APBII 
Bernice, you fear to trust me ? Tell me 
so! No, little girl, God helping me, 1 will be 
as worthy to be your brother then, as now, 
let us hope more so,” he said in a lower voice. 
“ I am very glad,” she said, putting her 
hands into his with a frank smile. 
He caught them eagerly now, so true, so 
pure they were! He almost believed her; 
would have told her of his love,— God knows 
how overmastering it was,—but the girl drew 
her hand away, quite naturally. 
“ There come the children,” she said, 
rising, as the group rushed shouting to her 
across the lawn again. Fiutz felt a pang of 
pain, deeper than any he had known yet- 
“ No, she does not love me; she does not 
even suspect; better so,” he thought, gather¬ 
ing up her shawl to follow her. 
She took it from him. “ There is Carrie, 
and the others with her, crossing the lawn 
towards the river. They want you.” 
“Never mind them,” he said quickly; 
however, looking over to see if Belle 
Bishop's blonde curls were in Bight. 
Whether Bernice followed and divined 
his look is uncertain, but she only took the 
shawl from him quietly. 
“ I promised to read the first chapter of 
‘Robinson Crusoe' to the children; I dare¬ 
say it won't he a bit interesting to you," she 
said, with no tone of pique or jealousy, and 
turning she started for the group of little 
heads coming nearer. 
“ Beiinie,” he said, taking a step after her, 
“ won’t you promise to talk to me, and let 
me talk to you again,” a tender look he 
thought she could not fail to notice, in his 
eyes. But the look was lost upon her. 
“ I’m always in the nursery or somewhere 
with the children. Why, yes, of course, 
Fritz !" she said, and had no tune for more, 
for the children were clinging to her. 
“ Come now, Bernik, the Crusoe book is 
fotmd. Your candies were glorious, Fritz,” 
little Jack shouted, his mouth bearing un¬ 
mistakable attestations of the truth of His 
statement, “ most of all the taffy.” 
Fritz bowed to him in a manner that set¬ 
tled his mind that he was “ a Jolly good fel¬ 
low, and treated him as though he was a 
man, not a little chap,” and as queen Ber¬ 
nice and her cohort entered the hall door, 
her graceful young cousin stood at Belle 
Bisnor's side. 
The children pleaded she would take tea 
in the nursery, when it grew too dark to see 
to read more, and she heard the voices com¬ 
ing in from the lawn. 
“ Do, Bernie, please,” pleaded Jack ; 
need. She never came in his way. It 
almost angered him to think she was so in¬ 
different and cold. He always read that 
face, no matter how short a glimpse he 
caught from it, but a certain secret he never 
won from it. Whether she guessed of his 
love,—whether she ever felt a deeper love 
than she gave to him,—he did not know. 
She was so childlike in her simplicity; there 
were no little trials of his constancy, no 
little affectations, such as lie had been accus¬ 
tomed to. Yet why, he argued, should he 
force her secret from her, even in the smallest 
way? Why make her life dark or sad, 
happy little Berne ? It was unmanly, un¬ 
generous in him! But even as he had owned 
this, a desperate hunger arose in his strong 
soul; he recognized the purity of his love, 
but dared not put the cup to his lips. 
Was he weak, was he unmanly? There 
are just such dreams, bom into all lives, 
more or less. All men and women are play¬ 
ing a tragic part in the drama of life. Un¬ 
derneath the calm, white masks of faces, the 
starved soul shrinks and often dies. Some¬ 
times the wrong is righted; sometimes the 
farce is dropped; oftener, the moment when 
death strips the lie from the soul, it begins 
its only true living I 
“ Three blind old women Bit spinning the 
world ”—and on their spindle the threads of 
most of our lives, somehow, get entangled! 
