smoked. When she saw him she came up 
to him. 
“And where have you been? 1 have 
missed you. This is our last evening, too,” 
she said, in her timid way, so sweet, and so 
bitter to the man. 
lie gave her his arm and led her out into 
the moonlight. 
“ I’ve been packing. That means putting 
my shaving case into my valise and losing 
the key,” he said at last, “ You know I am 
going to Liverpool to-morrow and then home 
to America, Hake V” 
She shivered, (not that the air was chill, 
for John had brought her shawl,) and turned 
very white. 
They walked up and doyvn silently then. 
“This lias been a very pleasant summer to 
me, and I shall not forget it, — noteven when 
you go to make him happy, Rake,” John 
said at length. 
Rake’s voice was bitter. 
“There is no such thing as happiness,” 
she said. 
“ Ah, yes! There is, little girl, and there 
is a ' Fairy Priucc,’ and you and he will 
‘journey through the land together home,’ ’’ 
John said, his old lightness gone. 
Rake looked into Iris face. What parting 
words they said in the still, solemn moon¬ 
light, I do not know. Perhaps if I did know, 
I would not tell. Some things belong to 
God. 
Then suddenly John Montague lifted 
her faec between his hands and hissed it 
without a word. 
Then they went in. 
CHAPTER VI. 
Something had gone out of John’s life, 
Cl aka thought, even when she first kissed 
him in the rectory hall that November eve¬ 
ning. Less of t he old lightness; more steady, 
persistent purpose. 
“ I’ve dabbled long enough. I threw the 
pallets aud brushes away forever. I am 
going to work. That’s why 1 came home 
so suddenly. I am going into business, 
Claiia. Swru j part or kind of work, if it be 
wood-chopping! I’m tired of my thirty- 
seven years of elegance! ” 
She seldom saw that look of earnestness 
on his face, she seldom caught that decisive 
ring of power in his tone. He threw hack 
his head and laughed. That old, light, boyish 
laugh. 
“ You look as horrified as though Eustace 
had proposed to abandon the. ministry mid 
become a horse-jockey. Is the metamor¬ 
phosis so alarming, little sister? ” he asked. 
“ ‘ Alarming ’ ” ? No! you terrible oltl 
darling, it is too good to be true,” she said, 
flying at him and kissing him, much to his 
amazement. 
“ There, there, 1 cry * peccant} only don’t 
rumple my tie. Eustace used to have the 
opportunity of testing how nearly a man 
could choke without dying, when 1 left you.” 
“ Malicious wretch! Eustace never com¬ 
plained of an injured respiration, and since 
the Christmas he locked himself up in the 
upper part of the house to avoid that sup¬ 
posed conspiracy, (he told me so afterwards,) 
lie has evinced unbounded confidence in 
everything Ido! But come, John, you’ve 
not told mo about Rake. She is so soon 
comiug, bless her, that I shall judge for my¬ 
self; but she is a beauty, is she not?” 
This was what John dreaded most of all. 
“Yes! She is very beautiful,” he said, at 
last. 
“ And has she found the 1 Fairy Prince,’ 
John?” asked Clara, anxiously. 
“ I did not say so. She will if she has not. 
But I see 1 was correct. A woman will talk 
to a man, even if that man yawns in her 
face, if he will answer questions. Clara, 
I’m going to bed.” 
lie kissed her in a sudden tenderness, and 
when he had left her she stood so long, star¬ 
ing into the grate, that she bcorched the 
front breadth of her dross. 
“Eustace,” she said, going across to the 
study and making him look up from his 
writing, “ Eustace, what is the matter with 
that boy?” for she still clung to her old way 
of speakiug about John. 
The Reverend, as was his wont, rumpled 
his hair and looked hopeless. A sudden 
idea brightened him. 
“ My darling, he is in love,” lie said. 
“ Preposterous! You men never compre¬ 
hend anything 1 ” she said, almost angrily. 
