Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

"How much a lesson?" she said, half closing one shrewd gray eye. "How much a lesson? Ah, she would not take pupils,--no, no, not while she was Hedwig Vogel; and _der liebe Gott_ knows she will never be Hedwig anything else. But she will make an exception for our deer Mees Varing; oh, yes, an exception! Wait till Mees Varing's rich American friends come along and buy some of the great Vogel's pictures. You will see."

"But has the Mees any rich friends?" asked her crony the Frau Doctorin.

And then the parson's widow laughed in a worldly way.

"So pretty a girl," she said, "so fine a complexion, such little feet! And those winning ways!"

From which it will be seen that the Frau Pastorin could admire and appreciate a woman who was young and beautiful. So could the painters; but that is easier to believe. And so could the tight-booted lieutenants; but that is perfectly understood. When Kitty Waring crossed the Hof Garten, even that old woman who years and years ago sold little Heinrich Heine plums would point out the girl to her contemporary the venerable under-gardener.

"_HÃ¥bsch_" the old woman would growl.

"_Aber leichtsinnig--leichtsinnig_," the old man would add,--for he was a misogynist.

But Kitty was not quite _leichtsinnig_, although she did stroll through the garden sometimes with Fritz Goebel, sometimes with Otho Weiss, sometimes with her fellow-countryman Joe Buckley. They were all young, all painters, all poor. Who cared what they did? What if they sat on a beach under a linden-tree and played cat's-cradle like children? What if they made little excursions to Zons or to Xanten? What if there was a supper in Joe Buckley's studio, and Kitty Waring and Anna van der Meer--a sedate creature from Rotterdam was she--were taught how to make a true, good _bowl_? Who cared? In fact, all DÃ¥sseldorf cared.

One day the Frau Pastorin called Kitty into her parlor. "Dear child," she began, "if your good mother--"

"She has been dead fifteen years," said Kitty.

"If your father--" continued the Frau Pastorin.

"He? Oh, I can't remember him at all," said Kitty.

"Have you no family?" was the question that the Frau Pastorin put squarely.

"An uncle or two somewhere in Iowa," Kitty answered. "An aunt brought me up, and then died, poor thing!" A smile flitted across Kitty's face, and tears sprang to her eyes; but her questioner saw only the smile. The world is full of such purblind folk.

"Where were you last night so late?" she said acridly.

Kitty turned on the plump little woman and looked down at her.

"When Miss Smythe told me that I should find a pleasant home here, she made a sad mistake," was the irrelevant answer that Mees gave. It puzzled the Frau Pastorin for full a week. Then Hedwig Vogel and Mees paid their honest debts and took up quarters with Frau Tisch, in the Rosenstrasse.

"It is much pleasanter here," cried; Kitty, as she moved about the parlor, transforming the commonplace aspect of the room. "And it is cheap, too. I thought Frau Tisch would ask more than Frau Raben."

"It is less because we club together," said Fräulein Vogel.

Kitty might have suspected something if her new friend had not had the name of being so close-fisted. Who would dream that Hedwig Vogel could be free-handed?--she who would beat a _gemåse-frau_ out of two cents; she who refused to subscribe to the fund for painters' widows, declaring that it was as likely she would leave a widow as be left one. She was not susceptible, she cared naught for sweet smiles and gentle ways. That she, a gaunt, grim, brusque woman of fifty, could suddenly feel all the stifled mother-love within her spring up,--that was preposterous, the vain imagining of a romancer.

They worked together, these two, in Hedwig Vogel's studio, and Kitty strove to make up for her lack of talent by her abundance of patience.

"Why did you decide to be a painter?" Fräulein Vogel asked her one day.

"Because I had a start in that line," Kitty answered. "If I had had a start in music I should have tried to play or sing. I wonder if I could sing? They say everybody has a voice. People are just like fields: plough 'em up, plant cabbages, plant potatoes, you can raise some sort of a crop. How do you happen to be a painter?"

