supernature, the hail of a soul returning from the shades. The man was already breathing, and it was not long before he opened his eyes. Into these eyes Janet sent her sweetest and most pitiful smile, seeking thereby to encourage the sick and sorrowful spirit within. Not a word was uttered, for the one was as yet too ill to speak, and the other felt that here was a misery too profound to be questioned. After a while, seeing that her patient could hold up his head, Janet hastened to the pan of charcoal, which was still burning, and deluging it with water from a pitcher, extinguished its poisonous embers. When she returned to the window the invalid looked in her face with so much intelligence that she ventured to address him. "The It was "You will be better soon," she said. air of the room is becoming purified. that charcoal which made you ill." "Yes, it was te sharcoal," replied the young man, with a marked German accent. "I hope that you will be more careful about it in future," she continued, believing that she was talking to a would-be suicide, but not quite certain of it. "I subbose so," was the weak-voiced, indifferent, non-committal answer. She looked anxiously into the fine face which was now beginning to reassume somewhat of its natural colour and beauty. "If you are suffering under any trouble," she said, "I trust and desire that you will tell me of it. Perhaps I can aid you.' "I haf but one drubble," he replied. is life." "It Wicked as the sentiment seemed to her, the man who uttered it did not seem wicked, but only pitiable. In the quivering droop of his lip, and in the fixed but unseeing stare of his blue eyes, there was a profound anguish and a calm desperation which made her think of the unsounded, motionless waters of the Dead Sea covering ruined cities. She had never before seen such sorrow; at least she had never before seen sorrow expressed with such frankness; and the spectacle impressed her the more terribly because of its novelty. The youth now rose, steadied himself with difficulty, rubbed his forehead and his eyes, struck his hand repeatedly on the back of his neck, obviously confused, dizzy, and in pain. Janet felt that feminine delicacy ordered her to leave him; but she did not dare, lest he should rekindle his charcoal. Turning away in order to gain time for reflection, she found herself near the easel, and she examined the picture. It was a landscape representing a scene on the North River which she had visited and which she instantly recognized. Although unfinished, she was so little a judge of painting that she did not perceive that, and she thought it beautifully done. Of a sudden it occurred to her womanly wit and sensibility that here was something whereby she might gain a hold upon this victim of despair and draw him back to a willingness to live. "Did you do this?" she asked. "Are you a painter?" His face brightened the merest trifle as he caught her look of interest. "Yes, I am a bainter," he answered. "Let me turn it to the light for you," he added, with a courtesy of manner strangely at variance with his coarse and even dirty clothing. "You see it is not vinished yet," he went on, looking kindly at her, as if he detected her ignorance of art and pitied her for it. Oh, but you have time," she urged eagerly. "You shall have time." He eyed her meditatively, earnestly, and solemnly, as if querying whether he should tell her his miserable story. While he hesitated this excellent Janet Holeum was praying in her heart that Heaven would guide him toward goodness and safety. 'See here," he said at last, "I will dell you someting. You haf saved my life. I will dell you why I wanted to die. I had no money. I could not get food. I could not bay for my room. I had had drubbles pevore-over in Chermany. Und now I had not a cent in my bocket. So at last I tires out, und I gives it up. I lights my sharcoal, und I lies down to sleep it out. That is my shtory." In spite of his strong German accent he was sublime, and terrible, and pitiable. The tears rushed into Janet's eyes, and stepping suddenly forward she caught both his hands, as if she would prevent him by force from again attempting his life. "I t'ank you," was the simple response of a man whose sensibility and quickness enabled him to understand sympathy which had not been uttered. "You must not do this again," she urged as soon as she could speak. "I will see that you have friends. You shall have time to finish your picture. I will help you sell it. Have you eaten to-day?" "I haf no abbedide." to be his aunt; besides, I am saving him from death. Let who will blame me, I am doing my duty." Having had lunch that day, she had proposed to go without dinner, and consequently she had slight provision for a meal. She might have run out to make purchases, but she was afraid to leave her Tartar to himself for the She understood that he had not eaten, and present, and, moreover, haste seemed to be the tears shone in her eyes again. must. "Come down to my room," she said. "You You can take some tea, at any rate. Come down and sit with me, at least, while I eat." "I am opliged," he answered as he followed her. "But you must excuse my abbearance," he added, glancing at his ragged clothing, stained with grease and daubed with paint. "I am not fit for the gombany of a lady." "I am only a poor schoolmistress," she smiled. "And in you I can respect the artist." He bowed with a courteous grace, which gave him the air of a gentleman, in spite of his wretched raiment. Arrived in her little parlour-bedroom with this strange companion, Janet Holcum's heart flattered. It was the first time that a man had been with her there alone. If visitors should arrive what would they think? Of course it would be impossible to explain that here was a gentleman whom she had caught trying to commit suicide, and whom she had undertaken to cure of his self-destroying propensities