook him, he had but to blow the trumpet, which was no less effective in bringing aid than was the bugle-horn sounded in Sherwood Forest. Moreover, when he supposed himself to be near any village or "four corners," he gave a warning blast; for 'Lisha dearly loved the many-voiced and hospitable welcome which never failed him, both as an unfortunate fellow-mortal and as the purveyor of much pleasant gossip. So the trumpet was not an inexplicable matter, but how about Penelope ? I wish, when I had received my blue ribbon (blue because I had been privately informed by the almoner of her favors that Penelope herself liked blue best), I wish I had asked about the trumpet's christening. But I did not ask, and I have now for sole explanation only the romantic constructions of latter - day musings, based upon an apocryphal rumor of the neighborhood. There came a spring when the wanderer did not return with the little angler's sing-song bird. Commenting upon the inroads which the past winter had made upon old mortality, the report went abroad that 'Lisha would come no more. To which report it was added that in the short illness which closed his days he had asked for his trumpet. "For," he said, "I'm coming into town, and I want to give them warning I'm coming!" In the attempt to lift the trumpet to his lips he had dropped it, uttering some indistinct word, which those about him had conjectured to be "Penelope ;" and a further interpretation had been ventured, that the sweetheart of his youth had herself come to lead him into the Celestial City.

LADY MARESFIELD had given her son a push in his plump back and had said to him, "Go and speak to her now; it's your chance." She had for a long time wanted this scion to make himself audible to Rose Tramore, but the opportunity was not easy to come by. The case was complicated. Lady Maresfield had four daughters, of whom only one was married. It so happened, moreover, that this one, Mrs. Vaughan-Vesey, the only person in the world her mother was afraid of, was the most to be reckoned with. The Honorable Guy was, in appearance, all his mother's child, though he was really a simpler spirit. He was large and pink; large, that is, as to everything but the eyes, which were diminishing points, and pink as to everything but the hair, which was comparable, faintly, to the hue of the richer rose. He had also, it must be conceded, very small, neat teeth, which made his smile look like a young lady's. He had no wish to resemble any such person, but he was perpetually smiling, and he smiled more than ever as he approached Rose Tramore, who, looking strikingly, to his mind, as a pretty girl should, and wearing a soft white opera cloak over a softer black dress, leaned alone against the wall of the vestibule at Covent Garden, while, a few paces off, an old gentleman engaged her mother in conversation. Madame Patti had been singing, and they were all waiting for

their carriages. In their ears at present was a vociferation of names and a rattle of wheels. The air, through banging doors, came in damp, warm gusts, heavy with the stale, slightly sweet taste of the London season when the London season is overripe and spoiling.

Guy Mangler had only three minutes to reestablish an interrupted acquaintance with our young lady. He reminded her that he had danced with her the year before, and he mentioned that he knew her brother. His mother had lately been to see old Mrs. Tramore, but this he did not mention, not knowing it. That visit had produced, on Lady Maresfield's part, a private crisis; she had her ideas. One of them was that the grandmother in Hill Street had really forgiven the willful girl much more than she admitted. Another was that there would still be some money for Rose when the others should have theirs. Still another was that the others would have theirs at no distant date, the old lady was so visibly going to pieces. There were several more besides, as for instance that Rose had already fifteen hundred a year from her father. The figure had been betrayed in Hill Street; it was part of the proof of Mrs. Tramore's decrepitude. Then there was an equal amount that her mother had to dispose of, and on which the girl could absolutely count, though of course it might involve much waiting,

as the mother evidently would n't die of cold-shouldering; she seemed positively to live on it. Equally definite, to do it justice, was the conception that Rose was in truth awfully good looking, and that what she had undertaken to do showed, and would show even should it fail, cleverness of the right sort. Cleverness of the right sort was exactly the quality that Lady Maresfield prefigured as indispensable in a young lady to whom she should marry her second son, over whose own deficiencies she flung the veil of a maternal theory that his cleverness was of the wrong sort. Those who knew him less well were content to wish that he might not conceal it for such a scruple. This enumeration of his mother's views does not exhaust the list, and it was in obedience to one too profound to be uttered even by the historian that, after a very brief delay, she decided to move across the crowded lobby. Her daughter Bessie was the only one with her; Maggie was dining with the Vaughan-Veseys, and Fanny was not of an age. Mrs. Tramore the younger showed only an admirable back

to have something next week. She 'll write to you."

Rose Tramore, on the spot, looking bright but vague, turned three or four things over in her mind. She remembered that the sister of her interlocutress was the ponderously rich Mrs. Void, a bankeress or a breweress or something like that, who had so big a house that she could n't fill it, as she liked, unless she was rather miscellaneous. Rose had learnt more about London society during these lonely months with her mother than she had ever picked up in Hill Street. The younger Mrs. Tramore was a mine of commérage, and she did n't need to go out to bring home the latest intelligence. At any rate, Mrs. Void might serve as the end of a wedge. "Oh, I dare say we might think of that," Rose said. . It would be very kind of your sister." "Guy 'll think of it, won't you, Guy?" asked Lady Maresfield.

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Lady Maresfield had been prepared for the plural number, and she was a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert. "I'm sure Guy is longing for another dance with you," she rejoined, with the most unblinking irrele

vance.

"I'm afraid we're not dancing again quite yet," said Rose, glancing at her mother's exposed shoulders, but speaking as if they were muffled in crape.

Lady Maresfield leaned her head on one side and looked almost wistful. "Not even at my sister's ball? She's

son's arm.