Hedwig Vogel paused, palette in one hand, brush in the other. "Because I would rather paint than eat," she answered.

"That is genius," said Kitty solemnly. "I would rather eat. That is lack of genius. But because I want to eat I paint. That is--what would you call that?"

"You have a daub of ochre on your nose," said Fräulein Vogel.

"Anyway," Kitty remarked after a while, "if worse came to worst I could teach. There is German. Now, I really speak German well, don't I? I could teach that."

"Oh, you have the gift o' gab!" said the painter. "But you will be married, sure."

A long silence followed. "I am twenty-four," said Kitty.

"There is no safety for you this side of the grave," said Fräulein Vogel.

"I may be married, but I doubt it," Kitty continued. "I--" And then she dropped her brushes, flung herself prone on the floor, and burst into passionate tears. Hedwig Vogel did not try to comfort her, but she knelt beside her and put her strong right arm about the girl's quivering shoulders. At last Kitty sat up and brushed back her tangled hair.

"Every day I think of him," she said. "Every day I hope, I pray he will come. I watch for the postman,--I have watched for him so long. He never brings me a letter, but my heart stops beating when he draws near the house. When he rings the bell, when the servant comes up the stairs, I shut my eyes. I can almost believe I have the letter in my hand. I almost see the words. But there is never a letter,--there never can be. Oh, I--" She rose and walked to and fro. "I am to blame," she added, laying her hand on Fraulein Vogel's shoulder. "I wronged him by my suspicion, my petty jealousy; then I ran away from him, and expected him to roam over Europe trying to find me. I hid myself from him, and I am eating my heart out because he does not come."

"Suppose," said Fräulein Vogel, "that he is seeking for you now?"

Kitty's wet eyes shone for a moment. "I am not worth that," she said.

"But if he loves you?"

"Oh, he loves me, I know!" she exclaimed. "And I doubted him. I thought all manner of base thoughts, and I told him of them to his face,--to him, the noblest, dearest,--and he never reproached me. Do you wonder I am ashamed to write to him? Do you wonder I dare not ask his pardon?"

"If he loves you he would forgive anything," said Fräulein Vogel.

The room had grown dark, and they mechanically washed their brushes, cleaned their palettes, and made ready to go home. As they crossed the Hof Garten, two or three young painters joined them, and the talk ran on gayly. Fräulein Vogel had heard Kitty's laugh ring out many a time before, but never until now did she hear the sad note that dimmed the sweetness of it. The young men turned away at last.

"To-morrow, then, at eight," sang out Otho Weiss.

"Until to-morrow," cried the others.

"Until to-morrow," Kitty echoed. "Always to-morrow," she added softly to herself.

"I do not understand," said Fräulein Vogel, going back to the talk in the studio.

"I was jealous," Kitty answered simply. "He was above me in station--"

"I thought there was no rank in America," said Fräulein Vogel.

"Then you cannot understand how a big tradesman scorns a little one," Kitty rejoined. "My aunt kept a shop, but she would never let me help her sell pins and needles and tape. No, I must go to school with girls whose fathers sold pins by the ton instead of by the paper,--or by the pound, as you do here. His father sold them by the ton,--a mere matter of big and little. The family was reconciled to me after a while. You see, the family had to be reconciled, for Frank did not care what they said to him."

"He loved you," said Fräulein Vogel.

"Yes, but they wanted him to love somebody else. Perhaps he would have done so if I had not come in his way. Perhaps he would have married the right girl,--a limp, languid creature, with money enough to build a cathedral like the one at Cologne. She made the trouble. They said he was tired of me, that he repented his impetuosity; and I heard it all, and I grew jealous,--jealous of nothing. I reproached him, told him that he wanted her and her money. Then came the crash. My aunt died. I had a chance to come to Europe with some people, and I did not even bid him good-by. Now I expect him to write to me--to find me."

She laughed a little as she said this. "Some day," said Fräulein Vogel. "If he loves you," she added.

"I doubted him," Kitty said, "and I deserve all this. Ah, if you knew him, if you saw him, you would know what a fool I was!"

