so hazardous, and so little remunerative, that historically they have rarely paid for themselves. Shore artillery can always be made to overbear that afloat, because the earth can support an unlimited weight of fortification and of cannon, with which vessels can not vie either in armor or guns; and at bombardment ranges a ship is much more apt than a shore work to receive serious injury. In this case the submarine, however valued, merely adds an additional deterrent where there already was sufficient to deter.

The case of passing batteries is more favorable to ships. Historically, they have usually been able to effect this, and the probability of success still is such that for a sufficient object it will doubtless be attempted. Its accompaniments, imposed by the superior fire of the shore guns already mentioned, will be extremely swift movement, to minimize the time of exposure, and a heavy rapid-fire to reduce that of the enemy. From the character of the land constituting the passage to be forced, such movements will usually take place where there are currents, tidal or other. Such currents, with the quick transit of the hostile target, constitute conditions very unfavorable to submarine action; with which will concur the inevitable excitement of the average man, not in the face of personal danger, which on board the submarine.will be slight, but because of the rapid shiftings of the scene and the necessity to seize moments so fleeting as to be accurately measured only in fractions of seconds. The batteries, if passed, will be passed for an object beyond them. Whether the fleet can remain will depend upon whether it can there defend itself against submarine attack, until the works which have been passed, or any other submarine base near by, may be destroyed. This, properly considered, is not a question of action by submarines. It is a question how far vessels at anchor can be protected against the automobile torpedo, which is common to the submarine and the surface torpedo-boat. If such protection can be given, it will not matter to the battleship whether the torpedo is launched from a submarine or elsewhere.

The Torpedo's Menace

THE

HE battleship, putting herself in the submarine's place, will recognize these difficulties under which the latter must operate. She will admit that the exploding of a torpedo under her bottom while in passage may sink, and will certainly gravely injure; but she will not allow this to be the whole picture she presents to herself. She will recognize the difficulty of placing the torpedo, calculate her own powers to enhance that difficulty, measure the importance of the object to be gained by the passage, and act upon the balance of probabilities; remembering. Napoleon's maxim: "War is not to be made without running risks." Risk is not that of being killed, nor even of losing a ship; it is the risk of failure, to be decided by placing yourself in the submarine's place and recognizing his risk of failure as well as your own: Grant's "man that you can not see.' I believe a dozen submarines of to-day might have stopped Farragut's passage of the forts at New Orleans and Mobile. I do not believe they would stop a dozen battleships of to-day-under Farragut-in the current of the Mississippi, though they might sink one or two; a loss proportionately no greater than that of the Mississippi at Port Hudson. At Mobile a different problem was presented, owing to the channel on the left

there is not water enough, while inside they could not anchor out of range of modern guns; but supposing these conditions different, as very well could be, they would at anchor be safer against submarine boats than in motion they would be against stationary mines of unknown position, by which during subsequent proceedings we lost several vessels in that bay in 1864.

Operations Far From Land

AS before remarked, these operations are restricted to the effective range of shore artillery, within which a fleet must come to carry them on. Outside that range the submarine and the battleship, in their antagonism, confront a different condition; one intermediate between coastwise operations and those of the broad ocean, the control of which demands large vessels, culminating in battleships.

The submarine, as so far developed and tested and its qualities ascertained, does not claim effectiveness in operations as remote as those contemplated for battleships. Its radius of action-the ground it can cover

As so far developed, the submarine will find its highest function in the class of operations comprehended, not quite accurately, under the one name of blockade. Blockade, as used, means either of two things: the watching of a hostile fleet in port by a superior force outside, that it may not escape without fighting; or the closing of special ports to commerce, by stationing before them a force competent to prevent the entrance or departure of merchant shipping. The latter is the correct use the blocking of movement; the former is inappropriate, for its object usually is not to keep the hostile fleet in, thus prolonging tension and exposure, but to tempt it out in order to bring the question to quick decision. As Nelson wrote, "the port of Toulon has never been blockaded by me. On the contrary, every opportunity is given the enemy to get to sea, for there we hope to meet the expectations of our country. There wili be, however, no great difference in method; and I think, in contemplating the question,

