near; and at the first tremor of the uncertain | sons come with their wonted regularity, and land the cities are filled with terror; the people summer feeds us every year as it fed the Asfly to the fields; home, ease, and grandeur are abandoned and forgotten; the intellectual and the feeble-minded, the weak and the strong, tremble together, or when the danger is over burst into a wild mood of insane hilarity. Will the earthquake in all its terrors ever visit us? Will our cities ever be shorn of their prosperity, reduced to heaps of crumbling ruins, and made as desolate as deserted Messina? Must our teeming ports be swept by great tidal waves, while their gay and busy throngs are hurried far into the deep, and sea-monsters sport in their shattered mansions? Is New York ever to be humbled as was commercial Lisbon in the last century, or Pittsburg and Chicago tossed from their foundations like the wealthy cities of the Calabrian plain? Must San Francisco become a new Callao, and sink into a mound of sand beneath the raging waves of the treacherous Pacific? syrians and the Greeks; the ocean keeps its appointed bounds; the tides ebb and flow with calm monotony; and the great sun, whether gas or fire, cloud or comet, is always the same to us. And hence history assures us that even the terrible earthquake is bound by the unchanging laws of nature to a single path, from which it is not permitted to diverge. And history marks out upon the map of the world where that path lies. It is one so nicely defined and delicately drawn as to produce the most striking distinctions; yet it is as clear as the Gulf-stream and regular as the monsoons. Rome and Naples, for example, lie close to the path of the earthquake, and have been subject to slight shocks for centuries, yet they are probably as safe as London or Paris; Messina lies above the path, and has been torn by frequent convulsions. It winds sinuously under the seas, visiting certain islands with disaster and wholly If we have ever for a moment entertained sparing others. It penetrates to the northern such fears, history at once reassures us. His- latitude of Niphon, Kamchatka, and the Arctory, mother of science, points to the unchang-tic mountains; it reaches to Lower California. ing unity of nature. Man and his creations Yet San Francisco is as safe as Rome or Florvary, fade, and die. Great empires fall before ence, and the North Pacific shore as the coast moral revolutions; wealthy cities sink into sol- of England. itudes with the revulsions of commerce and the alterations in the course of trade; nations that were once strong in intellect and vigorous with the clements of progress have become the prey of savages and barbarians; and all that is human is liable to change. Not so the Divine work. The laws of nature are immutable. From age to age the monsoons have blown across the Indian seas, and the Gulf-stream pierced the Atlantic with its tepid wave; the stars rise and set as they did of old; the sea History, in fact, assures us that ours is not one of the lands of the earthquake; that our exemption from its terrors is as certain as that the seasons will not vary or the summer fail to come; that maternal nature has sheltered us from the destroyer that we may enjoy her gifts at leisure and unfold her vast resources by incessant toil; and that He who holds the earthquake in check has ordained that we may do His work unimpeded by the perpetual horror that broods over other lands. A CHILD'S WISDOM. WHEN the cares of day are ended, And the orchards of the west. All the woodlands, dim and dusky, With the drops of sunlit rain— I can see the hilly places, With the sheep-paths trod across; Garden corners bright with roses, Ah! with what a world of blushes Then they read it through and through, From the commas of the dew: Lest some day the choice ye rue. I can see a troop of children- Racing toward the morning school-house One from all the rest I single, Not for brighter mouth or eyes, Not for being sweet and simple, Not for being sage and wise: With my whole full heart I loved him, And therein my secret lies. Cheeks as brown as sun could kiss them, All in careless homespun dressed, Eager for the romp or wrestle, Just a rustic with the rest: Who shall say what love is made of? 'Tis enough I loved him best. Haply, Effie loved me better- Stealing round me unaware; Haply, so did willful Annie, With the tender eyes and mouth, And the languors and the angers Of her birth-land of the South: Still my darling was my darling— "I can love," I said, "for both." So I left the pleasure-places, Gayest, gladdest, best of allHedge-row mazes, lanes of daisies, Bluebirds' twitter, blackbirds' callFor the robbing of the crow's nest, For the games of race and ball. So I left my book of poems Lying in the hawthorn's shåde, Milky flowers sometimes for hours Drifting down the page unread: "He has found a better poet; I will read with him," I said. Thus he led me, hither, thither, To his young heart's wild content, Where so surly, and so curly, With his black horns round him bent, Fed the. ram that ruled the meadowFor where'er he called I went: Where the old oak, black and blasted, Trembled on his knotty knees, Where the nettle teased the cattle, Where the wild crab-apple trees Blushed with bitter fruit to mock us"Twas not I that was to please: Where the ox, with horn for pushing, First and last and best of all. When before the frowning master I would stand up straight before him, One day, when the lowering storm-cloud