in.

Sybil Blandford knew the world she lived "This man must put me on my guard," she told herself. "He has gained nothing in self-control since we met, and " (while a great pang shot through her heart) "I can see well enough by his face how he has suffered."

Dinner was soon served after the gentlemen's arrival, and its first courses passed off with all desirable harmony. But at length the old atrocious taste began to show itself in Blandford's manner toward his wife. Several slurring impertinences, just jocose enough to be less easily borne on that account, left his lips. Philip discovered himself taking two or three large swallows of sherry in quick succession. Somehow he found this sort of thing much harder to endure after his weeks of suffering-of regret for the irremediable. Once he let his eyes wander toward Bernotti, willing enough to exchange with the Italian a glance that might express their common disgust. But Bernotti had raised a glass of water to his lips, and so partly concealed his face, while his eyes wore their rather habitual drooped expression, failing to meet Philip's.

The dowager Mrs. Blandford repeatedly, on these occasions, came to the rescue of her daughter-in-law, and the redemption, as regards some lingering residual courtesy, of her offensive son. But her powers were tonight of little avail.

"And so you have remained here all through the summer?" Philip made words during a pause, addressing Mrs. Blandford.

Mr. Blandford tossed off his third or fourth glass of claret. "Yes, all summer," he took upon himself to blurt forth boorishly in answer. "She wouldn't even go to Newport in August. There's some concealed attraction round here. I don't know what it can be except a flirtation with one of my farm-hands."

The vulgarity of this speech was nothing to the leer of somewhat vinous semi-jollity that accompanied it. Mrs. Blandford fixed both eyes on her plate and shuddered in a slightly visible manner. And then it seemed to her that something forced them toward the face of Philip Amyott.

He was gazing at her with a kind of recklessly - abandoned fixity. His look said"Shall I leave your table? Shall I knock this man down? Shall I make by words your cause my cause? For Heaven's sake, tell me, what shall I do to prove my intense sympathy and pity?"

She looked back-" Do nothing." It was not hard thus mutely to speak these words, for it only needed a little imperious raising of the brows on Mrs. Blandford's part, and a little curve of the lip, half astonished, half scornful. Philip dropped his eyes. He understood her perfectly, and admired from his soul what seemed to him the noble, self-reliant pride of her resentment. The dinner dragged itself through, after this, with no further pleasant manifestations from its presiding Chesterfield. The gentlemen were left alone after dessert. Blandford brought out some really superb madeira, but Philip felt that he was incapable of uttering a word in its praise. Indeed, it was with difficulty that he could address Blandford, or even pay decent heed to that person's remarks. But,

while looking at Bernotti, whom he several times addressed, Philip thought he saw on the Italian's delicate face a pallor that much surpassed its usual suggestion of colorlessness. Was it possible that Bernotti, too, felt for his friend in the wretched mockery of her position? Possible? Ah, why not more than probable? Philip would have liked, just then, to rise from the table and cordially grasp the Italian's hand within his

own.

The next day was full of mellowest golden haziness, and every gaudy-tinted sweep of woodland showed with splendor of contrast against the blandly - blue autumn heaven. There was no legitimate excuse for woodcockshooting, though Philip would fain have made one, for the reason that he loathed the thought of Blandford's unshared society, if because of no other. But to his great relief he discovered that Bernotti would accompany them, and that he was a well-practised and even enthusiastic sportsman.

Blandford possessed an excellent dog, but he failed to discover any birds during nearly an hour after the little party of three arrived at the proper swampy locality. At last Blandford (really an excellent shot) was fortunate enough to secure a bird, and filled with consequent immense good humor. Another shortly afterward fell to his pouch, and he immediately began to narrate a sporting anecdote in which he himself cut the noblest of figures as its hero.

They were at this time on the outskirts of a small, half-marshy wood. Philip strolled away in disgust, so ill-concealed that he had the prudence at least to invest it with distance. Something had been said about eating, presently, the luncheon which they had brought with them. He presumed they would eat it somewhere in this neighborhood. Altogether, he concluded, while seating himself on a fallen tree-trunk, it would perhaps be a benefit to his nervous state if he ate it not at all, but quietly allowed his companions to lose him. Already they were out of sight-he dejectedly told himself that he neither knew nor cared how far. A brisk south wind, so common to these hazy days of our autumn, had recently arisen, and was making a wide, murmurous sound among the innumerable brittle leaves that it rustled.