of the advancing vessels being defined by shoal water, in which the submarine could lie, perhaps sufficiently immersed for protection. Granting it freedom of maneuvre, which the soundings would scantly give, the submarine would have conditions resembling substantially those under which the Japanese made their first attack at Port Arthur. Invisible themselves, they there had a large target, stationary, which under Mobile conditions would be moving. Doubtless, too, in conditions resembling those at Mobile a searching rain of rapid-fire projectiles, greatly endangering the periscopes, would cover the exposed flank of the battle column during the brief period of passage. would proceed either from the battleships themselves, or from the vessels which will infallibly be produced to counteract the submarine, just as the torpedo-boat produced the torpedo-boat destroyer. The case is not one for surprise; all will be on the alert, not through the protracted watches of a weary night, but for the few brief instants of decisive action; exactly as on a dangerous down grade, skirting a precipice, every railroad hand is wide-awake. The submarine will not merely have its own way. In the Mobile instance modern battleships could not pass the forts, because

This

-and its speed alike prohibit such expectation. Larger boats, of wider action and doubtless of intended greater speed, are being built; but it is neither requisite nor safe to speculate upon them, until tested in all the points which constitute the powers of the present boat. We are probably at the opening of another progression, such as the surface torpedo-boat underwent: secondclass boats, first-class boats, torpedo-boat destroyers.

Highest Functions of the Submarine

NOR is the parallel defective in other respects. Twenty years ago the radius of action for the torpedo-boat was to be extended by vessels carrying one or more in their bowels, in a kind of drydock to which water could be admitted to float them out for anticipated battle; or there were to be special torpedo nursery ships, so to say,-carrying torpedo-boats on deck with special apparatus to hoist them in and out. Similar projects are being revived for the submarine. But the upshot was the torpedo-boat destroyer, a torpedo-boat magnified to rougher conditions and wider operations, which in battle has done precisely what was expected twenty years ago by the students of naval

sight has been too much lost of modern conditions which are as operative as the strong qualities of the submarine.

The object of a blockade proper is to embarrass the finances of a country by shutting its ports to foreign commerce, thus deranging one main feature of its general markets, and thereby bringing confusion into the whole. The navy attempting this must be largely superior to that of the country threatened; but, if the latter has a battle fleet, it may be assumed that it will make the disposition generally regarded as proper: concentrate the battleships in the port from which exit. is easiest, should an external effort be desired. Under that condition, the blockading fleet will concentrate its own battleships before that port; the closure of all others embraced in its scheme will be by vessels of smaller force. By accepted international law, all that is required to make a blockade effective is that it constitute an evident danger to merchant vessels seeking to enter or leave the port.

Blockade Problems

SHIPS of war of the smallest class, properly stationed, are competent to this, as well before the principal arsenal, if it be also a commercial port, as before any other. All the law demands is that they can hold their endangering position; that the enemy does not succeed in driving them off long enough to constitute a breaking of the blockade. To effect this, they must be strong enough merely to meet the lighter vessels of the inside force; the battleships have no need to be near by. Should the battle fleet of the blockaded come out in support, it plays into the hands of the enemy, who wishes just that. If it remain outside, it comes to battle; if it retreat, it fails to drive off the enemy. The inner blockaders, built for speed and independent in movement, will be faster than a battle fleet tied to its slowest unit. They will retire like skirmishers on a reserve, while the battle fleet, warned of the enemy's approach by wireless, will be simultaneously moving swiftly up to their support.

In all discussions I have seen concerning the effect of torpedoes on a blockading fleet, the advocates of the torpedo, impressed by the frightful catastrophe it may produce, fail to put themselves in the place of the battleships. It seems assumed that these will stand up like an armorplate to a gun on the testing-ground, accepting the opponent's worst. "Sand-banks and tides" are overleaped, and the submarine flies straight to its goal. Be it remembered that a modern battle fleet can travel a hundred miles in six hours, and therefore need never be nearer the port it watches. The blockade in its entirety will be constituted as an army in the field: the main body, the advanced guards, the picket line. The last, of small, swift vessels, if sufficiently numerous, need not approach nearer than thirty miles to the port. For that radius, the seaward semicircle round the port measures ninety miles, a line well within the "effective" control of ten scouts or less. For close watching this circle can be contracted up to dangerous range of shore guns-say eight or ten miles, making the semicircular line to be occupied only twenty-five to thirty miles. In principle such a procedure is not new. was highly developed before Brest over a century ago by Earl St. Vincent. What is new is the power and freedom of movement conferred by steam, and the instantaneous transmission of intelligence by wireless. Togo by this means learned the approach of the Russians when they were still over a hundred miles distant. Regarded as an instrument of surprise, the submarine