Back from following her look to the calm 
mountain tops, and slow falling river, where 
the first rays of gray light slanted now, 
Fritz brought Ills eyes to her face. One 
moment of wonderment, the first that ever 
came to him in looking at it, he felt now. A 
certain forced, fixed, quiet, but terrible stern¬ 
ness, wrapped it strangely. Her hands had 
dropped the vine, and lay clasped in her lap, 
as though “ chiseled from one marble " Her 
soft, rare eyes were inexorably just; her 
whole attitude might have been a statue of 
stern, sad triumph. But the next Instant he 
lost it all; she was Berne again, and had 
interrupted the long pause there had fallen 
since he finished speaking, and said simply: 
“ You won’t see many prettier sights than 
our river, Fritz, in nil your foreign travel. 
It’s lovely at this time! See the Catskills! 
Fritz, wouldn’t it be fine to turn into a 
great, glorious mountain when one died, and 
always look back on the world, quiet and 
grand, you know?” 
She spoke earnestly, but with a smile on 
her lips. 
“Yes. Never mind the dying, though, 
when life needs us just now more”— he said 
hast ily, but et ill looking at her. “ You did n't 
say a word about how sariy you felt at my 
going, nor what delectable letters you would 
write a fellow when he was leagues of miles 
from any one he know,” (he had “ loved” on 
his lips, but checked the word.) “ nor how 
naughty you had been In deserting your 
brother Fritz for the enfant* terrible yonder. 
Come, confess you’re sorry, and that you wifi 
be a belter child, and I’ll he ever so mag¬ 
nanimous and forgive you; of course after a 
penance or so.” 
His wild, light spirits were coming back 
to him. 
“ There’s nothing, only your going, to be 
sorry for, and even that is for your own 
good; and to tell you I was sorry, only that 
it kept you from us all, wouldn’t be a bit 
sisterly or kind." 
She said this so quietly—“ kept you from 
us all 1”—a jealous pang crept over his heart. 
“ I believe you are turning into stone, 
Bernice ! You care! You needn't say any 
more; you’ve proved your disinterestedness 
sufficiently, thank you!” 
His tone was coldly sarcastic—bitter even. 
The next moment he saw a grieved look in 
her eyes, and caught her hand in both his 
own. 
“ There, Berne I Fm just such a stupid! 
Hang it! What a tongue I have in my head. 
Don’t look so; I’ll never forget your face for 
the next four years if you do I” 
“ Then I shall surely look so, Fritz,” she 
laughed. “I am -weak enough to like being 
remembered so”— 
“ What a child it is!—taking me up so 
cruelly. Berne, you must come into so¬ 
ciety ; you’ve learned the science; you will 
do. I shall protest against your being kept 
in the nursery after this. What shall I do 
but remember you, you darling little goose.” 
She drew her hand back; her smile was 
gone. 
“ Four years is a long time, Fritz ! Four 
years ago seems an age to me!" that wistful 
look in her eyes now. “ You must have an 
excellent memory, to remember me as I am 
now, all these coming years; and 1 shall not 
promise to remember you — I may not want 
to, you kuow!” 
Was she toying with his heart ? Was she 
guessing at his secret ? he wondered. Sur¬ 
prise, almost swift anger, clouded his face; 
he would have spoken, but she interrupted 
him. 
“Yon know I shall be wondering what 
you will be like, and after awhile I shall de¬ 
cide upon you, and if you’re not up to my 
standard, I’ll disown you when you come 
back.” 
He understood her now. 
rtisfs. 
ART GOSSIP 
pale, loving mistress died. IIo remem¬ 
bered the vacations he had spent there, 
the quiet talks in that west wing by 
her low couch. “ One of my boys,” she 
always called him, her mother-heart wide 
enough for all the world. His sainted “ cou¬ 
sin-mother I” 
How the gay scenes of this summer had 
shut out that pale face from his sight! He 
had enjoyed this flirtation with Belle 
Bishop, Carrie’s “ intimate,” immensely ! 
Was it any the more palatable because she 
was the only child of a rich old banker, 
Fritz? 
