Miss Winthrop was surprised that Dr. Davidson, of all persons, should have missed the train. "It is all my wife's fault," he averred. "Every thing always is my wife's fault. You know Farini's, that little Italian jeweler's shop, up two flights of stairs in T- Place, where they mend things. Nothing would induce my wife to have an article repaired elsewhere; and to-day I was under orders not to return without a certain bracelet which had been there a fortnight, and which I had already repeatedly forgotten. If it were left again I was to be sent back expressly for the improvement of my memory; and, by George! I came within an ace of slipping again this time; should, if I hadn't caught a glimpse in Abbot's window of one that reminded me. I was already on my way to the station, but I faced about and took a bee-line for Farini's. Well, my wife had stolen a march upon me; had been in town herself, and got the bracelet. But I saw in the case of things left for mending an odd-looking ring, the exact counterpart of one given me by a friend some years ago, I made them take it out and show it to me. And sure enough, it was my own. A lady had left it, and would call for it in an hour. While I was still looking the lady came in. Madam Davidson, thank you. She, who always sees every thing, and never puts off any thing, had discovered that the setting was not quite firm, so she brought it in at once to be made all right. I lost the train, but I had the pleasure of riding out with Mrs. Davidson. Here is the ring, if you like to look at it." It was It was a singular ring. The stone was a sapphire, and some dark flakes on the under side had been so managed in cutting as to give it a fantastic likeness to a human face-a mowing, mocking human face. "There is a story to that ring," said the Doctor; "and when I come again, if you remind me, I will tell it to you. I have an appointment at eight o'clock, and so good-night to you." And he was gone. That evening an incident oecurred which I should doubtless have forgotten but for something that happened afterward. Mrs. Eliot had was a good deal of company. The conjecture at once entered my mind that a motive for this determination might be found in the annoyance occasioned by Mr. Falkland's pertinacious attentions. I had seen, or rather I had been instinctively aware, that they were unwelcome at the first, and now, that, though not outwardly demonstrative, they were unendurably obnoxious. After many polite regrets then, and hopes of renewed intercourse in the future, Mr. and Mrs. Eliot departed. This being accepted as a signal for breaking up, others followed, until finally none of the guests remained except Dr. and Mrs. Davidson. In the first silence that ensued I ventured to claim the fulfillment of Dr. Davidson's promise. Miss Winthrop seconded me, and Miss Thorndyke likewise. Then the Doctor, after affirming that he had a cold and was out of voice, and besides never could sing without his notes, and then acknowledging that this prelude was intended to enhance the graciousness of his final acquiescence, commenced his narrative. First, however, he comfortably established himself in a great arm-chair, around which the ladies were grouped in listening attitudes; Mrs. Darussy a little farther than the rest, but all within distinct hearing distance. And this is Dr. Davidson's story: "Some years ago, my home being then in my mother's house, on returning one evening from a visit to a patient, I found that dear old lady with an unwonted shadow on her pleasant face. "Tom,' said she, pouring my coffee and ministering to my comfort generally, 'I am greatly distressed about Ned.' "Have you heard of him, mother?' I asked. "Not a word,' she replied; 'but he is in my mind day and night. If I were superstitious, which you very well know that I am not in the least, I should feel quite certain that he was in trouble. Tom, I'm really worried about him.' About eight o'clock the door-bell rang. Since we had been alone we had always kept the outer door locked. It was a hard lock, and to-night Phebe, who answered the bell, could not turn the key. Miss Winthrop was gone up stairs, and I went to help Phebe. By means of a second key passed through the loop of the first, and used as a lever, I succeeded. At the door stood "Ned was a nephew of my mother's, the son a gentleman-evidently, from his first words, a of her only brother. He had lived with us from foreigner. The hall lamp shone full on his face a child, and though he was several years my and I saw him distinctly. He was dark-eyed, | junior, we had been together at Cambridge, and brown-haired, and bearded. In figure he was afterward abroad at Heidelberg for three years tall and slight, yet not fragile looking. He asked for Dr. Davidson, and when informed that the Doctor resided a mile farther out on the same road, he courteously expressed his thanks, and went his way. I think it was on Wednesday morning that the ladies returned, and in the evening there more. Ned never shirked study nor any thing else, and might have made his mark at home if he had liked; but he didn't like. He wanted to study life under different aspects before making up his mind when and how to spend his own. At the end of the three years a number of young men, most of them of Heidelberg, were forming a company with intent to make trial of mining | with Ned himself—of whom, by-the-way, it is life in Australia. Ned was bent on joining them. only just to remark that it was through no deThey were all young men of good standing, and linquency on his part that we had so long been when I found that it would really go to his heart in the dark in respect to his movements. to relinquish the project, I gave in. "For two years we received frequent and satisfactory tidings of him. Then he wrote that he was going to California, and again we heard of him safe