It

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Το

the immense advantage of being on the offensive, and putting its opponent on the defensive. The battleship and the gun, just now, are narrowed to the rôle of seeking to frustrate the attack of the submarine; they possess little power to injure. But the submarine is immensely open to injury. Periscope observation must be frequent, and to some degree deliberate, inviting detection; and once detected there is needed chiefly to A find a means for the eye, to follow under water. generation which has seen the X-rays, and eyes which have clearly seen small fishes at a depth of twenty feet, will hesitate to doubt this achievement. If visible, to launch against it other torpedoes, rapid-fire for that matter, down as well as horizontal, will scarcely present an insoluble difficulty to the modern inventor, and a submarine is all bottom; the water presses for admission on every side. From the slightness of her frame she may be demolished by torpedoes of light charge; corresponding possibly to buckshot.

Necessity to compress compels omission of secondary considerations. My aim has not been to express definitive opinions of my own, but to suggest reflections upon the two sides of the question. This may help guide popular appreciation. It is desirable that there should be official experiment on a large scale, reproducing the conditions of a great blockade, with a view to decide how far against it the powers of the submarine may be effective in actual war. For a really satisfactory trial, it seems obvious that the conduct of the blockade and the action of the submarine should each be entrusted to strong partizans of the respective methods. No socalled impartial man will do justice to either in operation. Impartiality will be required in umpires; it is the faculty of the judge; but the spirit in which to wage war is the burning desire of achievement and confidence of winning.

END

Twas Saturday night-the night of the Medicine Show. Social Hall was filled to the doors, and at the windows sunburnt faces and coatless shoulders kept out the salt night air. The men within the hall wore coats and high, stiff collars. Their expressions mingled dignity with a dejection befitting the proper and uncomfortable. The women, despite their flowered hats, were pale and unprepossessing, with the premature wrinkles that tell of hard work, unceasing, and little contact with outside air. But the men, whose labor lay with wind and sea, were ruddy and bright of eye. They emanated a tempered geniality and a slight odor of fish.

It was after eight and the curtain not yet risen when Seth Ellis came stamping into the hall. He was trying to tread softly, but his great feet in their coarse shoes were unequal to the task. At each step he flushed miserably. He was a huge fellow, was Seth, and hopelessly modest and shy. In figure he was magnificent, big-boned, and supple, with muscles that ran like water. The face was honest, blue-eyed, and plain, with a complexion that stood for health and the blaze of sun and the tang of salty air. Seth was more than usually shy to-night. He had meant to dress for the Occasion, but his skipper-Captain Snow of the catboat Mildred had kept him aboard until too late.

So

here he was in his gray fishing-blouse, his work-worn trousers wet with sea-water, miserably conscious of his own inappropriateness in this scene of frivolity and fashion. He looked desperately about for a seat, then with a courage born of need seized a stool and bore it up next the very stage. Modern, Moral, and Mirthful, the posters had assured him this show would be, and Seth was going to see it.

Clap-clap, thump-thump went the audience, then fell into awed silence as the curtain rose slowly, coiling over a spool with infinite labor and jerks. A small square of planks was disclosed to the eager eyes below. A table stood at right, holding a greasy lamp; beside it a chair. On either side of the stage were flapping lengths of red cheese-cloth.

"A prison cell," whispered a giggling girl behind Seth, one of the small summer colony. Her companion, a college boy, answered gravely:

"You are altogether incapable of seeing shades. We have here the ancestral halls of Lord Pandarnton, Earl of Marlton and Suffsbrough."

Seth consulted his program. Yes, it was so. A vague sense of awe oppressed him.

The play opened with the usual scene between housekeeper and butler. Seth listened heavily. He gathered the Earl was bringing his beautiful bride to the castle. Even as the housekeeper spoke there was a stir behind the cheese-cloth and in walked-a vision? No, only a haggard-looking woman with very red cheeks and thin hair frizzled on her forehead. The Earl held her by the hand.

In some

Seth experienced keen disappointment. way he felt he had been cheated. A beautiful bride, the housekeeper had said. A sense of disproportion made him tingle. The girl behind him was laughing, but Seth could not laugh. He had been cheatedrobbed of his thirty cents. He slouched down on his stool and watched the candle-bugs.

