"Yes, with pleasure-thank you. I think that I may answer for Adam, as he is to be quite at my disposal while we are here, except for the two or three hours a day when he has to yield to the not very heavy demands of business.

"We shall like to visit you, and I am grateful for your cordial invitation, as I have been told that you do not often open your house to mere acquaintances, and I am sorry to say that is all we can claim to be.

"You are called a cold and haughty man, Mr. Eldridge-did you know it?-pardon me if I still exercise the privilege of my age-and I had believed it because of these somewhat cynical lines:

"Sleep, heart; I weary of your waking!

Life is too hard and man too false for peace; Die, heart; I anger at your aching,

This long distrust, these fears that will not cease.'

"Do you remember how long ago you printed them? But after I had met you, and after seeing this:

"To-day I came with valley-lilies in my arms,

They were so warm with summer sunshine and so sweet,

And moistened with my tears, I laid them at her feet,

And some few snowy sprays between her folded palms'

I said, No, he is not cold, but grief has met him by the way. Forgive me for making yourself the topic of a conversation; but I did want to tell you this once, twice, several times in New York, and have only now found bravery enough.

"But the room is filling up: let us look at the pictures, and then I must go back to the hotel."

So I left her remark about my reputation as a cold man unreplied to, and we walked around and enjoyed the bits of life and nature that hung on the walls: I the more because of Mrs. Jaquith's clear, critical com

ments.

The world owes such an unpayable debt to painters of pictures, who give it so much to be thankful for, that I wonder sometimes at the cool ordinariness with which we treat these men and women who, by a skillful

combination of coloring and a hard-earned power to reproduce shapes and scenes, offer us an unending pleasure and means of relief. On my way over to make the promised call that evening I stopped in at Neil's house. I had only seen him once since he came from New York, and then there was an unnatural and constrained awkwardness in his manner, and perhaps in mine. But this night he met me with a good deal of effusion and welcome.

Madge was looking pale; her eyes had dark shadows under them, and the long lashes went to rest too often on her cheeks.

"Mrs. Jaquith and Adam are in the city," I said to Neil, "and they are coming to my house to-morrow to tea. There will be a half-dozen only there altogether, and I hope that you and Madge are free and will come."

Madge crossed the room to where the piano stood, and began busying herself among the sheets of music that were scattered about on the cover. She kept her back sedulously turned to us, I noticed as I looked after her, and Neil said brightly: "O, Madge will go. She will like Mrs. Jaquith, who is just the style of woman to please her, so quiet and refined. But I leave for the West early to-morrow morning, and shall be gone two or three weeks. I'm tired of Boston, Frank: it has grown monotonous to me lately, and I want a brisk run through the livelier cities over yonder for variety."

I looked straight into his eyes for a couple of minutes, and said nothing. The change in my friend's nature had come, and I did not find it an improvement on his old self. Madge still turned the music-books upside down, and I went over to her. As she looked up at me I saw that her eyes were brimming with pitiful tears, and there was a pained expression on her face.

"Will you come?" I asked; and she shook her head "No."

"Listen for a moment. You will be alone here, and it cannot but be more cheerful in my parlor, where you will find other and congenial persons to change the current of your thoughts and mood. Come!"

Neil came up as I spoke, and he laid his

hand on her shoulder; but Madge put up her own hand and took his broad palm from its resting place. He looked a little embarrassed, but said lightly:

"O, she'll go of course she'll go. Don't be cranky, Madge; tell Frank that you will go. It will be as much for my pleasure as his, for I shall be glad to know you are not brooding here at home over my absence. You see, she doesn't like the idea of my leaving her so soon again, Frank."

"No, I do not like it!"-and there was the ripple of a note of tears through the words "but I cannot help myself, and Yes, I will go to your house, Frank, although I shall not be a merry guest."

"That I do not mind. Come in whatever mood you please, only come. And I must be off, for I have another call to make and it is near nine o'clock. Good by, Neil; you are a crazy creature, and I hope may Madge, I shall depend upon you to come early to-morrow, and to take the head of my table in place of Mrs. Norton. Again, good by."

return sane.

Neil went with me to the door, and when I had reached the sidewalk he called after me, but I was in no mood for listening to anything he might have to say; and pretending not to hear, I walked quickly over to the Hotel Vendome, and sent my card up to Mrs. Jaquith's parlor, which was one of the pleasantest in that hotel celebrated for its pleasant rooms.