“ I should have anticipated such a reply.” 
But she relented and forgave him, sitting 
on the arm of his chair and admiring the 
sermon he was writing, while she pitied the 
stupidity of lus sex most thoroughly. 
The next day John went hack to New 
York, pleading business, but chiefly, I think, 
to escape Clara’s eyes. 
He did not return till near Christmas. 
Mrs. Ohmsby came into the library at 
dusk, from a long day spent in trimming the 
church in its holly aud green, to flmi John’s 
head looming up from the dusk in the study 
chair. 
“ How glad I am ! ” she said, “ and 1 am 
actually getting nervous for to-morrow and 
Rape. She must sing for us; I’m hungry 
for the sound of her voice; I’ve been up to 
the house to-night, and bugged old Hannah 
fur sympathy. The iioiiBC is lovely with its 
elegant wiltons, and paintings, and marbles, 
and bronzes; I’ve fixed up vines and flowers, 
too. I saw some one on the beach, it 
couldn’t have been you, John ? ” 
“Yes, Clara, 1 took my first lesson in 
living on that ojd beach,” he said, in a slow, 
reverent way, putting an arm about her ten¬ 
derly, “and it was from a child singing a 
German hymn. I have never forgotten it! ” 
“ You want something,” she said, struck 
by the change in him till the tears came to 
her eyes, “you want something, John, and 
what is it?” 
“ I want—R ake Schaffer,” he said. 
There had always been a sweet freedom 
between them over since they were left alone 
in the world together, bo she looked up 
into his earnest face awhile, and she laid 
her head down upon her “ old darling’s 
arm,” and cried, silently. 
The clock of St. Bede’s struck five. It 
was the same clock the girl in the garret 
heard so long ago. That legend was one of 
His ministers, and just as surely had it 
wrought its mission. 
“ But John, dear, you were too old for 
her ‘Fairy Prince’ alter all,” she said. He 
came in slashed doublet and with plumed 
hat and glittering sword, and you—” 
“ And 1 am old and lonely,” lie said, 
“ and I should have needed to bo shown the 
way. But Clara, 1 would have been a 
saint—I would have walked over coals of 
fire, thrown my choicest Havanas under the 
Juggernaut of duty, given my best broad¬ 
cloth suit to the heathen, shaved my head, 
become, as amiable as a superannuated Nor¬ 
wegian bear, even, if 1 could have had the 
happiness of the- reverend, despite his cleri¬ 
cal hangings and his dyspepsia from over¬ 
feeding. It is over with. I shall never tell 
another woman the story I told Rape.” 
The little woman enveloped his elbows, 
seeing she could reach no further up, there 
was a sweet, sad smile on her face. 
“John, it is best, perhaps. 1 will love 
you always,” she said, because she could say 
no more. 
He looked down at her, and for the first 
time, she saw that he liad a letter in his hand. 
“ It is from Rafe. She had no time to 
write you,dear,” he said, gently, and stopped 
once or twice, all the old merriment gone 
from his voice forever, Clara thought. 
“Ah, Clara, was it vain, was It foolish? 
Aud now Rake has found the ‘ Fairy Prince’ 
alter all, as I knew she would, and you will 
see him at her coming Christmas Eve, and 
that is to-morrow, and on New Year’s day 
there is to be a wedding in St. Bede’s, and 
Eustace is to officiate,and Eunn Rafe will 
give away the bride.” 
There came a long pause. She lifted her 
head at last from his arm. 
“ Who is he, John? Not the Count?” she 
asked. 
“ Not the Count. Rafe does not say, and 
we shall all know to-morrow,” John an¬ 
swered. 
“ Well, it must be somebody nice, after all, 
fur Rafe has good taste, and her uncle has 
common sense, and yet,—oh, John ! John 1” 
she said lifting her face and kissing him. 
