ing. He realized that he had been caught in a very compromising situation. Yet to his relief his observer did not seem to notice it. On the contrary she said: "If you have a spare moment, Mr. Davis, I wish to have a few words with you in regard to our mutual friend, Mr. Wilson. Perhaps you do not know that he is in love." "I had guessed as much." "Then you know her?"

"Not well. I have seen her." It would have been more accurate to say that he had seen the tip of her bonnet. But Ben was a diplomat by instinct.

"She is a charming creature. Just the woman for him. He really ought to be married. And all he needs is encouragement-to be egged on. Can I count on you, Mr. Davis, now and then to do a little egging?

The late Virginia Tebbetts spoke with all the engaging sweetness at her command, and conscious that she had said all that was necessary to enlist him on her side, provided he were willing to yield to the temptation, she glided away and left Ben to his own cogitations.

The result of this interview was twofold. It strengthened Ben's resolution to be cautious and make haste slowly in the matter of committing himself toward his intended, and it gave him an excuse for opening fire on Horace. As Mrs. Edmunds had said, Horace really ought to be married. A word or two of encouragement from him might cement matters and bring about his friend's everlasting happiness. The game was perfectly fair, for Horace knew well enough that the man who was engaged first would lose the pool.

The opportunity came the following week. Ben was returning from Philadelphia, where he had been to call on his Dulcinea, and he ran across Horace in the train. They had the smokingcompartment all to themselves, so Ben opened fire at once.

"I've come to the conclusion, old man," he said, "that there's no happiness like married happiness. I rather expect to be married myself some day." This admission seemed to Ben to be magnanimous, and he proceeded to add, without a qualm, "A little bird has

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told me that you have only to ask in a certain quarter to be accepted."

And leave you to gather in the pool?" replied Horace, promptly. "Springs to catch wood-cock, eh?

"Yes, I should win the pool," said Ben, slowly. "But what is a pool compared with true love? You may lose her, man, if you let mercenary considerations move you."

Horace made no verbal response. He merely sighed-sighed deeply. Ben, who was a diplomat, respected this display of emotion by silence. He bided his time and said, presently, "I understand that she is very charming."

"She is an angel," said Horace. "But I'm not worthy of her, in the first place, and in the second, she doesn't care for me."

"How can you tell until you ask her?" murmured Ben; though, to do him justice, he reminded himself of the murderer of Gonzago, pouring the poison into his victim's ear in the play of one William Shakespeare.

Horace sighed again, more pensively and less hopelessly than before. Just then the train stopped at a way station and Ben took advantage of the five minutes intermission to telegraph to the florist at Philadelphia.

"Delay lily."

He had given orders that morning to have one sent to her on Easter Sunday, which was the day after to-morrow, but it seemed to him, in view of the entire situation, that he had better suspend active operations until he should ascertain whether Horace's campaign was likely to be long or short. The girl might be one of the kind who would refuse Horace the first time; in which case there would be a fearful relapse, and months might pass before the sick man could be egged on to a second trial.

The spring slipped away, and so did the summer and autumn, and presently the ground was covered with snow, and Christmas-wreaths were in the windows. On the evening of the twenty-fourth, or Christmas-eve as we call it, the mercury was only five degrees above zero; it was snowing, and those who had put off buying their Christmas presents until the last minute found Jack Frost a too attentive companion. Ben Davis

was not among them. He was sitting in his pleasant bachelor's rooms, comfortably established before a glorious fire. He had bought all his Christmas presents, and he had even hung up his own stocking, but he was not thinking of Christmas at the moment. Once or twice he rubbed his hands pleasantly together, as though he were gratified at his own reflections. And indeed they were satisfactory from his point of view. Only the day before yesterday he had had a most interesting interview with his ally and fellow-conspirator, Mrs. George Edmunds, who had complimented him on his egging capabilities, and whose final words had been, She is coming to stay with us to-morrow, and I shall be egregiously surprised if he doesn't ask her and if she doesn't accept him. It is practically an accomplished fact."