Like a swimmer, he lay down, Where a sudden notch before us Seemed the very air to fill: Pointing over to the shoulders Of the head-stones, white and high, Said I, in his bright face looking, "Think you you shall ever lie In among those weeping-willows?" "No!" he said, "I can not die!" "Can not die? my little darling, "Tis the way we all must go!" Then, the bold, bright spirit in him Setting all his cheek aglow, He repeated still the answer, "I shall never die, I know!" "Wait and think. On yonder hill-side Since we sat within the elm shade From my arms, so closely clasping, M MY ENEMY'S DAUGHTER. CHAPTER IX. LILLA WOULD SERVE ME. and we could call for you and take you with us. I must marry somebody with money." "Love? Nonsense! "Suppose, in the mean time, somebody without money comes in the way, and you fall in love with him?" Love is a luxury beyond my means, Sir. Besides, do you know, I think debts and poverty make some of us coldhearted or no-hearted, and we are not capable of falling in love. Seriously, I don't think I could be." EANWHILE I am free to own that I liked the company of my pretty pagan; indeed it brightened life very much to me. When I was most lonely and unfriended these people had been strangely kind to me, and our common poverty and struggles made us-I was almost about to say unnaturally-certainly unusually familiar and friendly. Of course no young man of my age could ever be wholly indifferent to the company of a pretty and attractive girl; and I really grew quite fond of Lilla. I was not in the least in love with her; nor did she, I feel ey. assured, ever think of me in the light of a pos-heart." sible lover; but we were very friendly and fa- "You ought to have told me all this before, miliar, and indeed, in a sort of quiet, confident Lilla. How do you know what agony you may way, attached to each other. A happy Bohe- be inflicting on my heart?" mian independence of public opinion emancipated our movements. She and I generally walked out together on Sundays in the desolate suburbs, or across the swamp which was undergoing slow conversion into a park. Sometimes, as I came home in the evening after giving some music-lessons-or, for that matter, tuning a piano-I met her going toward town, and I turned back and walked with her. Much amazed I used to be at first by her close knowledge of the shortest way to get every where, and of every shop where the best things to eat, or wear, or drink were to be had at the lowest possible prices. Our talk was generally lively enough; but there were days when I became so saddened by my memories and my dull prospects that I really could not brighten; and then Lilla, in order to encourage me, told me all kinds of stories of her own occasional trials and distresses, as well as of people she had known, who, having been reduced to the very depths of despair, fell in with some lucky fortune, and were raised at once to high position and afflu ence. "Then I hope no friend of mine will fall in love with you.' "I am sure I hope not-unless he has monI don't believe I have such a thing as a I thought she would have laughed at this, but she looked at me quite gravely, and even sympathetically. "Ah, no!" she said, quietly; "you are safe enough-from me at least; I can see that." "Why, Miss Lyndon? Pray tell me." "Don't ask me; but don't think me a fool. Have I not eyes? Can't I see that your heart is gone long ago in some disastrous way or other, and that you can't recover it; and don't you think I am sorry for you? Yes, as much as if you were my brother." "Ah, Lilla, you have far more heart than you would have me think. Not your eyes saw, but your heart." And we neither spoke any more on that subject. But I knew that under my pretty pagan's plump bosom there beat a heart which the love of lobster-salad, and the hopes of a rich husband, and all the duty of dodging duns, could not rob of its genial blood-warmth. Lilla had, like most London girls of her class and temperament, a passion for the theatre. Most of those stories, to be sure, were She knew the ways of every theatre, and sometold of young women reduced to serve in shops, thing about the private lives of all the actors whom some men of enormous wealth fell in love and actresses, and who was married to whom, with and married; so that I could scarcely de- and who were not married at all, and who was rive much encouragement from their applica- in debt, and who made ever so much money in tion to my own personal condition. But it was the year, and spent it or hoarded it, as the case easy to see with what a horizon fortune had might be. She pointed you out a small cigarbounded poor Lilla's earthly ambition. She shop, and told you it was kept by the father of had no genius for any work that did not direct-Miss Vashner, the great tragic actress; she called ly conduce to personal adornment, and she had your attention to a small coal-and-potato store, a very strong desire for wealth and ease. and told you it was there Mr. Wagstaffe, the great manager, began his career; she glanced at a beery, snuffy little man in the street, and whispered that he was the husband of the dash "My only chance," she said frankly one day, "is to marry somebody who has money. I am sick of this place and this life. If I married a rich green-grocer even, I should be far, far hap-ing Violet Schönbein, who played the male parts pier than I am. I should have a home for my mother, and a cart to drive about in on Sundays, when the green-grocer did not want it for his