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V'. -■ • • /■ ( UPPiNCOTT CO. \\ " Fit \ SPJOAL AKR*rrCEM tW T 1} CHAPTER I. It was at Governor Alvarado's house fn Monterey that Chonita first knew of Diego Estenega. I had told him mucu of her, but had never cared to mention the name of Estenega in the presence of an Iturbi y Moncada. < honita came to Monterey to stand godmother to the child of Alvarado and of her friend, Dona Martina, his wife. Kho arrived the morning before the christening, and no one thought to tell her that Estenega was to be godfather. The house was full of girls, relatives of the young mother, gathered for the cere mony and subsequent week of festivities. Lhuicia, my little one, was at tiie rancho with Ysabel Herrera, and I was staying with the Alvarados. So many were the guests that Chonita and I slept together. We had not seen each other for a year and had so much to say that we did not sleep at all. She was ten years younger than I, but we were as close friends as she with her alternate frankness and reserve would permit. But I had spent several months of each year since childhood at her homo in Santa Barbara, and I knew her better than sho knew herself. When, later, I read her journal, I found littlo in it to surprise me, but much to fill and cover with shapely form tho skeleton of the story which passed in greater part before my eyes. Wo were discussing tho frivolous mys teries of dress, if I remember aright, when sho laid her hand on my mouth suddenly. “Hush!” she said. A cabelloro serenaded his lady at mid night in Monterey. The tinkling of n guitar, the jingling of spurs, fell among the strong tones of a man’s voice. Chonita had been serenaded until she had fled to tho mountains for sleep, but she crept to tho foot of tho bed and knelt there, her hand at her throat. A door opened, and one by one, out of the black beyond, five white robed forms flitted into tho room; they looked like puffs of smoko from a burning moon. Tho heavy wooden shutters were open and tho room was filled with cold light. Tho girls waltzed on the bare floor, grouped themselves in mock dramatic postures; then, overcome by the strange magnetism of the singer, fell into mo tionless attitudes, listening intently. How well 1 remember that picture, al though 1 have almost forgotten the names of the girls. In the middle of the room two slender figures embraced each other, their black hair falling loosely over their white gowns. On the window step knelt a tall girl, her head pensively supported by her hand, a black shawl draped gracefully about her; at her feet sat a girl with head bowed to her knees. Between the two groups was a solitary figure, kneeling with hand pressed to the wall and face uplifted. When the voice ceased I struck a match, and five pairs of little hands ap plauded enthusiastically. He sang them another song, then galloped away. “It is Don Diego Estenega,” said one of the girls. “He rarely sings, but 1 have heard him before.” “An Estenega!” exclaimed Chonita. “Yes, of the north, thou knowest. His excellency thinks there is no man in the “Californias like him—so bold and so «mart. Thou remenxberest the books that were burned b} ihs priests when ernor was a boy, because he had dared to read them. No? Well, when Diego Es tenega heard of that—he is the same age with the governor—he made his father send to Boston and Mexico for those books and many more, and took them up to his redwood forests in the north, far away from the priests. And they say he had read other books before, although such a lad. His father had brought them from Spain and never cared much for the priests. And he has been to Mexico and America and Europe! God of my soul, it is said that he knows more than his excellency himself—that his mind works faster. Aye, but there was a time when he was wild—when the mescal burned his throat like hornets and the aguardiente was like scorpions in his brain; but that was long ago—before he was twenty; now he is thirty-two. He amuses himself sometimes with the girls —valgame Dios, he has made hot tears flow—but I suppose we do not know enough for him, for he marries none. Aye, but he has a charm!” 1 WT' She crept to the foot of the bed and knelt there. “Like what does he look? A beautiful cabellero, I suppose, with eyes that melt and a mouth that trembles like a woman in the palsy.” “Aye, no, my Chonita; thou art wrong. He is not beautiful at all. He is rather haggard and wears no mustache, and he has the prefile of the great man, fine and aquiline and severe, excepting when he ■miles, and then sometimes he looks kind and sometimw he looks like a devil. He has not the beauty of color; his hair is brown, I think, and his eyes are gray and set far back; but how they flash! 