He had thought over all these things, ly¬ 
ing awake last night; for there was a strife 
in his heart, a battle of which no one knew 
or dreamed, save the handsome owner of 
that worldly organ. Now that these four 
years of parting were so close, he had taken 
the inner key to a private soul-sanctum, and 
gone in during the hours of that quiet night, 
just passed. There was a soft, undeveloped 
young face in the shadow,—the only face he 
had loved in all his gay, wild young life. She 
did not dream of this. No, — she never 
would. Brother he had been, brother lie 
would be! It was better to go without this 
revelation than awaken a dream that could 
never be anything but a memory. So Fritz 
Eldwyer fought the battle out, and conquer¬ 
ed. In his heart he belonged to the child at 
whose feet he now lay, feeling all unworthy 
of her; and yet he meant to commit himself 
to that other with her pretty simper, her shal¬ 
low, unsatisfactory soul, before lie left Amer¬ 
ica. “ This week,” he had said lost night; 
but that morning as he passed the library 
door, where, over ihc Times, Bernik sat 
reading to her father, an unseen glimpse of 
her face had determined him. lie would 
give this, the truest week lie should ever 
know, to her. It would be like a restful 
dream, to remember by-and-by. 
So from the others lie had sought her. She 
seldom came among them. If after an even¬ 
ing when she came down her clear, dark 
little face, lit up by the unusual excitement, 
her rather tall, imperfect form, graceful in its 
cont rast to the polished, passe woman of the 
world, a young and enthusiastic girl, or a 
man of the world who saw in her rare pow¬ 
ers of future beauty said to her elegant sis¬ 
ter,—“ Miss Allison, why is your younger 
sister so exclusive ? Why have we not seen 
more of her? She is remarkably selfish,”— 
Adelaide always said, and in truth,—“ Oh, 
little Berne ! she is our eccentricity ! She 
ia a child in the school room, and always 
pleads to be left in the nursery; and since 
my mother’s death the dear little thing is so 
comforting to the cliildren l In time, I do 
not doubt but she will cut of the forbidden 
firait, and tease for party dresses; now, it is 
delightful to have her a child.” 
So it was 1 From the Judge, who always 
had her for amanuensis, reader, companion, 
in headaches a physician, in music or drives 
a satisfactory little body, to the older girls, 
whose toilet she could finish by a touch of 
her fingers, altering a flower, adjusting a 
curl, and always their most ardent admirer. 
The tall brothers stooped to kiss little 
Berne. If a gay sport rallied them on her 
motherly ways to them, or her ruiivete, they 
always hushed the fellow. It was not 
Bernice whoso name they would hear 
Jested with or even lightly handled; and as 
for the children, they were her sworn allies, 
always the group about her, from breakfast 
in the nursery till bed hour, and she heard 
their prayers and kissed their lips good-night. 
Why was it that, unconsciously, she was 
the home idol ? It was the mother-look in 
her face,—the days beside that quiet, pale- 
faced invalid,—the parting gift of that dead 
mother’s grace and tenderness. Yet she 
was not perfect, often quite human in her 
little faults; and a9 for beauty she was the 
plainest of them all. In time, that clear 
olive skin, that oval face, the now undecided 
chin and faulty feature^, might strengthen; 
but Bernie was quite unconscious that her 
large brown, wistful ejTs were the character 
of the woman she would be, — those eyes 
that held a second glance and left you won¬ 
dering what their charm could be. 
Then, no one quite comprehended her. 
They were content to call her inexplicable, 
eccentric. It was the mother who had said 
to Fritz, “ Bernice is my blessing and ray 
fear. She is all fire and nerve. A touch in 
the wrong way would mar her for life. She 
is a delicate instrument, that has all the hid¬ 
den harmony and sweetness still undisclosed, 
but which the master hand alone knows how 
to call forth. I cannot bear to leave Ber¬ 
nie, Fritz." He had promised by that pil¬ 
low to be a tender brother to her; he had 
even been tempted to saj r more, but had not 
spoken. Had the instinctive mother-love 
guessed the secret ? 