business; and then mother and I would leave him at home on the Sundays to smoke in the back-kitchen while we went out for a drive; in the burlesques and pantomimes, and whose figure was the admiration of London. Her interest did not lie so much in the stately operahouses, or even the theatres where legitimate tragedy yet feebly protested its legitimacy and divine right, as in the small pleasant houses where comedians and piquant actresses could always fill the benches. She knew where the best seats were, and how to make use of an order to most advantage; and, indeed, seemed hardly ever to have gone to a theatre except in the company of somebody armed with such a missive. She had been to parties of all kinds -to Kew, to Richmond, to Vauxhall (yes, I think there was a Vauxhall then), to Greenwich, to Dulwich, to Rosherville. She appeared to have an intimate knowledge of all places where supper was to be most comfortably and cheaply had in the neighborhood of each theatre. She had been to the Derby; and she never missed seeing the Queen going to open Parliament, or even the Lord Mayor's Show. She knew all about the great people of London-the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Palmerston, and the like; and, by some strange process of information, she often used to get to know beforehand when grand balls were given in the neighborhood of Belgrave Square or Park Lane, and she loved to go and watch at the doors to see the ladies pass in. Her uncle, she told me, had often promised to take her to the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons to hear a debate, but as yet he had not carried out his promise. He took her to the National Gallery and the Royal Academy's Exhibition; but she did not much care about these places of entertainment, and could not tell the name of any picture or painter afterward. Mr. Lyndon, M.P., clearly wanted to impress her with the necessity of some sort of mental culture, for he sent her a new piano and a heap of books, and made her promise to learn. She might have mastered most studies quickly enough had she but shown the same aptitude for them which she had for picking up the private histories of actresses and great ladies, for turning and trimming old dresses, for reviving decayed bonnets, and for stimulating flat porter, by the application of soda, into a ghastly likeness of bottled stout. I thought her naturally so clever, and indeed I felt such a warm interest in her, that I set to work to teach her something. The piano she played very badly, and that I could teach her; singing I was likewise qualified to instruct her in; and French I spoke fluently enough. These, then, I offered, and in fact was determined, to teach her; and she was very glad to learn, and, when she was in humor for it, very quick and docile. What she went about teaching in the families where she had tried to be governess I never could guess. Just now I was glad she knew so little, and that there were some things I could teach her. I had nothing to do half my time; I was lonely and unfriended; these people had been kind to me, as indeed kindness was a part of their nature, and I felt so grateful that I was only too glad to have any chance of showing my gratitude. So I became Lilla's music-master and French teacher when I could and when she would; and Mrs. Lyndon was delighted. The good woman trusted me entirely. She had so often told me what her dreams and hopes for her daughter were, that she knew so poor a caitiff as myself would never be mean enough to play Marplot by making love to Lilla. We were all poor together, and Mrs. Lyndon felt that hawks would not pick hawks' eyes out. Little or nothing in this story turns upon my pupil-teaching of Lilla. In a direct sense, nothing came of it. I mention it here only to explain the fact that Lilla and her mother got to think themselves deeply indebted to me, and that Lilla in particular was determined to make me some return. One evening I was walking rather listlessly along Sloane Street, feigning to myself that I had business in town, when I met Lilla returning homeward. She was all flushed and beaming, evidently under the influence of some piece of splendid good news. "I "I have such news for you!" she said. have been to my uncle's, and I have talked to him about you." "About me?" "Yes. I always wanted to speak to him about you, and I made up my mind to go up specially to-day and do it. I told him all about you; how you were living in our house, and how kind you had always been to mamma and me-which I'm sure we don't forgetwhenever we needed it; and Heaven knows we always do need it, for we never yet were able to pay any thing at the right time." "Well, well, pass over all that, and come back to Mr. Lyndon." "Yes, I told him all about you, and how you were better than a colony of sons to mamma, and a whole schoolful of brothers to me, and how you teach me this and that-every thing in fact. I can tell you your ears ought to have tingled, for such praise as I gave you mortal man never yet deserved. I told him what a singer you were-ever so much better than Mario, I said; at which I promise you he smiled very grimly, and grumbled out that he had heard of too many singers who were ever so much better than Mario. But I told him that you were, and no mistake. And then I said you wanted to get on the stage, only that you had no friends; at which he smiled again, and said a man who could sing better than Mario didn't much stand in need of friends." "Well, but, Lilla, I