They had reached the house by this time, and, as Kitty opened the door, she added, "I must write soon. I must hear something about him. What may not have happened in a year? Perhaps he is dead."

She did not mention her lover again to Fräulein Vogel, but she showed her his portrait; and the sharp-eyed painter looked at the frank, manly face a long time.

"Write to him, you foolish woman," she said.

"Not yet. I will wait a little longer," Kitty rejoined.

The summer wore away. In August they went for a fortnight to a little place near Remagen,--Bad Neunahr it is called,--and here Kitty's eyes were opened, and she suddenly awoke to the fact that her new friend was no ordinary friend.

"You need not worry about money," said Fräulein Vogel. "If you don't learn how to make it, you know how to spend it. I could never learn that myself."

But in the autumn Kitty only worked the harder, believing with all her heart that patience would make a respectable, picture-selling painter out of a Chinese mandarin. When the gray dawn stole in at the window she sprang out of bed, dressed, and was off to the studio for an hour before breakfast. She begrudged the time spent for dinner, she bemoaned a dark day, and she laid her brushes down reluctantly in the twilight. In the evening she wanted to go to the theatre, to a concert, to a supper. Such as she find plenty of companions, and from time to time Dåsseldorf raised its hands over her doings. Fräulein Vogel watched and waited in a sort of patient agony, but at last, not without deep reflection, she wrote a letter to Kitty's sweetheart. She read his name on the back of a photograph, she knew well how to spell the name of the town, she knew the town was near New York, she knew New York was in North America, and she had to buy an extra big envelope to hold the whole address. But the letter was a terrible thing, and a happy thought came to her. She made a little picture of Kitty,--a perfect little picture,--and beneath it she wrote name and address. That was better than a thousand letters. Carefully she did it up, placing tissue-paper above and beneath the cardboard, and laying it tenderly in a white box. Surely it could not go astray, unless all the post-office men were blind; but, to make sure, she would register it, if that were possible. All must be done without Kitty's knowledge, and the touch of mystery made the romance the sweeter. One fine day she sallied forth to send the little portrait on its way. She entered the Hof Garten, sauntered down the Linden Allée thinking all the while how delightfully the comedy would end. Her own part, as good fairy of the play, pleased her, too, and she smiled to herself as she strayed off from the Allée and, seating herself on a bench that was well screened from prying eyes, she gave herself up to revery. Of course the lover would come, of course he would carry Kitty off; but Fräulein Vogel did not mean to be left far behind. She would look after Kitty, for the foolish, impetuous creature would need at least two people to keep her out of mischief.

"Frank."

Some one uttered the name, and Fräulein Vogel peered through the leaves. Sitting near was a pale, sweet-faced woman, drawing figures in the gravel with the tip of her parasol.

"Frank," she repeated, "shall we go home?"

"Do you mean Withlacootchie or the hotel?" was the answer.

The man had his back to Fräulein Vogel, but now he turned, and she recognized him. The portrait had lied a little, as portraits will lie, and yet he was a handsome man enough, after all.

"Home or the hotel, dear?" His voice was very gentle, and his smile tender. "Are you tired of wandering?" he added.

"Oh, no!" she said, "but whither shall we wander?"

"Up-stairs, down-stairs, in my ladies' chamber," he rejoined. "Last summer, the Tyrol; last winter, Italy; this summer, Switzerland; now,--where? We are making a long honeymoon of it."

"And are you tired?" she asked.

He gave a rapid glance up and down the Allée then stooped and kissed her.

Fräulein Vogel had not understood all the words, the caress she saw. She rose and went slowly homeward. In the tiny Dåssel the swans were floating majestically, and, standing there on the bank, she tore the box and the picture into scraps and flung them in the water. The swans hastened after the bits of white paper; they fought and screamed over them, and the victor proudly bore away a fragment from his envious mates, only to discover that it was worthless.

CHARLES DUNNING.

* * * * *

THE NEXT VACATION.