All the next day she busied herself at the 
house where Hannah in an excited, and al¬ 
most malicious state awaited the “ coming 
man.” Whether it was to keep his pain 
from her, she did not know, but John kept 
away from them all day. But when night 
came and she re-tied the Reverend’s cravat, 
and awaited with him the travelers, in the 
library, she had time to feel proud of the 
noble way in which John had taken his 
defeat. 
And at last they came, Eliuu Rafe lead¬ 
ing his darling, John bringing in the shawls, 
and Rafe, grown taller and with a joy in 
her eyes, sobbing on Clara’s shoulders, 
woman fashion. 
“But, darling, where is lie?” asked the 
vector’s lady at length, with a pang for the 
pain it. must, cause John’s honest heart, and 
wondering if Rape knew all it cost, him to 
smile so warmly at her coming. 
“ It is Rape’s turn to surprise you, Clara," 
John answered lor her. “ You gave her the 
besl Christmas gift of her life, and now she 
brings you another. Oh ! little woman, you 
did not know when you were wasting such 
sweet pity on me, how hard it was for me 
to keep my secret. For Rape took me that 
night at Interlachen, and here lie is, this 
worthless, good-for-nothing brother of yours 
who is indeed the ‘ Fairy Prince,’ although 
he little deserves to be." 
“ John, you always were a rascal! I be¬ 
grudge every tear. You are lost to my 
sympathy forever. But I always did say, 
"(didn’t I?) Rake had good taste, and her 
uncle common sense, even if it is. poorly dis¬ 
played this time," Clara said, saucily, 
through her tears. 
bo that Christmas service at St. Bede’s 
was a very happy one. And Rape sang in 
the service, her voice thrilling so exultantly 
that old Hannah, in the gallery, felt inclined 
to say, “The world is a coinin’ to a end!” 
and to throw her apron over her new bon¬ 
net, just as she used. 
And that afternoon the odors of Christmas 
pudding steamed through the library key¬ 
hole so long in vain that again the pretty 
hostess wiggled the knob in a premonitory 
manner, and threatened “ the dinner would 
be spoiled,” and it was not John this time 
who fell asleep in the easy chair. 
And when the New Year dawned white 
and clear, Rape looked from the old garret 
window down through the little straight 
village street to the rectory chimneys and 
the spires of St. Bede’s once more, and her 
eyes filled with tears ;is she repeated the 
legend softly to herself, 
And the fairy godmother, who, with her 
own hands, decked Rape in her bridal white, 
looked at her and saw that the “ child was 
a child no longer, but a beautiful maiden,” 
indeed. 
And there was a wedding in old St. Bede’s 
that glad New Year, and bravely the bells 
rocked in the steeple, and bravely Rape’s 
heart re-echoed the “ Peace on earth, good 
will toward men,” that smiled at her from 
the wall. And Elijiu Rape gave away the 
bride in stalely dignity, and old Hannah 
superintended the wedding feast. So the 
girl who sat reading under the old blanket 
had found the end of the story. And the 
end was sweeter than t he beginning. They 
went home at once to the dear old house, 
and as the twilight of the New Year folded 
down upon the world, aud the sea lay calm 
and silent in the dusk, they walked down 
upon the sands again. The tide crept, in,— 
the ceaseless tide to whom there are but two 
anthems that, are never old, Life, and Death! 
But Love, which tides through eternity, and 
beyond time, survives both. 
“ I found you here, my darling, and you 
sung me to a better life,” John said, “and 
I bless God for that! ‘All our times be in 
His hand.’ But, my darling, you are sure 
you are not sorry you lost the pleasure of be¬ 
ing a Countess,” he smiled in his old, fun* 
lovimr way; “you are sure that you do not 
miss the slashed doublet, the * brave faire 
knight,’ (ami J’ve painted the maiden in the 
picture, and put a smile into the eyes that 
look through the wood,) and you do not find 
this ‘ Fairy Prince’ of yours too old, aud ter¬ 
rible and gray ?” 
His voice was deeply reverent. 