Philip's eyes were fixed on some point directly in front of him, though from their meditative look, while he leaned on his gun, you would have said that they observed but little. Suddenly the sharp, whirring noise of a woodcock, when it rises, sounded behind him. He quickly turned, perceived the risen bird, raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired before it had cleared a distance of more than four feet from the ground. Easy as was the shot, he missed the bird. He then fired again, and again missed.

An expression of annoyance left his lips. In his then dejected and irritated state this trifle assumed far greater importance than it would otherwise have done. It gave him, however, a certain relish for the sport of which he had come in pursuit. "I wonder where those men are?" he muttered, ill-humoredly enough to have suggested that the separation had been wholly their fault.

"You have shot Mr. Blandford. We were coming to look for you. I suppose you did not hear us because of the wind. It is very terrible!"

Philip lifted a hand bewilderingly to his forehead. While he stared with blank looks at Bernotti, the Italian pulled him slightly by the sleeve and pointed toward the wood.

Then they both went together (Philip a little unsteadily), and looked upon what had been done. Blandford lay very near the edge of the wood so near, in truth, that the impossibility of not having seen his form through the branches flashed across Philip with the momentary force of strongest conviction, as he now knelt down beside the fallen man.

His head was bleeding profusely, as though from some wound in the temple; his eyes were closed; his face ghastly. Philip laid a hand upon his heart; there was scarcely a perceptible flutter here. He sprang to his feet.

"One of us must get help," he exclaimed. Shall I go?

"No," answered Bernotti, with speed. "I am a very fast runner. Let me go." And a moment later he had dashed away through the trees.

Philip again knelt down at the side of Blandford. He suddenly remembered that he carried a flask of brandy, and at once produced it. To pour it through those bluetinged lips was, however, a work of much difficulty; but he succeeded in making the wounded man swallow nearly a mouthful of the liquor, after a little persistent effort.

The effect was very rapid. A slight color touched Blandford's cheeks, though he did not, for some little space, open his eyes. Presently, however, his eyes were unclosed, and fixed steadfastly on Philip's face. They had, as their observer noticed, a glassy and blinded look.

"Murderer!" the unfortunate man groaned at this point, in a voice husky beyond recognition, while the word was evidently a result of severe physical labor. And immediately afterward his eyelids drooped themselves, and there came across his face the swift yet certain signs of death.

Philip shuddered from head to foot. The certitude of his own innocence seemed, naturally enough, to thrill through all his being, but a sensation of utter horror thrilled with it. Had Blandford seen him raise his gun and fire, and had Blandford believed-? oh, no! the thought was too horrible! And yet why should that awfully-accusing word have left the dying man's lips?

A good half-hour elapsed before Bernotti's return. He brought several men and a sort

of litter as well. When he arrived there was no longer the slightest doubt of Blandford's death. The body was placed upon the litter, amid the men's ejaculations of astonishment and sympathy, not unmixed with occasional side-glances in Philip's direction. He and Bernotti made the last two of the sad homeward procession that now followed.

The next few days were to Philip inexpressibly wretched. There was, of course, an inquest, at which the gloomy simplicity of his testimony, and the overwhelming directness of Bernotti's, made slight difficulty about a verdict. The Italian had seen Philip, between the branches of the near trees, raise his gun and fire, while he advanced in that direction with Mr. Blandford. The action was so rapid that he had not even time to warn Mr. Amyott, and the next instant Mr. Blandford fell at his feet. "But Mr. Amyott," Bernotti went on to say, 66 now fired a second time, and in a wholly different direction. My first thought was of the wounded man. I stooped down beside him for a moment, ascertained that he was even then senseless, and at once hurried out to inform Mr. Am. yott of this terrible accident."

Nothing that might be called a private interview took place between Philip and Mrs. Blandford. When they met, either Bernotti or her mother-in-law was present. Her manner was full of a sort of stunned, decorous composure. She seemed to recognize Philip's.miserable situation, and to pity it keenly, but she seemed to recognize, as well, how ill-advised would be any excess of sympathy on her own part. The dowager Mrs. Blandford was almost prostrated by grief; she had, doubtless, tenderly loved her son. No words of useless reproach passed her lips, however, while she was in Philip's presence; and very probably, if such had been the case, these words would have added nothing to the utter mental desolation and protracted suffering of the poor fellow's condition.