And now was he true to his promise? 
Had he been a “good brother” to the little 
girl ? No; he knew how studiously he had 
avoided her this season. There had been no 
Among the sales of pictures this present 
month, that of Mr. George H. Hall was im¬ 
portant. The collection consisted of fruit, flower 
and Spanish figure pieces, which arc specialties 
with this artist. For richness, warmth and soft¬ 
ness of color. Hall la superior. The prices 
brought were much below those usually received 
by Oils artist. The entire proceeds of the sale, 
exclusive of the frames of pictures, amounted to 
something aver $8,000. " The Precious Lading,” 
a gaily caparisoned mule, laden with the richest, 
ripest, and most luscious of Spanish fruits, with 
driver, brought $525. “Enrtqucta,” a beautiful 
little Spanish girl, brought $400. 
Visitors at the Portland, Me- Fair, in behalf 
of tho widows and orphans of the dead soldiers 
of that State, will have an opportunity of view¬ 
ing some pain ti tigs by some of the best New Yoi k 
artists. Samuel Colman, A. D. Shattuck, and 
T. L. Smith send characteristic iandscupes. W. 
H. Beard sends a “ Poor Acquaintance come to 
Beg," which is a." Bear ” picture, fall of humor¬ 
ous satire. M. F. H. Du Haas leans a large 
marine picture, George Innkss a pastoral land¬ 
scape, and James m. and Wm. Hart large land¬ 
scapes of fine execution. 
It is said that a collection of Gustave Dore's 
pictures, sent to this country for exhibition, are 
detained in the New York Custom uouso in 
abeyance of a protective law for heme artists. 
Mrs. Eliza Creatokex, an artist of excel¬ 
lent repute and many years’ experience at home 
and abroad, has bean turning her pencil of late 
to sketch-making in India ink. During the past 
year or t wo ftbe has made sketches of a number 
of the old churches and places of historical in¬ 
terest about this city. She finds homo subjects 
quite as picturesque 83 any In tho Old World. 
In person she Is strikingly handsome, with a tall, 
slender figure, a refined face, and her hair, which 
is snowy white, fails in a loose, clustering way 
about her face and neck. Mlsa C. A. G raswold 
and Mists Julia OfflHGM bavo also been doing 
some fine work in India ink. For correct draw¬ 
ing. intelligent distinctions in light and shade, 
a good pen-and-ink picture furnishes an inter¬ 
esting study. People are becoming bo educated 
a# to admire what ia well done In art, oven if not 
pleased with the subject. Abstract appreciation, 
ia oftentimes tho truest. 
Pierce Francis Connei.lv, a young Ameri¬ 
can sculptor now In Florence, is attracting 
attention by a group illustrating a phaso of our 
late war. It is called “ Honor Contending with 
Death.” Death, riding a horse, is confronted by 
Honor, who heroically stands upright, breaking 
Death's banner stall and tearing his dug, while 
on the ground lie three other combatants pros¬ 
trate. The model is five feet high. Mr. Con¬ 
nelly shows, also, unusual success tu bust 
portraiture. 
The Gouml-Knoedlbu Art Gallery, recently 
opened at the corner of Twenty-second street 
and Fifth avenue, is, so far us architectural ar¬ 
rangement goes, the finest art resort, ip the city. 
Most of the paintings there shown are quite 
new. The place of honor is filled by F. Church’s 
new “Niagara." The canvas ia large, nearly 
square, and covered with a quiet flow of green 
wat ers 'and mist that rises like clouds. It is con¬ 
sidered much inferior to his former efforts in 
portraying this great, waterfall. The picture 
attracts by its pronounced appearance, but is 
quite unsatisfactory as a study, The ohromos 
made of it are fair. 
