with kingfisher feathers. Her jacket "And thou, too," she murmured. At this the voice of Wo Lung came drifting toward them like a cold vapor from the rice-fields. "Yat Chew, will you count that which I have laid upon your table? I am impatient to be gone and take this daughter of ten thousand delights with me." The dancing-girl from Pieng-an touched her forehead to the ground as she clung trembling to Yat Chew's ankles. He had an impulse to lift her tenderly again, but the greasy smile of Wo Lung steeled him to a cruel discretion. He stepped violently out of his gentle imprisonment, thrusting her farther aside with a contemptuous foot. She lay prone and quivering. Yat Chew walked over to the table: a roll of crisp bank-notes rustled upon it, and Wo Lung was fastening a depleted pouch upon his silken girdle. Yat Chew counted out the money with a cold curve of his lip, but he could feel his hands trembling. "Ten thousand!" he cried mirthlessly. "For double the price you could not match her! Nay, not in the whole world!" The heavy jowls of Wo Lung became taut with satisfaction. Wo Lung bent obesely forward in acknowledgment. "You have but to name it, O purveyor of indescribable sweetmeats," he drooled. "Only make haste, and follow me. What I have paid for awaits delivery." Yat Chew divided the sheaf of bank-notes into two exact piles. He handed one to Shoo Shee. "The score is settled between us, is it not, little mother of tranquillity?” She gave him a covetous glance as he thrust the remaining plunder in the lining of his jacket. Yet her voice was bland, as the voice of one who had been outwitted fairly, as she said: "Did you fancy that Shoo Shee was one to deny a bargain?" Wo Lung stirred with sluggish impatience. "Is further delay necessary?" he demanded. "I would depart at once, taking with me what I have purchased." Shoo Shee roused the prostrate form upon the floor with a vicious prod; the dancing-girl from Pieng-an rose, weeping. Yat Chew stood upright, clenching his fist. Wo Lung made a movement toward the door. "O great and illustrious merchant," cried Yat Chew, "permit me to escort you hence!" Wo Lung turned two eyes green with suspicion upon Yat Chew. "Put yourself to no such trouble. My men wait below." "Ah, but it is the stairway that is dangerous, worthy sir. Did you not "It was you who set the price!" he stumble twice as you ascended?" observed drily. Wo Lung's smile was wide with The figure of Shoo Shee thrust it- malice. self between them. "Remember," she said, "I go with the lady, and I have my price, too." "Being warned, my descent shall be cautious. Besides, have I not Shoo Shee to serve me?" A glint of sardonic humor leaped voices of Wo Lung's gunmen shrill into the eyes of Shoo Shee. with panic and surprise, a police whistle, the silence of death. Can it be that the feet of sluggishness have been so swiftly and efficiently guided down the steps of destruction? "Aye," she purred, "trust me to serve thee as thou deservest, O O ponderous chief of the market-place!" In answer Wo Lung turned like a huge snail to the doorway, beckoning Shoo Shee to follow. "If I were but a gallant!" thought Yat Chew, bitterly. "If I were but a gallant and had a pistol!" He took a threatening step forward. Shoo Shee halted him with a significant gesture. He fell back in despair, expecting at that moment to see the dancing-girl from Pieng-an follow her jailers into the gloom of the corridor. But, instead, she stood like a silver pheasant arrested in its flight, and the ornaments in her hair, flecked with the sky-blue of the kingfisher, shook tremulously. Yat Chew grew rigid, afraid to trust his sensesafraid that, were he to move, the vision might dissolve. Suddenly she lifted her fluttering hand, veiled in the silken sheen of her apple-green kerchief, as she commanded sharply: "Listen!" A thud shakes the room, another, a score, quick reverberations as of a gigantic ball striking obstructions in its downward flight. Above the tuAbove the tumult the shriek of Shoo Shee calling out in deceitful terror, pattering of cautious feet on the pavements, the A door opens; Shoo Shee is on the threshold. To look at her one would scarcely fancy that she had the strength to fling a starving kitten from curb to gutter. She slips in, closing the door; smoke is pouring from the two holes in her face. "He who climbs a dangerous stairway," she says calmly, "must likewise descend by it." Yat Chew releases a pent breath as he moves swiftly toward his happiness, saying: "Thou art a still pool of delight, in which the sky hath smiled. Thou art the dawn robbed of its chill. Thou art a budding plum-tree, waiting for the ravishment of the bees!" As in a dream, the