1 think they could burn if they looked too long. H j is tall and straight and very strong, not so indolent as most of our men. They call him the American because he moves go quickly and gets so cross when people do not think fast enough. He thinks like lightning strikes. Aye, they all say that he will be governor in bis time; that he would have been long ago, but he has been away so much. It must be that he has seen and admired thee, my Chonita. and discovered thy grating. Thou art hv.ppy that thou, too. hast read the books. 1 iou and he will be great friends, 1 know!” “Yes!” exclaimed Chonita scornfully. ‘lt is likely. Thou hast forgotten per il; ps—tho enmity between the Capulets and the Montagues was a pale flame tc the bitter hatred, born of jealousy in love, politics and social precedence,which exists between the Estenegas and the Iturbi y Moncadas.” CHAPTER 11. § i" 4 i ® n mi siilf WJ', Im "IL is my duty and pleasure to Ufa you to your horse.” Delfina, the first child of A ? farado. born in the purple at the governor's man sion in Monterey, was about to be bap tized with all the pomp and ceremony of the church and time. Dona Martina, the wife of a year, was unable to go to the church, but lay beneath her lace and satin coverlet, her heavy black hair half covering the other side of the bed. Be side her stood the nurse, a fat, brown, high beaked old crone, holding a mass of grunting lace. I stood at the foot of the bed admiring the picture, "Be careful for the sun, Tomasa,” said the mother. “Her eyes must be strong, like the Alvarados’ —black and keen and strong.” "Sure, senora.” "And let her not smother nor yet take cold. She must grow tall and strong, lixe the Alvarados.” "Sure, senora.” "Where is his excellency?” “I am here.” And Alvarado entered th ) room. He looked amused and prob ably had overheard the conversation. Ho justified, however, the admiration of his young wife. His tall, military figure had the perfect poise and suggestion of power natural to a man whose genius had been recognized by the Mexican government before he had entered his twenties. The clean cut face, with its ca lm profile and fiery eyes, was not that of the Washington of his emulation, and I never understood why he chose so tame a model. Perhaps because of the meager ne.sof that early proscribed literature, or did the title “Father of His Country” appeal irresistibly to that restive and doomed ambition? He passed his hand over his wife’s long, white fingers, but did not offer her any other caress in my presence. "How dost thou feel?” ‘Well, but I shall be lonely. Do not stay long at the church. No? How glad I am that Chonita came in time for the christening! What a beautiful comadre she will be! 1 have just seen her. Aye, poor Diego! He will fall in love with her. and what then?” “It would have been better had she come too late, 1 think. To avoid asking Diego to stand for my first child was im possible. for he is the man of men to me. To avoid asking Dona Chonita was equal ly impossible, I suppose, and it will be painful for both. He serenaded her last night, not knowing who she was, but having seen her at her grating. He only returned yesterday. I hope she plants no thorns in his heart.” “Perhaps they will marry and bind the wounds,” suggested the woman. “An Estenega and an Iturbi y Mon cada will not marry. He might forget, for he is passionate and of a nature to break down barriers when a wish is dear; but she has all the wrongs of all the Iturbi y Moncadas on her white she ulders, and all their pride in the car riage of her head, to say nothing of that brother whom she adores. She learned this morning that it was Diego’s deter mined opposition that kept Reinaldo out of the departmental junta, and meets hiia in no tender frame of mind” Dona Martina raised her hand Cho uita stood in the doorway. She was quite beautiful enough to plant thorns wnere she listed. Her tall, supple figure was clothed in white, and over her gold tair—lurid and brilliant, but without a tin ;e of red—she wore a white lace man- Her straight, narrow brows and heavy lashes weis black; but her skin was more purely w kite than her gown. Her nose was finely cut, the arch almost Indiscernible, and she had the most sculptured mouth I have ever seen. Iler long eyes were green, dark and very luminous. Sometimes they had the look of a child; sometimes she allowed them to flash witn the fire of an animated spirit. But the expression she