now come along, dearie, and don't you tremble so; the Lord ain't a-goin' to desert us at the last minnit." But Alviny did quake a little as they climbed the steep stairway up to the landing, and looked about among the expectant throng, pressing forward to receive their friends. "Thanks be to the Lord!" gasped Alviny, throwing up her veil and rushing forward, dragging with her the half-fainting girl. lain; there ain't no earthly revenge big enough to pay us two for what we have suffered at that cuss's hands. But I wanted my hard-earned money back, and I've got it. We took him before the authorities and made him sign over them mines o' his; and here are the docky. ments, confession and all; I made him tally right up and sign the whole thing. Then we told the rascal to go- and he went; I s'pose the Lord'll keep an eye on him; but I'm durned "Here we are, Jerry Wilson! and David if I ever want to see him again." Davis, here is your child!" That was a happy little group in the parlor of a certain hotel, that evening, Roxy and Ned and Ruby and Alviny. "Aunt Alvina, you beat everything!" said Ned, “and I don't feel half sure it is you; you look about ten years younger. Mother, just look at her." "You do look as fresh as a rose, Alviny; the sca-voyage has done you good." "Oh, pshaw," said blushing Alvina, "it's only Ruby's way o' fixin' me up and doin' my hair." "Why, sure enough, where are your sidecombs?" "I've got 'em safe in my valise," and she looked smilingly at Ruby. "Aunt Alvina had a good many experiences on board," said she, "and one was an episode with the China-boy who attended our cabin." "Your chambermaid, as it were," said Ned. "Exactly, and he pilfered auntie's sidecombs one day when she was sea-sick. She accused him of it in pretty vigorous language; but, of course, he hadn't the remotest idea of what she meant." "Now, what's the programme?" said Jerry, the next morning. "Ef you'll allow me the first say, I would suggest that we finish up the week in town, take Alviny and Ruby round to see the sights, and about next Monday make a strike for Mount Pisgy. I tell you, Alviny, you ought to see our new place; it beats everything!" "Except the Swanton cottage," said Roxy. 66 Dear, dear," sighed Alviny, "to think how I came off and left things; and poor Loizy's weddin' dress!" "Loizy's what?" they cried. "Oh, my!" said she, in confusion, “if I hain't up and told! But I guess it ain't much matter, so far away." Then she related the news of Miss Bascom's approaching nuptials. "It's easy enough to fix that," said Roxy. "We'll buy her a dress here, ready made, or have one made to order, and send it by express, with all the other things. You know her measure, Alviny." "Look at that now," said Jerry, proudly; "ain't she a brick? Yes, sir; do you buy the best outfit you can scare up, and I'll foot the "And you gave him tally-ho; now didn't you, bill; if Loizy Bascom's going to get married, Aunt Alvina?" "Well, yes, Ned, I did free my mind a little; that's what makes Ruby laugh. Then I went to the captain about it, and the upshot of the business was that they was found in the critter's possession, just before we landed." And poor Ah Sing looked down upon us from the top of the wheel-house, where he was doing penance, when we left the ship," said Ruby. "I didn't laugh much then, I was so excited and troubled; but I can see him in my mind now, such a comical figure." Just then Jerry and David entered the room. "Is he found?" they asked anxiously. "Yes," said Jerry, "he's found, and lost; the detectives had him in less'n two hours after I set 'em on the track, and we had an interview with him over in Oakland. You'd ought to seen him cringe and tremble and whine when we looked at him, David and I. But we settled him in short order. David's got his baby back, and he didn't want no more of the vil she shall have a square send-off.” "It takes a dreadful load off my conscience, now, I tell you," said the grateful Alviny. "Wall, now, girls, get on your fixin's, and we'll be off to see the sights." To see the sights! Where in all that city was there a rarer, gladder sight, if one had only known, than our little party of six, whose joyous heart ran over into laughter and droll speech? Proud Jerry with his pretty wife, Ned with Aunt Alviny—and no knight of the olden time could have given more thoughtful care to queenly dame than did gallant Ned to the little woman on his arm, giving vent to her gay spirits in accents void of grammar. And last, David, with his "Little Ruby," the beautiful girl whom people turned to gaze upon as she lifted her wondrous smile to meet her father's admiring look. "And to think," said Alviny, "that I should be the one to find Ruby Davis!" JULIA H. S. BUGEIA. THE NORTH WIND. All night, beneath the flashing hosts of stars, The sun has risen, But still the storming sea of air beats on, And o'er the broad green slopes a flood of light And thrills with vibrant splendor. Down the bay The furrowed blue, save that 'tis starred with foam, Is bare and empty as the sky of clouds; For all the little sails, that yesterday Flocked past the islands, now have furled their wings, And huddle frightened at the wharves-just as, A moment since, a flock of twittering birds Whirled through the almond trees like scattered leaves, How the old oaks Stand stiffly to it, and wrestle with the storm! Tumble and toss and stream with quivering light. The fir-trees sing their sea-song:-now again The roar is all about us like a flood; And like a flood the fierce light shines, and burns That rims the ocean, rises close at hand, I thank thee, glorious wind! Thou bringest me VOL. I.