Bauqctet, « French artist, is represented by 
an interior of which a fair young woman in deep 
mourning is the Center piece. The jet trimming 
on her dress, tho heavy, dead lusterless silk, and 
the crape sleeves and chemisette revealing the 
moulded arm and fatmesa of throat and bust 
show the perfection of Umpery painting. This 
picture is a complement to one by the same art¬ 
ist, called “ The Marriage Morning," which sold 
a few days since lor over a thousand dollars. 
The bride sits alone in her boudoir, clad in her 
wedding dress, a pale gray silk, with overdress 
of luce, bordered with two lace flonnoe9. She 
has fastened one bracelet and is toying with the 
other, a sense of the now position she is about 
to assume seems to have come over her, and a 
sadness, but not “ without bope," has crept Into 
her eyes «ud around the sweet moulding of her 
mouth, Bauquiet paints the loveliest women, 
and never forgets to put soul into their charm¬ 
ing faces. 
“After a Bull Fiobt," Is the subject of a 
planting by Oerome, ordered front France by a 
Cincinnati gentleman, who.it is said, paid $10,000 
for this medium cabinet picture by the great 
French artist. It shows a section of the arena, 
with scuts rising one above another, filled with 
spectators in the various attitudes and with the 
expressions so characteristic of similar assem¬ 
blages. One horee lies dead and his rider is 
staggering out of the ring. Another rider, in 
gatiy hued adornments, is astride a steel white 
charger, who9e eyes are blinded. With a long 
weapon in his hand, he is keenly awaiting the 
attack of the enraged bull. The picture is 
admirably life-like, and worthy tho fame of 
Gehome. 
A. Wordsworth Thompson, a pleasing young 
artist, has been painting a number of smull pic¬ 
tures Illustrative of Southern life. He shows a 
true appreciation of “poor white trash," and 
delineates the dubious beau ties of that degraded 
class of our countrymen with fidelity, as well as 
the general appearance of Southern landscapes. 
“ Fruit and Flowers." by J. Rome, of Brus¬ 
sels. sold recently in New York for $1,800. “The 
Baron's Dauohter,” by A. Siegert, of Dusscl- 
dorf, for $1,000. The young woman scans the 
countenance of the sleeping nobleman, to see if 
he is really asleep, as she has Borne reading to do 
of a lees somnolent character than the musty 
volume that has put her father to sleep. 
Fitch’s Art Oallery at Darien, Conn., In con¬ 
nection with the “ Home for Disabled Soldiers 
and their Orphan Children,” contains many pic¬ 
tures by French artists, and some most admir¬ 
able copies of Rosa Bonuelr’s cattle pieces 
und grand designs of Murillo, Cohregcio, 
Raphael, and Rubens, Tho pictures wore se¬ 
lected with a view not only to artistic education 
but to Inspire heroic endeavors and lnculcato 
the truest morality. When tho soldiers enlisted, 
BksjAMINE Fn-cn said: “I'm too old to go with 
you; hut go yourselves I Do your duty; and if 
you never come back I will see that your child¬ 
ren have a home.” The record of such a pledge 
kept, needs no fulsomeness of praise. 
becoming demoralized. I toolc it up as mis¬ 
sionary work,” she said, a smile that was 
almost, sad coming to her face, “beside— lie- 
side, I always liked children better than 
grown folks, and 1 feel formal and stiff in 
the parlors there. Then, Fritz, 1 feel nearer 
her — doing Iter work.” 
His eyes were full of tears now. This was the 
pure little face lie left for those up yonder, to 
flatter and smile and talk soft nothings to; and 
in contrast they grew even plain and un¬ 
lovable, some of those beautiful women, 
beside his childish little cousin, Bernie. 