in San Francisco. After this letters came only at long intervals, and finally ceased altogether. Weeks grew into months, and months into years, and our anxiety increased, till at last it cropped out in a determination on my part to go myself to California, and, if Ned were still in existence, to find him out. "This evening, then, when my mother broached the subject, was auspicious for the avowal of my resolve. Much to my satisfaction it was received with approval. The next steamer left New York in five days, and it took me a passenger. On board was a man who had sailed from Australia in the same ship with Ned; and that, though the fact itself was all that the man could tell me, I nevertheless hailed as an omen of good. "My patient meanwhile was mending; and during the hours which I used to spend with him, and which so to spend I found extremely pleasant, he gave me a sketch of his life in the mines. This had been by no means one of ease, though in pecuniary results it had exceeded his most sanguine expectations. But the crowning achievement of his existence had been the winning of a wife to take back with him to the Fa| ther-land. Of her he spoke with genuine German outpouring. "She was an American, he said, and had come to California a year before he met her with the Fs, as friend of the family and governess to their daughter. Her forte was music; and her brilliant genius, faultless voice, and great personal grace and beauty might have insured her an unsurpassed career on the stage. But she had no predilection for that life, and rejected absolutely the most flattering inducements. She had nevertheless been assiduous in the labor of instruction, and my friend had first seen her at the residence of one of her pupils. In half a year he had wooed and won her. His business in California was now completed, and in October they would sail for Europe. "Arrived in San Francisco, I could devise no method of communicating the fact to Ned more likely to prove available than to render my name as conspicuous as possible in the newspapers. And I advertised to such purpose that in a few weeks I should have been in a tolerably "He showed me a picture of this lady, 'made complacent mood if to establish myself profes-up of every creature's best,' and really it was sionally had been my object. In the fulfillment of my real intent, I had not as yet made apparently an iota of progress. "One evening I was summoned to a person who had been injured in the attempt to separate some men engaged in testing the logic of bowieknives. It was a cut in the arm, and nothing more serious being required than the ligature of an artery, the work was soon dispatched. I left my patient in the care of the man who had called me, promising to come again the next day. In the morning I found him doing well. He was an uncommonly pleasant young fellow; a German, educated and highly intelligent, with plenty of English to manage a conversation, but more fluent in his own tongue when he found I could understand that. "Of course I was not long in approaching the subject uppermost in my mind, and at last it seemed that I was to obtain a gleam of light. A few months previous four young men had joined an exploring party proceeding north. Three of these were Germans, and the fourth an American who spoke German fluently, and who, with the rest, had experience of the diggings in Australia. This was the sum of the information given me by my patient; and he thought I could probably ascertain something more definite at Siegel's, a banking-house in the city. Taking the address, I proceeded thither at once, and was so fortunate as to obtain a clew which, followed out, in the course of a few months brought me into direct communication about as charming a face as I have ever seen. He had left her for a few days in Santa Clara with the F-s, intending to return thither about the time of his accident. He had now written her to join him in San Francisco, and expected her the ensuing evening. "She arrived accordingly, and, paragon that she was, I hoped to see her. But when I called she was gone out shopping. I went again in a few days, and then both my birds were flown. "Some weeks later I encountered him in a telegraph office, but so changed that I hesitated to address him lest I had mistaken for him some other person. At first, too, he seemed not to intend recognizing me; but perhaps the concern I really felt at his altered aspect was visible in my face, for he suddenly grasped my hand, wrung it impetuously, and as we left the office together he turned in my direction, and on reaching my door entered with me. "Now I suppose that nothing more effectually conduces to sudden friendship than the tie between patient and physician. Moreover, if I had that moment seen him for the first time, and with that look of misery in his face, I should have felt a strong interest in him. "Korner,' said I, 'you are ill. What is the matter?' "I am not ill,' he replied, "but I am enduring suspense worse than death. My wife has left me. I have no clew, not the slightest, to the cause. I have learned only within three days that a lady whose appearance accorded in some respects with hers sailed in the C――― in its last passage. as well as I.' "I knew it well. I had thought at one time of taking passage on that ship myself. The hope that Ned would be induced to accompany me on my return alone delayed me. The fate of that vessel you know | given unremitting attention to the changes that came and went on Mrs. Darussy's face. Once or twice she gave token of being stirred from her usual outward calm, if only to the extent of a little fuller lighting of the eye, a little deeper flush on the delicate cheek; and I was just wondering to myself in what school she had learned the necessity of so repressing every outward sign of the inner mood, and doubting if the game were