-29. E. R. SILL. THE FIRST XERXES LOAN COLLECTION. Art education has, so far, touched the people most effectually through loan collections, which, however, have been, with few exceptions, restricted to large cities. Yet towns of twenty or even ten thousand inhabitants have souls to be saved, æsthetically speaking, and loan collections in such towns would do solid missionary work. It is in this light that I regard the First Xerxes Loan Collection, and it is with the hope that other towns like Xerxes may follow her example that I relate the notable history of the exhibition given under the auspices of the Stepping-Stones Club. | collection and exhibition to go to the Society for the Promotion of Archæology, of which honorable body Mrs. Gracchi was the president. "You see," explained Theodora David to the writer, "their society was going to have a series of magnificent things in the evenings, suppers, debates, tableaux, and all kinds of things, and our art gallery was a mere side-show in another building. They thought that they would not have time to attend to it, so they asked us." But, however the matter came about, the Stepping Stones accepted the management, and meeting, I find-by the minutes, and also by the club history-that Leslie Graham, president of the Stepping-Stones, was appointed business manager; Theodora David, chairman of the general committee; and Helen Garrison, secretary. At the next meeting, Rachel McFarland was appointed treasurer. It was decided that the collection should embrace statuary and curios, as well as pictures. "We must fill up with something," said Helen Garrison, rather gloomily. A committee to visit the homes of the citizens, and to request the loan of their pictures and other desirable articles, was named by the president. Both the members of this committee had lately joined the club, and, to be frank, they were chosen mainly because of their ownership of carriages; but never was there a more fortunate selection. For two weeks, "unhasting"- on account of mud-"unresting," they drove from house to house, in every description of bad weather. They did not miss a day save Sunday. "And Sundays," said Isabella Kardigan, the chairman, "I asked the people at church." Xerxes is a Western town-a prosperous, pic-held their first meeting February 10, at which turesque, outwardly tidy place, where the inhabitants paint their houses often, and take vast pains upon their lawns; nevertheless, it is a city set upon hills, which involve ravines, involving, in their turn, results of stagnant water and occasional typhoid fever. For the rest, its citizens come half of them from the Atlantic States, nearly another half from Germany, and a mere sprinkling of population from Ireland. As is the case in most Western towns, the better class of people travel a great deal. Every year a little company returns from Europe, with Paris dresses, and a quantity of photographs. Not only photographs come, but foreign pictures, prints, and bric-à-brac—which, as the traveled reader knows, can be picked up wonderfully cheap in Rome and Naples, of any age, or enriched by any classic associations which the buyer may desire-embellish the many Xerxes parlors and the two or three Xerxes drawing-rooms. Our connoisseur, besides some extremely ugly and well authenticated specimens of the school of Teniers and the school of Van Ostade, has a portrait of the loftiest pretensions; if it is not a Vandyke, it is, in manner, signature, history and all, the very cleverest of impostors. Here, then, was plenty of material, only it lay idle. Who first perceived the dormant capabilities of the place is to this day a mooted question. We, the SteppingStones, lay no claims to the design; all that we know about the matter is that Mrs. Cornelia Gracchi came to us (we being at that time, as we are still, a literary club of young women, who were strictly private in aim, and meddled in neither politics nor religion) and asked us to take the entire management of such a collection-also to collect it; the profits of the said Having appointed the various committees, the president, seeing that the club was greatly depressed in spirits, called on Theodora to read the prospectus, which she had prepared for the morning papers. Theodora described the future arrangements of the exhibition in vivid but truthful language. The reading was received with groans, cheers, and