For answer she laid her face upon her 
husband’s heart and said,— 
“ ‘ Bo the maiden followed her lover, and 
the forest and poor hut and the sharp 
hunger and thdKjgld were remembered no 
more by her forever.’ ” 
John Montague folded her to his heart 
as a man folds the woman he loves on earth 
and us ho will fold her ungel in heaven. 
“ And the rest, darling, it is all true ? The 
‘sharp wilderness’ and the ‘ thorny paths 
but we will share them, and * we will journey 
through the land together home till we come 
unto the palace gates ?' ” he said. 
And she answered him,— 
“ Yes, JonN.” 
And so Rape’s New Year had begun, and 
would never, never know any end. 
And so John was the “ Fairy Prince,” 
after all! 
-- 
A REMARKABLE WOMAN. 
There are many women quite remarkable. 
The Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Times 
tells of one living in the town of Strathum, 
that State, of whom the neighbors relate 
most extraordinary tilings. 
Miss Narky is now ninety-four years of 
age, and is as vigorous and hearty as most 
women at fifty. Bhe still does the house¬ 
work, milks the cows, makes butter and 
cheese, and reads without spectacles. She 
is small in stature, and never weighed over 
one hundred and fifteen pounds, but her 
neighbors say’ that she has been the strongest, 
woman ever known In that region. When 
she was in the prime of life sin: was once 
passing a neighbor’s house where two men 
were rigging up plunks, etc., on which to 
roll four barrels of cider into a wagon. 
Nakby laughed at what she called their 
“ cob houses,” and when they retorted with 
something about “ woman’s nonsense,” she 
showed them a specimen oflier nonsense by 
picking up the barrels of cider, one after an¬ 
other, and putting them in the wagon with 
apparent ease. 
At another time Miss Nabby was at a store 
in Greenland, where several men were lifting 
in a barrel of raw' rum. Nabby told them 
she could lift it, whereupon the owner looked 
at the little woman in astonishment, and told 
her if she could he would give her the barrel 
and contents. At this Miss Nabby took hold 
and placed it upon the counter. The owner 
acknowledged himself beaten, and told her 
she was welcome to the rum. One of her 
friends says she took it out and knocked in 
the head of the barrel; but this part of the 
story is denied. 
-w- 
Hermes says: “A beautiful and chaste 
woman is the perfect workmanship of God, 
the true glory of angels, the rare miracle of 
earth, and the sole wonder of the world.” 
iabifs’ Bort-IFoIio. 
VESPEE SONG. 
BV EBEX E. HEX FORD. 
When the twilight’s calm is falling 
From the shadows of the West, 
Then a sweet and peaceful quiet 
Settles down upon the breast. 
All the toU of day is over, 
And the busy world grows still. 
And the whispers Of the angels 
On our hidden heartstrings thrill. 
Every heart puts off the trammels 
Of its earthly, sinful life, 
And looks out beyond the twilight, 
To a resting from the strife: 
And the tired and weary toiler. 
Feels the prelude of that peace 
That shall come, ns comes the twilight, 
When the day of life shall cease. 
And we look toward the future 
That shall bring us endless rest 
And the cares the day bur, brought us 
Fade like shadows from the breast. 
And wc only feel thu quiet 
That the twilight hour distills. 
As our heiu-ta go out in longing 
To the golden, heavenly hills. 
- +++ - 
THE WOMAN’S PARLIAMENT. 
BY MARY A. E. WAGER. 
Women are busy aa bees. One organiza¬ 
tion after another crops out, and it is some¬ 
what a matter of alacrity to keep track of 
them all, and requires a clear head to tell 
“t’other from which.” “ Parliament” is a 
huge word iu American rhetoric, but there’s 
nothing very dreadful about the Woman’s 
Parliament in New York City, as it says 
nothing about “ Suffrage,” and little about 
“ Rights.” Tt claims to work (or intends to) 
for the advancement of women, by alleviating 
the condition of those who work; by reforms 
conducive to improvement in the education 
and welfare of children ; by a modification, 
simplification and general improvement in 
bouse and home matters, and to reform so¬ 
ciety by putting a flag-stuff on the islands of 
Truth and a light-house among the shoals 
of Hypocrisy. 
