"We really won't hurt you, Mr. Hapgood," said Miss Madeline, the eldest; "do come in."

It was too late for the woman-hater to draw back now, so, like the man he was, he braced his muscles and faced the music. He bowed with grave courtesy to the youngest Miss Bellknap; he bowed with a faint smile-just a ghostly glimmer, but, nevertheless, a smile-to Miss Arabella, the second Miss Bellknap; and when he faced the eldest Miss Bellknap, who happening to be the furthest away from him was the last to be reached, his features broke down completely, and he positively laughed laughed for the first time in twenty years.

66

Do shake hands, Mr. Hapgood," said Miss Madeline, "this is like old times."

And now everybody began to arrive in a bunch in the midst of a general handshaking and chorus of merriment. The arrival of each old stager, masculine or feminine, was greeted with fresh exclamations of delight, and a spirit of contagious frivolity was rampant from the very start.

single one, and this was an after-thought. When the champagne was passed, and all the glasses were filled, Tom rose in his seat. Everyone stopped talking, and there was an expectant hush.

"I wish to offer a toast," he said, "a toast for the old bachelors to drink. Wish you merry Christ as and—and here's to her!"

There was a brief pause, and then George Hapgood, and in his wake the whole table, rose like one man and emptied their brimming glasses. "Here's to her!"

Tom did not look to right nor to left, not even out of the corner of his eye, as he drained to the last drop the sparkling wine. He would keep to his vow and drink to her in secret. Some of the ladies giggled slightly, and all looked at their plates. It was just a little awkward, even for the most unattached, until Miss Madeline Bellknap rose, glass in hand, and said valiantly, with a wave of her napkin :

"My dears, I give you a toast for you to drink. Wish you merry Christmas. We are old enough to take care of ourselves; and-and here's to him!"

Then there was babel. The women stood up to a woman, and the toast was consummated.

strous.

"It was very good of you to come, Miss Hardy."

"I am very much pleased to be here, Mr. Wiggin."

Most conventional phraseology, and there was really no reason why Tom should keep repeating the words over to himself in a dazed sort of fashion until he was called to account by the opening of the doors.

"Dinner is served, sir."

Then readjusting his faculties, Tom gave his arm to Miss Madeline Bellknap, every Jack did the same to his appointed Jill, and the company filed gayly into the dining-room.

Beginning with the oysters, there was almost a pandemonium of conversation, and tongues wagged fast and eagerly. There were to be no speeches-Tom had determined on that- or rather only a

Miss Hardy laughed gayly with the rest. Presently she turned to Tom and said, as if it had suddenly occurred to her, though they had been sitting side by side talking commonplaces ever since dinner began: for years,

"I have not really seen you Mr. Wiggin."

I have been busy-very busy," said Tom, in a tone which, though he did not intend it to be so, was almost brusque.

So I have heard. I understand you have been very successful in your business."

night, and Fannie Perkins, who was staying with me, had none. Fannie was shy and sensitive, and it occurred to me to offer one of mine to her. She wouldn't think of it at first, but mother urged her so strongly that she gave in at last. 'Which shall I take, Isabelle?' she asked. I thought a moment and then said, 'Take your pick, Fannie.' And she chose yours. And that is why I didn't carry it to the party. But I think you have forgotten all about it, Mr. Wiggin."

Tom looked as though he had. His chin rested on his collar, and he seemed to be staring at the table-cloth.

"I remember it as if it were yesterday," he said, sadly. "I was a fool."

"The carriages are waiting," said a servant in Tom's ear.

The dinner was over and it was time to set out for Albion Hall. The ladies filed into the drawing-room in order, as Miss Madeline phrased it, to give the old bachelors a chance for a short cigar. When that was over Tom bundled his company into carriages, and away they all went in the gayest of spirits.

Whatever belonging to the greenhouse had not been spread over the dinner-table adorned the walls of the dancing-room, and presently as joyous and hilarious a company as anyone would wish to see was tripping to the rhythm of the waltz over a perfect floor. There was just the right number for delightful dancing, no young inexperienced couples to bump into everybody, no things-in-law to stand in the way and look stupid; no one but genuine old stagers taken down from the shelf for one last glorious frolic. You should have seen George Hapgood spinning round with Miss Madeline! How Frazer Bell grinned as he whirled Miss Mamie Scott from one corner of the hall to the other! And Tom? Where was Tom?

As some of you who have danced at Albion Hall may remember, there is a very small bower-like ante-room, or off

shoot, or whatever you choose to call it, a sort of adjunct to the supper-room, fit for just one couple to withdraw to. On this Christmas evening it was a veritable hiding-place, for the entrance to it was screened by two noble evergreens which stood as sentinels to demand a pass-word. If the gay company suspected that Tom Wiggin was there, no one was rash enough to peep within and ascertain. Tom Wiggin was there, and quite contrary to the spirit of the occasion, he was down on his knees unbosoming the love which he had been smothering for five years to the girl of his heart. Only think of it! And he, a bald-headed old bachelor, and she an old maid old enough to take care of herself. There she sat with her hands before her and a smile on her face, letting him go on. And then, strangest part of all, when he had finished and told how miserable he had been while he was so very busy and absorbed in his business, she suddenly remembered whose bouquet it was she had valued most five years before, although she had declared an hour earlier that she had totally forgotten. And then-but the rest is a secret, known only to the sentinel evergreens and themselves. That is, the rest save one thing. It was after they had agreed to live as bachelor and maid no longer, and Tom was sitting looking at Isabelle as if he had had no dinner, he remarked, with a sudden outburst, as though he was angry with destiny and a much outraged being:

Why on earth did I not find out five years ago that you loved me?”

"Because," said the pretty spinster in question, "you never asked me, Tom, dear."

Tom Wiggin looked a trifle sheepish in spite of his joy. "I never thought of that," he said. did.”

66

I'm afraid I never

A

RCHEOLOGICAL pursuits have a new charm when we can leave behind books and other such sources of information and open our eyes in the presence of the objects themselves.

My interest in Italian Renaissance sculpture had been aroused by a study of the fine Robbia altar-piece in the Metropolitan Museum. I had made a careful examination of this monument, and determined its probable authorship and date by comparison with photographs of other works. But I was conscious of the fact that photographs at the best give us an inadequate notion of objects; and I wished to examine other originals of the same kind, in order to test the validity of my conclusions.

I sailed for Genoa from New York on May 6, 1892, having provided my

self with a good camera and a sufficiency of celluloid films, knowing beforehand that there were many of these monuments which had never been photographed, and were consequently imperfectly known.

I could not well have selected a more interesting field for observation. The monuments of the Robbia school are well distributed throughout Tuscany; they are found also in the Marches and in Umbria, and as far south as Rome and Naples. Many of them have travelled to the museums and private collections of northern Europe, and a few have reached this country.

These sculptured monuments are made of terra-cotta, and covered with an opaque stanniferous glaze, in which the colors are mixed as in enamel. The figured reliefs are sometimes white against a blue background, but often