II.

THE room was large and cool; the floor of inlaid woods was strewn with Persian rugs and beautiful skins, the chairs were of bamboo, rare pictures hung upon the walls, the beautiful objects that a refined taste loves to gather were scattered around in profusion, and there were flowers everywhere.

She conducted him to a seat at a table shining with silver and Venetian glass, and took a place opposite.

"What do they call you in the great world?" she asked, as she sliced some luscious cherimoyas whose rich fragrance filled the whole room.

"My name is Ralph Arnold," he answered, feeling in his pocket for a visiting card, which was not there; he had not thought to need any trifles of that kind while traveling in the mountains of Central America.

I am

She repeated the name slowly and then said: "My name is X; my father looked on me when I was a baby as an unknown, doubtful quantity. Sometimes I fancy he still regards me as an unsolved problem. He has gone to Vera Cruz to stay three weeks, and my nurse had to go away too, so I am all alone except for our Chinaman. glad I shot you, glad you are here. Will you have a banana? I have a great deal to say to you; I do not know where to begin ; I think I am a little confused. I want to say so many things at once; yet after all I need not hurry tomorrow will bring another day. I like your eyes- they are blue, not dark like father's and mine. Of course I knew there were blue eyes, for I have seen them in pictures, but I never have known any but black-eyed people.”

VOL. X.--37.

The young man's surprise at being addressed thus was intense, but he tried to hide it under a veil of decorous politeness. However much the young ladies of his circle might admire his eyes, they had never told him so. This girl with the Greek face and dress, who shot him deliberately and then entertained him with the grace and dignity of a princess what could she be?

"How does it happen you have never seen a blue-eyed person before? You do not live here winters, do you? I supposed it was only a summer residence."

"I have been here ever since I can remember. You are the first white man, except my father and my music-teacher, that I have seen. I suppose Apollo's hair was like yours, only he let his grow longer; and the old Norse heroes too, had yellow hair. I look at it with pleasure.'

د,

Mr. Arnold had no breath to speak, so the girl went on. "Do you like to be in the great world outside? Is it dissatisfying and a weariness to the soul? Why must women who care for books be stoned to death? Do other girls look like me? Why are babies thrown into the street to die? Does no woman care for you? I should think one might, though my father did say it was not the custom."

No words can describe the effect of her speech on the young man; he almost thought his wound had made him delirious and that the fair, gracious maiden doing the honors. of her table and talking in such an extraordinary way must be a creation of his disordered brain. He could not think she was jesting; her face was calm and grave. Nor was there anything of the coquette about her; one look into her truthful brown eyes must dispel any such fancy. Her earnestness forced him to be in earnest.

"Miss X, I do like the great world, as you call it; my work lies there and all my ambition. Women who care for learning are not stoned to death, they are held in honor. Babies are not thrown into the street to die; their mothers love them too well for that. Other young ladies do not look like younot exactly. My mother cares for me, I love and revere her above all women; there are others whom I respect and whose friendship is pleasant to me."

and

The girl looked at him for a few minutes in silence; then her cheeks grew crimson and her eyes flashed with anger. She arose from the table with great dignity. "Mr. Arnold, you are my guest; my house and my servants are yours as long as you wish, but I will see you no more, for you lie to me. My father has told me differently about all these matters, but I did not fully understand the reasons. I now wonder that you were not exposed to death when young; it is not well that you were suffered to live the lying tongue and the deceitful heart are hateful to the high gods."

She bowed haughtily and was leaving the room; but he started up impetuously and called her back.

"Stay, Miss X, and hear me one moment. I do not lie, I have said nothing but the truth. Why should I? I do not know why. your father keeps you in such strange ignorance, but you could surely find out for yourself that I have not spoken falsely."

"How how?" she gasped, her proud face softening a little.

"Why, by books and newspapers." "The books do not tell it, and I never saw a newspaper."

Never saw a newspaper! what mystery was this? He found in the pocket of his hunting-coat a week-old paper, glanced rapidly over its columns, then showed her an item about a woman who had gone into a burning house to rescue her sleeping child; another of a girl who had killed herself because her lover was lost at sea; then an

account of a reception given a famor authoress; another about the despair of wife whose husband had been sent to prison

X read them with dilated eyes; the color faded from her cheeks; the paper dropped from her grasp, she sank into a chair, and covering her face with her hands began to cry bitterly.

Arnold knew not what to do, so he predently did nothing. The fruit of the tree of knowledge was not pleasant to her at the first taste, but if her ignorance of real life was to drive him in disgrace from her house it was much better she should learn something of the world, even if it cost her her faith in her father. What an unmitigated liar the old gentleman must be ! and what could be his object in bringing up his daughter in such a remarkable fashion?

Presently the girl lifted up her eyes and held out her hand.

"Forgive me for what I said. I could not believe my father had deceived me so long. Come now to the library and tell me more."

She led the way and they sat down by the open window. Valley and mountain stretched out before them in glorious perspective; the breeze, perfumed with a hundred flowers, gently lifted the silken curtains and ruffled the classic waves of her black hair. It was a good place to spend a

elings of men and women when this maser of all human emotions could have told ou so much?"