“ Yes! but when my time is almost gone, 
little one! You know this is my lust week 
before Albert, Max and myself go off on 
our hunting tour. Then when we return 
you will bo back in town, and what with 
your school and the like, I should scarcely 
see you, let alone my going to Germany; it’s 
only a few months now. Lot us see; why, 
it’s September, and 1 sail in eight weeks t” 
He had lost that trifling tone, that cynical 
air, and was the same Fritz she knew of 
old. She was ashamed to feel the tears 
rising to her eyes; but there they were, and 
she turned her face to the river. Something 
in the haze of fading light brought back her 
life there with him since her little baby¬ 
hood — pictures of just such days, dream9 
the twilight brought her now; and she was 
only a child of seventeen, you know. 
“When,— whon I come back, Bernie, 
four years from now, how different will it 
be! Adelaide married ; Carrie, probably, 
ditto; you an engaged young lady of the 
world, who will probably let me kiss your 
hand affectedly, and won’t be conscientious 
enough to tell Jack and the nursery tribe 
not to repeat the pretty compliment the 
young gentlemen pay their sister.” 
He spoke now rather indifferently, yawned, 
as he finished his sentence, and tossed a 
handful of grass in her lap; yet how deeply 
he meant those seemingly careless words, 
how ins proud heart ached to tell her they 
were true ! 
Fritz Eldwyer was essentially a man of 
the world. Bom with a fine, instinctive, 
luxuriant taste, which poverty could not 
blunt or kill; orphaned with a fortune only 
large enough to support him through col¬ 
lege, nnd now fit him for his medical course 
in Germany,— for his father was a student 
in old Heidelberg before him; his only rela¬ 
tive, Bernie’b father, his second cousin, had 
done much in fitting him for the position he 
held. But whether poor, or purse filled, he 
was one of those general favorites to whom 
the world bow9. Beloved, courted, favored, 
with a fund of wit, a handsome lace and 
figure, easy, courteous manners,— it is no 
wonder he was a little spoiled, a little proud 
of his social, moral, and college standing, bis 
esprit, his pretty cousins, the families where 
he had the right of entree. And yet he was 
politic, this young Adonis. Full well he 
knew his powers of fascination; full well he 
guarded that heart of liis, that none ever 
knew but its owner. 
He coujd marry,— of course he could,— 
dozens of clever, pretty women; but he fore¬ 
saw the end, in a home where beauty and 
an empty larder went side by side. He must 
marry a fortune. Love was well enough, he 
wished ho could indulge in it; if love and 
money harmonized, well and good; if not,— 
a poor mcdicin, with a loving little wife, 
equally poor, was out of the question. 
True, there were his cousins,— Adelaide, 
but she was not available, for Col. Thorne 
had Btepped in before all others; Carrie, 
full of humor, fun-loving, imperious, a showy 
t) sort of girl, but she was too much like him- 
self, they would assuredly quarrel; little 
Bernice, —here he always came to the same 
i} conclusion; his cousin Mortimer’s family 
was a large one, their tastes and style of 
? living expensive, he had lost his invalid wife, 
/ aud was not an old man, he would marry 
f/| again, undoubtedly,— no, it was folly for 
$ him to think of any of the three. 
WITHOUT AN ENEMY. 
Heaven help the man who imagines he 
can dodge enemies by trying to please every¬ 
body ! If sueh an individual ever succeeded 
we should be glad of it—not that we believe 
in a man going through the world trying to 
find beams to knock and thump hi3 poor 
head against, disputing every man’s opinion, 
fighting and elbowing and crowding all who 
differ with him. That, again, is another 
extreme. Other people have a right to their 
opinion, so have you ; don’t fall into the error 
of supposing they will respect you less for 
maintaining it, or respect you more for turn¬ 
ing your coat every day to match the color 
of theirs. Wear your own colors in spite of 
wind or weather, storm or sunshine. It costs 
the vacillating and irresolute ten times the 
trouble to wind, and shuffle, and twist, that 
it does honest, manly independence to stand 
its ground. 