trhosJ tc! cultivate was that associated with crowned head and sceptered hand, and Bure no queen had ever looked so calm, so inexorable, so haughty, so terribly clear of vision. Not that she posed, to any one at least but herself. For some reason— youthful, probably—the iron in her na ture was most admired by her. Where fore, also, as she had the power as twin, to heal and curse, I had named her The Doomswoman, and by this name she was known far and wide. By the lower class ' of Santa Barbara she was called The Golden Senorita, on account of her hair and of her father's vast wealth. “Come,” she said; “every one is wait ing. Do not you hear the voices?" The windows were closed, but through them came a murmur like that of a pine forest. The governor motioned to the nurse to follow Chonita and myself, and she trot ted after us, her ugly face beaming with pride of position. Was not in her arms the oldest born of a new generation of Alvarados—the daughter of the governor of the Californias? Her smock, embroid ered with silk, was new and looked whiter than fog against her bare brown arms and face. Her short red satin skirt, a gift of her happyaady's, was the finest ever worn by exultant nurse. About her stringy old throat was a gold chain; bright red roses were woven in hex* black reboso. I saw her admire Chonita’s state ly figure with scornful reserve of the colorless gown. We were followed in a moment by the governor, adjusting his collar and smoothing his hair. As he reached the doorway at the front of the house he was greeted with a shout from assembled Monterey. The plaza was gay with beaming faces and bright attire. The men, women and children of the people were on foot, a mass of color on the op posite side of the plaza, the women in gaudy cotton frocks girt -with silken sashes, tawdry jewels and spotless cami sas, the coquettish reboso draping with equal grace faces old and brown, faces round and olive; the men in glazed som breros, short calico jackets and trousers; Indians wound up in gala blankets. In the foreground were caballeros and donas on prancing silver trapped horses, laughing and coquetting, looking down in triumph upou the duenas and parents who rode older and milder mustangs and shook brown knotted fingers at heedless youth. The young men had ribbons twisted in their long black hair and silver eagles on their soft gray som breros. Their velvet serapes were em broidered with gold; the velvet knee breeches were laced with gold or silver cord over tine white linen; long deerskin botas were gartered with vivid ribbon; flaunting sashes bound their slender waists, knotted over the hip. The girls and young married women wore black or white mantillas, the silken lace of Spain, regardless of the sun, which might darken their Castilian fairness. Their gowns were of flowered silk or red or yellow satin, the waist long and pointed, the skirt full; jeweled buckles of tiny slippers flashed beneath the hem. The old people were in rich dress of sober color. A few Americans were there in the ugly garb of their country, a blot on the picture. At the door just in front of the caval cade stood General Vallejo’s carriage, the only one in California, sent from Sonoma for the occasion. Beside it were three superbly trapped horses. The governor placed the swelling nurse in the carriage, then glanced about him. “Where is Estenega and the Castros?” he asked. “There are Don Jose and Dona Modeste Castro,” said Chonita. The crowd had parted suddenly, and two men and a woman rode toward the governor. One of the men was tall and dark, and his somber military attire be came the stern sadness of his face. Cas tro was not comandante general of the army at that time, but his bearing was as imperious in that year of eighteen hundred and forty as when six years later the American occupation closed forever the career of a man made in derision for greatness. At his right rode his wife, one of the most queenly beauties of her time, small as she was in stature. Every woman’s eye turned to her at once. She was our leader of fash ion, and we all copied the gowns that came to her from the City of Mexico. But Chonita gave no heed to the Cas tros. She fixed her cold direct regard on the man who rode with them, and who, she knew, must be Diego Estenega, for he was their guest. She was curious to see this enemy of her house, the politi cal rival of her brother, the owner of the voice which had given her the first thrill of her life. He was dressed as plainly as Castro and had none of the rich southern beauty of the caballeros. His hair was cut short like Alvarado’s, and