derisive laughter. Helen Garrison alone did not laugh; Helen has a conscience as sensitive as one of Howell's heroes. "I don't think we ought to deceive the public so!" cried she. "Why, we're going to have all those things," said Theodora. "What," said Helen, "the photographic collection of great masters, 'which shall be an illustrated history of art, from the Byzantine school to the modern schools of Millais and Fortuny.' Are you going to have that?" "Certainly," said Theodora, with unflinching cheerfulness, "we are sure of that." [Great laughter, and shouts of "Hear! hear!" and "Oh, you are, are you?"] "The club will please come to order," said the president; "a motion to adjourn is now in order, and after we have adjourned, we can look at rooms." The Stepping-Stones adjourned, and went down to "look at rooms." The quarters finally selected were in the centre of the city, facing a confectionery shop. Our predecessors in business had been a wholesale millinery firm, who left us a bewildering legacy of mutilated bandboxes and newspapers. The building was two stories high, with two rooms and a hall above, and a long, narrow shop below-rather a dark shop. The second floor was lighted well enough, but the larger room had a queer, high-shouldered ceiling sloping sharply like a garret roof, "pointed Gothic, cut in two," the Countess Wanda KrzischKowita called it-for our club possesses a real Polish countess with a gorgeous coat-of-arms, a half-dozen confiscated estates, and a tremendously long family history, all spattered with blood. When we first saw the rooms, everything was white with dust, except the windows, which were black. Leslie tried to raise some of the latter, but they defied her efforts-being constructed on the bolt system, very popular in the West. "Girls," said Leslie, "Mr. Lenard will give us these rooms for nothing! Did I hear a young lady say the ceiling was crooked? That crooked ceiling is free! I can't move a window here, but then we shall not have to pay for their sticking! We are going to make a great success, but we must be economical; we must do our own work; we must be our own door-keepers, our own collectors, and our own decorators. I think we had better adjourn until Saturday." This was Thursday. On Friday, Leslie and Theodora superintended the cleaning of the rooms, which Leslie classically likened to the Augean Stables, and tacked white paper over the shelves and counters, to encourage the club when they should come. Theodora painted a huge, upright sign, glorifying ourselves in red, white, and blue letters; and Leslie and she trundled it out of the shop and nailed it down to the sidewalk. There was a high wind blowing, and, in spite of an ingenious prop, the sign fell over twice, painting the girl's dresses more or less each time; but Leslie said it was in a good cause, and Theodora said she thought it would wash off with turpentine. Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday, the whole club toiled. We draped the deformed Gothic ceiling with dark-red cloth, and covered the ex-millinery shelves with paper cambric of the same color. We bought the cambric; the cloth was loaned us by a generous merchant. We promised faithfully that we would not drive tacks through it, intending to put it in little cambric slings and tack the slings to the wooden cornice. We fondly imagined that the festoons of cloth would droop in graceful folds, such as we had often admired in art galleries. In point of fact, they "sagged" viciously, leaving ghastly chasms of white wall, and not looking at all like the art galleries. Then we risked our necks on shaky step-ladders, and desperately pinned the cloth to the wall. The pins broke and bent, and ran into our thumbs. On the whole, we should advise future amateur decorators of art galleries to buy their cloth, and to use only large, stubby, flat-headed tacks - pins do not supply their place. Down-stairs, we had our photographs. The Countess Wanda, who is more familiar with Europe than America, had charge of this department. She inserted her photographs in the cambric, and then proceeded to group the various schools by nations, beginning with the early Gothic schools, and working down through the Renaissance to modern Munich and Düsseldorf-all being duly labeled, and the works of each artist having a placard affixed beneath, containing his name and the dates of his birth and death. The ex-millinery shop contained also our museum, and a large collection of rejected models from the patent-office. We ranged them on a long counter — toys representing no one knows how many hard-working, hopeful, anxious days and nights, how many useless dreams and aspirations. The hardest day, as we all agreed, was the one before the opening, although we were assisted by several obliging friends. Mrs. Cornelia sent the Gracchi, tall, strong, good-tempered young men. The gentleman who soon after married Adèle Turner was eager to be useful. A friend who didn't marry was also present, and most willing and active. But