fevers which had resulted; the pain in his side. "We have used all our money," she ended, with a touching little catch of her breath,"if it had not been for Mr. Arbuthnot—Mr. Arbuthnot-"

"Yes," said Tom, wofully, "he'll have to go without a pair or so of gloves this month and smoke fewer cigars; and I couldn't have believed that there was a man living I could have borne to take money from, but, somehow, he made it seem almost as if he owed it me."

When Mrs. Sylvestre went away she left hope and comfort behind her. Kitty followed her into the passage with new light in her eyes. "If I have the sewing," she said, clasping her hands, "it will be such a load off Tom's mind to know that we have a little money, that he will get better. And he knows I like sewing, so, perhaps, he will not mind it so much. I am so thankful to you! If Tom will only

get well," she exclaimed in a broken whisper, "if Tom will only get well!" And, suddenly, in response to some look on Agnes's face, and a quick, caressing gesture, she leaned forward and was folded in her arms.

It is very natural to most women to resort to the simple feminine device of tears, but it was not often Mrs. Sylvestre so indulged herself, and there were tears in her eyes and in her voice, too, as she held the gentle, childish creature to her breast. She had felt a great deal, during the last twenty-four hours, and the momentary display of emotion was a relief to her. "He will get better," she said, with almost maternal tenderness, "and you must help him by taking care of yourself and giving him no cause for anxiety. You must let me help to take care of you. We will do all we can-" and there was something akin to fresh relief to her in the mere use of the little word “we.”

A MOLE.

WALKING through the fields one May morning, I surprised a mole above ground, a very large specimen, one of the giants of his kind. It was an unwonted spectacle, something I had never seen before; this purblind, shovelfooted, subterranean dweller, this metaphysician of the earth, groping his way along in the open daylight. Had he grown tired then of the darkness, of the endless burrowings that lead nowhither, of undermining the paths and the garden, and cutting off the tender rootlets of the plants? He was ill equipped for traveling above ground; he was like a stranded fish; the soil was his element, and he knew it as well as I did. The moment I disturbed him he began to go into the ground as a diver into the water. When he moved, his tendency was downward, like a plow. It was amusing to see his broad, naked, muscular front feet, which turned outward and upward instead of downward, shovel their way through the grass into the turf. In less than half a minute he would nearly bury himself from view. Then by the tail I would draw him forth, and see him repeat the attempt. He did not look or feel about for a hole or for a soft place, but assaulted the turf wherever he touched it, his slender, sensitive nose feeling the way, and his huge, fleshy hands opening the passage. He was indeed a giant in these members;

they were to him what the wings of a bird are to the bird; all his powers and speed lay here; his hind legs were small and feeble, and often trailed behind him as if helpless or broken. Fancy a race of savages by some peculiar manual occupation developing an enormous hand, a hand as long and broad as a scoop shovel, usurping the wrist and the forearm, with the legs and feet proportionately small, and you have a type of this mole. This creature was a cripple at the surface, but a most successful traveler a few inches below. His fur was like silk plush, finer and softer than that of any creature known to me, excepting, perhaps, the bat. Why should these creatures of darkness have such delicate vestments? Probably because they are creatures of darkness. The owl is softer clad than the hawk, the hare than the squirrel, the moth than the butterfly.

I looked in vain for the mole's eyes. I blew open the fur, and explored the place with the point of a pin, but no eyes or semblance to eyes could I find, and I began to think that Aristotle was right in saying the mole is blind. Then I dispatched him, and stripped off his skin, and the eyes were revealed: two minute, black specks, that adhered to the tissues of the head after the skin was removed. It was only by the aid of a pocket glass that I was able to determine that they really were eyes. There was no eye

socket, and I wondered that they had not come away with the skin. Probably the only use the mole has for eyes is to distinguish daylight from darkness, and for this purpose these microscopic dots may suffice, but as regards any other and more specific visual powers, he is practically blind.

A LAMPREY'S NEST.