I think it was no sign of weakness in me that my eyes filled with tears as I stood unnoticed for an instant on the threshold.. Adam was plagued by one of the headaches that came often to his excitable system, and sat on a cushion at Mrs. Jaquith's feet, with his head resting in her lap, while her small white hand-the pretty hand of an old lady -smoothed his forehead.

I was motherless, haunted by the memories of that dear companion of my youth, for whose sake and through whose interest I had sought the reward that the world sometimes gives for unremitting and careful aspiration. Ay, even the silken folds of my window curtains seemed to bear in their adjustment the

slow, lingering touch of her fingers, that always brought a new grace to whatever they chanced to rest upon. My house and my life were full of these vague and various memories; and so I paused, with a hungry emptiness of heart, to look in upon this mother and son making a pretty picture, that my advancing into the room broke up.

I have spoken before of the deference that Jaquith showed his mother; a peculiar deference that had not the least savor of servility in it; no obtrusive attention or watchfulness, but just a sweet, manly courteousness that never failed to attract and impress me. He was a shrewd young business man, this Adam Jaquith, and a noted society man of New York as well; with a reputation spiced a little by the rumor of two or three imprudences that had somehow, in the most mysterious way that such things have of blowing lightly out among a man's acquaintances, come to the ears of his social circle: and yet a man about whom his manner toward his mother had built up such a fine surrounding of respect that I could never realize he was scarce older than myself, but felt always that he carried a special dignity that made him somewhat above the standard of and older than the fellows among whom I moved. Indeed, so substantial was this feeling that it kept me (in spite of a cordial readiness for frequent and friendly intercourse that was evident in his conduct towards me) from ever advancing to an intimacy with him.

The bunch of roses I had given Mrs. Jaquith that afternoon was now fastened at her belt.

I spoke, shortly after seating myself, of the pretty compliment she paid me by wearing these flowers, and Adam said:

"O, but my mother pays you a more unusual compliment by liking you, for there are few young men upon whom she bestows this honor, I assure you. Granted that from sheer vanity she finds me of her own bringing up-worthy a generous bestowal of love, you could count upon your thumbs those other men of my age in whom my mother takes familiar interest."

"But, my son, this cannot matter to Mr. Eldridge; let us talk of some other thing. Tell me, Mr. Eldridge, where Mr. Barras is now, and if you have seen him recently. I have always a great fear for men who have, like him, nothing but their own wishes to consult, no daily business to steady them in their walk through life. And-forgive me, for I know that Mr. Barras is a dear friend of yours-it seems very certain that he is one who requires some steadying influence of practical necessity to bring out the best or hide the worst that is in him."

"My mother is not backward in showing that she does not like Barras, you see."

"You are mistaken, Adam. I do not dislike Mr. Barras. No, I think that I like him—that is, himself; what I do dislike is his careless, unreflecting way. Had he kept away from that Mrs. Beldon"- here Adam got up, and, walking to the other side of the room, drew apart the heavy curtains and looked out of the window-"and not brought her name and his down to being bandied about the hotel, I am sure that I should have found him full of attractive qualities. But a man who would bring such gossip about, and then care so little for the shame (for it would be shame to me if he were my son) as to make no effort to stop the current of talk and speculation, must lack some element that should be of vital importance in his character.

"Yet I am not well acquainted with Mr. Barras, and his nature may be cast in a different mold from that of my supposition. But we have not let you answer. Have you seen Mr. Barras lately?"

"Yes; I came direct from his house here. Neil leaves for the West to-morrow, and I shall have the pleasure to introduce his wife to you to-morrow evening, if—”

Mrs. Jaquith sat suddenly upright in her chair, and Adam let the curtains fall over him at the window.

"His wife? his wife? I did not know that he was a married man. Adam!"—and her voice was sharp and the tone imperative "Adam!"—and he came out from behind the

curtains, and went to the mantel, where he stood breaking matches into small pieces, which he threw one by one into the fire. "Why did I not know that Mr. Barras had a wife? Why did nobody ever mention it to me? And why did you never tell me, Adam?”