The funeral took place at the late Mr. Blandford's country-residence, and was, consequently, in a comparative degree, small; but many acquaintances came up from town, and Bernotti, the one visible witness of the sad accident, was assailed with numberless inevitable questions, Philip remaining (at the Italian's earnest advice) concealed from all curious eyes during the mournful ceremony. "I confess that I can scarcely make up my mind how to act," Philip had dejectedly said, on the previous day, and Bernotti, a most ready and valuable counselor, had at once answered: "Remain away from everybody; it will be in far better taste. You must not even go to the grave. People cannot doubt the intensity of your feelings in this matter, and everybody will, of course, understand your horror of being stared at, and of having your demeanor, under such peculiar and distressing circumstances, publicly discussed." And Philip, yielding to the feverish, insistent pertinacity with which Bernotti enforced his views, accepted them. He grasped, indeed, with a kind of doleful gladness, at the more comfortable course which they presented to his shocked, weakened, and almost nerveless energies.

had entered under auspices so widely opposite, had in it a kind of woful commonplace. His partings with Mrs. Blandford and her mother-in-law were made at the same period. He addressed himself, half unconsciously, to the latter lady in especial. "It seems like audacity," he said, "for me to speak of my. self just now. Yet I must put forward my utterly bewildered feelings of gloom and wretchedness as an excuse for finding no words that can at all match the subject with which I am called upon to deal." And now his voice faltered, while his eyes covertly wandered toward where the younger Mrs. Blandford stood, silent, pale, clad in her deep-black widow's dress. "If it is ever in my power to do either of you the least or the greatest service-" he recommenced; and then, while he paused for a second, holding out his hand toward John Blandford's mother, that lady spoke a few brief sentences, so full of sweet, compassionate, and appreciative heartiness that they dwelt with him assuagingly for hours afterward. "Believe that I echo what my mother-in-law has just said," the younger lady murmured, when it came her turn to accept Philip's offered hand. A little later he left the house.

Bernotti accompanied him. Toward the Italian Philip felt a sense of strong gratitude. The part which he had played all through this miserable affair had been marked by the most delicately administrative tact, materially lessening the poignant discomfort of his position. Even now, as he could not but recollect, it was through Bernotti's kind agency alone that he had been enabled to see these two ladies thus privately; for the house was populous, just then, with relatives on either side of the family, who, in their consolotary capacity, had remained over from the funeral. Bernotti went with him to New York. After reaching the city, they sepa rated. Philip had been so morbidly self-absorbed as not to notice how haggard, worn, and ill, his companion looked, until just as their parting occurred.

"These few days have told upon you, Bernotti," he declared, while holding the Italian's hand, and scanning, with attention, his changed face. Accept my thanks for all that you have done in my behalf-and I feel that it is much. I have already given you my address. Don't fail to come and see me. I shall, doubtless, be permanently at home for a long time. I shall go nowhere, you know, and be visible to very few except yourself."

But Bernotti did not visit him. A month of the most dismal depression followed for poor Philip. He had scarcely a near relation living; the society of his few more intimate friends had grown an inexpressible pain to him. There were some nights during which he wholly failed to sleep-others when hideous dreams made wakefulness far preferable to slumber. Now and then the thought of suicide temptingly haunted him. Hearing that the two Mrs. Blandfords had both come back to town, he wrote the younger lady a note, stating that if it was her pleasure to see him he would be most willing to call. The answer was courteous and His departure from the house which he friendly, but it contained these words: "I

hate to write such a sentence, and yet I must tell you that I think it best you should pay me no visit just now. By-and-by, when more time has passed, I may perhaps send you a request to come."

Another month lapsed along, and yet another, and Philip's state was but slightly improved. Indeed, his health began to give way, and the physician whom he consulted strongly advised travel.

In December he resolved to go abroad. Before going, he hunted up Bernotti's residence, and called upon him. It was a boarding-house; and, instead of seeing Bernotti, he learned from the presiding landlady that this gentleman was lying dangerously ill. His illness had been of about two weeks' duration; the doctors feared no immediate peril, but the results were uncertain, a regular nurse had been engaged, and the invalid had been forbidden all society. The lady could not be at all positive regarding the nature of the illness; it was a sort of general decline, she imagined, with some obstinate complication in the way of brain - trouble. Philip's passage was engaged for the next day, and on the next day he sailed.

He remained in Europe nearly two years. The change at first promised him no benefit, but at length a slow yet steady return to former wholesome conditions manifested itself not less morally than physically. His exhausting wound began to heal. He was in many respects any thing but the old Philip, although grown so closely to resemble him that ordinary eyes might ill have perceived any difference. Perhaps, indeed, his society possessed added attractions. He had traveled a great deal during these two years, and was just the man to reap thereby much pronounced beneficial result. At the end of the two years he returned to America.