To suppose that all the women who are 
embodied in these associations are disin¬ 
terested, working purely aud solely for the 
good of their sex, or both sexes, would be a 
manifest belief that the rare qualities of dis¬ 
interestedness and philanthropy were in¬ 
herited exclusively by women, which is very 
far from the truth. Where two women 
work disinterestedly, the third one is keenly 
alive to the fact that, attached to it ail, are 
notoriety, popularity perhaps, aud it '•ho he 
a professional or business woman, an inde¬ 
pendent and distinguished advertisement. 
Much of the talk of a lute Parliament 
meeting was eminently practical and appro¬ 
priate, and more’s the pity that when good 
tilings arc uttered every woman iu the coun¬ 
try can’t hear them. One of the women con¬ 
sidered it a grave mistake that mothers 
should let their daughters travel alone, or 
simply in company with their father—their 
natural protector! To illustrate her point, 
she made use of a trip made by a father and 
two daughters over the Pacific Railroad 
last summer. The father, busy with other 
gentlemen, looking at, and discussing the 
country from the w indows of the smoking 
car, hardly saw his daughters more than 
three times a day. But a Senator on board 
but too willingly gaYC himself up to enter¬ 
taining the prettiest of the daughters, and 
his attentions were very close and marked. 
He was the cleverest gentleman the girl had 
ever met, and she became greatly interested 
in him. This interest seemed to be fully re¬ 
ciprocated on the part of the Senator, and 
not until the week’s journey was nearly ter¬ 
minated was the spell broken by another 
gentleman, who informed the young lady 
that the Senator was a married man. 
“Oh! there must be some mistake,” she 
exclaimed, in a frightened manner, “ he has 
repeatedly spoken of himself as a bachelor.” 
But lie was married, for all that, and the 
woman who illustrated her point by relating 
this story thought it a sad thing for a girl to 
receive her first lesson in love from such a 
hypocritical, dishonorable rascal. 
She knew how difficult it might be for 
mothers to speak clearly and frankly of what 
they ought, but this was no excuse. 
Another elderly woman—a Southern lady 
—thought the first thing woman ought to do 
was to he true to herself She touched 
strongly upon infidelity to her sisters. In 
the course of her remarks, speaking of the 
thoughtless manner in which women receive 
and countenance dishonest men, she made it 
impressive by a narration. From an affec¬ 
tion of the eyes, her youth was passed large¬ 
ly in thought, instead of study. She was 
married verv voting. Some time after her 
] marriage, a gentleman of culture, genius and 
position, a poet from Virginia, was visiting 
iu the neighborhood. Her husband said to 
her one day, 
“My dear, have you seen Mr. R., the 
poet ? ” 
“ Yes.” 
“ Have you been introduced to him ?” he 
asked. 
“ Yes, seventeen times,” she answered, and 
each and every time she had simply ac¬ 
knowledged the introduction as if each one 
had been the first, and prevented, by her 
manner, any further acquaintance. 
“ But. that man saved my life once,” con¬ 
tinued her husbaud, alarmed that his wife 
had so treated him. 
“That may he," she answered, “but he is 
a libertine, and I cannot be true to myself 
and countenance him,” was her brave reply. 
“ But I have invited him to come here,” 
washer husband’s reply. 
