"Mean? Why, I mean that four years ago Launt Austin ran away, and was never heard of until his name was published in a list of bounty-jumpers, which some one was rough enough to send to his father, and which, no doubt, was false. It almost broke his heart, but he did not tell his wife. She was bad enough without that; but she found it out somehow, and now she is hopelessly given up to the hab-me as he said, "Do you think they will be glad it."

Bible, and how Oolie and I used to say our | bars separated us effectually from our pitiful prayers together. Yes, I thought about all these things, but I was so awful hungry most of the time that I couldn't think."

What vow went up from his mother's heart I know not, but I can guess. Whatever it was remained unbroken for the short life left her. Launt rallied a while, but help had come too late, and one October day we laid him in the little church-yard. Before the snow of December fell his mother lay at rest beside him. And then in the glad New-Year I took my little owlet to my heart.

The clouds had passed and left the shining sky. I make my home at Greyrock now; but would you believe that Oolie still denies that she kissed me when I lay helpless? She says she wouldn't take advantage of any one. Dr. Mills is going on his old round of duty, and Arthur Lee is married to his sister Mary. John Austin grows bent and old. Already the snow is on the mountain lighted from beyond, but the peace that passeth understanding abides upon him for

evermore.

SEEING NAPLES.

EE Naples and die" had like to have been transformed, on the occasion of our first entrance of the city, from a gratefully complimentary proverb into an awful prophecy of our own demise. No sooner had we (consisting of three divines and the dragon) emerged from the evening train from Rome, and shown our unfortunate heads outside the station, than we were set upon by innumerable ruffians of the baser sort, in the garb of coachmen, each aspiring to the privilege of doing the honors of the city by being first to fleece us. However, having been fore-armed against this sea of troubles, we sprang into the first vetturo which presented itself, and were whirled away, leaving the waves thereof roaring cajoleries at us, and abuse at each other, alternately. But our sorrows were only begun. After a seemingly interminable ride we were set down in the court-yard of an unpretending inn, among whose guests we expected to find the fellow-countryman to whose guardianship we were consigned. Fortunately we encountered our consignee upon the third landing, and having delivered our vouchers, were hurried by him into a place of safety, whither he speedily followed us, after having dismissed the coachman with the payment of the regular tariff.

petitioner and his backers, while we listened with bated breath and bristling hair to a tirade upon the Neapolitan character, the truthfulness of which (the tirade, and not the character) not only the gathering tumult outside, but every subsequent hour of our stay, confirmed. Suddenly there was a hush in the corridor, and a gentle knock at our door, which being opened by one of the newly-arrived, a moving spectacle was presented in the person of our pertinacious driver, posed in a heart-subduing attitude, and ejaculating, a buono mono for the love of Heaven and of my famishing babes!"

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This was too much for the tender-hearted bachelor to resist; but as he was drawing out his purse in response our guardian, whose prolonged residence in Naples, superadded to a distinguished career before the New York bar, had rendered invulnerable against pathos, especially of a monetary type, again interposed, dismissing the appellant with his blessing, and resuming his oration with severer eloquence and pointed application to the transgressor, who received the lesson with meekness, abashed, but only half-repentant. But our instruction was at once violently ended and enforced by a fearful commotion in the corridor, followed by an appalling jar, reminding us that we were abiding under the shadow of Vesuvius. Our protector went forth to reconnoitre, shutting us in lest our newly-fledged hardness of heart should give way and betray us into folly.

It was explained, on his return, that our beggar had waxed so stormy that the wrath of the entire household had been kindled. The coachman howled, the servants jeered, the landlord swore. Finally, the burly cook had discharged his electric indignation from the tip of his avenging foot, and sent our coachman down an entire flight of stone stairs. Upon this the wailing of the sufferer and of his diminishing friends, together with the violent objurgation of the household, had produced such an uproar that, contrasting it with the homelike quiet of our Roman life, it seemed as if we were come into the abode of lost spirits.

However, after an interval there came a peremptory knock at our door, which being opened revealed a grand tableau vivant, representing embodied scorn and insulted dignity-the new rôle which our coachman assumed after his fall. Throwing down upon the table before us the fare he had received from our consignee, and drawThis summary proceeding somewhat amazed ing the stately folds of his toga-like cloak about us, particularly as our unsophisticated hearts him, he strode from the room, leaving us tyros had been touched by the pathetic pleadings of overwhelmed with shame for our shabbiness. the driver, who had followed us closely, inquir- But our guardian sneered at his melodramaning in unintelligible Neapolitan, but unmistak- tics, and laughed our self-reproach to scorn, able pantomime, "How can a poor man live ?" prophesying that we should see him return This appeal was rendered all the more effective speedily in still another character; which he by the fact that our ascent had been accompa- did, after allowing our sensibilities a few monied by a sympathetic crowd of idlers from the ments to work. A single glance at our circle, street, who had chosen to set us down prema- as we sat in cowed silence around our instructor, turely as villains and oppressors. convinced the actor that his last trick had failed; However, the ponderous door with its iron and, assuming a meek expression, he inquired

if by any chance he had left in the Signori's care of the ear in response to a specially violent kick a portion of money belonging to him!