It was this noble matron herself who wrote, the next day, inclosing a card of invitation from Mrs. Void, and expressing the hope that Rose would come and dine and let her ladyship take her. She should have only one of her own girls. Gwendolen Vesey was to take the other. Rose handed both the note and the card in silence to her mother; the latter bore

only the name of Miss Tramore. "You would much better go, dear," her mother said; in answer to which Miss Tramore slowly tore up the documents, looking with clear, meditative eyes out of the window. Her mother always said, “You would better go" there had been other incidents and Rose had never even once taken account of the observation. She would make no first advances, only plenty of second ones, and condoning no discrimination would treat no omission as venial. She would keep all concessions till afterwards; then she would make them discreetly. Fighting society was quite as hard as her grandmother had said it would be; but there was a tension in it which made the dreariness vibrate the dreariness of such a winter as she had just passed. Her companion had cried at the end of it, and she had cried all through; only her tears had been private, while her mother's had fallen once for all, at luncheon, on the bleak Easter Monday produced by the way a silent stare out of the dim window brought home to her that every creature but themselves was out of town and having tremendous fun. Rose felt that it was useless to attempt to explain simply by her mourning this severity of solitude; for if people did n't go to parties (at least some did n't) for six months after their father died, this was the very time that other people took for coming to see them. It was not too much to say that, during this first winter of Rose's period with her mother, she had no communication whatever with the world. It had the effect of making her take to reading the new American books; she wanted to see how girls got on by themselves. She had never read so much before, and there was a legitimate indifference in it when topics failed with her mother. They often failed after the first days, and then, while she bent over a suggestive volume, this lady, dressed as if for an impending function, sat on the sofa and

watched her. Rose was not embarrassed by such an attitude, for she could reflect that, a little before, her companion had not even a girl who had taken refuge in American fiction to look at. She was, moreover, used to her mother's air by this time. She had her own description of it: it was the air of waiting for the carriage. If they did n't go out, it was not that Mrs. Tramore was not in time, and Rose had even an alarmed prevision of their some day always arriving first. Mrs. Tramore's conversation at such moments was abrupt, inconsequent, and personal. She sat on the edge of sofas and chairs and glanced occasionally at the fit of her gloves (she was perpetually gloved, and the fit was a thing melancholy to see wasted), as people do who are expecting guests to dinner. Rose used almost to fancy herself at times a perfunctory husband on the other side of the fire.

What she was not yet used to - there was still a charm in it was her mother's extraordinary tact. During the years they lived together they never had a discussion; which was remarkable, considering that if the girl had a reason for sparing her companion (that of being sorry for her) Mrs. Tramore had none for sparing her child. She only showed in doing so a happy instinctthe happiest thing about her. She took in perfection a course which represented everything and covered everything; she utterly abjured all authority. She testified to her abjuration in hourly ingenious, touching ways. In this manner nothing had to be talked over, which was a mercy all round. The tears on Easter Monday were merely a nervous gust, to help show she was not a Christmas doll from the Burlington Arcade; and there was no lifting up of the repentant Magdalen, no uttered remorse for the former abandonment of children. Of the way she could treat her children her demeanor to this one was an example: her attitude was an unin

terrupted appeal to her eldest daughter for direction. She took the law from Rose in every circumstance, and if you had noticed these ladies without knowing their history you would have wondered what tie was fine enough to make maturity so respectful to youth. No mother was ever so filial as Mrs. Tramore, and there had never been such a difference of position between sisters. Not that the elder one fawned, which would have been fearful; she only renounced-whatever she had to renounce. If the amount was not much, she at any rate made no scene over it. Her hand was so light that Rose said of her secretly, in vague glances at the past, "No wonder people liked her!" She never characterized the old element of interference with her mother's respectability more definitely than as "people." They were people, it was true, for whom gentleness must have been everything, and who didn't demand a variety of interests. The desire to "go out" was the one passion that even a closer acquaintance with her parent revealed to Rose Tramore. She marveled at its strength, in the light of the poor lady's history there was comedy enough in this unquenchable flame on the part of a woman who had known such misery. She had drunk deep of every dishonor, but the bitter cup had left her with a taste for lighted candles, for squeezing up staircases and wooing the human elbow. Rose had a vision of the future years in which this taste would grow with restored exercise of her mother, in a long-tailed dress, jogging on and on and on, jogging further and further from her sins, through a century of the Morning Post and down the fashionable avenue of time. She herself would then be very old she herself would be dead. Mrs. Tramore would cover a span of life for which such an allowance of sin was small. The girl could laugh indeed now at that theory of her being dragged down. If one thing were more present

:

to her than another, it was the very desolation of their propriety. As she glanced at her companion, it sometimes seemed to her that if she had been a bad woman she would have been worse than that.

The lonely old lady in Hill Street Rose thought of her that way now — was the one person to whom she was ready to say that she would come to her on any terms. She wrote this to her three times over, and she knocked still oftener at her door. But the old lady answered no letters; if Rose had remained in Hill Street it would have been her own function to answer them; and at the door, the butler, whom the girl had known for ten years, considered her, when he told her his mistress was not at home, quite as he might have considered a young person who had come about a place, and of whose eligibility he took a negative view. That was Rose's one pang, that she probably appeared rather heartless. Her aunt Julia had gone to Florence with Edith for the winter, on purpose to make her appear more so; for Miss Tramore was still the person most scandalized by her secession. Edith and she, doubtless, often talked over in Florence the destitution of the aged victim in Hill Street. Eric never came to see his sister, because, being full both of family and of personal feeling, he thought she really ought to have stayed with his grandmother. If she had had such an appurtenance all to herself, she might have done what she liked with it; but he could n't forgive such a want of consideration for anything of his. There were moments when Rose would have been ready to take her hand from the plough and insist upon readmission to the old house, if only the dominant spirit there had allowed people to look her up. But she read, ever so clearly, that her grandmother had made this a question of loyalty - loyalty to her seventy years. Mrs. Tramore's forlornness did n't prevent her drawing-room from