answer comes: "Thou art a red flame of tulips among the pale moonflowers, thou art the east wind, searching out the perfumes of the garden, thou art the midday sun drawing up the mists of morning." A sigh rises even from the withered bosom of the villainous Shoo Shee. "Thus," she says, chuckling, "was it in my day, and thus will it be always." Family Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle I-Gay Side-Lights on the Carlyle Circle EDITED BY LEONARD HUXLEY "A s to talent, epistolary and other, these letters, I perceive, equal and surpass whatever of best I know to exist, in that kind." So wrote Carlyle in the sad days after his wife's death when he collected and annotated the letters subsequently published by Froude. Now by an unexpected chance some 220 more letters have come to light, all addressed to near relatives who figure in the published correspondence. Two are to Mrs. Carlyle's maternal uncle, John Welsh of Liverpool. The rest are to her cousins Helen and Jeannie Welsh, Uncle John's daughters, her juniors by fifteen years or more, but dearest to her of all her kindred, and growing, Jeannie especially, into the spiritual intimacy of true sisters. Helen, the elder, only survived her father two years, dying in December, 1855. Jeannie, the youngest of the family and with the pet name Babbie, which sticks to the youngest, married Andrew Chrystal in 1853, and went to live in Glasgow. After Jeannie's marriage the letters to her grow few and far between. New ties drew her out of the old orbit; the exclusive intimacy waned. Was Mrs. Carlyle jealous of the husband and child who came between them? At least she was woman of the world enough to know how natural it was that Jeannie, absorbed in other interests, should have less of confidence to offer, less of response to give, and for herself, Mrs. Carlyle, where once she had pitched her friendship so high, was not one to endure its feebler continuance on a plane of incomplete sympathies. Her "gift of divination" saw too clearly into Babbie's heart and her own. But Babbie carefully preserved the letters to her sister and herself, though without perhaps realizing their intrinsic literary value independent of the freedom and the old heart-to-heart intimacy which kept for the years of memory the savor of a friendship so deeply woven into the lives of both. They descended to her only daughter as purely family letters, to be hoarded away the more studiously because of the family's dislike to the singular and unedifying controversies which sprang up after Froude had given to the world his strangely perverted account of the period of domestic incompatibilities at Cheyne Row. Thus the letters remained undisturbed in their resting-place until a few months ago, when Miss Chrystal was persuaded by one more expert in literary values that she was keeping for herself what was meant for mankind. The greater number of these letters are to be published soon in book form; meantime a small selection may be placed before the readers of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. To Jeannie Welsh at Maryland Street, Liverpool. Jeannie had just returned from a long visit to Cheyne Row, where she had spent six months. Her gentle companionship was profoundly helpful to Mrs. Carlyle in those sad days after her mother's death, and created a rare intimacy between the two. Moreover, Jeannie had got to know all the familiar figures in the Carlyle circle; could appreciate every touch describing them; could call up from experience the distracted atmosphere of a man-of-genius's wife, equally nerve-racked, reshaping the prose of daily life with her own vivid imagination. She knew enough to catch the spoken tone in the written word, and to discount in terms of quizzical humor the domestic trials and adventures which might seem hopelessly serious to the uninitiated. Mrs. Carlyle employed her skill with the needle in attending to her husband's wardrobe. "Creek" is the elder G. L. Craik, who was devoted to Mrs. Carlyle, but bored her. "Saturday [October 22, 1842]. "I have mended two of the shirts this morning and effectually having put entire new tails to them! So now I may do a little in the way of fondling my innocent offspring, without the sternest moralist being entitled to say to me 'black is the white of your eye!' Besides, I feel as if writing a few lines to you were some small expression of thankfulness to Heaven for this particular thorough wet day! But for the conclusive rain, I could not have got staid in the house to-day again-the third day-without having had a fight for it-and really chicken-hearted as I am grown, there is nothing I can muster nerve to show fight aboutnothing except my right