If it finds you with fifty dollars and a fortnight at your command, you cannot do better than spend both on the Great Lakes.

You don't care for water? But the Great Lakes are not water. You follow closely the most interesting and wonderful shore, and seven different times stop for several hours at places on the coast.

Or perhaps you do care for water, and would not like hugging the shore? One day, at least, on Lake Huron, you would be out of sight of land; and if you should have a lake storm, you would have all the ocean "fun" you would care for.

Or you were thinking of the Thousand Isles? There are a thousand isles in the northern part of Lake Huron, just before you turn into the little winding river that leads to the "Soo."

Or you had planned to see Lake George this year? You will see a beautiful copy of Lake George as you leave the little town of Hancock and pass from the narrow river into a broad expanse dotted with islands, just before entering the canal that leads to the upper part of Lake Superior.

But you had rather go West, among the mines? What mines can you find, more interesting than the great copper-mines of Calumet and Hecla and Quincy?--the only place in the United States, indeed, where you can see the curious man-engine, with its arrangement of changing-platforms for carrying the miners up and down.

Well, you meant to go "canoeing." Some very choice canoeing and shooting of rapids you can have during the hours at the Sault Ste. Marie, popularly known as the "Soo," and during the two days that the steamer waits at Duluth before the return-trip Lake Superior will prove not an unattractive spot to paddle about in.

Add to this the interest of the magnificent new locks at the "Soo," the historical and romantic associations with Marquette and Mackinac (for you will not forget that Miss Woolson's "Anne" lived on the Great Lakes), and the creature comforts of big state-rooms, with large, comfortable beds, and running water in the basins, on admirable steamers that set an excellent hotel-table, and you will wonder, as we did, that so few tourists seem to know about, or care for, one of the most enjoyable excursions in the country,--I am quite sure I can say the most enjoyable for the little money it costs.

We took it ourselves quite by accident,--willing to go out of our way a little on the journey to Colorado in the heat of summer for the sake of a little trip by water to compensate for the sea-shore cottage we were leaving behind us for the season. We did not, indeed, begin the trip, as the steamers do, at Buffalo; for, although time and tide wait for no man at the East, at the West there are no tides, and time was willing to make an appointment for us to overtake the steamer at Detroit. We were glad of an excuse for lingering at the House Beautiful in Buffalo, where we would rather spend Sunday any time than on any lake in the world. Fortunately, we had "been to the Falls" many times before, and had seen Niagara in winter splendor and summer loveliness: so we were at liberty to idle away the fleeting hours in the shades of Delaware Avenue, on charming piazzas, till the time came when we must start on the flying trip through Canada if we would overtake the steamer Japan.

She was just gliding into her dock at Detroit as we stepped from the cars, and we still had three or four hours' leisure before she would start again in which to drive about the pretty city and call on friends. Just before midnight we embarked, and our first experience of the Great Lakes was a night of peaceful and serene slumber.

Peaceful and serene, too, was the following day,--a patient waiting for the scenery to begin, sitting with novels on what was facetiously known as "the back piazza" of the Japan, out of sight of land, but gliding over a sea so smooth that the hanging flower-baskets on the deck scarcely stirred. If you scorn such tame delights when apparently at sea, remember that it might have been rough as only lakes are rough in a great storm. It was very warm. The captain's assurance that the next morning we should want to borrow his overcoat and mittens had no effect in disguising the fact that it was warm. The ladies dressed for dinner, many of them in white; and the only excitement of the afternoon was the "sighting" of the Michigan, United States man-of-war, cruising in lake-waters. A little knot of officers on deck waved their handkerchiefs; a little knot of pretty girls on the Japan were responding eagerly, when a severe and elderly voice was heard to say, with distinctness, "The officers' wives are on board the Japan. They are waving to _them_."