It was a matter of noblesse oblige (or so he assured himself) promptly to call upon Mrs. Blandford after arriving in New York. He selected a certain clear afternoon when her being out was among the strongest probabilities, ascertained that she was out from the servant at the door, and left his card. It was now for her, he reflected, to take the next step. If she cared to see him, she would send for him.

She did send on the following day. Her note was briefly satisfactory, expressing a desire to meet him that hovered midway between courtesy and cordiality. The same evening Philip called again.

The moment that he looked upon her a surge as of revived passion made headlong tumult within him. But he knew well enough while he took her hand that it was not revived passion. He knew well enough that it was the half-intoxicating delight of again meeting one for whom his love, through months of absence, illness, and suffering, had remained unalterably persistent.

The conversation began by her quietly asking him about his travels. Philip talked on and on for perhaps a half-hour, with occasional answers from his companion, though close attentiveness. He suddenly broke off with a laugh, exclaiming:

"But you are making me behave like a guide-book. Had we not better leave Eu.

Mrs. Blandford dropped the hazel eyes, then lifted them with suddenness.

"I am very well," she murmured, rather musingly, "and very humdrum, as you may suppose, in my mode of living."

"Your gay times are coming in a little while longer," Philip responded, with his gaze fixed on the floor. His tone, though he may not have known it, was supremely sad. Mrs. Blandford started.

"And yours?" she questioned, almost with sharpness. "Do you mean that they are forever gone? I-I had hoped," she went hesitatingly on-"I had hoped, Mr. Amyott-"

"Well?" questioned Philip.

"That time would bring you ample consolation for whatever intensity of regret you had suffered because of that wretched episode. It is sad to think otherwise."

Philip rose to his feet. He was trembling in every limb, and noticeably pale.

"It is not that," he stammered. "And yet the past, succeed as I may in forgetting it, will not be wholly forgotten." His voice grew hollow and hoarse through great feeling as he drew several steps nearer the woman he loved. "It is almost as if I had wantonly murdered your husband, and his blood now cried out for vengeance upon me."

He suddenly sank on the little sofa at her side, and fixed his burning look upon her startled face.

"Do you understand me?" he whispered, in a voice where she heard a man fight, and only half controllingly, with a man's anguish. "If not, I mean this: I have loved you all along-almost from the first hour we talked together. What might have been a blessed freedom for both of us (I know very well that you could not endure your dead husband) has become, to me at least, a worse captivity. You are to be won, but I can never win you - the world would cry out against it as a sacrilege, an infamy! It is this thought that has kept me ill so long. God knows how I ever got well again !-yes, it was this maddening thought, far more than-"

His voice died into a sort of amazed murmur. He had seen that her eyes were swimming in tears, and that her whitened lips were quivering, while both hands had knotted themselves convulsively in her lap.

"Sybil!" he burst forth.

She uttered a short, sobbing cry. A moment afterward they were locked in each other's arms.

But a very little later she had broken away from him.

"I love you," she faltered, a strange firmness amid the tremor of her tones-"I love you well enough not to care for the world, in so far as its sneers and scandals assail myself; but-no, no! I will not have people say of you the terrible things that I am sure they would say."

Philip laughed aloud as he seized one of her hands and rapturously kissed it.

"That is quite enough, Sybil Blandford. What do I care for the world when you are my wife? Let them say that I killed your—” "Oh, hush!" she cried.

But she did not draw her hand away from his. Through her tears she saw his bright smile, self-confident and blissful.

Two days later society was scandalized by the news of their formal engagement. The dowager Mrs. Blandford was in Philadelphia, living with a married daughter in that city; yet her son's widow had to pass through a staring ordeal enough, not alone because of certain relatives on her own and her husband's side, but because also of Philip's grand-cousin, that efficient social pillar, Mrs. Churchill Abernethey. The horror manifested by this estimable leader of fashion was something well fitted to appall. Clad in heavy-corded black silk, she called on Sybil Blandford, and poured forth indignation upon her and upon the absent Philip with truly superb effect. She said some foolish things, and not a few sensible ones. She appealed to Sybil's knowledge of the world, her natu ral modesty, her regard for decent conventional laws, and Heaven knows to what else, using every arrow which outraged propriety possesses within its ably-stocked quiver.