A slight commotion among the audience aroused him, and sullenly Seth raised his eyes. The bride, looking older and less lovely in a gown of baby-blue, was beckoning some one. "Come to your mother, Willie, child,' she lisped. Seth looked where the bride looked and saw an incongruous yet charming sight.

A girl of perhaps eighteen was dressed in the habiliments of a little boy. Her brown hair, swept off her brow, hung curling softly about her ears. A blouse of soft, white stuff intensified the curves of a figure

full, yet girlishly supple. Her hands lost themselves in the pockets of tight-fitting velveteen knickerbockHeelless black slippers and long white stockings completed the costume.

"My darling Willie, you are eight to-day!" the beautiful bride was saying.

It was as inconsistent, as unnatural as the bride herself, but Seth did not think of that. He may have lost sight of the fact that the girl of eighteen was meant for a boy of eight. Perhaps, his love of beauty being satisfied, he was willing to be lenient. Perhaps -and this is more than likely-he thought nothing at all about it, for he was feeling strangely satisfied and inexplicably thrilled.

She was a pretty girl. Every man and woman in the audience admitted it to themselves or to each other. Her eyes smiled mischievously through thickplanted, jet-black lashes; her nose was small and delicately up-tilted; there were dimples lurking between the bow of her mouth and the curve of her soft, pink cheek. How whitely her neck shone in the heartshaped opening made by the boy's lace collar-a fascinating boy, this!

Seth watched her. When she prated childishly to her mother, Seth watched her; when she kneeled at the Earl's side, hands clasped on the Earl's knee, chin uplifted, melting eyes, too, and later when she had left the stage and, all unconscious, yawned drowsily in the wings.

He had forgotten it was to be a "medicine show,' when the curtain fell to rise again on the Earl in the character of salesman. The table which had graced the Earl's ancestral halls now bore a pyramid of boxes and bottles.

"Don't say you don't need it," implored the Earl, selecting a bottle from the pyramid, "that's somethin' I don't like to hear 'cause it shows ignorance. Everybody needs a good blood-purifier summer-times. I've got the right article-but what's the use of talkin'! You know all this same's I do. Here, Henry-take this down and let 'em get a chance at it.

Henry was the butler. He reiterated all that the Earl had said. There was, notwithstanding, a noticeable lack of enthusiasm on the audience's part. The Earl looked pained.

"Wa'al, don't take it ef you don't want to," he said nobly; "it ain't my funeral-/ take it. Here's a Cough Sirup. You ain't got a cough? Ain't you! Wa'al, c'n you prove to me you won't have one to

morrer? Wa'al, I c'n prove to you you won't-ef you take my Cough Sirup. It proves itself. Fifty cents a bottle."

Henry repeated him, but uselessly. The Earl scratched his head. Then he brightened and whispered to Henry. Henry vanished, and in another moment Seth's heart turned over. The boy-white blouse, velvet knickerbockers, brown eyes and all-was on the stage.

'Guess Willie'll sell this Cough Sirup," said the Earl confidingly; "she-he's a reel good salesman.'

Willie came slowly down the steps, her slippers twinkling in the lamplight. She held her head at an alluring slant, and her soft eyes darted among her audience. "Here we have a cough sirup guaranteed to cure coughs, colds, and hoarseness," she announced in a piercing treble. "If you don't take it afore you get a cough, you may get a cough and die afore you get a chance to take it. Only fifty cents.'

The Cough Sirup was gone before Seth could find

his money.

"That's the way I like to do business," observed the Earl, with a charming air of good-fellowship. "It fairly hurts me to see folks throw away their chances. S'pose we try the Blood Purifier again."

Seth held out a dollar to the girl as she passed him. The bill shook in his grasp. But her eyes had roved to some one beyond and she walked swiftly past.

"Isn't she a little corker?" whispered Thurston, the college boy.

"Yes -if you like pug noses," answered his companion, somewhat loftily. Seth hardly heard them. He had turned in his seat to follow the flittings of the quaint girl-figure. How pale and wrinkled the other women looked beside her blooming beauty!

"I-I'd like one," he managed to stammer out as she passed him again.

'All gone-I'm sorry," she answered.without looking at him, and showed her empty hands. A brick-red flush mounted to Seth's forehead where it changed to violent plum color. For more than five minutes his appearance suggested apoplexy.

The girl returned to the stage and took up her stand beside the table. She leaned carelessly against it, fingering the bottles, while the Earl discoursed in the familiar vein.