by means of tea and sympathy. Moreover, what would this man himself think of her! She was squeamish about situations because (and here we come to a fact which I have not hitherto dared to mention)--well, she was squeamish because she was an old maid. more important than plenty. She lighted her gas stove, got her tea ready, and set out a store of graham crackers, butter, and cheese. Then followed a moderate repast and a conversation which lasted well into the evening. Drawn out by sympathy, the guest told his whole story. His name, he stated, was Ernst Rodolf Hartmann, and he was the youngest son of an official in the civil service of Prussia. Carried away by the liberal ideas so common among European students, he had attached himself, after leaving the university of Berlin, to a secret club of republicans, whose object was to substitute democracy for the Hohenzollerns. The club had been ferreted out by the police; Ernst and two or three other members had been condemned to a brief imprisonment: moreover, he had been disinherited and disowned by his father, a furious loyalist. Worst of all, a beautiful girl to whom he was betrothed had, during his confinement, been driven or coaxed into a marriage with some old baron. This last sorrow, which he related with childlike candour and simplicity, made Janet Holcum blush to her ears even while her heart throbbed with pity. When he rose to return to his room he seemed to be at least temporarily reconciled to the struggle of life. "I will dry it a leetle longer if you will gif me a hand," he said. 'I will go to bainting again." "Oh! how can you talk of it so coolly!" she exclaimed with heartfelt solemnity and even with horror. "Don't you know that what you have done to-day is very wicked? Forgive me," she added instantly, remembering how miserable he had been, and looking with pity at his wasted face. By the way, she talked very little of her Johnsonese to this man; for, in the first place, she supposed that he, being a foreigner, might not understand it; and secondly, she had to be so earnest with him that only the simplest words seemed suitable. It is curious, but it is none the less true, that a woman of thirty-eight is usually more fastidious about appearances, and even about realities, than a girl of eighteen. Enlightening meditations, perhaps some dangers avoided, perhaps some scandals innocently incurred, a habit of life which has become a governing motive, are the explanations of this singular phenomenon. Well, Janet Holeum, being thirty-eight years of age, blushed and was troubled at the thought of being alone with this handsome man of twenty-five, although he might be looked upon as little more than a ghost returned from beyond the grave. Presently her natural good sense, strengthened "What could I do?" he asked. "A gentleby a perfect uprightness of heart, came to her man may not pe a peggar. Pesides, I was not support. a bainter at home. Mein faders were to make "Pshaw!" she thought, "I am old enough of me a panker. Bainting was merely my fancy. I had no hope of success in it. What could see him walking the streets with a red nose and fingers. It was in vain for him to refuse; "Will you promise to come to take break- she absolutely forced him to take. fast with me?" Meantime small profits from his brush. The picture which she had thought perfect really had "I bromise-upon my honour." "Remember now-upon your honour. Good but five or six days' work upon it, and needed night." He took her hand, and before she could guess what he meant to do he kissed it. Notwith standing the perfect simplicity of his manner, notwithstanding that the action was obviously a mere expression of civility and gratitude, Janet Holeum, who had never before had her hand kissed, blushed again until it seemed to her that her hair was turning scarlet. Without noticing her confusion, this ragged gentleman said sweetly "Goot night," and bowed himself out of the room. From this good-night forward Janet was burdened and blessed with another labour of love. She had a suicide to reform-a soul without hope to fill with hope-a man without work to provide with work-a lover of lager to satisfy with black tea-a brand to snatch from all sorts of burnings. It was not only a heavy load to carry, but a delicate one to handle. Her orphan, as she soon began to call him, must not eat in her room for fear of Mrs. Grundy. She must content herself with letting him go to cheap restaurants for his dinner, and with occasionally carrying him a cup of tea to wash down the dry bread which she knew was his only supper. As for converse, she firmly invited him to see her every Sunday evening; she sometimes dropped into his den to look at his work and cheer him on with it; oftener still, she took a walk with him in the hall or an evening promenade in the streets. She was proud of herself, and yet ashamed of herself. It struck her as almost indelicate that she should support a man, especially a young and handsome one. Moreover, her labour of love was a fearful expense compared with her small income. She was soon obliged to draw on her savings'-bank deposit, and that had always been kept in a consumptive state by the needs of her girl cousin. At first she thought of getting up a subscription for her painter, or of interesting some rich school committeeman in his behalf; but very shortly she took such a fancy to him that she did not want any one else to earn a claim to his gratitude; and so she went on paying out her savings for his necessities. When winter arrived and fuel must be had, she bought it for him, although he tried to do without. Next came an overcoat, and a pair of mittens, and some heavy underclothing, because she could not bear to a month more. And when it was done it brought only twenty-five dollars. It was of no use for her to scold the picture-dealer for his sharpness, and to endeavour to move his pity