But the object of this fine outburst stood her ground, even against Mrs. Churchill Abernethey. Two weeks later her marriage to Philip was privately performed. A day or so after the ceremony they sailed for Europe.

They made Paris their residence for six months, living in retired quarters of the city, and rarely seeing many of their own countrypeople whom they knew-rarely seeing, for that matter, any people in whom they took interest, excepting each other. It is only the truth to say that they were both serenely and exquisitely happy. But after the six months they went to Venice, and the following winter began for them a residence in Florence, which lasted four years. During this time a boy and a girl were born to them. Philip made as devoted a father as husband. His wife, never pretty in the accepted meaning of the word, had acquired a touch of stoutness that her Italian friends (and these were not a few) pronounced infinitely becoming. But it was perhaps another cause that combined with this to make her more physically attractive. A sweet, spiritual peace was in her soul, and doubtless left its impress, ethereal yet positive, upon every feat

ure.

If Philip Amyott's life had any trouble it was the cloud overshadowing his good name after this marriage with the widow of John Blandford. Especially since the birth of his children had he grown to feel the weight of what he well knew to be his social stigma. Now and then he met those of his own country-people in Florence who made it evident in their manner that they had formed marked views and drawn certain pointed conclusions. He was naturally a man very sensitive to any thing resembling cool treatment. Never going often into any sort of Florentine society, he finally gave it up altogether. He read considerably, spent much time with his wife and children, and now and then lounged about the cafés. Mrs. Amyott sustained the burden of both visiting and entertaining, and very gracefully she did it.

One day, after having been out an hour

or two, Philip remarked to his wife on entering the room where she sat:

'Sybil, whom do you think I saw today?"

Mrs. Amyott smilingly admitted herself incapable of guessing. "Bernotti," Philip then informed her. "He was in the Café for some time while I was there, I suppose, but I did not see him until just as I was passing out. It was then that I caught a brief glimpse of his face. I never saw any thing more horribly worn and haggard. It now seems strange to me that I should even have recognized him at all."

At this point Philip perceived an odd change in his wife's look. Her eyes had grown troubled, and she wore a sudden and undoubted paleness. The next moment she abruptly rose from her chair and walked toward a window.

"You don't appear greatly interested in this subject of Bernotti," he at length resumed. "Poor fellow, he was very sick the last time I heard from him. That was nearly six years ago, and—”

His wife turned from the window with

quite a bright smile. "Philip," she exclaimed, "here come the children with Pepita. Little Clarence looks so rosy from his walk! Go down and meet them. You know how it pleases them both to have you do this."

Five days later, as Philip was leaving his house one afternoon, a man of somewhat shabby appearance touched his hat and handed him a note, at once moving away. Philip broke the seal and read these words, written in Italian:

"My doctors tell me that there remain only a few hours for me to live. I have something to tell you-and to give you as well. Will you not come at once to my bedside? It is a matter of supreme import. Have you forgotten

"LUIGI BERNOTTI ? "

The address followed these few lines. Philip lost no time in starting for the place indicated. It was not a great distance off, and he found, on reaching the desired residence, that Bernotti occupied a modest suite of rooms on the second-floor of very prosperous-looking lodgings.

A grave, lean-faced Italian ushered him into Bernotti's room. The man was evidently a hired nurse, for, as he passed with Philip toward the invalid's quarters, he murmured, in solemn tones:

"The signor is very bad to-day, very bad. I've nursed a great many in my time; still, I never saw one who was so sick and yet not only lived but kept his wits about him as well."

Philip presently stood at Bernotti's bedside. The sufferer's face was ghastly, and emaciated in a fearful way. His coal-black eyes looked enormous as he rolled them toward Philip, but he offered his visitor no greeting. One of his bony hands clutched tightly a sealed envelope, on which Philip could trace some sort of superscription. The other held an ivory crucifix, now and then raised to his lips.

"I am so sorry to find you in this ill

"That is right-as I told you to do, you know." He leveled the intense blackness of his eyes once more upon Philip. "I wish him to hear every thing. I have deposited three separate statements with three of your former friends, to be opened after my death. And here, in my hands, I hold the written confession which you are to read, and show all the world, if you please. It is the best I can do in the way of reparation-God help me!"

Philip's face looked the widest-eyed astonishment.

'Reparation?" he iterated, questioningly. Bernotti raised the crucifix to his color. less lips. Then he smiled with a sardonic sort of dreariness. It was like the smile of a lost soul. Philip never forgot that smile.