From this initial experience, until we were fairly ensconced in the return train for Rome, our waking hours were passed in warfare which knew no truce.

from the young hero, whereupon the mother (who therefore could have been no Neapolitan) pounced upon the father with a resonant blow upon his head, which the daughter resented by a similar attack upon her mother; and, as the fight waxed We seized the first sunshine after our arrival hot, and promised to become general, we fled for an excursion to Pompeii. Taking a bounti- into the street for safety. When we returned ful lunch in a haversack which had climbed the at night peace reigned. The young hero, shorn steeps of the Tyrol, and subsequently plunged but unsubdued, was engaged in experimental into the depths of the Chickahominy, doing good devices for extracting the tail of the afflicted service in both, we set forth for the railway sta- house-dog, the mollified father looking on aption, signaling the first double carriage which provingly at the exhibition of the precocious deappeared in sight. No sooner were we comfort-velopment of this distinctively Neapolitan trait; ably settled, with our eatables, drinkables, extra while the sister, aged seven, was with premature wrappings, guide-books, and field-glasses care- sagacity manufacturing a caudle for her mother, fully arranged, than our driver, gathering up his who had just brought into the world a new sinreins, remarked, with an insufferable smile, "Trener or sufferer, according to the sex, which has franchi!" Being under the eye of our legal escaped my memory. friend, and remembering that we had the great Mr. Murray "evolves from the depths of his principle of resistance to imposition to maintain, moral consciousness" (whence the German conwe incontinently tumbled out of the carriage jured the camel) the fact that the inhabitants with all our traps, greatly to the astonishment of Naples are very fond of their domestic aniand chagrin of the driver, who cried beseech-mals. Whereas observation convinces the travingly after us, "Two francs, then! let us be agreed." Although this was only double the regular tariff, yet we were true to our instructions, declining all his overtures, and, taking possession of two single carriages, we were able to reach our goal with our principles intact, and the expenditure of only five cents each for a ride of two miles.

Still another pleasing phase of Neapolitan life met us as we emerged from our hotel on the morning of this excursion to Pompeii. The porter and his family ostensibly made their abode in a little house in the wall which separated the court-yard from the street; but inasmuch as said house comprised only one room, and as this, again, corresponded in width precisely to the thickness of the wall, the whole domestic economy of his household was patent to every passerby. Toilet, culinary, laundry, disciplinary, and other operations which popular prejudice ordinarily confines to the interior of one's domicile, were displayed upon the flag-stones of the innyard to the admiration of all beholders; and, as every sojourner among the Neapolitans will testify, this is by no means a peculiar case, but "'tis their nature to."

However, on the occasion in question, on reaching the door of the hotel, we found the origin of the alarming outcries which had been assaulting our ears for some moments.

The porter was seated in the midst of the court-yard, engaged in clipping the elf-locks of his young heir, whose rage (unassuaged by the oranges which were his father's peace-offering) expended itself in shrieks and energetic kicks, his head, meantime, being safely held between his father's knees, and his hands occupied in clutching the fruit. The mother supervised the operation, knitting-work in hand, and the older sister sniffed enviously at the oranges, and sympathetically at her brother.

eler that nowhere else can be found such suffering among domestic animals (including wives and children), inflicted with such infernal ingenuity of torture. My most brilliant memories of this indescribably beautiful bay are smeared by the horrid blot of brute misery.

An hour's ride by rail carried us to the station at Pompeii, and a three minutes' walk from thence to the entrance of the ruined city.

During this brief walk our hardening sensibilities were assailed by multiform exhibitions of poverty and physical imperfection, together with various aspirants for the privilege of carrying our knapsacks and superfluous shawls, selling us wines, guiding us to Vesuvius or Pompeii. A brace of pretty, black-eyed boys ran along by our side, extemporizing a species of rataplan upon their fat chins with their chubby brown fists, which they whirled rapidly round and round each other, and against their chattering teeth, after the manner of that pleasing entertainment to which babies are condemned-"Forehead-harder, brow-bender, eyepeeper, nose-dropper, mouth-eater, chin-chopper, chin-chopper, chin-chopper!" An old man and woman also dogged us, thrumming a guitar and wailing forth an ear-piercing and heartrending ditty.

At the guide-house we paid the regulation fee of two francs, and entered by the revolving wheel which forms the gate, leaving all these woes and entertainments behind us, and picking up a cicerone, who led us whithersoever he would whensoever he could.

