may, how Susy Shlden married the maga¬ 
zine-maker. 
What lias been already written about 
great men applies in a sort to the case, for 1 
meant mainly to say something about the 
theory of opposites, and it’s not intended to 
affirm that all magazine editors are great 
men. I retain a good many old-time and 
provincial notions, as will appear, 1 believe, 
hut this is not one of them. 
Susan had been writing quite a number 
of years on the staff of the Metropolitan 
Magazine “up North,” under a right funny 
and original name of her own making up 
I’m not going to tell it, for you might find 
her out and the other real people of my story. 
Yes, from that far-away inland town, then 
the home of both of us, went on, month after 
month, and year after year, rolls of manu¬ 
script,which came back to us villagers—those 
of us who liked such reading—in colored 
backs and the adornment of type. English 
sounding stories Busan’s were, and I call 
them so because she had such pel ways with 
her pen, making a great deal of everything— 
the humblest things she touched with it. 
Now this is not characteristic of Americans 
as story writers, because wc dash too much, 
get over ground too fast. We Illuminate too 
suddenly, glaringly, flnringly, rocket style, 
then die out, leaving not much to hold fast 
to when the light’s gone. Don’t talk to mo 
about a Hawthorne, a Mrs. Btowe —how 
many of them have we to give character to 
a literature ? 
Susan took homely things to write up, 
and made them charming by a good appre¬ 
ciative genius, and her way’ of communi¬ 
cating it in words so simple, that we all could 
understand. Indeed, the words had little to 
do with it, unless you came to consider them 
by themselves and saw that they were not 
labored, and yet were full of force, that 
they were thoroughly Anglo-Saxon, (the 
grandest old language in the world,) and 
reeds, sedges, shallows and piping quails— 
even the little “ficc” that ran after her 
through the woods near by— everything her 
pen pursued seemed as intensely hers as if 
the great Maker had invested her with a 
part of their creation—or re-creation. 
8lic never seemed to he making out. a story, 
either, but only as if she were the amanuen¬ 
sis of Nature, set down to copy what work 
was spread put before her, so ignoring all 
necessity to spasmodics. 
i believe, heterodox or not, that our 
American Eagle has somewhat to do with 
the corruption of our literature. Not, 
strictly speaking, the bird itself, either, hut 
those Fourth-of-July orators who, from 
earliest National anniversary, have been 
wont to flash rhetorical powder so inconti¬ 
nently and erratically about I lie footstool of 
His Ornithological Majesty. 
Beside Susy’s stories, she wrote poems, 
too, now and then,—not dim and subtle, but 
that carried a cheery rhythm along with 
them, a home air, quieting your spirit in the 
reading, something like the hum of a tea¬ 
kettle upon the hob. 
They stopped once, a long while, these 
sometime periodical reinforcements of intel¬ 
lectual refreshment. The metropolitan read¬ 
ers wondered, and the metropolitan editor, 
ns a sequel to a aeries of months' tantalized 
waiting, sent a note of Interrogation away 
down among the pines to inquire for Ids 
contributor of the eccentric nom dc plume. 
The answer embodied something like this; 
“ Death has been here, in our once happy 
cottage home. 1 never knew a parent, but my 
old beloved uncle, my father’s only brother, 
himself widowed and childless, watched, in 
conjunction with a faithful nurse, over my 
infant years. He seemed ns the fondest, of 
parents to me, and lie breathed out his last 
blameless breath on the — day of — month. 
“ Sorrow for the dead must not impair our 
sense of duty to the living, hut neither this 
reflection, nor the consciousness which is 
a part of it, that in future my support, de¬ 
pends entirely on my personal exertions have 
been powerless to destroy the apathy sur¬ 
rounding me. I lack the impulses of my 
father’s approval, am no longer stimulated 
by his pride in me. Whatever judgment 
the world might give of my work, such as 
it was, his verdict of* well done ’ was worth 
more to me, guileless and almost, childish in 
its simplicity like his pleasure in iny ambition. 