by telling him the tale of the German's poverty. The man of art replied that it was not a known name; that paintings sold in the American market mainly by force of reputation; that he had his own living to make, and that she might take the money or leave it. "If he can do a figure-picture, and do it first-rate," said this rational monster, "I can be more liberal with him. There are so many landscapes. Every American artist can make landscapes.' On this hint Ernst commenced a figure pie ture. It was his forte; he had simply tried a landscape because he had judged that to be the favourite genre in America; he had know that he could not hope to excel in it. A beautiful group was soon sketched, representing a scene from King Philip's war, the interior of a cabin lighted by its own flames, a beautiful girl in the grasp of Wampanoag warriors, a father and brother struggling manfully against her captors, and in the near back-ground, faintly seen through the shattered door, a coming relief of Puritan riders. Janet Holeum, the patriotic New Englander, was delighted with what she thought already a perfect success, and wanted to sell the group as it was. "No," judged Ernst. "I cannot avvord to waste virst impressions. This is the mos divvicult bart of the bainting, though the quickest. But it will need a long time make it goot enough. It will need all winter.” he concluded, with a piteously apologetical glance at Janet. "Go on," she said, flushing with the noble heart-beat of self-sacrifice as she caught sight of this mute appeal. "This time I know you will triumph. We can live till it is done." "Heaven pless you!" he replied, taking her hand and kissing it by force. "You are the noplest woman upon the earth.” The kiss and the praise brought a deeper blush than one often sees on such a pale, sallow face as that of Janet. For we must come now to a weighty secret; we must make an avowal which is almost tragic. Not content with dowering this poor stranger with her worldly wealth, Janet had already begun to give him the treasures which she had received direct from Heaven. All the love which lies hidden in the heart of a good and pure old maid, all the vast abyss of sensibility which exists in a feminine nature that has found no natural outlet, had in her case been stirred to the profoundest depths by the penniless, friendless, handsome, clever youth whom she had saved from death. Useless to struggle against the infatuation; it had commenced too insidiously, as mere humanity; then it had crept on too slyly, in the guise of mere charity. Oh, how cunning it had been! All at once there was a flaming transformation, and she found herself the victim of a first passion, as much in love as if she were a young girl. Resist? She tried in vain to do so. Run away? She could not give up her position, lest she should thereby fail to complete her cousin's education, and leave him to starve. Once more, self-sacrifice: though all her life had been self-sacrifice, she must go on with it; she must love and suffer and be silent. And so the mischief proceeded at a terrible rate, for every day added to its magnitude. What made things worse was that Ernst was nobly conscious of his obligations, and profuse in thanks, in praises, in the most delicate and charming attentions. If he met her on the street he took his hat entirely off his comely head, and saluted her as schoolma'ams are not always saluted. If he walked with her, he had the air of escorting a duchess. He would leave his beautiful labour at any moment to greet her return to the house with a smile, or to run on her errands. His whole deportment toward her was a continual burning of incense. She had never before known such a finished gentleman: more than that, she had never met a sweeter and finer nature. She comprehended at last that even his attempted suicide was a proof of his high self-respect and sense of honour, inasmuch as it was an effort to escape from the degradation of living by incurring debts which he could not discharge. That stoical declaration, "If I could haf baid my room rent, I would haf gone on another month," seemed to her now something like a patent of nobility. Unaware of her own grandeur of character, she worshipped his grandeur of character. Finally, she worshipped his genius, which had begun to show her the universe of glory that there is in art, and which was able to seize ideas scarcely perceptible to her unpractised esthetic vision, and place them before her in the resurrection robes of drawing and colour. Ah well! she was desperately in love with him, and she could not help admitting it to her accusing conscience, and could not put aside the scornful finger of her sense of womanly shame. But did he know it? As yet she was sufficiently herself to hope that he did not. Although she could not meet him without feeling a blush run through her whole face, although his praises and the touch of his hand made her tremble from head to foot, she trusted that she was keeping her fiery secret. And so she was: a young man does not easily suspect that a woman thirteen years his senior has a passion for him; and if Ernst noticed her tremors and changes of colour, he imputed them to womanly delicacy and Puritan shyness. While Janet, locked in her own room, was looking in the glass at her pale face, high cheek-bones, square jaws, straight mouth, and incipient wrinkles, while she was wishing with both tears and shame that all that supportable plainness were beauty and youth, he, steadily at work, did not think of her at all, or only thought of her as his "goot vriend." His handsome countenance, now pink and white in colour as well as classic in outline, was not shadowed by the slightest cloud from the fires of love, unless indeed he remembered now and then his lost jungfrau in Faderland. About the time that "The Rescue" (as Janet christened the scene from Philip's war) reached