“ I could not object,” the lady went on to 
narrate. “ He came and when alone in the 
room with me he came toward me, aud 
said: ‘Madam, if all women treated such 
men as I, as you have done, this would be a 
better world. You, young ax you are, have 
taught me a lesson that shall not be unheed¬ 
ed. I return to Virginia and shall, God 
help me, begin a better life.’ ” 
Here was an example in which her country¬ 
women would, imitating it, be true to them - 
selves. We cannot keep out of mind, in 
writing this, a conversation had with an 
honest unmarried man last summer. He 
had traveled quite extensively, seen society 
in divers phases, had what men call “ temp¬ 
tation” thrust upon him in various forms, 
but had such an obstinate, unswerving sense 
of what constituted Right and Self Respect 
and Respectability, that he passed through 
them all, and came back to his boyhood’s 
home, after an absence of a dozen years, as 
pure in heart and body as when he knelt,.a 
child, at his mother’s knee. 
“ But I confess to you,” he said iu conclu¬ 
sion, “ that when I see how men, and es¬ 
pecially women, regard licentious, unprinci¬ 
pled men, how impurity, vileness and license 
are no barrier to society, position and re¬ 
spectability, I confess 1 am afraid that, with 
this knowledge, I never should have gone 
through all those years of wandering, with 
not. even the talisman of a sweetheart or 
wife, and returned as I did.” 
The chairwoman of the Parliament com¬ 
miserated the condition of the shop girls, 
who in nearly, If not all large establish¬ 
ments, are compelled iu accordance with the 
rules of the proprietors, to btand all day 
long behind their counters, with never the 
privilege of sitting, aud indeed there are no 
chairs or stools provided to sit on. She di¬ 
lated upon the injurious effects that result 
from such a course, and she felt that if the 
proprietors of these establishments could be 
made to appreciate the fact that such treat¬ 
ment ruined the health of the gkls, unfitting 
them to be wives and mothers, a reform 
could be effected. The voice of one woman 
could not do it, but could not the action of 
the Parliament, as a body, endorsed by the 
public, accomplish it? 
It may not. he a fault peculiar to women 
reformers or philanthropists, but it is a fault 
that there are many other grievances equally 
as pernicious, as shop girls standing all day, 
inside the line of woman’s undisputed juris¬ 
diction, that are never reformed, and the 
uttompt to reform them is never prosecuted 
with the same ardor and eagerness as when 
the grievance has the stamp of a man’s foot 
on it. If by “ hook or by crook ” a reformer 
or worker iu woman’s kingdom could go 
through the ranks of working women and 
girls and cut their corset strings, tear off the 
padded pauiers, the stuffed chignons, the 
high heels, loosen the clothing, and suspend 
the weight of it from the shoulders instead 
of from the hips, the grievance would be 
half abated. This cannot, of course, be 
literally done, but if the combined power 
and example of the wealth and fashion and 
intelligence of the Woman’s Parliament, 
and kindred organizations, wore brought to 
; bear against it would it not accomplish 
j something? Ignorance is forever the foe to 
physical and moral health fulness. Aud so, 
it is chiefly among the uninformed, unculti¬ 
vated classes, possessing false and vulgar 
notions of gentility, that the unfitness of 
tilings obtains, and women dress from head 
to foot wish not one single garment in keep¬ 
ing with good sense or health. 
Men undoubtedly deserve very much of 
the vigorous mauling that is being dealt out 
to them by women all over the country. 
But woman could sec clearer with the 
beams out of her own eyes, and profit by 
making thorough uso of those innate rights 
of which custom has never deprived her, 
working an infinite blessed reform by simply 
being “ true to herself," morally as well us 
physically. 
An Illinois father, who has just married 
his daughter, expressly stipulated—and his 
wishes Mere carried out—that the presiding 
clergyman should not require the bride to 
promise to obey her liege lord. He further¬ 
more elicited a solemn promise from the 
bridegroom, before consenting to the mar¬ 
riage, that, he would forever abstain from the 
use of tobacco and profane language, and 
would treat his wife as his equal, disclaim¬ 
ing all ownership in her as exclusive prop¬ 
erty. Elizabeth Cady, Anna, Alice, and 
the rest of the strong-minded, can congratu¬ 
late themselves that “ things is working.” 
