Rabbin. We shall treat the person you send us in exchange like a gentleman and an honest man, as he is; but pray let him bring with him the fund of his hospitality, bounty, and charity; and depend upon it, we shall never confiscate a shilling of that honorable and pious fund, nor think of enriching the treasury with the spoils of the poor-box.

To tell you the truth, my dear sir, I think the honor of our nation to be somewhat concerned in the disclaimer of the proceedings of this society of the Old Jewry and the London Tavern. I have no man's proxy. I speak only for myself when I dis claim, as I do with all possible earnestness, all communion with the actors in that triumph, or with the admirers of it. When I assert anything else, as concerning the people of England, I speak from observation, not from authority; but I speak from the experience I have had in a pretty extensive and mixed communication with the inhabitants of this kingdom, of all descriptions and ranks, and after a course of attentive observation begun early in life, and continued for nearly forty years. I have often been astonished, considering that we are divided from you but by a slender dike of about twenty-four miles, and that the mutual intercourse between the two countries has lately been very great, to find how little you seem to know of us. I suspect that this is owing to your forming a judgment of this nation from certain publications which do very erroneously, if they do at all, represent the opinions and dispositions generally prevalent in England. The vanity, restlessness, petulance, and spirit of intrigue of several petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of consequence in bustle, and noise, and puffing, and mutual quotation of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous neglect of their abilities is a mark of general acquiescence in their opinions. No such thing, I assure you. Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that after all they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.

M

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

(1849-)

RS. BURNETT has told the story of her childhood and tried to interpret her own personality in her autobiographical story, 'The One I Knew Best of All.' She has pictured a little English girl in a comfortable Manchester home, leading a humdrum, well-regulated existence, with brothers and sisters, nurse and governess. But an alert imagination added interest to the life of this "Small Person," and from her nursery windows and from the quiet park where she played she watched eagerly for anything of dramatic or picturesque interest. She seized upon the Lancashire dialect often overheard, as upon a game, and practiced it until she gained the facility of use shown in her mining and factory stories. One day the strong and beautiful figure of a young woman, followed by a coarse and abusive father, caught her attention, and years afterward she developed Joan Lowrie from the incident.

When the Hodgson family suffered pecuniary loss, and hoping to better its fortunes came to America, then best known to Frances from the pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin,' she was fifteen. A year or two later she began to send her stories to various magazines. In 1867 the first of these appeared. She did not however attain her great popularity until the appearance of That Lass o' Lowrie's ' in 1877. The thoughtfully drawn group of characters - Derrick the engineer, Grace the young minister, Annie the rector's daughter, and Joan the pit girl,—are dramatic figures, working out their life problems under the eyes and the comments of half-cynical, halfbrutalized miners. There is nothing in her history to account for Joan, or for the fact that the strength of vice in her father becomes an equal strength of virtue in her. Abused since her babyhood, doing the work of a man among degrading companionships, she yet remains capable of the noblest self-abnegation. Mrs. Burnett delights in heroes and heroines who are thus loftily at variance with their surroundings. Her stories are romantic in spirit, offering little to the lover of psychologic analysis. Her character-drawing is the product of quick observation and sympathetic intuition. She does not write "tendency" novels, but appeals to simple emotions of love, hate, revenge, or self-immolation, which sometimes, as in the case of her last book, 'A Lady of Quality' (1895), verge on sensationalism. In 1873 Miss Hodgson married Dr. Burnett of Washington. Her

(

longest novel, Through One Administration,' is a story of the political and social life of the Capital. 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' (1886) is the best known of a series of stories nominally written for children, but intended to be read by their elders. 'Sara Crewe,' 'Giovanni and the Other,' 'Two Little Pilgrims,' and 'Little Saint Elizabeth' are chronicles of superlunary children. After those before mentioned, 'Esmeralda,' 'Louisiana,' 'A Fair Barbarian,' and 'Haworth's' are her best known stories.

THE

AT THE PIT

From That Lass o' Lowrie's '

HE next morning Derrick went down to the mine as usual. There were several things he wished to do in these last two days. He had heard that the managers had entered into negotiations with a new engineer, and he wished the man to find no half-done work. The day was bright and frosty, and the sharp, bracing air seemed to clear his brain. He felt more hopeful, and less inclined to view matters darkly.

He remembered afterward that as he stepped into the cage he turned to look at the unpicturesque little town, brightened by the winter's sun; and that as he went down he glanced up at the sky, and marked how intense appeared the bit of blue which was framed in by the mouth of the shaft.

