depressed her, although I can not remember that she made any complaint. I will avow that on one occasion the young man seemed to regain his buoyant humor, and shone out with his old flash and fervor.

We had driven out that day to the Notch, for while we knew the Franconian Pass, the grandeur of its southern namesake was yet strange to us. It was afternoon when we reached the middle of the gorge, and we lingered there until sunset, held and mastered by the scene. Who that saw it forgets the desolate ravine choked with bowlders and bristling with dark pines, the giant walls black and bare that seem to bulge and topple and hide the sky, and the puny shivering river flung headlong down the jagged steep? There is, you know, a contagion in strong feeling, and I am sure the glow on Clara's cheek warmed us all. No wonder Bob, then, watching the girl's kindling eyes, shook off the weight upon his spirits and gave himself to the empire of the hour. The Notch, and the eager talk of my companions, and the drive homeward in the twilight, wrought me up to so romantic a mood that I sat smoking in the squire's porch until a late hour, and even when I retreated a single candle was still gleaming from Bob's studio.

Why would he not stay and smoke a cigar, and what in the world could Robin find to do alone in that grim comfortless chamber? Was he going over, perhaps, the pleasant day, and yielding anew to the sweet sorcery of an emotional nature, which had quickened and compelled his own? Or did he check those thoughts sternly, and recognize with sad sincerity that such companionship was not for him? Must his days, then, know no storm, no torrid sunshine, but be always cool and sober and calm? Could he call it living, the pale spiritless existence which stretched before him and Ruth. Poor Ruth! No, upright, noble

Ruth-who was he to pity that true heart! Had he forgotten what her life had been—the patient cheerful self-surrender, the long meek sacrifice to duty? and was the fault hers if her eyes, fixed on that mild star, had missed the hectic splendors of the west? Was he not man enough to love her for what she was, and mock and stifle the mad thirst for sympathy? That holy mystic charm of sympathy, truly a potent spell in Paris salons; but such simple words as gratitude and honor may out-conjure it amid Yankee hills.

On the day following our drive to the Notch-it was just a week, as I remember, before Bob's wedding-Clara and I strolled over to the farm, and found Miss Nellie strumming the piano and Ruth busied about many things.

"Where is Robin ?" I inquired.

"Nobody knows," said Nellie, laughing; "he was prowling up and down his den all night, and this morning he went out at day-break."

"In that case," I suggested, "suppose we avail ourselves of the priest's absence and invade the sanctuary. There are many tricks and devices familiar to the painter's art which I shall be happy to expose. Likewise, the business of an unfinished picture seems to require investigation."

There is no doubt that Clara looked inquisitive, and Ruth at once volunteered to show the way.

"You would never know my trim store-room," said Ruth, as she let us in to the atelier, and indeed it was a chaos of disorder.

Bob's easel was near the window. Nellie ran to it and gave a cry.

"Look!" she said, and stared in stupor at the canvas.

We looked. My cousin's figure was still there, but some studious strokes of the brush had totally erased her features. "Hullo!" I cried, "what's the meaning of this?"

"It means," said Ruth, with a quivering lip, "it means we had no right to come here." And she led us silently from the room.

I do not claim to possess the fine intuitions of some gifted natures, but I confess that Master Bob's performance provoked sundry reflections, which I was shrewd enough to keep, to myself, and I think it regretable that another member of the company, having less experience of the ways of men, failed to exhibit an equal discretion. I had strolled into the garden, having observed that the ladies were drifting toward feminine topics, and was ruminating over a cigar, when Miss Nellie, equipped with a basket and intent on blackberries, came running out, aglow with mischief and hilarity.

"Such fun!" she explained between peals of laughter. "We were in the parlor just now, Clara and I—she was teaching me a waltz-when Bob came in, glum as a ghost. So, of course, I began to tease him about spoiling that lovely picture, and said he just wanted an excuse to potter over it, and then he grew white, and Clara was in a flutter, so I left him to defend himself. Won't she scold him, though!" And the picture of Bob's predicament afforded her infinite delight.

I was not quite artless enough to be carried away by the damsel's merriment, and opining that the presence of a third person might be grateful under the circumstances, set forth at once to break the tête-à-tête. But a veranda skirted that side of the house, and a window of the keeping-room, which adjoined the parlor, standing open, I glanced into it as I passed, and stopped. There was Ruth, half-risen from a chair, in a strange irresolute attitude, her work fallen to the floor, one hand shading her eyes and the other pressed against

parted, as if some word she sought to utter found no breath. Why she failed to hear my step I understood when presently voices, low but audible, reached us both through an open door. I recog nized Clara's first.