“ I wrote, — beside that I wished to aid in 
procuring my own maintenance, — for his 
gratification and for popularity. As soon as 
1 find the remaining lesser stimulants effective 
enough you shall hear from me again.” 
Of course, Susy didn’t go into details of 
how the old gray cottage and its grounds 
were mortgaged, and how the net proceeds 
of the estate, after the Ramsey claim was 
settled, would scarce leave enough to pay 
her board in some private family in the vil¬ 
lage, the plan first thought of before the 
governess scheme was advised. The cor- 
respondent was a stranger for anymore than 
their business and literary connection ren¬ 
dered them to each other. 
This sort of intercourse makes hearty good 
friends of people, though, in some instances, 
— sympathy of pursuit often will,—but for 
any move sentimental attachment,—not apt! 
Be it as it may, Susy didn’t feel well 
enough acquainted with the editor to say 
more than I’ve told you,—in a business way. 
There were, certainly, some delicate little 
touches about the matter of her great grief, 
which only she could put in, but for bulk, 
I’ve written the most of it. 
CHAPTER II. 
Here is a fireside picture. 
A tableau rieanl ,— Metropolitan, domestic; 
a sort of sui generis. 
It is at the Editor’s. The time Is night, 
and the scene a bedroom. 
It could not properly be Mr. Macwter- 
BOn’s bedroom, for a lady’s nightgown hangs 
airing on a chair by the wood fire, it is not 
a modern looking habit, but an old-fashioned 
jacket , with ruff in the neck and quaint frills 
—of good lace t hey are,—at tho w l ists. 
There is a Beebee cap, too, beside it—(I 
don’t know for certain how to spell that ad¬ 
jective to the noun, but it sounds that way.) 
Stiff and starched is the cap, with an ag¬ 
gressive-seeming muslin bow on the top¬ 
most. peak. 
Pine faggots burn in the hearth, and they 
seem to help out the gas gaily. She always 
has these on hand, the placid old lady with 
silver shining hair, who sits knitting by the 
tripod candle-stand that holds no candle— 
only her key-basket. She came from a pine 
eouutry long ago, when she was young, and 
likes their pleasant smell and their magical 
flicker now, for they tell of Eastern Virginia 
still—or North Carolina, w hichever it was— 
somewhere down there. 
A lassie with lint-white locks —“four 
years old and in my five"—some hours ago 
said “Our Father,” and “Now 1 lay me 
down," at grandmother's knee, and went off 
to the great open country of Dreams via the 
walnut crib in the corner, and a little be¬ 
yond the three-legged candle-stand sits, now* 
reading abstracted, now cutting up ex¬ 
changes, all the while thinking many strange 
thoughts, somebody who started perceptibly 
at being but softly called—“ Paul.’’ 
In the mazes of that mental labyrinth so 
invaded at last, had come a multitude of 
things not ordinarily supposed to go to the 
“make up" of an “Editor’s Table,” and 
this is the way these vagaries went, some of 
them. 
•* Black eyes, I wonder, or blue? Grey or 
liazel? Fair of complexion or dark? Of 
figure and size, bow ? Lithe and supple 
like a willow withe, or majestic and stately? 
Perhaps of ‘ pocket-size,’ as we used to say 
at college. 1 wish I knew," thought Paul 
(N ot that T would presume to call an editor 
Paul, I’m only talking after Ids mother, 
now.) 
lie had evoked those very matters in his 
mind long time ago, when Susy was the 
“new contributor,” for lie felt interested in 
the personnel of her who in such fair femi¬ 
nine handwriting sent many of tl»o best 
stories lie got for the Metropolitan, but, to 
tell the truth, he found himself speculating 
very differently now, for then he was a mar¬ 
ried man. 
Thai old lady with the silver radius about 
her brow was in some sort of psychologic 
communion with him, without doubt, for 
what sin; called him for was to say, “ I've 
been thinking so much of that young wo¬ 
man’s letter you showed me yesterday. I 
never had a stranger’s letter so impress me.” 
Paul might have tried to look indifferent 
with better success under some circumstances 
than t hose at present surrounding, no doubt, 
but as it was, I am persuaded ho was just 
attaining the precise result lie had hoped for 
from the exhibition of that document. 