ONE day late in spring as I was passing over a bridge I chanced to see two lampreys, or "lamper-eels," as they are usually called, engaged in building their nest in the creek below me. It was one of the most curious spectacles I ever saw in our stream. They were a few yards below the bridge, just where the water breaks from the still pool beneath it, and flows with a rapid current over its roughly paved bottom. They were distinguishable from the yellowish brown and black stones and pebbles amid which they were working only by their motions. They were tugging away at the small movable stones with great persistence. I went down to the water's edge where they were within reach of my staff, the better to observe them. They would run up to the edge of the still water and seize upon the stones with their suction mouth and drag them back with the current and drop them upon their nest. I understood at once why their nests, which I had often observed before, were always placed at the beginning of a rift; it is that the fish may avail themselves of the current in building them. The water sweeps them back with the pebble in their mouth, their only effort being in stemming the current to seize it. They are thus enabled to move stones which they could not stir in still water.

The stones varied in size from a walnut to a goose egg. When one of them was tugging away at a stone too heavy for it, I would lend a helping hand with my staff; I would move the stone along gently, and the lamprey seemed entirely unconscious of the fact that it was being helped; it would drop the burden at the proper point, and run up for another. Indeed my aid and presence did not disturb them at all. From time to time, the larger of the two, which was the female, would thrust her tail with great violence down among the pebbles at the bottom of the creek and loosen them up, and set free the mud which the current quickly carried away. The new material thus plowed up was carried to the nest. Twice in the course of the half-hour that I observed them, the act of spawning took place.

Besides helping move the larger stones with my staff, I several times plowed up the

bottom with its point, thus relieving the female of that duty. The fish took it all as a matter of course, and seized upon the pebbles I had loosened with great alacrity. When I thrust my cane beneath them and tried to lift them out of the water, they would suck fast to the stones and prevent me; but they did not manifest any alarm. The lampreys become much exhausted with the spawning and nest building, and large numbers of them die when it is over. In June it is not unusual to find their dead bodies in the streams they inhabit.

A LIVE FAIRY.

WHEN one makes long journeys, or penetrates remote and difficult places, he naturally expects to find strange and curious things, but one of the keenest pleasures the walker has, is in discovering, under his very nose, beside his familiar paths, and in ground that he thought he knew as he knows his own chimney corner, some creature, the like of which he has never before heard of, and which his neighbors and friends have never seen or heard of, yet which has disported itself there year after year, and which science has long known and has put old Rome under contribution to name. Such was my experience when, one April day, as I was peering into a little pool where I had peered a hundred times before, I suddenly discovered a creature-not one, but scores of them, disporting themselves in the clear water-creatures that were as new to me as a veritable nymph would have been. They were partly fish-shaped, from an inch to an inch and a half long, semi-transparent, with a dark brownish line visible the entire length of 'them (apparently the thread upon which the life of the animal hung, and by which its all but impalpable frame was held together), and suspending themselves in the water, or impelling themselves swiftly forward by means of a double row of fine, waving, hair-like appendages, that arose from what appeared to be the back, a kind of undulating, pappus-like wings. What was it? I did not know. None of my friends or scientific acquaintances knew. I wrote to a learned man, a great authority upon fish, describing the creature as well as I could. He replied that it was only a familiar species of phyllopodous crustacean, known as eubranchipus vernalis.

I remember that our guide in the Maine woods, seeing I had names of my own for some of the plants, would often ask me the name of this and that flower for which he had no word; and that when I could recall the full Latin term, it seemed overwhelmingly convincing and satisfying to him. It was evi

The "Revolution" in American Politics.

That the great political reaction of 1882 had no mere partisan significance, no one has been more quick to see

I. It is usual, in all free countries, for reactionary tides to set in and sweep away a party which has been long in power; but it is seldom that such reactions take place against an actual administration in times of great prosperity. It is true that the reaction in England against Beaconsfield was a moral and political movement; at the same time, there is considerable truth in the assertion that the endless and damaging autumn rains had well-nigh as much to do with the Liberal success as did the damaging and endless speeches of Gladstone. But the reaction of the late American elections was entirely a moral one; if the country farmer and city merchant thought it was "about time for a change," this opinion was not the unconscious effect of sordid or meteorological considerations.

2. So far as newspapers had to do with the result -and they had, of course, greatly to do with it-it is evident that the Republican party was beaten by Republican newspapers, no less than by Republican

votes.