An accomplished fact! With Horace Wilson engaged and out of the way, the pool would be his and he would be free to be as devoted as he pleased to the charmer in Philadelphia. Another Christmas - eve should not find him a lonely bachelor, but a happy Benedict, with the sweetest wife in the world. He had waited the longest, but he had won both the pool and the most charming of her sex. And after all, was he not the one entitled to the pool? But for his prudence and prompt action in the nick of time, there would have been no pool left. It would have gone where the rest of the funds in the "Plimsoll Aeronautic Concern" had gone. Instead, it was invested in a gilt-edged mortgage on improved real estate. Prudence! Caution! These had been the watchwords of his career. They had served him well in business, and now they were to serve him well in love. If only Horace Wilson announced his engagement on Christmas-day, he would offer himself on the first of January, and she should have the diamonds. He rubbed his hands again at the thought, then started, for someone had knocked. It was ten o'clock. Who could be the caller on so cold and stormy a night? "Come in," he cried, and in walked the gentleman of whom he had been thinking, well done up in a heavy coat which was plentifully besprinkled with snow.

Congratulate him? It was a little awkward to have to jump up and nearly wring a man's hand off when you had just come in to a neat $13,500 as the result of his action. Nevertheless, Ben did it with consummate tact and all the semblance of sincerity. Glad? Of course he was glad; simply radiant. There was no need to pretend. He shook Horace by the hand again and again, and they both laughed until they nearly cried.

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You have won the pool, old boy, and I don't care a straw. I'm the luckiest fellow in the world. She's a perfect darling."

"I'm sure she is. I wish you no end of happiness, Horace."

"Do you know her, Ben ?"

"No, I caught just a glimpse of her once on George Edmunds's door-steps. Merely the tip of her bonnet. I suspected you, though. from that minute."

"Did you, really? George has been awfully kind; that is, confound him, I mean infernally disagreeable. He did not want me to lose the pool, and so he tried to make out that it would be time enough to think of marrying when the twenty years ran out. But his wife, heaven bless her, and you, Ben, kept my spirits up. If it wasn't one at me, it was the other, until finally I took heart and asked her. You were gunning for the pool, of course, Ben. I

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saw that. But you helped me all the same, and, thanks to you and Virginia Edmunds, I've something to live for now. You don't know, Ben, what an insignificant thing money seems to me to-night. Get married - get married, Ben, as soon as you can." "Perhaps I may some day," he answered, significantly, moved by Horace's enthusiasm, for it was no longer necessary to be cautious. "I shall have to drink to bachelorhood alone this year; but between you and me, Horace, I hope for better things some day.”

Horace glanced at him narrowly, struck by his grave tone and by the quietness of his demeanor. "Poor fellow," he said to himself. "He must be thinking what an infernally dull thing it is to be an old bachelor. I won't remind him of it any longer."

Horace remained until he had finished his cigar. After he had gone Ben sat for a long time with his face in his hands and his head on the table. To think that he had never recognized her on George Edmunds's steps that Sunday morning. He called to mind Horace's speech urging him not to put off being married, and he laughed at his own discomfiture, though there were real tears in his eyes. He said to himself that he was doomed to be an old bachelor to the end of his days. Christmas-eve after Christmas-eve would find him just like this. What a fool he had been. Prudence! Caution! They had served him well, indeed, in the matter of

love. He seemed to see them before his mind's sight in mocking letters of fire. He had won the pool; but what was the pool now? Poor, pitiful schemer that he had been; he had thrown away the chance of his life.

He walked his room long that night, and when he went to bed it was not to sleep. The sun rose on a city mantled in snow. It was Christmas - day, but Ben felt that he belonged nowhere except at his club. He dined there alone, and after dinner he went into the writing-room and wrote. Merely a few lines; but when he had finished them he felt better. On the following morning he rose early, for he had a present to buy on his way down town. He was at Tiffany's so promptly that the attendants were still rubbing the aftermath of Merry Christmas from their eyes when he entered. "Let this be delivered as soon as possible. It is a Christmas present I had neglected to buy," he said to the salesman from whom he made his purchase.