And in fact, as we glided past, a little child was seen at a port-hole of the Michigan, waving a handkerchief to mamma on the Japan. It had been seriously ill, and the mother, forbidden by the United States government to remain with her sick child on the Michigan, preferred to leave him there with his father, where he could have the care of the special surgeon who understood the case, while she followed as closely as she could in one of the lake-steamers. Ah, how interested we all were! It is recorded in history that certain enemies of the Egyptians used to go into battle with them with each man holding a cat in his arms. Suppose in our next war we try the effect upon our enemies of letting each of our soldiers carry a white-robed baby? One thing is certain, the Michigan captured the Japan with all on board that day simply by exhibiting that little white figure at its port-hole. The next day at the "Soo" not a murmur of dissent was heard when the good-natured captain, who had no European mails on board, said he would wait an extra hour for the Michigan to come up, that the anxious mother might have twenty-four hours' later news.

On the second morning there was an entire change of weather and landscape. The sun still shone gloriously (the thermometer that day in Chicago stood at 94), but rugs, seal-skins, and hoods were in demand. We were no longer out of sight of land, but were threading our way in and out among a thousand isles, with hills that seemed almost mountains threatening to bar our course before long if we did not turn back the way we came. No one, the captain said, had ever been known to guess the channel correctly; but before long we had made a sharp turn to the left at the only spot that offered an outlet, and found the Great Lakes narrowed suddenly to a beautiful winding river which led us in the course of another hour or two to the "Soo." Here the steamer would wait three hours, and we could explore the queer little town,--quite a popular resort in summer,--or inspect the splendid locks of the great canal, or shoot the rapids. To me it was a genuine pleasure to find at last some rapids that were visible to the naked eye. The famous rapids of the St. Lawrence had been a severe disappointment, but here were rapids worthy of the name. Lake Superior was visibly above us, Lake Huron visibly below, and between ran the turbulent little stream which of course must be flowing into Lake Huron, though we could not have told merely by looking at it which way the current ran.

"Would we go up the rapids?" We had heard of going down the rapids, but in reality the most wonderful part of the performance is going up. Not only is the current fearfully swift, even close to the shore as it is necessary to keep, but the water seems to be only a few inches deep, and the rocks are as thick as plums in a Christmas pudding. Yet two Indians, standing erect, one in the bow and one in the stern of the canoe, pole you up the stream against these terrible odds as easily and surely as a Harvard oarsman might row you across Seneca Lake. Then they pause for a moment.

"How will you have it going down? Rough?" they ask.

"Rough," we answer, wondering what in the world they can mean by speaking as if they were the autocrats of wind and current.

But it seems there are two channels,--one near shore for the timid, and one in mid-stream. We were not to be betrayed into any exhibition of timidity after that first hesitating question, "Do you know the rapids well? How many times have you taken people down?" To which the quiet reply had been, "Three times a day, lady, for twenty years." Twenty thousand times, by rough calculation!

So we went over in mid-stream, and were not sorry,--receiving as we stepped ashore what is probably a part of every programme, the compliment of being "the bravest lady that ever went over the falls."

Many a pleasant day, or week, one might undoubtedly spend at the Sault Ste. Marie, or at Mackinac; but if you have only turned through the straits and gone southward again to Chicago through Lake Michigan, do not think of saying that you have taken the trip on the Great Lakes. To me the Great Lakes will always mean Lake Superior. It is something unique in the geography of the world, and you have the consciousness of your actual height above the level of the sea as you rarely have on any elevated land that is not actually a mountain. Ruskin says that for him the flowers lose their light, the river its music, when he tries to divest any given landscape of its associations with human struggle and endeavor. Our New World scenery, of course, has little of that wonderful charm of association; but there is something singularly impressive in the mere silence and vastness of our great Northern solitudes.

We entered Lake Superior late in the afternoon, and the only event of the evening was a magnificent aurora. Toward midnight the gorgeous tints changed to a thin wedge of perfectly white light, against which in a duskier white the sails of passing vessels were distinctly outlined, though no hulls were visible.

