States necessitate a foothold in the South Pacific it can be had in PagoPago. This harbor is adapted to all the requirements of modern warfare, and has moreover no necessary political or other connection with the rest of the group. It is farther from Apia than Dover is from Calais, and quite as independent. If, however, the United States want an increase of territory or a new field for industry, which we do not for a moment believe, it surely is not necessary to look for it eight hundred miles south of the line. The Navigator group geographically belongs to Australia, as distinctly as the Sandwich Islands belong to America. It is from Australia and New Zealand, by way of Feejee, that they must eventually be settled. Such is the course most natural for colonization to take, and any attempt to interfere with it can only end in disappointment. With the annexation of Feejee and the distinct pre

dominance of English influence in the South Pacific all political value to the United States has departed from Samoa. As the case stands at present, no prudent minister would care to burden his hands with such an estate. Nor will the people of America be much inclined to invest their money in the group, while they have before them the warning example of the Feejees and of the late land company. In a word, then, the capabilities of the Navigator Islands are not such as to give any encouragement to would-be investors or immigrants. There is little agricultural and no mineral wealth, but, above all, there is no protection for property, no law, no order, no civilization in the islands. There is nothing to induce any sensible man to have any thing to do with them, except the fact that Colonel Steinberger has been nominated prime-minister by the confiding natives.

I

I.

T was a vexatious chance which kept me from New York when the Tyrrells arrived, for I thereby missed Bob Lyon, who came home in the same

steamer.

A decent deference to the claims of kindred would have worded that sentence otherwise, and, indeed, I am fond of Aunt Tyrrell, while Clara-but let that go. I was but a stripling, look you, grappling Latin syntax, and she just learning to make eyes and prattle French, and no doubt the verb we conjugated in those languages described a callow temperate yearning quite different to the peremptory passion for which you, madam (who inspire it), have a Saxon name. But Bob-or Robin, as we liked to call him, recognizing in a rude unconVOL. 15.-28.

scious way the sturdy honesty and simplicity of the lad—had laid hold of some college mates (he was no general lover) with a grasp which absence, possibly, and the slow alterative of time, but nothing else, would loosen. Our early friendships strike their rootlets deep, and a good many years must pass, and some rich loamy natures be parched to thin arid soils, before the crop of household interests quite strangles those hardy growths.

Well, I was not there to seize the old boy's hand and march him off to my own snuggery, and laugh with him over the vernal days when he daubed my class-books with nymphs and warriors, and revealed his dream of becoming a great painter. These diversions the young artist lost, but he did not want

"Of course you come with us, Mr. Lyon, to Gramercy Park. I don't know how we shall requite all you did for us in London-poor unprotected creatures that we were-and on the voyage, too. You must not think of going to hotels. So that is settled."

Thus did Aunt Tyrrell prescribe the movements of my tractable friend, and though Clara said not a word, why should her eyes brighten if she disapproved the suggestion?

It is true Robin meekly protested that he ought to go to his people in the country, but it was clear a studio had first to be chosen, and some preparation made for the autumn's campaign, which he admitted might require a day or two. You are aware, however, that the selection of a studio, embracing grave questions of light, frontage, seclusion, and immunity from noise, not to speak of the traditions and associations which evolve an æsthetic atmosphere, is a business not lightly dispatched. The ladies, too, were sincerely anxious to attest their gratitude for the patient guidance which had laid open the art - treasures of Britain, from Sir Richard Wallace's thesaurus even to those unfinished masterpieces (yet sacred from the vulgar eye) of embryo academicians, and were fain by way of quittance to show their guest those unrivaled collections which affluence and enlightened connoisseurship have accumulated in this island. And it may be that one of his companions in that edifying round could go back farther than those London days, and recall long rambles in Florentine galleries, when a few plain thoughtful words had provoked a wistful sympathy and quickened a girlish mind to unaffected zest.

It is scarcely possible to know less, in a worldly sense, of a young gentleman whom one chance or another has repeatedly thrown in your society, than the

ing his outward circumstances and personal history, beyond the fact that he was a classmate and friend of mine, those ladies were quite in the dark. Not that Robin could lay any claim to that austere discretion and nice reserve which some circumspect but rather empty-pated fellows succeed in passing for the very finest breeding. On the contrary, he would chat most freely about his little triumphs and reverses, his aversions and private hobbies, and confide to you on moderate encouragement the cherished dreams and wishes of his heart. But then these all happened to be bound up with his vocation of painter, which did in truth evoke what solicitude and fervor he had; and it no more occurred to this eccentric youth to call the roll of his connections and acquaintances, or descant on domestic matters, and the doings of the people at home, than it occurs to many lively persons to talk of anything else. Not that I like Othello a whit the less because he rehearsed his stirring passages so movingly; and when a raw Yankee lad has maintained himself at a first-rate college by school-teaching in the long vacations, has positively lived some years in Italy on the proceeds of weekly letters to the press, and found means so to improve his opportunity as to make a little stir in the world, I say, in heaven's name, let him seize his trumpet and blow a blast or two if he will. But you might as profitably applaud the sprouts of a potato for feeling their way toward sunshine, as try to make Robin comprehend that his own earlier struggles were anywise commendable or noteworthy.