The girl looked surprised. "He does tell e of everything in nature, and he has left othing unsaid about war and revenge and mbition, but I fancy he cared for nothing 1se. He never speaks much about women. have read everything he wrote again and gain."

"What have revenge and ambition to do with Desdemona's love for Othello, with Imogen's trust, with Troilus's wasted passion and the sweet story of Romeo and Juliet ?"

Her face expressed only blank astonishment. "I know nothing of these people ; is there more than one Shakspere?"

He opened the book: Coriolanus, Macbeth, Julius Cæsar, Henry V, with the episode of the fair French princess omitted, Richard III, met his gaze. Not one of the plays had more than a passing mention of any female character. The next book was the Iliad, but no notice was taken of the cause of the long war. Dante was there, but it had no Francesca and Lanciotto who read no more from books when they had read the love in each others eyes. Volume after volume he tried, with the same results. History had been seriously mutilated, and there was not a novel in the whole library.

He went back to his seat by the window, filled with admiration for the man who had left him so much to do.

"Miss X, let me tell you the story of Romeo and Juliet; it will give you an idea of a love stronger than that of a father and child."

He told the tale with much enthusiasm-

too much. The dark eyes glowed and softened and filled with tears, the color burned deeper in her cheeks, her heart beat faster and faster; and the young man who never took his eyes from her face felt that his first lesson in teaching this beautiful girl the "way of a man with a maid" had not been a failure.

ITY

"Have there been other such women ? Tell me about them all!" she exclaimed; and he spoke of Rosalind, and Viola, and Hero, and Elaine, and Enid, and still the eyes of X on all his movements with a mute observance hung."

Had daylight lasted he would have gone on indefinitely through the centuries, and brought up before her scores of women whom love has made heroines, but he knew he must set out for the Indian encampment before dark. He thanked his hostess for her kind entertainment, and as he lingered on the steps he thought for the twentieth time how lovely she was. She gave him her hand at parting and bade him come back the next day and tell her more stories. The command was entirely superfluous - he had already made up his mind to do so.

He said good-night with much reluctance and turned away; but when he had gone a few paces she called him back. She was still standing on the marble steps; her face was on a level with his; and looking at him with those eloquent, changing eyes that had never yet learned to droop before a man's passionate gaze, she said, "If I were to go out into the world now, would some Romeo love me as Juliet was loved, or would the fact that I have been brought up so differ ently from other girls cause me to be shunned by all young men? it is the young men always who are the lovers? One father is enough, and since I have him already I should not desire more; but would there be an Orlando for me anywhere?"

He hesitated; could he tell this girl so curiously ignorant and untutored and yet so refined and intelligent that her great beauty. would bring throngs of suitors to her feet wherever she should go? What effect would such a statement have upon her exquisite simplicity? Surely it would be the first step in rubbing the down from the peach, the bloom from the grape; he had always noticed that rosebuds open too fast of themselves.

Ah, you do not like to tell me, but it is

the truth as I suspected. I should pass through all my life with no love except that of my father! It is best that I should never leave this mountain valley, for I will not go among people to see them turn from me in disgust. When you told me Juliet's story I thought that I should like to be loved in that way; but I see it is not to be the fates have not willed it so, and it is folly to struggle against destiny. Have you begun to hate me already?"

It was an excellent opportunity for him to advance, take her not reluctant hands in his. and assure her he had fallen in love with her at first sight; but the aplomb, the nerve, on which this worldly going man had always prided himself utterly deserted him in this crisis or rather, I might say, all the chivalry of his nature arose, and although I am not sure he was a Galahad who had never felt the kiss of love or maiden's hand in his, or that he had looked upon all women as sisters merely, yet there came to him now the knowledge that the girl before him had. spoken thus in her great innocence of evil, her ignorance of the world's ways; it would be a shame to take advantage of it. If he won her love at all, it should be when she knew him better. So he only took her hand in his, bowed low over it in respectful courtesy, and said: Miss X, if I may be allowed I shall feel honored to be counted your friend, and I am sure that you will never lack warm, earnest affection. Your Romeo will certainly come and he is to be envied above all men. " He lifted his hat and passed down the valley out of sight.

As early as it seemed at all consistent with politeness he came the next morning, hoping to go on where he had left off, but the girl's mood had changed. Some subtle feminine instinct seemed to have awakened in her breast and to have made her cold and capricious. She did not care for love stories today; she wished to hear about the life of women in their homes in the world, about the education of children, the condition of

"What a strange question! Do you not know that they never appear to mortals now? All that is past: great Pan is dead, and the twelve gods of Plato's vision come back to us no more; but there is beauty everywhere, and the good giver of it is surely pleased when we return thanks. I would not wish to be thought ungrateful. You remember what Swift says of ingratitude?"

"No, I do not recall it now." "He calls it the sun of all the evils of which a man ca can be guilty. But a singular idea strikes me- are not Beauty, Truth, Courage, and Honor worshiped in your world?"