its finishing point, Ernst encountered an American artist named Stanley. Stanley was a portrait-painter in high fashion, who made six thousand dollars a year, and spent it all on himself and some poor relations. Too generous and soft-hearted to save money, he wanted to study in the galleries of Europe without ever having the first spare dollar for the voyage, and talked of launching into genre pictures or "high art" without ever being able to give up his pot-boiling labour in kit-kats. The result of this existence, acting upon this kindly spirit, was that while Stanley envied the chances of more famous artists, he honestly admired their productions. Meeting Ernst at the Academy, he fell into chance conversation with him, liked his naïve and badly pronounced but judicious criticisms, went with him to his lodgings, and fell in love with "The Rescue." His florid face flushed crimson with enthusiasm as he exclaimed, "By Jove! you are on the road to fame. You needn't have apologized for your room. This picture furnishes it like a palace. I wish I was a poor devil. I wish I could live in this style and try to do something good. But I can't. I must dress in a certain way, and go to certain parties, and live in a certain quarter. If I didn't, I should lose my run among certain people. And then," he added, as he thought of his mother and aunt, "then there would be trouble." Thenceforward Stanley came often to Ernst's room to watch the progress of "The Rescue," and to tell him that it was sure of success. It was not long either before he gave the young German another startling piece of information. "That old girl downstairs is in love with you," he said, through a cloud of tobacco smoke. When Ernst, convinced that Janet "lofed him a great teal," felt himself bound to declare an affection for her, and ask her to be his wife, the poor, lonely, hitherto unloved girl was fairly broken down by the revelation. She burst into tears, threw herself on her old, hard sofa, buried her face in the threadbare cushion, and sobbed out a spasm of mingled joy and terror. "Oh! can this be true?" she finally burst forth, when she became conscious of his hand in hers. "Is it true?" she demanded, sitting "What old curl?" asked Ernst, staring with up and looking eagerly at him. "If it isn't, the calm innocence of a child. "Miss Holeum." "I hope you are misdaken," replied the German gravely and almost solemnly, as if he already perceived an awful duty before him. "I should think you might see it," grinned Stanley. "I saw it the first evening we called on her. It was plain enough to-day when she travelled up here to look at the picture. She can't come near you without colouring and shaking." take it back. Don't tell it me any more. It would kill me-to find out that it isn't trueoh, it would kill me." "It is endirely drue, my tear Chanet," w the adorable falsehood of the chivalrous Ger man. "I owe all to you. My life will not bay the debt. But I do not insist upon mar riage excebt when you wish it. You must chudge for yourself when it will be brudent" At this moment Janet caught a view of berself in her mirror. Flushed with joy and love Ernst became still more solemn, and was she looked almost handsome, and it seemed to evidently in profound thought. "You must be careful and not trifle with her young affections," Stanley continued, with a rather hard-hearted smile, such as we accord to the heart-troubles of old maids. "I shall not dryvle with them," replied Ernst, with a seriousness which silenced the American. During Stanley's next visit Ernst said to him, "I have peen seeing for myself, und I pelieve you are right." "Right? Oh, about the shadow." "No. Apout Miss Chanet Holcum. lieve she is in lofe with me." I pe "Well, what are you going to do?" laughed Stanley. "I haf but one thing to do. If she wishes to marry me, I must marry her. I owe her my life. I owe her this picture, which you say is goot. I haf lived on her money. As a man of honour, I must sacrifice myself to her; that is, if she wishes it. What else can I do?" "Good Lord! don't be a fool," remonstrated Stanley. "You don't love her, of course?" "I haf the very highest resbect for her. She is an atmirable woman." "Yes, I know. I suppose so. But this is carrying respect and gratitude a little too far. She is twelve or fifteen years older than you. You could not be happy with her. Come now! don't be hasty." "I will not be hasty. It all debends on whether she lofes me a great teal. We will see." her for a moment that she was young and de sirable. The illusion helped her to believe what she could not help longing to believe Drawn by Ernst's pitying embrace, she believed that it was the embrace of affection, and she let her head fall upon his shoulder, with the words, "Oh, my darling!" Henceforward they were engaged, though when they would be married neither of them could say, not even the old and wise (only half wise) Janet. With her, life was a delicious dream, forgetful altogether of the hard past and careless often of the doubtful future. With him life was a point of honour and of duty, an obedience to self-respect and a rendering of obligations. His ways were naturally so ca ressing, and he was so conscientiously assiduous in his attentions to her, that he thoroughly deceived even the suspiciousness of her humble and shy nature. In the main she believed entirely in his affection, amazing as the acqui sition seemed to her, and much as she doubted her worthiness of it. It is quite possible that there was not at that time in New York a happier woman than this almost penniless old maid, betrothed to a young artist who was encumbered with debts, and who did not love her. Such are the joys of this world: half of them, at least, delusions; the other half transitory. At last "The Rescue" was sold. Stanley went with Ernst to the picture-dealer's; demanded, with much pomp of manner, a private |