It wasn’t his habit to submit business 
epistles to Ids mother—that is, those relating 
to his editorial business—and if I have not 
conjectured correctly, then I don’t know 
Why this should have been an exception. 
“ Mother ” always seemed to have enough 
to do with her housekeeping, with telling 
little Cora Bible and fairy stories,—or even 
ns she. sat knitting, knitting, with that far¬ 
away look out of her eyes,—yet Paul knew 
the worth of her sagacious opinions in most 
matters, and especially those regarding her 
Own sex. 
Indeed, do women’s ears ever grow dull, 
or their thoughts and interests inert in behalf 
of “ the old, old story?” Paul may have 
considered this, possibly. I heard an 
aged woman once—one who had numbered 
more limn her four score years and ten—an¬ 
swer when asked at what ago the female 
mind became senseless to the power of ro¬ 
mance, “ All, child! you must go ask some¬ 
body older than I am.” 
Proceeding on the fact this admission con¬ 
veys, what wonder if mother, who sat in 
the corner, invested as she was with unde¬ 
niably sober judgment too, were weaving 
for hint, the youngest and Inst left of a long 
fireside roll, something to take the place of 
the love-life that had been lost to him? 
There was a mighty blank in some of those 
yearn between bis majority and his newly- 
passed thirty-fifth birth-day. 
Little Cora, who crept in the crib at twi¬ 
light, was a brighter child than her mother 
had ever been a woman —the “mother” 
whom Paul had married in her maiden 
days for the, as I think, invalid reason that 
she fell in love with him, and lie by chance 
found it out—but that’s as you may look at it. 
She, too, had been a li»L-lockcd lassie, 
with eyes of unchanging blue, like a china 
plate, and no more depth in them than that 
shallow article I name. 
Well, she was dutiful to Paul, in her way. 
Heaven bless her for it! and moreover that 
she was woman, w’ife, mother,—90 let her 
rest, though she was no such companion to 
him in her weak dependence, as his baby 
now waB. 
Here failed the theory of harmony evolved 
of opposites. 
Paul and hi9 mother talked now about 
Susy Selden. 
“ I’d like to know her,” lie said. 
“ Then why not go to see her ? poor, lonely 
young thing! I think you might.” 
Susan was young to Mrs. Macpherson, 
though there have been much younger hero¬ 
ines of love stories. 
“ That’s It, you see!” answered the editor, 
“ it is because she is poor and lonely that 1 
don’t do as I’d like, and go to see her. If 
she had a father or brother now, to let me 
know if he thought my visit presumptious, 
then I might ” 
“ Why could she not let you know, son, if 
nhe thought it presumptions, which is at 
least ub much to the purpose? Women are 
much belter qualified to take their own part 
in such affairs than you all seem to think. 
Write to her, if you like, and ask her per¬ 
mission to pay her a visit.” 
“ If I write I shall say too much, I be¬ 
lieve," and so Paul was out with it. Not 
much matter, it soon would come, any way, 
for he had always been what the common 
people down in that country where the pine 
kuots grow, call a " maimny-child.” 
Paul sat all this time in his oriental drees- 
iug-gown and slippers. A six-foot figure of 
fair proportions and a handsome head and 
face surmounting. Eyes hazel, hail- the very 
same color, and a little shaggy rather than 
curly, complexion good, -with no beauty 
tint about it, fine mouth and teeth gullLless 
of tobacco! (Jubilate!) 
A condensed description; but then some 
people don’t like descriptions at all, and of 
course, as far as ladies in their teens go, nil 
interest in the hero’s personal appearance 
-was forfeited in an admission made just now. 
Who can say, though, that Miss Susan, 
in defect of any such inventory as this, had 
not her seasons j>f casing about and con¬ 
jecturing if, and if, ami if?—seasons follow¬ 
ing up the advent of a letter that 1 am 
going to give you a confidential glimpse of 
presently? 