to treat 'poor Creek considerably worse than a dog!' That, with God's blessing, I will maintain to my latest breath. "Mazzini was here yesterday-radiant over an 'aviso interessante' which he produced from his pocket, setting forth that one Mussi, or some such name, had discovered a power for regulating balloons as perfectly as a steamboat or railway carriage, in confirmation whereof behold certificates from the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the heads of the Academy of Science at Florence, &c., &c., before whom his model had been displayed! The practical application you cannot for a moment be at a loss about! The man, having not a shilling in the world, no means of subsistence but simply this small model balloon, is willing to sell his secret for the trifling sum of two thousand pounds. If Mazzini can find him work in the interim, the man may be induced not to part with it-till some member of the Association in Italy may be found to make the purchase. "Then,' says Mazzini, 'the power of directing balloons ours; all is ours!' 'You mean that you would invade Italy in balloons?—that the Association would descend on the Austrians out of the skies?' 'Exactly! and I confess to you-you may think it childish-but there is something of romance, something which flatters my imagination in the idea of starting up a nation in a manner never before heard tell of!' 'A la bonne heure, my Dear! but if it be decided that we are to begin the war by personating the fallen angels, adieu to my share in the famous naturalist, a man of great expedition.' "Now, why so?' (with a look of the most grave astonishment), 'It was just in reference to you that I felt the greatest preference to this means-to think that you could go without incurring the physical suffering of a sea-voyage, and all the dangers-what shall I say? -of being sunk perhaps by a volley of cannon from the shore!-and then there would be something so new and so-what shall I say?-suitable for you, in descending as it were out of Heaven to redeem a suffering people!!' All this with eyes flashing hope, faith and generous self-devotion! Surely between the highest virtue and the beginning of madness the line of separation is infinitismally small! But is it not almost a desecration, a crime ever to jest with that man? He lives, moves and has his being in truth, and take him out of that, he is as credulous and ignorant as a two-year-old child. "I am reading Dickens' Notes on America which he has sent to Carlyle. At first I found the humour too strained and burlesque his usual fault-and the plain narrative dull but it improves as one goes on. He is much to be commended for avoiding utterly that detestable practice with travellers of turning their entertainers' houses and almost their entertainers themselves inside out. In the second volume he gives up dancing on the crown of his head for halfpence (if I may so speak) and becomes quietly entertaining, and entertainingly instructive. parts, with large sympathy and penetrating humor under his quiet exterior, but disabled by constant ill health. Mazzini's English provided the Carlyles with many quaint phrases, including "what shall I say?” and "strange, upon my honour." "Elizabeth," was a Miss Fergus, an old Haddington friend, who had married Count Pepoli, another of the Italian exiles. "Saturday Evening [before Nov. 11], 1842 "Darwin and Mazzini met here the other day and the three of us sat down with our feet on the fender—the folding doors being closed-and talked about 'things in general,' forming the most confidential little fireside party I have seen for a good while. Mazzini said that Sismondi had at one time been 'nearly lapidated.' 'Nonsense,' said I, 'you should say stoned, there is no such word as lapidated in that sense.' 'Let him alone,' said Darwin, 'he is quite right, lapidated is an excellent word.' 'Do not mind him,' said I to M., 'he only wants to lead you into making a mistake.' 'But are you sure?' asked M. with the greatest simplicity, 'in the Bible, for instance, does not She call it lapidated in speaking of St. Stephen?' St. Stephen?' This femalizing of the Bible so delighted Darwin that he gave a sovereign to the school!! the deficit will surely get filled up in time. Nay, he almost promised to attend the anniversary-when all the organ boys are to have a supper and the best learners receive medals. Carlyle will not go I fear but if I am well enough "Now farewell, my Babbie, and love and can front all the black, black eyes me well and long." To Jeannie Welsh. Darwin is Erasmus, elder brother of Charles, the that will flash out on me if I present myself along with the Capitano, I will go and put my sovereign into 'the |