Even in the few hours that had elapsed since the meeting, the rumor of what he had said and done had been bruited about. Some collier had heard it and had told it to his comrades, and so it had gone from one to the other. It had been talked over at the evening and morning meal in divers cottages, and many an anxious hand had warmed into praise of the man who had “had a thowt for th' men."

In the first gallery he entered he found a deputation of men awaiting him,-a group of burly miners with picks and shovels over their shoulders, and the head of this deputation, a spokesman burlier and generally gruffer than the rest, stopped him.

་

"Mester," he said, "we chaps 'ud loike to ha' a word wi' yo'.” "All right," was Derrick's reply, "I am ready to listen." The rest crowded nearer, as if anxious to participate as much as possible, and give their spokesman the support of their pres

ence.

"It is na mich as we ha' getten to say," said the man, "but we're fain to say it. Are na we, mates?"

"Ay, we are, lad," in chorus.

"It's about summat as we'n heerd. Theer wur a chap as towd some on us last neet as yo'd getten th' sack fro' th' managers— or leastways as yo'd turned th' tables on 'em an' gi'en them th' sack yo'rsen. An' we'n heerd as it begun wi' yo're standin' up fur us chaps-axin' fur things as wur wanted i' th' pit to save us fro' runnin' more risk than we need. An' we heerd as yo' spoke up bold, an' argied for us an' stood to what yo' thowt war th' reet thing, an' we set our moinds on tellin' yo' as we'd heerd it an' talked it over, an' we'd loike to say a word o' thanks i' common fur th' pluck yo' showed. Is na that it, mates?"

"Ay, that it is, lad!" responded the chorus.

Suddenly one of the group stepped out and threw down his pick. "An' I'm dom'd, mates," he said, "if here is na a chap as ud loike to shake hands wi' him."

It was the signal for the rest to follow his example. They crowded about their champion, thrusting grimy paws into his hand, grasping it almost enthusiastically.

"Good luck to yo', lad!" said one. "We'n noan smooth soart o' chaps, but we'n stand by what's fair an' plucky. We shall ha' a good word fur thee when tha hast made thy flittin'."

« I

"I'm glad of that, lads," responded Derrick heartily, by no means unmoved by the rough-and-ready spirit of the scene. only wish I had had better luck, that's all."

A few hours later the whole of the little town was shaken to its very foundations by something like an earthquake, accompanied by an ominous, booming sound which brought people flocking out of their houses with white faces. Some of them had heard it before all knew what it meant. From the colliers'. cottages poured forth women, shrieking and wailing,— women who bore children in their arms and had older ones dragging at their skirts, and who made their desperate way to the pit with one accord. From houses and workshops there rushed men, who coming out in twos and threes joined each other, and forming a breathless crowd, ran through the streets scarcely daring to speak a word—and all ran toward the pit.

There were scores at its mouth in five minutes; in ten minutes there were hundreds, and above all the clamor rose the cry of women:

"My mester's down!"

"An' mine!"

"An' mine!"

"Four lads o' mine is down!"

"Three o' mine!"

"My little un's theer-th' youngest — nobbut ten year owdnobbut ten year owd, poor little chap! an' ony been at work a week!"

"Ay, wenches, God ha' mercy on us aw'- God ha' mercy!" And then more shrieks and wails, in which the terror-stricken children joined.

It was a fearful sight. How many lay dead and dying in the noisome darkness below, God only knew! How many lay mangled and crushed, waiting for their death, Heaven only could tell!

In five minutes after the explosion occurred, a slight figure in clerical garb made its way through the crowd with an air of excited determination.

"Th' parson's feart," was the general comment.

"My men," he said, raising his voice so that all could hear, α can any of you tell me who last saw Fergus Derrick ?"

There was a brief pause, and then came a reply from a collier who stood near.

"I coom up out o' th' pit an hour ago, » he said, "I wur th' last as coom up, an' it wur on'y chance as browt me. Derrick wur wi' his men i' th' new part o' th' mine. I seed him as I passed through.'

Grace's face became a shade or so paler, but he made no more inquiries.

His friend either lay dead below, or was waiting for his doom at that very moment. He stepped a little farther forward.

“Unfortunately for myself, at present," he said, "I have no practical knowledge of the nature of these accidents. Will some of you tell me how long it will be before we can make our first effort to rescue the men who are below?"

Did he mean to volunteer-this young whipper-snapper of a parson? And if he did, could he know what he was doing?

"I ask you," he said, "because I wish to offer myself as a volunteer at once; I think I am stronger than you imagine, and at least my heart will be in the work. I have a friend belowmyself," his voice altering its tone and losing its firmness,