"You think you shot John Blandford. You did nothing of the sort I shot him. When he said Murderer,' as you told me that he did say after I had started off for help, he meant me. I loathed him. I had loathed him ever since-ever since I began to adore his wife.

No one knows what I suffered on seeing him treat her so churlishly. At meals I used sometimes to clinch my hands under the table till I buried the nails into my flesh. She was the soul of purity; sweetness, and nobility, and it maddened me to see her maltreated by that brute. I don't think the idea of killing him ever definitely formed itself in my mind until that morning. I was standing two or three yards from him, there in the wood, and the thought suddenly flashed upon me- Shoot, now, and swear afterward that it was an accident.' I turned cold, and a sweat broke out over my body. It seemed horrible at first, but a few seconds later I was resolved. She was doomed to a lifetime of slow torment with this man, whom she justly despised and hated, yet who possessed over her the most sacred authoritative rights. He was standing so that I had only to lift my gun, aim cleverly, and she was free. I did lift my gun-and fired! He fell, and I thought at first that I had killed him instantly. At the same moment I caught sight of you between the screening branches. Your gun was smoking; you too had evidently just fired; and as the gun was still on your shoulder, I at once perceived what general direction your shot must have taken. A moment later you fired again. By this time I had made another resolve-devilish, if | you will; but it seemed to me as if my mind leaped forward into the future and saw there (since I guessed your love for Sybil Blandford) a most aggravating possibility. Your shot had been simultaneous with my

own, or I would have heard it. Consequently, mine had been equally unheard by you. What if I took advantage of this wonderful chance for not alone clearing my own name of suspicion, but of placing a barrier between yourself and Sybil Blandford through all time to come?—Well, you know what followed. When you saw John Blandford's prostrate figure I had dragged it several feet nearer the edge of the wood."

White as Bernotti himself, Philip stood gazing into the Italian's cadaverous face. "You speak of making reparation for all this," he at length murmured, with something that deserves to be called a tour de force of calmness. "I do not see how it is possible. I am now the husband of that murdered man's widow."

"You forget those three confessional letters of which I told you. And here is one more-take it. Your wife has doubtless made known to you how I persecuted her with my passionate addresses scarcely three months after Blandford's death. No? She has said nothing? Well, such is the fact. I could not keep silent, though it would have made no difference had I waited two years, like yourself. She was utterly indifferent to me, apart from the disgust which my early avowal roused. Our last interview showed me how more than hopeless were my chances. I was fearfully ill afterward; I have been slowly dying ever since. Her marriage with you dealt me my final blow, I think, though this cursed trouble (which the doctors call a consumption) has been lingering enough. Ah! what a superb creature she is! Think of her marrying you, after all! What other woman would have been so gloriously selfabnegating, so beautifully true to the instincts of her heart?" A quick convulsive twitching now seized Bernotti's features. Presently his face grew placid again, and he smiled his former ghost-like smile. "The tension is snapped, now," he muttered. "Death gave me a reprieve until I had told you every thing; now he takes it away."

Philip turned aside, shuddering. The leanfaced nurse went forward, and, taking the crucifix from Bernotti's incapable hand, pressed it against his lips.

Philip suddenly turned again toward the bed, and drew quite near the pillow from which that spectral face was gleaming. If he had never before, in all his life, shown how large his soul was, he showed it then.

Bernotti's eyelid's had fallen over his feverish-lit eyes, but Philip gently touched the dying man's hand, and they at once uplifted themselves.

"You have not asked me for my forgiveness," Philip said, in a strange voice. "Do you wish it?"

The Italian's eyes flashed; a shiver passed through his frame. It was almost as if those words called his fading consciousness from the brink of annihilation.

"Do I want it!" he gasped. "Oh, my God! Will you give it?"

Philip may be said not fully to have realized the awful significance of that day's events until he had been home about an hour, and had told Sybil every thing. And then, when he sat with one arm about her neck, and with her hand pressed firmly in his own, he spoke these words, in very slow and deliberative tones:

"After all, why should we act upon this good fortune? Why should we go back to America and face all the publicity of that fine social recantation which Bernotti has prepared for us? We have been happy enough already to believe greater happiness impossible. Perhaps the change may only bring with it unpleasant experience, and be the date of our first real troubles. Why not let well enough alone? Why go home, Sybil, just to make our peace with her majesty, Mrs. Churchill Abernethey, and people of that sort?"