his face was thin and almost sallow. But the life that was in that face—the passion, the intelligence, the kindness, the humor, the grim determination! And what splendid vitality was in his tall thin figure and nervous activity un der the repose of his carriage! I remem ber I used to think in those days that Diego Estenega could conquer the world if he wished, although I sus pected that he lacked one quality of the great rulers of men—inexorable cruelty. From the moment his horse carried him into the plaza he did not remove his eyes from Chonita’s face. . She low ered hers angrily after a moment. As he reached the house he sprang to the ground, and Alvarado presented the sponsors. He lifted his cap and bowed, but not so low as the caballeros who were wont to prostrate themselves be fore her. They murmured the usual form of salutation: “At your feet, senorita.” “I appreciate the honor of your ac quaintance.” “It is my duty and pleasure to lift you to your horse.” And. still holding his cap in his hand, he 1?d her to one of the three horses which stood beside the car riage. With little assistance she sprang to its back, and he mounted his own. The cavalcade started—first the car- ■ riage, then Alvarado and myself, fol lowed by the sponsors, the Castros, the members of the departmental junta and their wives, then the caballeros and the i donas, the old people and tho Americans, the populace trudging gayly in the rear, keeping good pace with the riders, who were held in check by a small section of pulp too young to be jolted. “You never have been in Monterey be fore, senorita, I understand,” said Este nega to Chonita. No situation could em barrass him. “No. Once they thought to send me to the convent here—to Dona Concepcion Arguello—but it was so far, and my mother does not like to travel. So Dona Concepcion came to us for a year, and after I studied with an instructor who came from Mexico to educate my brother and me.” She had no intention of being I communicative with Diego Estenega, but ] his keen reflective gaze confused her, and , she took refuge in words. “Dona Eustaquia tells me that, unlike most of our women, you have read many books. Few Californian women care for anything but to look beautiful and to marry—not, however, being an isolated race in that respect. Would you not rather live in our capital? Yon are so far away down there, and there are but few of the gente de razon. No?” “We are well satisfied, senor, and we are gay when we wish. There are ten families in the town and many rancheros within a hundred leagues. They think nothing of coming to our balls. And we have grand religious processions and bull fights and races. We have beautiful canyons for meriendas, and I could dance every night if I wished. We are few, but we are quite as gay and quite as happy as you in your capital.” The pride of the Iturbi y Moncadas and of the Bar barina flashed in her eyes, then made way for anger under the amused glance of Estenega. “Oh, of course,” he said teasingly. “You are to Monterey what Monterey is to the City of Mexico. But pardon me, senorita, I would net anger you for all the gold which is said to lie like rocks finder our Californias—if it be true that certain padres hold that mighty secret. (God, how I should like to get one by the throat and throttle it out of him!) Pardon me again, senorita; I was going to say that you may be pleased to know that there is little magnificence where my ranchos are high on the coast among the redwoods. I live in a house made of big ugly logs, unpainted. There are no cavalcades in the cold depths of those redwood forests and the ocean beats against ragged cliffs. But we are here. At your service, senorita.” He sprang to the whaleboned pavement in front of the little church facing the blue bay and surrounded by the gray ruins of the old Presidio and lifted her down. Chonita took the infant from the nurse’s arms and carried it fearfully up the aisle, side by side with Estenega, who regarded her meditatively. “What is she?” he thought, “this Cali fornian woman with her hair of gold and her unmistakable intellect, her marble face crossed now and again by the ani mation of the clever American •woman? What an anomaly to find on the shores of the Pacific! All I had heard of The Doomswoman, The Golden Senorita, gave me no idea of this. What a pity that our houses are at war! She is not maternal, at all events. I never saw a baby held so awkwardly. What a poise of head! She looks better fitted for trage dy than for this little comedy of life in the Californias. A sovereignty would suit her—were it not for