"Here's somethin' slick!"

he said triumphantly.

"Here's somethin' I take pride in sellin'. It's fit fer the Prince of Wales and

it's fit fer you. Yet 'tain't

only good fer pussons;-give it to your horse, your dog, or your baby. 'Twon't do 'em harm-and it'll do 'em good. Here, Willie, just hand 'round this Worm Eradicator."

The girl behind Seth giggled explosively.

"Is it getting too strong for you?" asked the college boy. "Say, I'm awfully sorry I brought you-I didn't know.

"That's all right, said the girl quizzically: "I'm here now-let's be game.'

Willie was descending the steps again, her arms full of boxes and bottles. Seth had his money ready. Tremulously he extended it. She did not see. Her eyes were searching the body of the audience. With a boldness born of despair, Seth touched the soft hanging sleeve of her blouse. She turned so quickly he found himself voiceless and aghast.

"How many?" she asked briskly.

Seth opened his mouth and shut it again. The girl looked impatient. Seth opened his mouth, emitting a husky croak: "All," he said.

A moment later he found himself holding six bottles of the "Eradicator," two of Rheumatic Tablets, and some attractive pink boxes labeled Liver Pills.

The girl smiled down on him, amused and careless. She noted the great muscular body, the red and brown skin, the keen blue eyes.

"You don't look like you needed all them," she flung back at him softly as she passed.

THE

IE Medicine Show remained in Harton six days. Seth went every night but the last. If he did not buy all the medicine there was to buy, each night, it was only because he had squandered his entire fortune at the opening production. He made enough by odd jobs between times, during the week, to pay for admission into paradise, but more than that he could not do. It was for him to shut his teeth and look away when tall bottles and pink boxes found their way into others' hands.

His own purchases he had arranged on a table in his bedroom the very night they were bought. He stood them carefully in even rows, the tallest behind, the

"To see you here," said Seth.

The girl laughed a little uneasily. "Why-ain't I as pretty by daylight?".

She was not quite. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes a little heavy; faintly etched lines showed about them. Still she was pretty even so.

Seth saw no change. He answered clumsily, from his heart: "You're beautiful."

It was perhaps not so clumsy after all. The girl smiled up at him, dazzlingly. Her teeth were incredibly white and piquantly irregular; "like pebbles,' Seth thought.

"Why don't you set down?" she said. Seth came down like a giant pine and sat stiffly beside her, his hands resting on his knees.

"My, how big you are!" said the girl and laughed. Seth flushed miserably. He was pitifully sensitive about this great size of his. Against reason he had hoped she might not have noticed.

The man I marry's got to be six foot three," said the girl with emphasis. "I've always said none of your little sawed-off, weak-kneed men for me!"

Seth's heart expanded. He was six foot two. For the first time in an overgrown life he was seized with an overwhelming desire to grow.

"I'm only twenty,' he volunteered humbly. He meant to convey the idea that there might still be time. The girl only laughed.

"Why, you're a kid!" she said. But Seth did not wince, for her smile was kind.

A vast contentment was over Seth. The sea had never before looked like this. He had thought he had seen it in every mood, but nothing like this was ever dreamed of. How softly the air caressed his neck! The salty smell of the seaweed seemed new and strange and infinitely

sweet.

"I guess you get awfully tired of it, don't you?" said the girl.

Seth groped for an answer. "It seems kinder nice to me," she went on, explain. ing, "but that's because I'm only here for less'n a week. If I was here all the time, I don't know but what I'd hate it. Do you live here all the time?"

"Yes," said Seth. "Once when I was ten I went to Boston."

"Land! And you've never been there since?" cried the girl pityingly. "Well, I s'd think you'd die! Isn't it freezin', winters?"

"Not so cold," said Seth; "Cape Cod ain't much colder'n Boston!"

"But it looks colder," insisted the girl. "The city for mine! And while I was choosin' I'd choose New York, I was there once with the Beauty Burlesquers." Her eyes, which had brightened, gloomed discontentedly: "I'd like to get with some big show like that this winter. I'm tired of this old medicine business. It does all right for summer, but they can't expect to keep me winters, too. I make their show for 'em all right," she added, tossing her head.

Seth's face was pale. He looked at her with troubled eyes. "I guess what you ought to marry is a New York feller," he said.