"Indeed you must not say that, Mr. Lyon; it is we who owe excuses. You must have been greatly annoyed about that picture, and it was a selfish thing to ask it at such a time. If mamma had known; but I-but she-you must try to pardon us."

"Clara!" Bob could say no more. She went on hurriedly.

"Let me have it as it is. I will not like it less because the artist was too happy to finish it! It will remind me of your happiness and Ruth's-dear Ruth, whom I love dearly, and who loves me."

"Clara!"- Bob's voice came hoarse and short-"you are worthy of each other, and I of neither. Do what I will, I must be false, disloyal. I can not even give you that blotted canvas, because"-here the man's voice shivered into a kind of passionate sob"because it is a confession and a prayer!"

He was gone-I heard his footsteps in the hall. But I would not look at Ruth; my own pulse quivered, and I moved

away.

Ruth and Clara were thrown much together at this period, and a very cordial sincere attachment appeared to bind those young ladies. It had been decreed in secret conclave that Miss Tyrrell should be one of the bridesmaids-Miss Nellie of course being the other, and urging forward with the ut most zeal and excitement the necessary preparations for the wedding. That event was now at hand, and Robin bore himself quietly and thoughtfully, as became a man vowed to grave responsibilities, and evinced little of that petu

lance and restlessness which I had remarked at an early stage.

It may have been a day or two before the ceremony that Bob was roving about the orchard, when Ruth came out to him, and laid her hand shyly on his

arm.

"What is it, dear?" he said gently, for the girl's cheek was flushing and her eyes did not meet his own.

"There is something," Ruth whispered, "something, Bob, that ought to be said. You are different now, dear, from what you were when we liked each other first. Something greater and higher, I know well. While I," she went on sadly, "am just the same -a farmer's child, fit only for the farm. I can not talk to you and hope and feel with you as others do."

"Dear Ruth!" he said, and his eyes were wet with generous tears, "what could put that nonsense in your head? You can make me happy, dearest. None knows you but is happier and better."

"Thank you for saying that," she said simply, and looked up once into his face; "you have a loyal heart, dear. I judged it rightly. Perhaps I may be worthier of you than I said, and”— here her voice again sunk to a whisper-"I will try to prove it."

At last it came, the wedding-day. We were assembled in the big parlor-Aunt Tyrrell, the squire, and I—joined presently by the two bridesmaids; Miss Nellie radiant and eager, Clara colorless as a white rose. Bob followed in grand tenue, and our little cortege was ready to set out for the village church, whose bell was ringing a merry peal.

"Where's Ruth?" cried Nellie. "Ah, here she is!" And Ruth came in, robed in white as became a bride; with her wedding-veil, too, but that she carried on her arm. There was a dew, I think, in her kind eyes, but her lips were parted in a smile.

"Were you waiting for the bride?"

she said.

A screen stood in a corner of the room, and she moved toward it, holding Clara's hand.

"Move the screen, dear Bob," Ruth said; "I want to show you something." He pushed it aside, and saw the mutilated portrait.

"You can finish that,” said Ruth softly, "if the lady sits to you all her life." And she put Clara's hand in his.

Of course, the wedding, ladies, did not take place that very day; but, although Aunt Tyrrell's bewilderment and perplexity were extreme, she was not long obdurate, being naturally of a romantic turn, and recalling sundry episodes of her youth. Besides, she could not but acknowledge Ruth's authority in the premises, and consented at the end of a week that her will should be made law. Possibly, had my advice been solicited, I should have counseled a still longer postponement, remembering a certain banker in New York who might be deemed to have an interest in the matter. But the stoic army of husbands holds no veteran more thoroughly disciplined, and I doubt not my excellent uncle received such dispatches from his commanding officer as well-nigh reconciled him to the catastrophe.

I can vouch that the wedding breakfast-for that feature of the ceremony was not omitted—was, in all respects, a delightful feast, although the happiness of the married pair may have been a thought less beaming and irrepressible than we are wont to see it on such occasions. Squire Allen was the life of the banquet; indeed, he could scarcely have shown more elation had the wedding been his own. There was another person in the company who might have liked a place beside the gentle hostess, but, as the squire sat on Ruth's right hand, Miss Nell and I diverted one another.

Sa postulate from which we shall argue in favor of great changes in political and social science, we may assume that ultimate perfection has not been attained in government, nor scarcely in any of the machinery thereof. Mankind has advanced wonderfully in many respects in the last half-century; but we must not assume, therefore, that as much or more is not possible in the fifty years to come. Indeed, it is not improbable that the gain in knowledge and progress has increased our capacity to do more in somewhat of a geometrical ratio. The conclusion, however, to which we would come, is not that based upon arrogance and conceit, that we know all that is worth knowing already, and that any suggestion of a change is to be received like a proposition among the Chinese for an advance in civilization.