her eyes. They are not quite so calm and just and inex orable as the rest of her face. She would not even make a good household tyrant. ' like Dona Jacoba Duncan. “Unquestionably she is religious and I swaddled in all the traditions of her race; but her eyes—they are at odds with all the rest of her. They are not lovely eyes; they lack softness and languor and tractability; their expression changes too often, and they mirror too much intelli gence for loveliness, but they never will be old eyes, and they never will cease to look. And they are the eyes best worth looking into that I have ever seen. No, a sovereignty would not suit her at all; a salon might. But, like a few of us, she is some years ahead of her sphere. Glory be to the Californias—of the future, when we are dirt and our chil- i dren have found the gold!” The baby was nearly baptized by the time he had finished his soliloquy. She had kicked alarmingly when the salt was laid on her tongue and squalled under the deluge of water which gave her her name and also wet Chonita’s sleeve. The godmother longed for the ceremony to be over, but it was more protracted than usual, owing to the importance of tho restless object on the pillow in her weary arms. When the last word was said she handed pillow and baby to the nurse with an eager sigh of relief, which made her appear girlish and natural. After Estenega had lifted her to hex horse he dried her sleeve with his hand kerchief. He lingered over the task; the cavalcade and populace went on with out them, and when they- started they were in the rearward of the blithesome crowd. “Do you know what I thought as 1 stood by you in the church?” he asked. “No,” she said indifferently. “I hope you prayed for the fortune of the little one.” “I did not, nor did you. You were tex. afraid you would drop it. I was thinking how unmotherly—l had almost said un womanly—you looked. You were mat? for the great world—the restless world where people fly faster from monotony than from a tidal wave.” She looked at him with cold dignib but flushed a little. “lam not unworn only, senor, although I confess I do no understand babies and do detest to sew But if I ever marry I shall be a good wifi and mother. No Spanish woman wai ever otherwise, for every Spanish woman has had a good mother for example.” “You have said exactly what you should have said, voicing the inborn principles and sentiments of tho Spanish woman. I would be interested to know what your individual sentiments are, but you misunderstand me. I said that you were too good for the average lot of | woman. You are a woman, not a dell; an intelligence, not a bundle of shallow emotions and transient desires. You I should have a larger destiny.” She gave him a swift, sidelong flash from eyes that suddenly looked childish find eager. “It is true,” she said frankly. “I have no desire to hiarfy and have many chil dren. My father has never said to me, ‘Thou must marry,’ and I have some times thought I would say “No’ when that time came. For the present I am contented with my books ami to ride about the country on a wild horse, but perhaps—l do not know—l may not al ways be contented with that. Sometimes when reading Shakespeare I have imag ined myself each of those women in tr.r.x, but generally of course 1 have thought little of being any one but myself. What else could I be here?” I “Nothing, excepting a Joan of Arc when the Americans sweep down upon us, but that would be only fox* a day. We would be such easy prey. If I could put you to sleep and awaken yen fifty years hence, when California was a mod ern civilization! God speed the Ameri cans! Therein lies our only chance.” “What!" she cried. “You —you would have the Americans? You —a Califor nian! But you are an Estenega. That explains everything.” “I am a Californian,” he said, ignoring the scorn of the Liter words, “but I hope I have acquired some common sense in roving about tho world. The women of California are admirable in every way— chaste, strong of character, industrious, devoted wives and mothers, borxx with sufficient capacity for small pleasures. But what are our men? Idle, thriftless, unambitious, too lazy to walk across the street but with a l\crso for every step, sleeping all day in a hammock, gambling and drinking all night. They are the natural followers of a race of men who camo hero to force fortune cut of an un broken country with little to help them but brains and will. “The great effort produced great re sults; therefore there is nothing for their sons to do, and they luxuriously do noth ing. What will tho next generation be? Our