Whether the species of reticence above acknowledged must be reckoned a merit or a blemish in Mr. Lyon's character, shall be left to individual judgment; at all events, it did not offend Miss Tyrrell. A capricious, fanciful, rather arbitrary young woman was my cousin,

who, I remember, at our children's parties, would often tease me with her wayward behavior, and was accounted by some juvenile admirers of quite a captious and sarcastic turn. And to this day many ingenious gentlemen, whose sprightly anecdotes find favor in drawing-rooms, do not esteem Miss Tyrrell sympathetic.

Now an artless headlong enthusiast, like my friend Robin, would make, I should suppose, a capital butt for female raillery; yet, strange to say, this variable damsel bore herself very humbly in his society, and after those Florence experiences before referred to, would let him pour forth his quirks and theories (wild enough, I dare say) for hours together. Or it might be, when a pause fell, she would hazard some queer little notion of her own, which Bob was sure to proclaim vastly suggestive, though I doubt if he could find it in the standard authors. I will not quarrel, however, because a high-flown rhapsodist may have preferred a girl's company to my own, for while I have read Taine, and can impart to my discourse, when I choose, a very delicate æsthetic flavor, I trust I graduate too justly the claims of life to dawdle away my mornings in art-galleries, or climb steep hills, as Clara will, to see the sun pop out some seconds earlier.

I would not deny that Bob's absorption in his art, and single-hearted devotion to that mistress, is a very fine thing indeed, and a refreshing spectacle in these languid times; but obviously it must isolate the artist from the sympathies and pleasant commerce of his kind, and lead him into many gaucheries and some neglect of the social amenities. Whether Robin had luckily escaped those untoward consequences may appear from some account of an interview with Miss Tyrrell which took place the evening before his departure. Bear in mind that he was practically taking leave,

of the young lady, as it was most unlikely she would see him in the morning.

"And you mean to bury yourself in a farm-house the whole summer?" Miss Clara said to Mr. Lyon, having for once been persuaded to discuss mundane topics. "I give you a month; you're no Arab, after all. You'll soon weary of those deserts, and we shall welcome you back to civilized life. We-that is, mamma wants you to come to Newport."

"You don't know my country," said honest Robin; "I think no man leaves it willingly. You would love its rugged scenery, I know that. There's nothing like it east of the Sierra!"

This was the moment to ascertain the precise State and county wherein the homestead lay, but the damsel's mind, perhaps, was not dwelling on matters geographical.

"I might like it," she said, dubiously, "for a week or two; but I should perish with nobody to talk to. Of course there can be no society"-this was put forward interrogatively-"none that you would care for, in those wilds?"

"Only my own people," said Robin, "They are fond of me, and I of

gently. them."

"O!" she began, and stopped suddenly, flushing quite rosy with regret and self-reproach. I suspect Miss Tyrrell, intent on a certain vein of inquiry, had dropped unconsciously that ungracious phrase. She tried another tack.

"My poor picture"-this was a portrait Mr. Lyon had been commissioned to paint-"will you promise not to neglect it? Perhaps it might better wait till autumn. Are you sure you need no more sittings?"

"Quite sure," he said. "It ought to be finished in a week. I'll touch nothing until it is done, Miss Tyrrell, and then forward it instantly."

Perhaps the covenant to cede so promptly a lady's likeness is not particularly flattering, and probably you, ac

complished reader, would have given the speech a pretty turn, but blundering Bob made matters worse. "I only hope Mrs. Tyrrell may like it," he went on. "I shall do my best, but portraiture is rather out of my line. The fact is, my heart's not in it." And then they began to talk of other things.

Now, I ask, was this a correct mode of parting from a young woman of fortune, who had really gone out of her way to notice and be kind to a struggling artist-on the eve, too, of a protracted separation?

When Aunt Tyrrell, next morning, after wishing the young painter goodspeed, went to her daughter's room, she found Miss Clara dressed, and weeping. Of course she had the girl in her arms in a moment.

"My child, my own, what was I thinking of? O, my love, my darling!" But who can paint the pantings and soft moans of the parent dove fondling her stricken nestling and soothing it.

I can not tell what tender story was whispered in that rapt ear, but something it certainly was which made mamma ruffle her plumage fiercely.

"He's a selfish moon -struck brute," she cried; "I wish we had never seen him!" And a feeling of resentment, akin to hatred, against that poor harm less Robin began to stir in the maternal bosom.

II.

When I appeared in Gramercy Park, that evening, of course the hawk had flown, and, in perfect keeping with his tiresome heedlessness, neglected to leave his address.

"Somewhere in New England," said Aunt Tyrrell, peevishly, and vague reminiscences of the college catalogue helped me to place Bob's home toward the far north.