No one can pass a fortnight in Italy, the land of storied ruins, without appreciating the necessity for the catechetical instruction relative to keeping one's hands from picking and stealing. Beginning with an innocent admiration of the magnificent mosaics of the Borghese or Pitti Palazzo, and going on speedily to a corSuddenly the father administered a smart box etous survey of your neighbor's table and paper

with the head bowed upon the clenched hands, as the horror of the great darkness came upon him and fixed itself in eternal lithograph, tells the tale more eloquently than tongue or pen of living man could do.

Our last call was at Diomede's house, the extravagant dimensions of which contrast boldly with the dainty proportions of his neighbors' abodes; suggesting the alternatives of showy extravagance set forth in the modern parable of her who went up to Tiffany's to buy diamonds of the first water, and being eyed enviously and superciliously by a woman of the Pharisees, who said to herself "Shoddy!" lifted up her voice boldly and answered, “Nay, verily, Petroleum!"

In our zeal to make our own way back to the station we lost it, but were found with surprising quickness by the blind musicians, the little chin-choppers, together with various disinterested parties, who were confident we should never again have so favorable a time for ascending Vesuvius (it was five o'clock of a January night), tasting Lachryma Christi, or of buying Pompeiian lamps and other antiquities (?). When we finally reached the station, our train was swollen to an appalling degree, and was made up of as motley material as was that of young David of Adullam ; "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented;" but the steam-monster scattered them speedily and bore us away to a place of safety.

ing at night to our cheery dinner-table, and hearing the utterance from ministers and laymen of a brave hope in God and a redeemed humanity, we were ready again to thank God, and take courage that the regeneration of Italy might not be altogether an enthusiast's dream.

Another ground of hope I have for the possible purification of Naples under the new régime will, I fear, be regarded by many persons as offensively trivial, but any one who visited Naples years ago will be able to appreciate its significance. I refer to the umbrella man of the National Museum! Of course one has not seen Pompeii until he has spent hours and days in this museum, where its treasures are gathered, from the exquisitely graceful Narcissus in bronze down to the very bread-loaves and freshly-laid eggs which furnished the breakfast-tables of that doomed city on the day of its destruction, All these spoils, together with innumerable paintings, statues, and articles of virtu from the wide world are actually opened to the visitor's view without money or price! And much more than this: not only did the workmen who came at our summons to open the door of the gallery (then undergoing repairs) which contains the Farnese Bull and the Hercules re-stolen from the Roman thief, Caracalla, say, "It is not permitted," in response to our little offering; not only this, but the official guardian of our umbrellas actually shook his head regretfully but decidedly at the proffered fee! It is something awful to think of the mental struggle which this supernatural resistance must have cost a Neapolitan.

There are few beggars remaining in Naples compared with the hordes with which books of travel threatened us. The lazaroni, as a class, exist no longer; but although the tourist may sigh for the picturesque groups who formerly dreamed away life upon that beautiful shore, yet the philanthropist finds in their disappearance an evidence of social progress.

On our return to our hotel in Naples it was somewhat adverse to our previous ideas of comfort to have our fire for the evening brought in on a salver! However, when we were gathered about the table, with the brasier of coals beneath it, discussing with each other, and with our four several journals the marvelous enjoyments of the day, there was quite an atmosphere of home comfort about that apartment in the sombre Naples sun. Indeed, during our stay, that same gloomy, damp, stormy albugo was Emancipated from priestcraft, the people are transformed into a cozy American household. learning self-respect. Already, to beg they are Through a happy coincidence there were gath- ashamed. Even the Pompeiian "chin-chopered together there eight Americans, one in pers" proffered an equivalent for our sous. But Christian faith and in loyalty to our country. whoever pays a Neapolitan more than one-half There was also with us a German artist, whose his demand for any individual article, from an intelligent sympathy in our national struggle, orange up to a reef of pink coral, cheats himself, as well as his irresistible good-nature, forbade and astonishes the native of whom he makes the us to regard as an interloper. Our outspoken purchase. The only exceptions to this disagreenationality drove away more than one English-able rule are found at the Bible Depository, and man, and reduced a garrulous Scotchman to the in the sale of photographs in the National Munecessity of immuring himself in his own bed-seum, where the price is fixed by law. room, where he wreaked his spite upon a wheezy accordion.

As has been before intimated this guerrilla warfare harassed every moment of our stay in Naples. Our tongues still twirl the sharp "Che!" and our shoulders lift in the characteristic shrug, which they then acquired, and which is one's only weapon of warfare and defense.

As we walked the streets of the filthy city (stirred to the depths of its vileness rather than cleansed by the sullen rains which fell pertinaciously during our visit), and saw on every side the tokens of sin and suffering-diseased and mutilated adults, abused and neglected children, The expression of Neapolitan shoulders is overworked and flayed-alive animals, our hearts unique. In the convent of San Martino, above sank within us, and we were ready to cry, "Can the city, is a picture representing Peter's denial these dry, these rotten bones live ?" But return-of his Lord, wherein the shrug of the Galilean's