women will marry Americans —re- spect for men who are men will over come prejudice—the crossed blood will fight for a generation or two; then a race will be borxx worthy of California. Why are our few great men so very great to us? What have men of exceptional tal ent to fight down in the Californias ex cept the barriers to its development? In England or the United States they still would be great men—Alvarado and Cas tro at least —but they would have to work harder.” Chonita, in spite of her disapproval and her blood, looked at him with inter est. His ideas and language ■were strik- i ingly unlike the sentimental rhetoric of tho caballeros. “It is as you say,” she admitted, “but the Californian’s highest duty is loyalty to his country. Ours is a double duty, isolated as we are on this far strip of ■ land away from all other’ civilization. ( We should be more contemptible than j Indians if we were not true to our flag.” “No wonder that you and that famous patriot of ours, Dona Eustaquia Ortega, are bonded friends. I doubt if you could hate as well as she. You have no such violence in your nature; you could neither love nor hate very hard. Yoxx would love, if you loved at all, with majesty and serenity. and hate with chill severity.” While lie spoke he watched her intently. She met his gaze unflinchingly. “True, senor; I am no ‘bundle of shallow emo tions,’ nor have I a lion in me like Eusta quia. I am a creature of deliberation, not of impulse. I love and hate as duty dictates.” He looked up at her with an amused smile. “You are by nature the most im pulsive woman I ever saw, and Eusta quia’s lion is a kitten to the one that sleeps in you. You have cold delibera tion enough, but it is manufactured, and the result of pretty hard -work at that. Like all edifices reared without a founda tion, it will fall with a crash some day, and the fragments will be of very little use to you.” And there the conversation ended. They had reached the plaza, and a babel of voices surrounded them. Gov ernor Alvarado stood on the upper corri dor of his bouse throwing handfuls of ; email gold coins among the populace, who ’ were shrieking with delight. The girl ' guests mingled with them, seeing that no palm went home empty. Beside the governor sat Dona Martina radiant with pride, and behind her sat the nurse hold ing tho infant on its pillow. “We had better go to the house as soon as possible,” said Estenega. “It is nearly time for the bull-bear tight, and we must have good seats.” They forced their way through the crowd, dismounted at the door and went up to the corridor. The Castros and I were already there with a number of other invited guests. The women sat in chairs close to the corridor railing; sev eral rows of men stood behind them. The plaza was a jagged circle surround ed by dwelling houses, some one story in heiglxt, others with overhanging balco nies; from it radiated five streets. All corridors were crowded with the ele gantly dressed mexx and women of the aristocracy; large black fans were wav ing; every eye was flashing expectantly; the people stood oxx platforms which had been erected in four of the streets. Amid the shouts of the spectators two vaqueros, dressed in black velvet i short clothes, dazzling linen and stiff I black sombreros, tinkling bells attached to their- trappings, jingling spurs on their | heels, galloped into the plaza, driving a ' large, aggressive bull. They chased him about in a circle, swinging their reatas, dodging his oAdaughts, then rode out, and four others Altered. dragging an un willing bear by v reata tied to each of , his legs. By of a long chain and j much dexterity <-aey fastened the two . easts together, Veel the logs of the then retire? to the entrance to vents. B’ bull and the bear ot fight. >ae latter arose on hie haunch® and regarded his enemy warily „ but the bull appeared to disdain the bear as too small game, He but lowered big horns and pawed the ground. The spec tators grew impatient. The brave cabal leros and dainty donas wanted blood.