"Marry" laughed the girl, "who said marry?" "I said you ought to marry a New York feller," said Seth stolidly. He took his head in his hands.

The girl compelled his eyes and smiled into them. "There's a New York feller here," said Seth stubbornly.

The girl raised her eyebrows in calm indifference. "Is there?" she asked. "He goes to college in New York," said Seth miserably. He felt in duty bound to tell her all.

"Oh-him," said the girl shrugging her shoulders; "I saw him at the show. I sold him a bottle of Cough Sirup-I don't think so much of him."

Yet he lingered on the outskirts, hearing the music, seeing the lights, and imagining the scene within. Once he heard her voice, loud and sweet, upraised in eulogy of the Blood Purifier, and his heart leaped at the sound.

When it was over and the people, straggling out, had vanished into the wind and night, Seth drew a long breath. He came nearer to the little hall and stood facing the door, motionless. He wore a badly cut suit to-night and a collar. His hat, a derby, he held in his hand. Months of unfamiliarity with the feel of one had made him chary of a closer acquaintance.

Steps, light and tapping, were followed by the opening of the door and the yellow fall of light. "Whew, isn't it dark!" he heard her say.

There was no one

with her; the exclamation had been involuntary. Seth stepped up and put his arm around her. He had been all night coming to a decision, but by dawn he had made up his mind. He would. Well, he had there!

Willie's piercing shriek died suddenly as she recognized him.

"Land sakes alive!" she said, but softly-"you might as well kill a girl as scare her to death!"

Seth said nothing. He had done it. But he could not speak. That could hardly be expected of him.

"Aunt Hannah and Mr. Chase are comin'," said the girl softly. "Let's get out of the way."

"Let's go down to the beach," said Seth abruptly.

"This night? We'll get blown away! All right," answered the girl.

They walked swiftly away into the blackness, into the heart of the gale. The girl's skirts lashed about Seth's legs, her hair across. his mouth. She herself was a black spectre, vague in outline. She held

his arm tightly with both small hands, and the pull seemed, too, upon his heart. They did not speak. Once the girl piped up merrily, but the wind drowned her words and caught her breath.

At last in the shelter of the bluffs, they were in some measure protected from the gale. The speeding clouds. revealed a ghostly moon, smokewreathed and pale. In the light Seth saw her face and kissed it.

"Oh, my love, my love," he breathed.

They sat down, his arm about her. She leaned her head upon his shoulder and the place ached with tenderness. "Do you love me?" he asked her, and she kissed him for answer. Then the moon went in again and they and love seemed all the world.

SETH lived through eternities of

thought that night. Until dawn sent gray streamers through the shutters of his room he lay openeyed, recalling each thing of the evening' magic, imagining with a thrill tha was almost fear the meeting on the morrow, planning for the future.

Once when a little boy, Seth had believed in fairies. He had found a book of them in a dusty closet, and had put his trust in it. One day he had asked his father, with an air of commercialism borrowed from him, about how many fairies he thought it took to handle a fairy catboat. His father promptly told him, and sent him out to weed.

Seth never forgot that moment's disappointment. The whole world seemed changed, the face of heaven less blue. He had weeded the garden, for the first time neglecting to peer carefully between each leaf and bloom for a glint of green and gold. It was weeded more quickly than ever before and from that day Seth had been a matter-of-fact boy.

Now, as he lay on his bed, it was as if the fairy-magic had all come back. Not since those childish days had this exultation, this mysterious thrill of things unutterable, stirred him. In its sway anything seemed possible; nothing too great and good to be his goal. His head reeled among

the stars; the night-wind in his nostrils was like incense; the whole earth a revelation of green and gold.

THE Medicine Show left Harton the next day. With awakening, Seth remembered. He dressed and went, by fields and cross cuts, to the little hotel. She was sleeping, they told him. There was nothing, then, to do but go a-fishing, and work until night. Fortunately, she did not leave until evening.

On the Mildred, casting double lines and "slatting" off the shining mackerel, Seth made his plans. He would work on with Captain Snow until fall, and he would work so well that the captain would perhaps raise his wages. Then with the accumulated wealth of months he would journey to Boston to do as other country boys had done. There were always plenty of opportunities for a strong, willing man. Perhaps in time he might become the skipper of a little schooner. And after Boston would come New York-New York,

where she wanted to live. They would buy the prettiest cottage in New York City-something with grounds so she could raise flowers.