At Marquette, in the morning, a party of Finnish emigrants on board left the ship. Half a dozen Americanized Finns, who had evidently been the inspiring cause of this influx of new citizens, had come to the wharf to greet the new arrivals. They had the same short stature, the same stolid features, as their relatives on board; but there was a difference. The white shirt, the clean collar, the smart straw hat and vivid necktie, with a vigorous step, alert manner, decisive tones, and a certain tendency to help the women with their heavy boxes, distinctly individualized those who had been awhile under American influence.

All day we basked in the sunshine on the captain's bridge. Think of being glad to bask in the sunshine on a 4th of August! Between Marquette and Portage River we passed but one house,--one solitary, lonely house, set on the very edge of the "unsalted sea;" before it a vast expanse of limitless waters, behind it an unbroken, limitless forest; no fields, no crops, no roads, only space enough cleared for the tiny cabin and tinier shed. What had lured people there? What kept them alive? No neighbors, no mail, no farm, no apparent object in life, and only one small rowboat to get away in.

Yet they had put a curtain up at the window! No human being could by any possibility look in at that window. Even the curtain could only be detected with an opera-glass from the steamer that passed twice a week. But the sweet instinct of privacy and home had had its way, and every night the little curtain that never shut out anything but the incurious moonlight or the innocent stars was drawn as regularly as the shades of a Fifth Avenue mansion. Later we learned that it was the Life-Saving Station of Lake Superior.

"No nap this afternoon, ladies," said the captain as he left the luncheon-table. "You must be on the lookout for Portage River."

All the afternoon we watched for the little river, eked out by a canal, that enables us to cut off one hundred and twenty miles of what would be the course around Keweena Point, besides giving what is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole trip. So narrow is the opening of the river that no trace of it is to be seen till we are close upon it; yet swift as the dove from far Palmyra flying, unerring as an arrow from the bow, the great ship sweeps across the lake to exactly the right spot. The river is hardly the width of a canal, yet curves as no canal would ever curve, so that the captain in giving orders has to watch both ends of the vessel to see that neither runs aground. It would be impossible for two steamers to pass each other in the river, and the contingency of their meeting is guarded against by the fact that returning steamers have to go round the Point, being too heavily laden with flour from Duluth. As it was, there were but thirteen feet of water in the river, and the Japan drew twelve.

Once in the river, we experienced a most extraordinary transformation. Every one knows what it is to pass in a day or two from northern snow to southern roses, or in a few hours from valley roses to mountain snow; but here, _in five minutes_, and remaining on precisely the same level, we passed from October to July. The cold lake-breeze died away, and on the little inland river the sun was actually oppressive. Seal-skins were cast aside, and we sent hastily below for sun-umbrellas. The speed of the steamer was slackened to four miles an hour. You heard no click of machinery or swash of water against the sides: we were gliding on through a green and lovely marsh, with water-lilies all about us and wild roses in the distance. Cattle stood knee-deep in pleasant brooks, locusts hummed and buzzed in the warm air, all sweet summer sounds and scents encompassed us. There was even a little settlement of scattered houses; but the expected steamer had evidently created no excitement in the inmates. It would not stop; it brought them neither mail nor summer boarder: why should they care just to see it pass? One man, painting the window-sashes of his house with his back to the steamer, never even turned or paused from his work, though we were so near that he might have heard what was said about him on the deck. It is not the dweller in the wilderness, but the denizen of cities, that longs for something to happen.

At Hancock the steamer waits several hours, giving an opportunity to visit the wonderful copper-mines. We chanced to be there just at the hour to see one of the unique sights of America,--the working of the man-engine that brings the miners up from their work. Even by machinery it takes them half an hour to reach daylight. The mine is worked to the depth of fifteen hundred feet, and for five hundred we could gaze down into the dark and awful shaft, lit for us by the candles burning in the miners' caps. Two long beams, to which are attached at right angles little platforms at intervals of eight feet, each platform holding one man, work up and down. As each man reaches the level of the platform above on the opposite beam the engine stops just long enough for him to step from one to the other. The long, silent, spectral procession, moving with such shadowy precision and constant motion, with the glimmering lights changing, not fitfully, but with the regularity of well-trained will-o'-the-wisps, made a panorama not easily forgotten. Every minute or two, as the engine paused, the miner whose platform had reached the top sprang suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, out of the opening into which we were gazing, touched his hat, and disappeared into the town. Long as we waited, the procession was not yet ended when we had to go back to the Japan.