don't quite see." "Don't you? No, I dare say you don't; but I just do. Why, did I never tell you that my uncle knows all the great swells about the theatres? Oh yes. He once had a share in a theatre with a tremendous swell, Lord Loreine, and he adores operas and singers, and he gives dinners at Greenwich to prima donnas. He is constantly behind the scenes every where—odd places for him to go to, I have often told him and every great singer who comes out he always meets. Who is Reichstein? Is it a man or a woman?" "Reichstein is a woman." "Who is she?" "A singer-a great success in Paris, I'm told. I don't know much about her-hardly any thing, in fact. But she is new in Paris, and I believe a success." "Well, he has been to Paris-indeed, he only came home last night-and he is in such a state about Reichstein, who is to come out in London and make a wonderful success. I was ashamed to confess that I never heard of Reichstein before, and didn't know, in fact, whether it was a man or a woman; and besides, I told him I wanted to talk about you, and not about Reichstein." "No, no; I can't hear any modest pleadings. You are to come; I am to bring you. You may be sure he'll like you; and, do you know, I really begin to think your fortune is made. Perhaps you may sing as primo tenore with what's-her-name, Reichstein, some time. And I shall go to hear you, and fling a bouquet to you-mind, not to her-so be sure you keep it for yourself; and then you must redeem your promise, and take me to the Derby." "Hear me swear! You shall accompany me to the Derby. We'll have a carriage and, at least, four horses the very first Derby-day after I have sung as primo tenore with Mlle. Reichstein." "Well, you may laugh now; but I promise you I'll make you keep your word. Far more unlikely things have happened. But now tell me when you are coming to see my uncle." and worldly girl would be very careful indeed not to weaken any influence she might have, not to discount any future concessions, by asking his good offices for another. Therefore, while I attached not the slightest importance to the promised influence, and would not have availed myself of it were it really to make my fortune in an hour, I took good care, the reader may well believe, to let Lilla see that I was not ungrateful. Nor did I dash her little pride and triumph by telling her that I would not go to see her uncle. But I temporized; and fortune gave me a ready way of doing it. I had been for some little time in negotiation about an engagement to join a company who were to give concerts in some of the provincial cities and towns; and this very day I had accepted the terms, and duly signed the conditions. I had therefore to leave town at once, and should probably be away for two or three months at the least. This therefore gave me a satisfactory plea for postponing my visit to Mr. Lyndon. Lilla was a little cast down; but as she knew I had long been anxious to secure this very engagement-my first of any note--she brightened up immediately, and gave me her warm congratulations. "When I get back, Lilla, you shall make my fortune." "How glad I shall be! Do you know that I really hope you may not quite take the provinces by storm, and so find the way made clear to you, without my having any thing to do with it? I do, indeed. I want so much to be the means of doing some good for you." "You need not fear, Lilla. Fortune will be in no hurry to interfere with your kindly purpose." "But stop. I have actually done something for you already. I have given you a name." "Indeed! How is that?" "Well, of course you can't call yourself Banks when you go on the stage. Banks would never do; there couldn't be a great Banks. Then you always say you never would consent to take any ridiculous Italian name." "Never." I had not the remotest idea of presenting myself or being presented to Lilla's uncle. All I had heard of him pictured him to me as a cold, purse-proud, selfish, sensuous man-not, indeed, incapable of doing a generous thing for a poor dependent, but quite incapable of feeling any respect for poverty of any kind. His photograph, which Lilla often showed me, quite con- "Well, I have given you a delightful name, firmed my notions of him. Egotism and pride which is all your own, by the simplest process were traced in every line of the face-of the in the world. Temple Banks is absolutely ristraight square forehead, of the broad jaw-diculous; people would always keep calling even the unmistakable sensuousness of the full you Temple Bar. Now don't be angry." lips and the wide mouth did not soften the gen"Indeed I am not." eral hardness of the expression. I can not tell why, but I always detested the man. Patronage of any kind I must have hated; but to be patronized by this rich man was utterly out of the question. Yet I could not but feel grateful for the kindly manner in which poor Lilla had endeavored to serve me. This was surely disinterestedness on her part. She so often had to solicit favors of her uncle upon her own account, that one might have imagined a shrewd "You got quite flushed when I laughed at your name, though; but no matter. Leave out the Banks altogether, and there you are -Emanuel Temple! What can be prettier and softer? All liquids, positively. Well, I have made you Emanuel Temple, and nothing else. I spoke of you to my uncle as Emanuel Temple. He has written down your name in his memorandum-book as Emanuel Temple. I have launched you as Emanuel Temple, and Emanuel Temple you shall remain." |