Then, thrilling, he wondered if in the fall when he had had a raise she might not marry him anywaywithout waiting for the schooner and the New York cottage. The house where he lived with his old aunt was comfortable and neat. There were nasturtiums growing by the porch. The kitchen was sunny and fresh with breezes. There was a melodeon in the parlor which no one touched. Would she come-this wonderful little love of his? The memory of her kisses lingered on his lips, tempting him to answer that she would. The Mildred slipped into harbor at sunset, over a gilded sea. A hasty change of damp clothing, a quick

""

1

He had not thought of taking her to the train; the custom had not much hold on Harton (the fare was fifty cents, round trip). She evidently did not expect it for she jumped to her seat and nodded farewell before the horses started, straightening her hat and replacing spirals of loosened hair.

The sun had sunk, but the pine trees still loomed black against a fiery sky. The stage flung into them. Seth's shoulders slackened. Then straightening, he faced the sea. There lay his pathway back to her. His the task to hew the way.

NIGHT fell uncertainly through a mist. Layers of gray vapor hid the moon, but the whole sky responded to her light with a weird, pale luminance.

Houses, their outlines lost, blurred off in different degrees of grayness. Perspective seemed lost. The sky, melting from pale smoke color to deep gray, became one with the sea a few yards out.

Seth after supper had strolled into the night. His walk had begun with feelings of desolation, but gradually bright planning for the future held him spellbound. When Thurston, the college student, joined him, and good-humoredly took his arm, he was but vaguely conscious of it. Thurston was going for the mail; Seth-he said-seemed to be bound that way, too; two were no end better company than one. What a weird, gray night! So Thurston chatted, and Seth, apparently listening, gave himself up to his "plans.'

.

The muffled moonlight had gone. A wind was springing up, warm and clinging. The sky hung like a sagging tent, from which a tepid rain sprayed fitfully. The fog thrust sticky fingers in their faces.

"Well-Clara's gone," said Thurston. He laughed a little. "She made this town hum for a few days, didn't she? But, perhaps, you didn't meet her?"

"No," said Seth absently.

'Great girl!" Thurston chuckled"flirts as naturally as she breathes. No game too small or big-for Clara! She roped me in last yearalong with my allowance. Yet

it isn't all money with Clara. It's largely an irresistible desire to try her powers. I'm surprised she let you go, old man."

Seth plodded along silently, Thurston's voice droning monotonously in his ears. When she wrote to tell him she was coming in the fall, he would start in and paint the porch. He might plant a little bed of crocuses beneath her windowshe would like that when it came spring.

"Look here!" Thurston caught Seth's arm jovially; "you do know her! I saw you on the beach with her one day- I remember. You shammer, you! I felt sure Clara wouldn't let anything as big as you slip by.'

Seth shook off the hand on his arm impatiently. To be forced to listen filled him with resentment.

"I don't know her," he said bruskly. "I was on the beach with Willie," he added simply.

"Willie! And who's Willie? Isn't she Clara Norton? You didn't think she was really 'Willie,' did you? She's got a nickname though-Kissing-Bug Norton, the fellows call her!" Thurston laughed loudly, clapping Seth's shoulder. "Pretty Don't say you good-eh, Seth? don't know! Ha, ha, ha!... And here's a better joke: a fellow in Hoods Hole is going to marry her! You don't believe it?-neither did I until she showed me his letters. It's hard to believe any one would be fool enough to marry-"

THROUGH the murky grayness,

through the night and wet, Seth made his way. He went reeling. A group of girls strolling for the evening mail, drew back nervously as he passed them. Somewhere behind in the roadside grass Thurston lay and sucked for breath. He had told the truth; Seth had heard the ring of it. Therefore he had struck the harder. But all that was forgotten now; only one thing mattered, only one thing was real. In the light of a solitary oil lamp placed near a lonely field his face showed ghastly and expressionless.

With blind haste he raised the latch of his own door, and entering fumbled up the stairs. Still with that burning need for haste he strode into his bedroom, where a lamp glowed dimly. Once in the room, the four walls enclosing him, he stood like some penned animal with goaded eyes turning uncertainly. They fell on a little table by his bedside. It held bottles and boxes arranged in rows with the greatest care. At the sight something within Seth's heart seemed to snap. He lurched forward to a chair beside the table. He rested his face upon the boxes. His arms gathered around them. He burst into tears.