As he finished speaking, a shrill yet sweetly musical peal of childish laughter sounded from the adjoining room. His wife's hazel eyes dwelt fixedly, for a moment, on Philip's. Were they both visited by the same thoughts, just then? Was that ripple of childish laughter echoing itself through their innermost souls?

"I think it would be well for us to go home, Philip," his wife murmured, a faint smile on her lips, "and make our peace with Mrs. Churchill Abernethey."

"Perhaps you are right, Sybil."

EDGAR FAWCETT.

FISH-CULTURE.

CONCLUSION.

ARTICULAR attention has been called

PAR

to the opportunities afforded by the discovery of the blue-backed trout for the cultivation and improvement of our brooktrout; for there is no doubt that, with an abundant supply of this species of the Salmo in the same waters with our speckled beauties, or at least in such waters or under such conditions as would be favorable to the abundant production of the oquassa, we would have the same results as are presented at Rangely Lake. We are informed by Mr. Green, in his last report, which gives a most encouraging résumé of the operations of the New York Fisheries Commission, that he had procured last January a few thousand, which were then in process of incubation, and that it was probable a sufficient number of mature fish would be secured, to allow of their introduction into one or more of our New York lakes. He says: "Selection will be made of an appropriate locality, as these may become a valuable addition to the food resources both directly, for they are excellent on the tables, and indirectly, as food for larger fish. If," he adds, "their presence causes the ordinary brook-trout to grow to the size of the famous fish of the Umbagog, the Rangely, and Richardson Lakes, they will be exceed. ingly valuable in some of the larger waters of New York. Their fecundity is remarkable, and much benefit may be expected from their introduction as human food if they

increase with us as rapidly as they do in Maine." It is to be hoped that the experiment will realize the expectations formed of it, as there is no doubt it will, wherever the conditions under which it is tried are favorable.

According to the last or seventh annual report, covering the operations of the Commissioners of Fisheries of the State of New York for the year 1874, the number of shadeggs artificially impregnated, hatched, and turned loose in the Hudson River, was five million and twenty thousand. This was in the proportion of one to every fifty taken during the fishing-season, so that at this rate of production we may reasonably look forward to an abundant supply. Indeed, we already begin to enjoy the fruits of the efforts being made to increase our fish-supply, in the great number and low price of the shad in the markets of the metropolis. We are not surprised, therefore, when it is stated that there was a marked reduction in the price, and that "shad were sold at wholesale on the bank of the stream for as low as onethird of the rates which had ruled previously." The commissioners complain, and justly, we believe, that in their efforts to furnish a more abundant supply of this favorite fish to our markets they are seriously interfered with by the thousands of nets which beset the fish on their ascent to the spawning-beds, and from which hardly sufficient escape to enable the commissioners to procure the necessary quantity of spawn to prosecute their labors successfully.

It is urged that a law should be passed for the prevention of fishing from Saturday night till Monday morning, a "period during which," it is rightly maintained, "even fish should have rest." Urging the great advantage which must result from this legislation, Mr. Green says: "The percentage of loss in the market-supply will hardly be apparent; a better moral feeling will be encouraged among the fishermen, and a sufficient number of ripe shad will reach the head-waters to enable the commissioners to restock the river thoroughly, effectually, and at once. Until this is done no more can be expected than is being effected at present, that is to say, a gradual improvement of the fisheries." In Connecticut they have set us an example which we would do well to follow. There they have prohibited excessive fishing, and "the consequence has been that thirty-five hundred and sixty fish have been taken in one haul at the fisheries at the mouth of the Connecticut River, which is the largest haul made in the present century, while the entire yield was as high as any year since 1811."

Should the cessation of shad-fishing on Sundays be enforced by efficient legislation, a decided improvement would soon be apparent in the marked increase of the supply of shad in our markets, and a corresponding reduction in price. Standing at the head of the herring family, and constituting an important item in the food account, this fish is deserving of all the care and attention which have been bestowed upon it by our commissioners. It is gratifying to learn that the attempt to introduce the shad in other waters has proved eminently successful, and that, although but