One day she was walking—not “under 
the palms,” kind friend,—there was very lit¬ 
tle in her then mood that spoke of triumph, 
but. beneath the naked cherry trees that 
bounded the garden side, where an easterly 
November wind, coming in half-suppressed, 
threatening-seeming flaws, made a most 
melancholy sound. Bhe was reading a letter, 
and after “ Dear Miss Selden,” which Is the 
way the writer had always addressed her,— 
or for several years past, at all events,—it 
said: 
“ I hope yon may pardon thebluntness (a part 
of me) which I am fully sensible will insist upon 
asserting Itself even on tills occasion, when I de¬ 
sire to be more than respectful. It Is an Incon¬ 
venient attribute; but much as I condemn it In 
this aspect, It commends itself to me again in 
another,—it satisfies me I am an honest man. 
“How? 
“You shall see. 
“ I desire to write of ft theme where my feel¬ 
ings are all absorbed, fl do not overstate it.) 1 
design to inaugurate the approach thereto—as 
other people do, and as I so Bupposc is accepta¬ 
ble and right, with endeavor to conceal them by 
Borne tasteful l>y-play, revealing little by little 
what is meant until the whole matter becomes 
apparent to the person addressed. I attempt 
this gradatory style, I say, and an awkward 
break down Is the inevitable result,-it must be 
employed in a more graceful fashion than lias 
yet boon perfected in me I am sure,—but If I 
state without attempt at adornment what I 
mean, I am always on safe ground. The truth 
is always good to me, never take pleasureln my 
mortification, and so I like It. Having so stated 
my ease, do I seem to have offered sufficient 
apology for plainly asking your permission to 
visit you at Qrmaby? 
“ 1 wish T could know how you received that. 
Miss 8eli>i:n,— patiently enough for me to fol¬ 
low it up lu the next, breath by the forewarning 
that I am not coming as a friend? 
‘•Not ns a friend merely, but, if bluntly yet 
honestly still, to see if I cannot make you like 
me as something better even than u friend-like 
me ns I liavo been thinking—as 1 am eure I like 
you. I have, understand me, no good looks to 
plead my cause, but I am inspired to believe, to 
hope I may sueoeed In making you think me a 
right good (but not like your last hero Clit- 
ford, good-for-nothing) fellow. 
“ I don’t mean to Jest, just now, heaven knows, 
—men on the brink of un earthquake, for ail 
they know, don’t indulge in pleasantries. More- 
over, Miss Seldkn, I have to ask that you on 
your part, (if you delgu to answer my letter at 
all,) will not urge that this I profess Is only sym¬ 
pathy with your great sorrow. Believe me. the 
like does not happen to men — the most sympa¬ 
thetic of them—who have reached the half-way- 
house between thirty and forty. Indeed, I real¬ 
ize now that it has many a time come to me 
vaguely ere your grievous black-edged missive 
was mailed, or this, my poor reply, contrived. 
“I hnve studied you long through your writ¬ 
ing, and think I know you. You have not been 
bo interested in me, and do not know me. This 
is what I want to remedy. If you do not like 
me upon acquaintance, I shall still have what 
poor satisfaction there may be in reflecting I 
did my best to make you. 
“ Strange consolation ? 
“Then imagine. Mis* Selden, a mariner drift¬ 
ed for aye to a desolate shore, must not remorse 
sorely aggravate his lot, taunting with how, 
when the Beautiful Isles were In view, he bent 
no oar, and set no sail, to shun this or attain that? 
“In all the vicissitudes of this life, let the 
worst come to tlio worst, If one but bo able 
manfully and conscientiously to say, ‘ I did my 
best,’ there is some compensation, some shelter¬ 
ing thought, to stand between him and morbid 
and womanly melancholy. 
“But I have no business to write more than 
reiteration oi the question—May I cornel 
“MACPHERSON.” 
—[To be Continued. 
jtlioicf fftisctUami. 
LAYS THAT ARE NO MOKE. 
OB. memories of green and pleasant places, 
Whore happy birds their wood-notes twittered low! 
Oh. love that lit the dear familiar faces 
We burled long ago I 
From barren heights their sweetness wo remember, 
And buckward gase with wistful, yearning eyes; 
As hearts regret, ml<1 snowdrifts of December. 