no one was more devoted than Mr. Robert, a rather supercilious young man from Harvard, a cousin of Theodora's, then visiting his aunt, and taking Theodora over to see her friend Nora Gar rison every other evening. Nora was not at all dazzled by Mr. Robert's admiration. She was only eighteen, but two high-school boys and a returned missionary had already offered her their respective fortunes. She treated Mr. Robert's attentions with actual levity. "He thinks himself quite too clever," she said to Theodora, "and he is always sneering, in a polite, underhand way, at the West. Things are so 'crude' here. If there is one word I hate, it's 'crude'! Theo, I think he needs awfully to be snubbed." "His father left him half a million dollars," said Theodora, grimly; "I doubt he misses that valuable experience-anyhow, from women." "I think I know one woman who will snub him," said Nora, with her pretty head in the air. But Theodora had gone, and did not hear her. Yet it must surely have been a hard heart which was not touched by the spectacle of Mr. Robert at the exhibition, hanging pic-| tures, in his shirt-sleeves, on the top round of a ten-foot step-ladder, the perspiration dripping from his brow. Notwithstanding his aid, however, and the aid of other kind and muscular friends, it was a weary and wretched company of girls who met on the stairs, Tuesday afternoon, at six o'clock. The club presented an appearance which I hesitate to describe: collars were dingy; cuffs had vanished; dresses showed rents unskillfully repaired with pins; all artificial waviness had departed from the club's hair; few had gloves; and the only veil was in the hands of Helen Garrison, who had been using it all day as a duster. The president called the meeting to order with a tack-hammer. "Girls," she said, impressively, "do you realize that our partners in business-the archæologists-have an entertainment, a supper, and tableaux this evening, and that it is our duty to go? Theodora-where is Theodora?" "Here," answered a dismal voice from the lowest stair. "I won't go. Leave me alone! | I want to die. Besides, there is paint on my dress." "But you can't die, dear," said Nora, soothingly, "you must go to the supper. Get up-I'll lend you my shawl!" Some one was cruel enough to call out, "How about the success now, Theodora?” "Oh, it will be a success," said Theodora, slowly rising, "but I doubt if I live to see it." The anti-dinner sentiment was universal, but the voice of duty, speaking through Leslie, forced us into action. A delegation of the cleanest was selected, who divided gloves, that each might have a glove apiece to carry genteelly in the hand; and we went to the feast of our partners. It was a most satisfactory feast, and we should undoubtedly have enjoyed it greatly under different circumstances. As the case stood with us, we felt an immense relief when we could hurry back to our equally grimy and disreputable companions. Returning, we finished cataloguing the pictures, which kept us busy until twelve o'clock. Then we went home. Leslie was visiting Theodora. "T.," she murmured, as the carriage rolled up the long hill, "T., if your mother hadn't sent the carriage, I believe I should have laid me down on the counter, among our treasures of art. I never was so tired in my life. If this strain continues we shall all be dead before the week is over." "Yes," said Theodora. "Oh, but it won't," said Mr. Robert, cheerfully. He had fallen off a step-ladder; a tackhammer and a box of nails had tumbled on his head; he had sat down on Theodora's pallet, and he had broken his watch; but what will not a man in love endure and be happy? "I think, myself," said Leslie, "that a fire will break out, and burn us to ashes in the night." "Yes," said Theodora. Leslie woke Theodora three hours after this conversation, crying: "T., fire-bells!" "Y-yes," said Theodora, sleepily, "fire-bells." "Well, do you realize what fire-bells mean?" "I suppose they mean a fire," said Theodora, sinking back on her pillow, "I can't-put it— out." Leslie shook her in vain; even the tumultuous race past the house of what appeared to be the whole fire-brigade failed to arouse her; she dimly remembers hearing Leslie say: "I wish they would stop their ringing-every one knows there is a fire!" then she slumbered in peace. But in the morning Leslie appeared with a pale face and the Xerxes Gazette. "Where do you think the fire was, Theodora?" "I don't know," said Theodora, reckless of grammar, "us?” "No, LeGrange's Hall; our partners are burned up!" "Well!" said Theodora, after the manner of Americans, although she must have known it was anything but well. "They have lost all their costumes," said Leslie, "rented costumes, and they will have to pay the costumers; a Steinway piano-from Marshall's; all their dishes-hired; all their decorations-borrowed. Why, Theodora David, there must be over a thousand dollars gone!" "Here's a prospect," said Theodora; at which remark, for no assignable reason, they both laughed. |