3. It is a notable sign of the times that there have of late been no discussions, even, of the right of a voter to "scratch" the ticket of his party. A large proportion of the Republican voters of the State of New York, where the reaction against the administration was most violent, wasted no time nor scruples in the matter of scratching the ticket "the machine had prepared for them, but deliberately and eagerly deposited their votes for the candidates of the party to which for a life-time they had been opposed.

4. Recent events have proved again that the machine methods of party government do not develop leaders capable, on occasion, of taking broad, statesman-like, and saving views. Men that are adepts in packing a primary, running a convention, and using the spoils-system for purely personal ends, naturally fail at the very moment when a certain moral penetration is needed. Such men can count only upon the votes they purchase, either directly or indirectly. They necessarily have a low opinion of human nature, and do not allow its proper weight to those strong human elements-conscience, and a sense of decency. They forget even the universal faculty of memory, which, though sometimes obscured, still exists and holds fast, for instance, such deep political, as well as personal, impressions as were made upon millions of minds by the assassination of President Garfield.

5. Not only do our modern machine methods fail in producing accomplished leaders, but they appear to have a steadily deteriorating effect upon the brains of the whole set of managers, great and little. The spoils-system makes a certain kind of success comparatively easy for unscrupulous men; but it would seem that the more experience a partisan manager has in the spoils-system, the more unsafe does he become as a partisan manager.

ernorship of New York, by a vote unprecedented, we believe, in American politics. On the very night of the election, Mr. Cleveland is reported to have said that the revolution meant not so much the turning of public sentiment to the Democratic party as it did dissatisfaction with the Republican party. "The change," he added, "means reform and good government!"

If Mr. Cleveland and his party throughout the country live up to this programme of "reform and good government," they will have a long hold of power; for the revolution just accomplished (with some regrettable and grotesque accidents, as in all revolutions) had this programme for its main object. It is evident enough now that the people are disgusted with a party that has lost its sincerity; that pretends, but no longer performs; that, from being a party with a moral purpose, has been changed by its leaders into a party with an immoral purpose. The people demand “reform and good government,” and, if they cannot get these from one side, they will get them from another; and if they cannot get them from either of the two great parties which now divide the suffrages of the nation, they will dismiss them both without remorse, as in past epochs, and will create another party to do the work. But whether or no we have a new party, now is the time for new men. Power will not be willingly left in the hands of thrifty renegades to the cause of "reform and good government." In other words, the acceptable leaders of the next ten years will not be men whose conversion to "civil service reform " has been by earthquake.

"Quantics."

A WRITER in the "St. James's Gazette" says that Professor Sylvester tells an admirably illustrative story about one of his students at the Johns Hopkins University:

matician; and he had heard that at the topmost sum"This aspiring youth wanted to become a mathemit of the mathematical tree stood a mysterious subject known as the doctrine of quantics,' a calculus of calculi, only to be grasped by the very furthest stretch of the abstract mathematical faculty. So he came and asked to be taught 'quantics.' It was in vain that Professor Sylvester suggested simpler preliminary geometrical and algebraical studies; the young man wanted to learn quantics,' and nothing but ‘quantics' would he have.”

This anecdote is intended to show that Americans are in haste to get on, and are not disposed to submit in patience to the training requisite for the highest success. This is true. It is the fault of hopeful, eager youth who see great opportunities opening on every side, for fame, for fortune, for usefulness, for

enjoyment. They aim at the best without always at taining to it. They see the rapid advancement which civilized society has made in the domain of a new continent, and they unconsciously participate in the rapid movements of the times in which they live. How could it be otherwise in a land like this,—especially if it be true that this century (as Dumas, the French physicist, has said) is to be known in history "as the age of electricity."

The criticism of the "St. James's Gazette" is, how. ever, rough. It does not show any nice appreciation of the circumstances it discusses. Most English observers of this country judge it from afar-by the capitals in the newspapers, by sensational reports in telegraphic dispatches, by the foolish and provoking parade of personalities in political, ecclesiastical, and social affairs. Even the semi-authorized report of Herbert Spencer's impressions does not indicate that he has fully mastered the situation, though many of his comments are sound and sagacious. Nevertheless, all thoughtful Americans ought to, and they do, weigh, calmly and accurately, the criticisms which foreigners make upon our social life and its tendencies. Such remarks will include a great deal that is true and suggestive, with a spice of that which is false and provoking—but the digestion of it all will be whole

some.