An hour and a half later Horace Wilson and his ladylove were sitting on the sofa in Mrs. George Edmunds's drawing-room, when the maid entered with a tolerably large parcel which she delivered to Miss Delaney. Notwithstanding that Miss Delaney was very comfortable where she was, she forsook the sofa in order to examine her belated Christmas present.

"I wonder whom it can be from, Horace," she murmured, feverishly, as young ladies will under such circumstances. But before she undid the parcel she stopped to read the note which accompanied it.

"How very kind of him!" she said, when she had finished. She looked just a little queer, too. "It's from Mr. Benjamin Davis." And she held out the note.

"Ben Davis? I didn't know you knew him."

"Oh, yes, dear, very well indeed. In fact-" but here Miss Delaney stopped and gave a little laugh, and began busily to undo the parcel.

"In fact what?" asked Horace.

so superb?"

Horace whistled with astonishment. "Diamonds? I should think they were!" But a flush of disquietude presently succeeded the expression of delight on Miss Delaney's face, and she looked up at her lover appealingly. "I really don't see why he sent me such a present. They are lovely, but I don't think I like it."

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"You mustn't feel annoyed, dearest," answered Horace, mysteriously. Ben has tried to do the handsome thing, and he has done it."

"May I really keep them, Horace?" she asked, almost supplicatingly.

"Certainly, dear. Ben has sent them on my account, and he has acted very generously. I have a little confession to make, if you will listen. I ought to have told you before, but I haven't had time since yesterday. Ben and I have been members of a club called the Matrimonial Tontine Mutual Benefit Association." Thereupon Horace told her the whole story-at least he thought he had. "So you see," he said in conclusion, "Ben, the dear old fellow, has taken it into his head to do the handsome thing. He has practically shared the pool with me."

"I see," said Florence Delaney, quietly, but she shook her head with a little sigh and looked queerer than before. Horace, however, did not observe these signs of distrust in his deductions, for he was engaged in reading Ben Davis's letter, which, by the way, was the most commonplace of epistles.

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Dear Miss Delaney," it ran. "Will you do me the favor to accept these

your future happiness? Wishing you a merry Christmas, I am yours very sincerely, Benjamin Davis.”

It was natural, in view of his understanding of the matter, that the gift of the diamonds should not be concealed by Horace from George Edmunds and his wife. It happened later in the day, when Horace was showing them to Mrs. George, that she remarked casually, "Now that it is all settled, Horace, I don't mind telling you that I was very much concerned at one time lest Florence would accept Ben Davis."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed our hero, very nearly letting fall the precious stones in his agitation.

"Why, he was the another' of whom I was so much afraid, though I didn't let you see I was. I didn't know myself that he was Mr. Davis until a few weeks ago, and when I realized that I had induced him to egg you on to offer himself to his own sweetheart, I felt like a guilty wretch. But it was too late to draw back then. Why, Horace, how strange you look! I took it for granted that Florence had told you all about it."

"You have merely added just a few paltry details which make me inclined to be sorry that I let Florence keep those diamonds," said Horace, grimly.

"Ah, you won't be so cruel as to take them away now after telling her she could keep them? Besides it would hurt Mr. Davis's feelings. He has really been very generous."

"Confound him, yes. I suppose you are right, though. Poor fellow, how I pity him! I can certainly afford to be a little generous too."

HO was it who invented the phrase, "the literary idea?" and did he quite understand what he meant by it? Did it occur to him that ideas are the property of the human mind and not of any particular art; that though some can be fully expressed by one art only, and some better expressed by one art than another, to deny the right of any art to express or suggest what it can would be to impoverish it very seriously? Lit

erature would come off better than painting, but how changed and dull would it be if what may be called the "pictorial idea" were excluded from its territory.

Fortunately men of imagination who are also artists have always refused to be strictly bound by pedantic theories, and the greatest of them have not been the first to break down any inconvenient barriers between one art and another, which hampered the expression of their thoughts. What has been will be, and even in the present day of dominant "realism" we have several artists who endeavor to express by paint such ideas as inspire them, without much regard as to whether they are "literary" or not. With one of these, Sir E. Burne-Jones, I dealt in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE last February, and I am now to write a few words about another, who has done as much as any artist of his generation to maintain the

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