The summer’s sunny skies. 
Glad hours that seemed their rainbow tints to borrow 
From some illumined page of fairy lore; 
Bright days that never mokod a bright to-morrow. 
Days that return no more. 
Fair gardens with tbolr many-blossomed alleyB, J 
And red-ripe rones breathing out perfume , 
Dim violet nooks in groon sequestered valleys; 
Empurpled o’er with bloom. 
Sunsets that indited up the brown-leaved beeches, 
Turning their dusky glooms to shimmering gold ; 
Moonlight mat on the river’s tern-fringed reaches 
Htrcumed, white-rayed, silvery cold. 
O’er moorlands bleak we wander weary-hearted, 
Through many a tangled wild and thorny maze, 
Rememberliigas In dreams, the dayB departed, 
The bygone happy days. 
-- 
THE IRON HORSE—ITS MASTER. 
We always feci a peculiar delight in look¬ 
ing at a locomotive. With its sinews of 
brass and muscles oflron, it seems possessed 
of conscious strength ; and wc fancy it has a 
pride all its own as it chafes under its mas¬ 
ter’s hand, lu patient power is something 
quietly grand; and no wonder the grimy- 
faced man, whose slightest will it obeys, 
comes to love it as another self. 
There is a rare experience un tasted by 
those who have never enjoyed a ride upon a 
locomotive. A terrible experience, some 
would think. The rattle, and roar, and rush 
is fearful. Let the Iron horse strike a forty- 
miles-an-hour gait when you have first be¬ 
strode him, and you will imagine yourself 
careering straight on to certain destruction. 
The little ribbons of track reaching away be¬ 
fore you, and growing closer together until 
they seem to meet, are frail guides. At every 
curve you feel that they will count for naught, 
and your fiery Bteed will leap recklessly Into 
the ditch. 
What think you of the engineer’s daily 
life? It is a continual excitement. He 
stands in the front, guarding hundreds of 
people from dangers that momentarily men¬ 
ace them. They seldom consider his cool 
daring, his careful concern for their safety. 
He gets no praise for the watchfulness which 
is constant; but if by any sad chance it is 
interrupted, and an accident ensues, he is in¬ 
dignantly cried out against. A late article 
in the Detroit Free Press, speaking of the 
life of engineers, says; 
“ You hear men and papers talk of care¬ 
less engineers, and that they grow reckless 
and too daring. It is not so. They cany 
their lives in their hand. No danger hut 
that must first pass them. Can a man be 
careless when his own life will nearly always 
he sacrificed, and he knows that it will, and 
has hundreds of precedents to ever float be¬ 
fore his vision ? They may do daring things. 
It is required of them. They must he 
prompt to decide, daring to encounter, brave 
to meet danger at any point. It is nerve that 
makes a good engineer—nerve to do what 
should he done when death is looking into 
his eyes from an open switch, a washed 
away culvert, a spread track. 
“ And how they get to love the fiery steed 
that has long obeyed their master hand! 
No horseman has such care that his pacer 
may appear well; no one prouder when the 
painter shall renew* old scrolls and letters 
with youth and beauty again. No steed like 
the one he drives, not an engine on the road 
so fast in 6pecd, so powerful of pull, so quick 
to obey the guiding baud. The ’ cab ’ is his 
home. He may have a quiet cottage in the 
suburb, a loving wife, happy children; hut 
he never mounts the step of his engine 
without feeling that he has returned from a 
visit, without his eye lighting up that he is 
to again be master of the snorting, puffing, 
racing steed whose speed is only equaled by 
the lightning spark. 
“ We hear of heroes every day; we read 
of brave deeds of men, of lives saved, oi 
heroic self-sacrifices. It is well the world 
likes brave men. But there is no greater 
hero, no braver man, no one who toils 
harder or sacrifices more, than the quiet, 
modest genius whose steady nerves shake 
death from the patli of his rushing engine, 
and lands his human freight at the end ot 
his route without man or woman dropping 
even one word to show that the danger was 
known and the heroism appreciated.” 
-——-—— 
ANOTHER STRAND OF THE CORD! 