Are the critics not right when they say that the Americans are unwilling to take the pains which are requisite to secure the highest results? Ask a college professor, for example, if the youth come up for matriculation well prepared; ask the editor what sort of manuscripts are offered for his inspection from writers who are eager to make their appearance in print; ask the elders in charge of a vacant pulpit if it is easy to find a new minister; ask in regard to medical education, what proportion of the young doctors annually graduated are fitly trained for their profession; ask for an architect to build a sightly and substantial public building; ask the school committee what sort of candidates offer for vacant places; ask the judges of portrait-painting how many true artists there are in this branch of art. Everywhere the answer may be heard: "many are called"-writers, teachers, artists, architects, physicians-but few are worthy to be "chosen."

So we go on, not so steadily, not so safely, not so wisely as we ought. But the country is so vast, the natural resources are so rich, the freedom is so delightful, and the inheritance so abundant of the best which the world has produced, that we are, as a whole, a happy and contented people. We might, however, be happier in the present if our capacities were more judiciously enlarged and educated, and surer that the inheritance we possess would be handed down unimpaired to those coming after us.

Meanwhile, if it is necessary, for the sake of a verdict, that the defendant should answer the prosecutor, we may, perhaps, be allowed to add that the writer in the "St. James's " has replied in this article of his to the very query he propounds. He "wonders whether we in Europe, too, are ultimately to give way upon this silly prepossession, and to admit the equal power of everybody to discourse without previous preparation upon every conceivable subject at a moment's notice." The American readers of "St.

James's" can give him their impressions on this point. For, in his hasty and ill-tempered, though partly just, criticism, he has sought only for facts to prove his point. We do not know whether the story about Professor Sylvester is true or not, but it bears the marks of verisimilitude. Yet, after all, it is no discredit to the country or the youth that there is such a preeminent professor of mathematics among us, and that his presence is inspiring even to those who are but tyros. We can tell a story which is suggested by that of the "St. James's." A few years ago a young school-master of Pennsyl vania, sharing, though more wisely than the tyro, the American enthusiasm for the best things, and especially for quantics, went to Baltimore to study with Professor Sylvester, with this result, that before long the writings of that young man were used as a textbook in the University of Cambridge, England.

Christmas.

THE almost universal observance of Christmas can hardly be accepted as an indication of a growing interest in the Christian fact which it celebrates, when we remember that it is the one religious festival which not only combines the pagan and Christian sentiments, but in which the pagan sentiment speaks with a more obvious appeal than does the spiritual, to the purely secular side of our nature. The green boughs brought from the frosty woods to freshen our overcivilized homes, and to hide or enhance our restlessly decorated churches, re-awaken the instinct which, in barbarous ages, frankly claimed outdoor nature as the sphere of man's home and religion. The lighted tree, apart from any Christian association, has a charm of its own, fascinating to the veriest skeptic; and the Christmas cheer, the realizing of the gregarious instinct under conditions of civilized feeling, the intense recognition of human ties expressed in seasonable gifts, can hardly be claimed as the product of the purely Christian element in the day. Indeed we suspect that not a little of "Christmas joy" has no deeper source than a Pagan defiance of winter's cold, as though the heart should cry to its chilling demands: "I defy you! I shall revel and be happy in spite of you !'

It is evident that a festival making such an unmistakable appeal to the secular side of our life-the pagan side-offers it a tempting point of compromise with the spiritual significance of the day which many a secularist has already availed himself of. Men whose adjacency to the Christian religion forbids being quite pagan in feeling, and men whose paganism forbids being quite Christian in faith, find a sentimental use of Christmas sufficient. They would probably say: "While you Christians rejoice to celebrate your divine child born in Bethlehem, let us rejoice to celebrate all human births everywhere. Light your Christmas-tree in honor of your Christchild, of whom we know nothing, while we light ours to shine upon the children gathered around our knee. Keep your legend or fact of the angel-song, the

Peace, good-will,' the guiding star, the Magi bowing and prophesying at the manger. Enough for us the 'Peace, good-will' from lips that we know and love, that we see a star of hope above our own home, that