four years have elapsed since some twenty thousand of the fry were sent to California, full-grown specimens have been taken in the waters of that State. Not only a new habitat has thus been found for shad, but a new ocean; for, before their introduction to the Pacific, the fish was a total stranger among its finny tribes. In the same year two hundred shad-fry were put in Lake Erie, two hundred in Lake Michigan, two hundred in Laramie River, and a like number in a few other rivers on the route to California. A mere record or diary of the operations of the principal shad-hatching establishment on the Hudson, ten miles below Albany, speaks volumes on behalf of this great work, and specially commends it to the approval and encouragement of the public. A strict account, so to speak, is opened with the Hudson River, and the number of eggs yielded by each fish captured is kept from day to day. Thus, on May 23, 1872, we find the following entry: "Caught 80 shad, 8 ripe; 160,000 eggs. Water 68° and 71°." On June 3d a large amount of work was done: "Caught 180 shad, 21 ripe; 400,000 eggs. Turned loose 360,000 young shad. Water 80° and 82°. Took 60,000 young shad to Troy Dam, and turned them loose in the river there." The greatest number procured in one day was on June 24th, when 700,000 were obtained from 33 ripe fish, while the total number taken during the season, which extended from May 18th to July 6th, was 8,915,000. Of these, 8,295,000 were successfully hatched.

The great benefits which have been conferred upon our fishing interests by the artificial propagation of shad, trout, salmon, bass, and other varieties, have led to the establishment of commissions in no fewer than eighteen States, while in addition to these commissions we have a very important body entitled the American Fish-Culturists' Association, which held its meeting last year in this city. The gentlemen composing this society are devoted to the work in which they are engaged, and afford valuable coöperation to the various officials employed in the promotion of the same interests throughout the different States. Indeed, to the combined efforts of volunteer and official pisciculturists, and the improvements which they have made in the artificial propagation of the different varieties of fish, we are indebted for the present advanced state of the art. By ingenious contrivances for the transportation of ova, hundreds of thousands-yes, millions-of eggs have been carried thousands of miles, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Mr. Livingston Stone, one of the most distinguished of our fish-culturists, has taken an active part in the introduction of California salmon to the rivers of our Northern, Middle, and Western States, and has added largely to the practical knowledge of the science. In the summer of 1873 he established his salmon-breeding camp on the McCloud River, in California, in the midst of the Indians, who had shown their dislike of intruders by summarily disposing of several white men and Chinese who had ventured into their territory prospecting for gold. They tried by threats and hostile demonstra

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tions to intimidate Mr. Stone, but he was not to be intimidated; and, finding that they had more to gain in various ways than they had to lose by his presence among them, they at last permitted him to prosecute his efforts without interference. Here he erected his hatching-apparatus-here on the banks of one of the most picturesque rivers in California, the waters of which so swarmed with salmon that from his tent-door he could see them jumping "at the rate of a thousand an hour." In his enthusiasm over the success of his labors he signalized the turning on of the water into his hatching-house by collecting," as he tells us, his "whole force of whites and Indians at sunset, and, raising a large American flag over the camp." On the 26th of August, 1873, he took, from fish captured at his encampment, twenty-three thousand ripe salmon-eggs; and by the 22d of September he had secured more than two million. Of this number over a million and a quarter reached New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, and Utah, alive, and consigned to the commissioners of those States, to the waters of which they were in due time transferred. Packed in moss, and placed in boxes two feet square by a foot in depth, the covers of which were closely screwed down, they were sent off on their perilous journey of three thousand miles.

The progress which has been made in aquaculture within the last ten years in the United States has been satisfactorily demonstrated in the percentage of fish which have been hatched by the artificial process from the impregnated egg. Early experiments resulted in the incubation of about twenty-five per cent., but experience and improvements in the apparatus employed, aided by a close study of, and an intimate acquaintance with, the habits of the fish, led to a great increase, until the art has now reached such a state of perfection that not more than five, or at the utmost ten, per cent. of the ova are lost. In some instances even better results than this have been obtained; for Mr. Green states, in his "Experiences of a Practical Fish-Culturist," that of ten thousand shad-eggs he hatched all but ten. In fifteen days fully fifteen millions of the young fry had burst their imprisoning shells, and entered on their battle of life.

While such success has rewarded the efforts of our Fish Commissioners in the propagation of shad and salmon, it must not be supposed that other varieties of fish have been neglected. On the contrary, none that were worthy of their attention have been ignored. The black bass, which holds a high place in their estimation, has received, as it deserves, full consideration; but the nature of the fish necessitates a different treatment in the process of cultivation. Every attempt to procure spawn, as in the case of salmon, trout, whitefish, etc., having failed, another plan was adopted, and this has so far been found to work admirably. Bass, varying in age from one to three years, are conveyed in vessels which are kept well supplied with the necessary quantity of water, and placed in their new home, where, the conditions being favorable to their growth and development, they increase very rapidly. The essential