"Why, I suppose"-his voice was rough, though he tried hard to keep it smooth, and he did not turn his face towards his mother—"I suppose I thought that you knew it, or that it was of very small consequence to you”— and after a pause-"or me."

"It was not of small consequence; it only makes him seem still less manly and honorable to my old-fashioned ideas about such affairs. You see, Mr. Eldridge”—and she sat back in her chair again, and let her head rest on the cushions-"those of my generation were taught that married men and women had certain duties to perform, and certain courtesies to show each other; and perhaps we were not so socially brilliant a generation as this of to-day, but we were more regardful of what might be said or thought by those who knew us."

We compared Boston with New York then, and chatted of mutual friends, new books, and politics, both American and European; but Mrs. Jaquith had lost the calmness that was her chief characteristic, and her fingers pulled nervously at the posies in her belt, until the pink and yellow petals were quite thick in her lap; and she looked at Adam now and then with a sort of question in her eyes-a question, as it were, that she dared not ask, but sorely wanted answered.

When I rose to go she rose too, and the leaves of the torn blossoms fell down upon the Daghestan rug at her feet. She did not notice them, but putting her hand on mine, said very slowly and impressively, as though carrying on aloud her train of thought:

"I shall be much pleased to meet Mrs. Barras at your house to-morrow, but "—and the words came hard, and her voice was low and constrained—“I cannot understand why Adam failed to tell me that Mr. Barras had a wife."

James Berry Bensel.

TACUBAYA is the most delightful suburban village in the vicinity of the City of Mexico. It has figured more or less in every war and revolution. It is generally one of the first places seized by the pronunciados. There are some fine residences in the village. Most of the wealthy men own a summer house, and come here to live during the hottest months. It is only a quarter of an hour from the city by train. The finest houses in Tacubaya are those of Escandon and Barron. These are rival establishments to a certain extent. They are large, with elegant grounds and buildings. The houses are elegantly furnished, and supplied with numerous paintings from old masters, as well as the modern schools. The proprietors do not use the buildings much; on occasions they have a dinner party or spend a Sunday there. They must be expensive luxuries to their proprietors, for they can use them but little, and could not sell them for more than half what they cost. It is not considered very safe for wealthy men to live in Tacubaya, on account of robbers and plagiadors. Shortly before my visit a gentleman purchased a property in the village for eighteen thousand dollars that cost eighty thousand.

A long-talked-of trip to Puebla was at length realized, and on the 11th of October the party met at the railroad station. By half-past eleven we reached Apizaco, where about one o'clock we took the stage for Puebla, via San Pablo, Santana, and Molino Viejo, and reached Puebla about half-past six.

We made our preparations for visiting Chulula the night of our arrival, and after breakfast was fixed as the hour for starting. Before breakfast, however, we paid a visit to the baths. There are two places for bathing. We went this morning to those of San Pedro, and found them exceedingly uncomfortable and dirty. We could have no

towels, and the bathing places are dark and repulsive. The water is quite warm and strongly impregnated with sulphur. My silver watch turned black, as did all our money, and the odor of sulphur is strong. They could be made very fine baths, and are said to have superior medicinal virtues.

The following morning we went to the baths near the new Alameda, and found them very much better than those of San Pedro. These could be made very convenient. There have been handsome gardens about them in former years.

Two hours' ride brought us to the wonderful ruin of Chulula. The town, as well as the pyramid, is all a ruin. There is evidence of its having been a large and populous city. The pyramid is almost directly west of the city of Puebla, and about ten or twelve miles distant. The road to it is good, but said to be infested with robbers; the same, however, is said of all the roads leading into Puebla. On our arrival we rode directly up the pyramid on the west side, two-thirds of the way up, to some steps that lead to the chapel on the top of the pyramid. Here we dismounted and walked up the remainder of the distance.

This pyramid is as wonderful as those of Egypt; it contains more cubic feet than any other in the world, and there has nothing yet been discovered to disprove that the whole is built of adobes and stone, and therefore strictly a work of art. It has no doubt been greatly diminished in size by abrasion, and its outline is rough and irregular on account of the growth of trees and shrubbery, and the washing of its faces. Viewing it from the top three terraces are still distinctly visible. The first has the outline of a bastion front, the angles projecting out at the corners, like the bastions of a modern fortification. On this stands the other, with a square base. On the summit it is flat, and protected by a