"And what do you think of my friend Robin? Isn't he a rare piece of rural

honesty?" were my next questions; and here the acute female intellect might have drawn shrewd conclusions from my aunt's cautious cynical replies, and perhaps connected them with Miss Clara's listless abstracted air.

But the reader doubtless understands that the scenes and incidents heretofore recorded, as well as others to be pres ently set forth, were made known to the writer at a period considerably subsequent to their actual occurrence. Otherwise he would have bethought him at this juncture to communicate a little circumstance calculated to dispel with magic cogency the worst symptoms of a certain distemper, and cause the mind of a well-regulated young woman to recover instantly its normal tone. I mean the circumstance of my friend's engagement, which I might, without much difficulty, have resuscitated from my memory (the idiot had engaged himself before he left off jackets), and even drawn a tolerable likeness of a rosy-cheeked bustling lass, who, on class - day, danced with ardor upon the college green, and betrayed a lively interest and sense of proprietorship in Master Bob's concerns.

While I was ruminating on Aunt Tyrrell's equivocal demeanor, and my kinswomen, by sheer want of confidence, lost the comfort and healing virtues of a timely word, Mr. Lyon was rapidly nearing the natal village, which proved to be -as I guessed-in New Hampshire, and was, in fact, no other than the township of Conway, in the county of Carroll. It was late at night when he reached the quiet station which lay nearest the farm, and leaving his traps on the secure platform, set out cheerily to walk home.

How well he knew the road! There was the red school-house, and the Baptist church, and the clump of maples at the Four-corners. That was the Saco humming on his left, threading the mead ̧ows, and feeding the pool above Squire

Allen's mill; and here were sheep on the upland-Ruth's sheep, perhaps asleep in the dry June weather. West and north rose familiar hills, clothed to the peak with pines and hemlocks, kneeling, it seemed, before the mountain lords that reared above them their bare heads, gaunt and weird enough in the moonlight, and hid somewhere in their shadow the wonders of the haunted Notch.

He spied the gleam of a candle-in the keeping-room, no doubt-as he swung open a little gate and strode up the graveled walk flanked with sunflowers and hollyhocks. "That is Ruth, darning and mending-faithful soul!" he thought, letting the clapper fall against the door; and Ruth, indeed, it was, who trotted forward in great amaze, thrust back a bolt nervously, stared a second doubtfully into his eyes, then caught him in a warm embrace.

"Is it you, Bob-really you?" cried the eager girl. "Come to the lightlet me see your face!" She led him to the low-ceiled room, where all looked spruce and prim and neat as wax. "Why, how you've grown!" she said, scaning her cousin with admiring eyes. "You've got a beard, too—a great brown beard. Is it the fashion, Bob, in foreign parts?

What haven't you seen and done! And is it true, Bob-do they give you heaps of money for bits of canvas like that you sent us from France? How much now?—come

"How are you all?" said bewildered Robin. "How's little Nell?"

"Little-why she's a woman, Bob! Where is she?-Nellie!" And excited Ruth ran into the passage to bid her sister dress quickly, and come down speedily, and welcome somebody who had come home to his friends at last.

And then modest Robin was again inspected and marveled over and catechised, and presently in bounced Nellie -a gamesome sprightly lassie - and flung two plump arms about his neck;

and Ruth made tea, and woke up Reuben the hind (hired help she called him) and dispatched him to fetch the great man's luggage, and Nellie filled Bob's pipe, and gave him currant - wine, and altogether there was joy and festivity that night in the Lyon homestead.

Nobody could help liking Ruth Lyon who marked the kind firm mouth and honest eyes, or watched her earnest matronly ways. A little too brisk, too careful and practical, you may think, with scarce sentiment or leisure enough to play the rôle of sweetheart, but no such doubt or cavil occurred to those who, like Cousin Bob, knew the story of her loyal life.

He ran it all over, lying awake by and by in the best bedroom, and noting the bright woodwork, spotless curtains, quilted coverlet, and other vouchers of Ruth's housewifery. He remembered his introduction to the farm, when his father, the genius of the family-poor, luckless, abortive, rustic genius, we have all seen such-succumbing finally to strong drink and disappointment, left nothing behind him but a fretful wife and sturdy boy. He could see his uncle-plain, overworked, kindly man-tending the widow (while she lasted), patient always of her peevish plaints, pinching his girls to buy Bob books, and putting the lad to Exeter school (for the son of a genius must have advantages), and at last throwing up in his turn the hard task of living. And then Ruth, a mere girl not seventeen yet, with a big barren farm illstocked and mortgaged, and a little sister on her hands, taking up the burden quietly and singly (Bob should never forego his college and the chance of a fair career), and wringing from those reluctant acres independence and comfort, and even profit. Was it not a fine brave thing, he thought, and could heart of man wish more generous comrade, or helpmate more efficient and true? And Cousin Ruth had waited for him all