- They tapped their feet and murmured, ominously. As for the populace, they howled for slaughter. Governor Alvarado made a sign to one of the vaqueros. The man rushed ab ruptly upon the bull and hit him a sharp blow across tho nose with the cruel quirto. Tho bull's dignity vanished. V> ith the quadrupedian capacity for measuring distance he inferred that the blow had been inflicted by the bear, who sat some twenty feet away mildly lick ing his paws. He made a savage onset. The bear, with the dexterity of a vaque ro, leaped aside and sprang upon the as sailant’s neck, his teeth meeting argu mentatively in the ropelike tendons. The bull roared with pain and rage and attempted to shako him off, but he hung on. Both lost their footing and rolled over and over amid clouds of dust, a mighty noise and enough blood to satis fy the early tliirst of tho beholders. Then the bull wrenched himself free. Before the mountain visitor could scram ble to his feet he fixed him with his horns* and tossed him oxx high. i As the bear came down on his back with a thud and a snap which would have satisfied a bull less anxious to show ■what a bull could do the Victor rushed I upon the corpse, kicked and stamped and l bit until the blood spouted into his eyes, and pulp and dust were indistinguisha ; ble. Then how the delighted spectators ' clapped their hands and cried “Brava!” to the bull, who pranced about the plaza dragging the carcass of the bear after him, his head high, his big eyes red and rolling! The women tore off their rebosos and waved them like banners, smashed their fans and stamped their little feet. The men whirled their sombreros with supple wrists. But the bull was not sat- . isfied. Ho pawed the ground with de ' nxanding hoofs, and tho vaqueros gal i loped into the ring with another bear. | ! Nor had they time to detach their reatas ] I before the bull was upon the second an- ’ I tagonist, and they were obliged to retire j in haste. J Estenega, who stood between Chonita | and myself, watched The Doomswoman fl attentively. Her lips were compressed 1 fiercely; for a moment they bore a strange 1 resemblance to his own as I had seen I them at times. Iler nostrils were ex- ■ panded; her lids half covered her eyes. fl “She has cruelty in her,” he murmured ■ to nxe as the first battle finished, “and it fl was her imperious wish that the bull fl should win because he is the more lordly fl animal. She has no sympathy for the fl poor bundle of hair and quivering flesh H that bounded on the mountains yester- fl day. Has she brutality in her? —just fl enough" fl “Brava! Brava!” The women were on fl their feet; even Chonita for the moment fl forgot herself and beat the railing with hex- small fist. Another bear had been impaled and tossed and trampled. The bull, panting from his exertions, dashed jfe about the plaza, still dragging his first victim after him. Suddenly he stopped; MS the blood gushed from his nostrils; he shivered like a skeleton hanging in tho wind, then fell in an ignominious heap— dead. “A warning, Diego,” I said, rising and S shaking my fan at him. “Be not too fl ambitious, else wilt thou die of thy vic- fl tories. And do not love the polar star,” fl I murmured in his ear, “lest thou set fire fl to it and fall to ashes thyself.” ■ [TO BE CONTINUED.] I The I.oon. I The loon is found in all the north- 1 ern states. It is a very awkward ■ bird on land, but a graceful and ■ rapid swimmer. It is a remarkable ■ diver, and it is thought thatno other B feathered creature can dive so fax - fl beneath the surface or remain so I long a time under water. A speci- fl men was once found attached to the fl hook of a fisherman’s set line in fl Seneca lake, it having dived nearly fl 100 feet to reach the bait. It feeds I on lizards, fl.-.h, frogs, all kinds of I aquatic insects and thoroots of fresh 1 water plants, usually swallowing its fl food undex- water. It is a very large I bird, about 3 feet in length, and 1 spreads its wings fully 5 feet. It fl builds its nest in marshes, near wa- fl ter, of rushes and grass, which it I twists together in a huge heap on I the ground, usually among tall 1 reeds. The eggs, usually three in 1 number, are a little over 3 inches I long and in color of a dull greenish 1 ocher, with indistinct spots of dark 1 urn Ler, most numerous toward the < broad end. During the winter this bird lives near the seashore, espe cially in the salt marshes on the Long Island coast and along the shores of the Chesapeake, but in the summer it goes as far north as Maine and breeds there in great quantities.—Detroit Free Press. Proper Picture Frames. Artist—l want to get a frame for a rather important picture Fve just painted. Picture Dealer Certainly, sir. For your own use? Artist—No. I'm sending it to the exhibition. Picture Dealer—Just step this way. I’ve the very thing. There! | You see, the design of the frame is I a nymph on each side. Absolutely ] excludes all danger of having t’;e pictr.ro hung iqride down. —Pick Me Up. Resilient Rags (puzzled) —You seem mighty fidgety terday, Pete. Punctured Peterson (mournfully) —l’m sufferin, Ragsey ! I'm Lreakia in er new pair - uv socks.—Brookly n Eagle.