Such was the expression of the Bishop cf 
London in the funeral sermon of George 
Peabody, which he preached on Sunday in 
Westminster Abbey. The name of Pea¬ 
body, he said, would be in future " the her¬ 
itage of two great nations, and would form 
another strand of the cord binding England 
and America.” The preacher was most 
happy in that illustration. To America 
George Peabody owed his birth, life educa¬ 
tion and those early labors which made him 
a Christian gentleman and a philanthropist, 
as well as a millionaire. England has been 
largely the recipient, of his magnificent 
bounties. Wc cannot forget that lie was the 
child and citizen of this country—one who 
did honor to his birthright and his citizen¬ 
ship. Euglaud will remember him as a 
benefactor to that class of her poor people 
who stand most in need of help—the indi¬ 
gent workingmen and their families The 
discrimination of Mr. Peabody in donating 
his means—in this country to purposes of a 
high order of education in institutes and 
colleges, and in England to the wants of the 
poor—shows how wise was his judgment 
and how well he understood the immediate 
requirements of both countries In this 
way he has certainly added another strand 
to the cord binding England to America, for 
the most enduring strand in that cord ought 
to he gratitude.— 
---— 
SELF-CONFIDENCE. 
When aerials befalls you, and the emer¬ 
gency requires moral courage and manhood 
to meet it, he equal to the requirements of 
the moment and rise superior to the ob¬ 
stacles in your path. The universal testi- 
mony ol men whose experience exactly 
coincides with yours furnishes the consoling 
reflection that difficulties may he ended by 
opposition. There is no blessing equal to 
the possession of a stout heart. Tlieiuagni 
tude of the danger needs nothing more than 
a greater effort than ever at your hand. II 
you prove recreant in the hour of trial you 
are the worst of recreants, and deserve no 
compassion. 
Be not dismayed nor unmanned when you 
should be hold and daring, unflinching and 
resolute. The cloud whose threatening mur¬ 
murs you hear with dread is pregnant with 
blesaiug, and the frown whose sternness 
makes you shudder and tremble,’ will ere 
long he succeeded by a smile of bewitching 
sweetness and benignity. Then be strong 
and manly, oppose equal forces to open 
difficulties, keep a stiff upper lip, and trust 
in Providence. Greatness can only be 
achieved by those who are tried. The con¬ 
dition of that achievement is confidence in 
one’s self. 
-- - 
SUGGESTIVE BRIEFS. 
Patience is always crowned with success. 
Tlife rule is without an exception. It may 
not be a splendid success, hut patience never 
takes anything in hand that it does not suc¬ 
ceed with in some form. 
The only way for a man to escape being 
found out i 9 to pas9 for what he is. The 
only way to maintain a good character Is to 
deserve it. It is easier to correct our faults 
than to conceal them. 
Life is a hook of which we can have hut 
one edition, Let each day’s actions, as the) 
add their pages to the indestructible volume, 
be such as we shall he willing to have an as¬ 
sembled world read. 
. There is no fortune so good but that it 
. may he reversed, and none so bad but that it 
may lie bettered. The sun that rises in 
‘ clouds may set in splendor, and that which 
, rises in splendor may set in gloom. 
To be engaged is good and useful; to be 
idle is pernicious with evil. They who do 
good are employed, but they who spend iheii 
i time in vain recreation arc idle. 
. The selfish man’s head is like a man’s cof- 
. fin is just his own measure, long enough 
i and broad enough to hold himself, with room 
■ for no one else. 
No man, whether rich or poor, can make 
or retain a good and useful position in life, 
| without the two valuable habits of punctu- 
! ality and temperance. 
God hath sown sweet seeds within us— 
; seeds of sympathy— whose buds are virtue 
_ such as lfioom in heaven. 
The aim of an honest man’s life is not the 
happiness which serves only himself, but the 
• virtue which is useful to others. 
The greatest friend of truth is time, her 
greatest enemy is prejudice, and her constant 
[ companion is humility. 
Those who by faith see the invisible God 
• and the fair city, make no account of present 
i losses and crosses. 
