It was a bright and sunny autumn day. We were a very happy party. Estella was disguised with gold spectacles, a black wig and a veil, and she looked like some middle-aged school-teacher out for a holiday. We took the electric motor to a station one mile and a half from Mr. Jansen's, and walked the rest of the way. The air was pure and sweet and light; it seemed to be breathed right out of heaven. The breezes touched us and dallied with us and delighted us, like ministering angels. The whole panoply of nature was magnificent; the soft-hued, grassy fields; the embowered trees; the feeding cattle; the children playing around the houses;-- "Clowns cracking jokes, and lasses with sly eyes, My soul rose upon wings and swam in the ether like a swallow; and I thanked God that he had given us this majestic, this beautiful, this surpassing world, and had placed within us the delicate sensibility and capability to enjoy it. In the presence of such things death--annihilation--seemed to me impossible, and I exclaimed aloud: "Hast thou not heard Christina laughed and blushed and said: "If you do not behave yourself you shall not have either of the Christinas. But I will tell you, my dear friend, how that happened. You must know that in our Sweden, especially in the northern part of it, where father and mother came from, we are a very primitive people--far 'behind the age,' you will say. And there we have no family names, like Brown or Jones or Smith; but each man is simply the son of his father, and he takes his father's first name. Thus if 'Peter' has a son and he is christened 'Ole,' then he is 'Ole Peterson,' or Ole the son of Peter; and if his son is called 'John,' then he is 'John Oleson.' I think, from what I have read in the books you gave me, Frank, that the same practice prevailed, centuries ago, in England, and that is how all those English names, such as Johnson, Jackson, Williamson, etc., came about. But the females of the family, in Sweden, are called 'daughters' or 'dotters;' and hence, by the custom of my race, I am 'Christina Carl's Dotter.' And when Mr. Bingham asked me my name to print on his play bills, that is what I answered him; but he said 'Christina Carl's Dotter' was no name at all. It would never do; and so he called me 'Christina "I declare," said Frank, "this thing grows worse and worse! Why, there are three of you. I shall have to wed not only 'Christina Jansen,' and 'Christina Carlson,' but 'Christina Carl's Dotter.' Why, that would be not only bigamy, but trigamy!" And then Estella came to the rescue, and said that she felt sure that Max would be glad to have her even if there were a dozen of her. And Frank, who had become riotous, said to me: "You see, old fellow, you are about to marry a girl with a pedigree, and I another without one." "No," said Christina, "I deny that charge; with us the very name we bear declares the pedigree. I am 'Christina Carl's Dotter,' and 'Carl' was the son of 'John,' who was the son of 'Frederick,' who was the son of 'Christian;' and so on for a hundred generations. I have a long pedigree; and I am very proud of it; and, what is more, they were all good, honest, virtuous people." And she heightened up a bit. And then Frank kissed her before us all, and she boxed his ears, and then dinner was announced. And what a pleasant dinner it was: the vegetables, crisp and fresh, were from their own garden; and the butter and milk and cream and schmearkase from their own dairy; and the fruit from their own trees; and the mother told us that the pudding was of Christina's own making; and thereupon Frank ate more of it than was good for him; and everything was so neat and bright, and everybody so happy; and Frank vowed that there never was before such luscious, golden butter; and Mrs. Jansen told us that that was the way they made it in Sweden, and she proceeded to explain the whole process. The only unhappy person at the table, it seemed to me, was poor Carl, and he had a wretched premonition that And then I said to Max, in a dignified, solemn way: 'My dear Max, or Frank, or Arthur, or whatever thy name may be--and 'if thou hast no other name to call thee by I will call thee devil'--I have observed, with great regret, that thou art very much afraid of standing up to-morrow and encountering in wedlock's ceremony the battery of bright eyes of the three Christinas. Now I realize that a friend should not only 'bear a friend's infirmities,' but that he should stand by him in the hour of danger; and so to-morrow, 'when fear comes down upon you like a house,' Estella and I have concluded "Listen to this," he cried; "here are fourteen verses; each one begins and ends with the word 'thee.' Here's a sample: "'All thought, all fear, all grief, all earth, all air, Here Christina, Estella and I pelted the rogue with apples. "I know why they are called 'Artesian Waters,'" he cried; "it is because it took a great bore to produce them. Hal ha! But listen to it: "'There is a depth at which perpetual springs "Ouch!" he cried, "that one hit me on the nose: I mean the apple, not the verse. "'One knows not how, beneath the dark, deep crust, "Plain enough," he cried, dodging the apples; "the attraction of gravitation did the business for it. "'Dark-buried, sepulchred, entombed and deep, "Very good," he said, "and now here comes the application, the moral of the poem. "'So shall we find no intellect so dull, "Of course," he said; "he knows how it is himself; the poet fills the bill exactly. 'It lives immortal, universal all, But I could stand no more, and so began to climb the tree. It was an apple-tree, and not a very big one at that, and Max was forced to retreat out upon a limb, and then drop to the ground. But the young ladies were too quick for him; they pounced upon him as he fell; and very soon my precious verses were hidden in Estella's bosom, whence, in a burst of confidence and pride, they had been taken to exhibit to Christina. "Yes," said Estella, "it was nothing but mean jealousy, because he could not write such beautiful poetry to Christina." "Exactly," said Christina, "and I think I will refuse to marry him until he produces some verses equally fine." "Before I would write such poetry as that," said Max, "I would go and hang myself." "No man ought to be allowed to marry," said Estella, "until he has written a poem." "If you drive Max to that," I said, "other people will hang themselves rather than hear his verses." And thus, with laugh and jest and badinage, the glorious hours passed away. It was growing late; but we could not go until we had seen the cows milked, for that was a great event in the household; and "Bossy" especially was a wonderful cow. Never before in the world had there been such a cow as "Bossy." The children had tied some ribbons to her horns, and little Ole was astride of her broad back, his chubby legs pointing directly to the horizon, and the rest of the juveniles danced around But it faded away, and the storm came down, at last, heavy and dark and deadly.ELYSIUM
And the smile settling on their sun-flecked cheeks
Like noon upon the mellow apricot."
That thine existence, here on earth, is but
The dark and narrow section of a life
Which was with God, long ere the sun was lit,
And shall be yet, when all the bold, bright stars
Are dark as death-dust?"
Forgot shall be;
Knit unto each, to each kith, kind and kin,--
Life, like these rhyming verses, shall begin
And end in--thee!'
Fresh water, in all lands:
The which once reached, the buried torrent flings
Its treasures o'er the sands.'
The clear flood there has come:
One knows not why, amid eternal dust,
Slumbers that sea of foam.'
Away from mortal ken,
It lies, till, summoned from its silent sleep,
It leaps to light again.'
No soul so cold to move,
No heart of self or sinfulness so full,
But still hath power to love.'
The tenant of each breast;