It is just beyond Hancock that the river broadens into the beautiful expanse so like Lake George. As we glided away from the wharf in the light of a splendid sunset, it was curious to look back at the simple little town, so remote from luxury, even from civilization, so humble in its own wants and pleasures, yet pouring such vast sources of supply into the great world of which it knew nothing and asked nothing, save the privilege of enriching it.

At twilight we entered the canal. I have been up the Saguenay, I have been over the Marshall Pass and through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, and I have seen many noble scenes in Europe, but no scenery has ever impressed me with such solemnity as the landscape on that canal in the twilight of an August afternoon. Nor was it merely a personal impression. There were two hundred souls on board, with the usual proportion of giddy young girls and talkative youths; the negro waiters as we entered the canal were singing and playing their violins; but in an instant, as the speed of the steamer was again checked to four miles an hour, every sound was hushed on board. During the hour that was occupied in going through the canal, it is a literal fact that not a sound was heard on the great steamer but the low impressive orders of the captain and--if you chanced to be on the captain's bridge--_the ticking of the clock in the wheel-house._ People spoke in whispers, if they spoke at all, quite unconscious of it till they remembered it afterward. What made it so impressive? I am sure I do not know. Certainly there was nothing awful in the scenery, and we never were in less danger in our lives. We were moving peacefully through a long, narrow sheet of perfectly calm water, stretching straight as a die from the river to the upper lake. If anything had happened, we could have jumped ashore on either side, and another steamer from Buffalo would have come through in a day or two and picked us up. The only thing possible to fear was that we might ground in the shallow water, an emergency from which we could only be relieved, as there are no tides in the lakes, by the tedious process of lightening the cargo. It was a perfectly clear evening after a most beautiful day. But on either side of us, far as the eye could reach, stretched an apparently unbroken forest. Through the narrow vista cleared for our silvery pathway a slow and stately twilight came solemnly to fold us in its embrace, as we advanced solemnly and slowly from vast and awful solitudes to solitudes more vast and awful still. As we drew near the lake again, a little light-house gleamed, and, as we swept past it out into the broad expanse of limitless waters, the cheerful throb of the machinery quickened again upon the sea, the pleasant swish of the water against the ship greeted us once more, life, movement, and gayety sprang out again on board, and in an instant the entire steamer had burst into laughter and chat and song. We were really in far more danger, from storm or collision or fire, out on the great lake; but the sense of awe had been lifted from us.

We were due at Duluth at four o'clock of the following afternoon. What would she be like, this "zenith city of the unsalted seas," with such a stately avenue of approach? At three o'clock we began to see in the distance what seemed to be her cloud-capped towers and domes and palaces; at half-past three a beautiful little humming-bird, blown from the shore, lit on my scarlet necktie and pecked at this strange flower from the East; at four we were at the wharf.

"I think," said my companion slowly, gazing sorrowfully at the shanties that had made such splendid domes in the distance, "I think I should have called it Delusion, instead of Duluth. It looks like a town in Dickens's 'American Notes' illustrated by Dor?

Surely never was there a more forlorn little town, trying to scramble up a hillside covered with the tall trunks of dead trees and blackened stumps, shut out from one world by the waste of waters before it, shut in from another by dreary, verdureless hills. Surely nobody _lived_ there; those could not be _homes,_ those desolate frame houses where people were "staying" awhile. It seemed as if the whole town, like "Poor Joe," would soon be told by a vigilant policeman to "move on."

And we, who were looking forward to Colorado, needed no policeman to urge us to "move on" by the earliest train to St. Paul.

ALICE WELLINGTON ROLLINS.

* * * * *

AURORA.