We are about to bring forward some propositions of a radical nature and subject them to the crucial test of public criticism. The favored classes will scout them, in like manner as the privileged orders under a monarchical system of government cry out against republicanism as the rule of the rabble; and then the rabble that never thinks will be likely to fall in as the slaves of the privileged ranks. Such is the general order of things. The poor Whites of the South were more intolerant toward abolitionists than slave-holders themselves, although slavery debased them in a worse degree than it did the Blacks. We submit our propositions, therefore, to the many who are struggling upward to the light, and who have the patience to investigate and the brain to comprehend, without the arrogance to reject, a reasonable suggestion because it happens

to be new and at variance with notions supposed from long acceptance to be correct. Old ideas are no more sacred than newer ones, any more than despotism which is older than freedom in government is better than individual liberty, fetichism superior to the Christian religion, or the boomerang to the rifle. Absolute truth alone is unchangeable and sacred, and those approximations to truth and justice are entitled to respect which are progressively made with the advancement of civilization.

The enormous tax to which each individual is subject at the present day, for the ostensible support of national, State, county, and municipal governments, is claiming, as it deserves to claim, a large public attention. In California, according to a recent speech delivered in San Francisco by the Honorable T. G. Phelps, it amounts to upward of $40 to each individual of the entire population, or more than $200 per annum to each family of five. This does not include the tax paid in the way of tariff and internal revenue duties for the support of the national government. Nor does it include the immense royalties paid upon sewing-machines and the thousand-and-one patents continued through long periods of years to enrich the Howes, Goodyears, and the like. It ignores the large sums paid in cities for gas and water, more than they are worth, and the subsidies drawn everywhere from the people to inaugurate and perpetuate innumerable franchises in the form of railroads, toll-roads, bridges, etc. Put all these amounts together, and the sum paid by the individual is swollen to more than the average annual salary of a working - man thirty

years ago. If it could be shown that the money drawn from the people is well expended, or that, in other words, a quid pro quo is obtained, or likely to be realized, or that the expenditures are not out of proportion to the purchasing power of money now as compared with the past, and that wages have been brought by an equalizing process to the proper level, then there is less cause for complaint than a bare statement of the enormous cost of government would leave us to believe. But this has not been attempted, and it is, perhaps, outside the range of this discussion. The fact that reform in taxation, or cheapening the expenses of our system of government, is receiving a large measure of attention, is enough for our purpose.

What are the objects of government? Daniel Webster declared the great objects to be "the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." Perhaps the great statesman did not intend to assert what the great objects of government should be, but, as a profound lawyer, declared what they were, as shown by the laws of the country. We do not deny that this deduction is correct. But the protection of life, it would seem, ought to cut a larger figure among the great objects of government. Self-protection is the first law of nature. "Thou shalt not kill" comes before "Thou shalt not steal," in the decalogue. And self-protection means a great deal more than one individual defending his person against the aggressions of another, or the many. As it is the first law, so it is the foundation of all law, lying at the base of all governmental as well as individual duties. Self-protection includes the family and the nation; and the principle goes farther than the immediate present. The doctrine of taking care of the present and letting the future shift for itself, is only fit for the lazzaroni of Italy, to whom the dolce far niente is the sum of human

existence. Prescience and providence are essential guards of the future, without which no person, family, or society is safe. That government which does not provide for the great future is wanting in one of the highest attributes of government, and its people are left to pauperism or final extinction. Plainly, nature makes provision against the extinction of species. The duty of man in his associated capacity is to follow nature's highest law and provide against the destruction of himself, his kind, his race. Has he ever made such provision in all the history of the past? Is he doing so now? What civilized government has any such object in view? Man is a vandal upon the planet. Look upon the seat of ancient empires in Asia. The forests have been extirpated, the soil worn out, sirocco blasts sweep a land once teeming with life, and drifting sands overwhelm a country for whose wealth and dominion marshaled millions have contended again and again in the ages gone. So it is and has been in northern Africa and southern Europe. The forests, those great natural reservoirs that hold the waters, the snows, and the soil upon the mountains, have been cut away. Moisture is thrown at once upon the plains in deluges; the rocks are denuded; infertile soil is poured upon the valleys; the sloping lands are furrowed and channeled, and in time stripped of their mold and finer particles; the low lands are not fertilized by percolating water from the hills, but are subject to droughts; and man, instead of trying to repair the ruin he makes, increases it by cropping the last rood of ground until it will produce no longer. The tobacco and cotton lands of the South show what selfish man will do in a few brief years, when left to himself. The life-time of another generation will be required to restore them to fertility. What right has one man, or one generation, or five generations of men, to ruin a soil that