worth the candle, when I saw all at once that every bit of color had deserted her face, lips and all, leaving them white as the leaves of a pond-lily. She had gone off in a dead faint. "Now the poor fellow looked as if he were dying by inches. I tried to invent something plausible in the way of comfort; but in view of the facts the endeavor seemed heartless. I saw him every day, and attempted to persuade him to return with me to New England. He would not come though, and the last time I met him there he gave me the ring. And not long after I reached home I saw in the list of deaths in a San Francisco newspaper the name of my friend. "Now you may conjecture my astonishment when yesterday morning this gentleman, at whose gate I supposed pallida Mors' had long since done her errand, rang my own door-bell, and walked into the room where I was eating my breakfast. "It turns out that the Otto Korner whose name I saw in the dead-list was a compatriot and namesake of my friend, on whom the poor fellow had considered that the double fellowship of name and country entitled him to a double claim. Perhaps it did. At all events, it stood the widow in good stead. It availed her a homeward passage for herself and her three children. They all arrived in New York together last Saturday. She was a Poughkeepsie woman, and .he kept sight of them till they were all safe in her father's house." "And has this Mr. Korner, your friend, during all this time heard nothing of his wife?" asked Miss Thorndyke. I know not if the swift conviction that traversed my mind were shared by any one else. It was long before the most assiduous efforts availed to restore her to consciousness. They had taken her to her room, and as soon as she was better she began to regret the trouble she was giving; and, finding that she was not to be left alone, asked that I might stay with her, and that the rest would go to bed. How I pitied her, the poor young thing that never had a sister! I smoothed the hair away from her forehead, and she drew me down and kissed me. I could not help saying, "I am so sorry for you," and then she broke into a perfect passion of tears. At last she had cried herself quiet, as children do. "Do you know who I am, Miss Lee?" said she; "do you know that I am that wife who deserted her husband?" "I know that if it were so it was from some dreadful mistake," I answered. "You are right," she said; "it was, as you say, a dreadful mistake. And I saw no other "He has ascertained that some of the pas- course. I dared not do otherwise, Miss Lee. sengers on the C― were rescued, and among I was only a child; I was not yet eighteen years them several ladies; and he is by no means dis-old. My father and mother died long before; posed to relinquish the hope of finding her." "But will he overlook the step she has taken in deserting him?" "He has made a discovery which enlightens him on that point. The widow Korner related to him that once, while her husband was supposed to be in Sacramento, she heard that he had been several weeks in San Francisco at the P Hotel. She went to his rooms, and found them occupied by a young girl, who seemed thunder-struck on learning that this woman was the wife of Otto Korner; nor would she yield credit to the assertion till the woman went home and came again with her marriage-certificate. Then, she said, the young girl grew awfully white, and went, without a word, into another apartment. Presently she returned dressed to go out, and passed through the room without speaking. The woman never saw her before nor since. But when she went back to her own house she found her husband there, and then first learned that there were two of the same name." Now I had listened to every word of this narration with the utmost interest, but I had also brother or sister I never had. And when it came to my knowledge, without possibility of doubt, that another woman was the wife of Otto Korner, what course was left me? I took nothing away with me-nothing but the gold which I had myself earned, which I had begged him to take, and which he had always laughingly refused. There was enough to bring me to Baltimore, to the only relative I had in the world, my mother's aunt. When they said the ship was lost, for myself I felt only glad. I have no remembrance how I was saved. I can only recall the tumult of sounds, the burning ship, and the wild, lurid stretch of water. "At length I arrived in Baltimore. My aunt died before I had been with her a month. She approved my course, because she saw it only with my eyes, and on her death she left me an inheritance more than sufficient for my own maintenance. I assumed her name, which had also been my mother's, and which was indeed a part of my own. "For a year I lived entirely secluded, and then, Miss Lee, I determined to the utmost of my power to bestow a little happiness on those around me; and that I hoped would be a miti gation of my great sorrow. For it has been a This stillness was broken by the arrival of Dr. Davidson and another gentleman. As I saw the latter in the hall, I recognized him as the one who came a few nights before to ask at our door for the doctor. I can not tell you of the meeting. Neither I nor any one else witnessed it. Only I heard one little passionate cry, a blending of gladness and pain, such as a child might have uttereda child that after years of darkness and suffering has come at once into sunshine and joy. There is a little more to tell. Not long after Mr. and Mrs. Korner went to Europe, where they still remain. They have repeatedly evinced their recollection of Miss Thorndyke's hospitality. I myself have proof positive of a place in their remembrance in this charming little watch which even now points to midnight. "To each and all a kind good-night." HE bright spring days bring us to the annual | wrought capital of one shows how beautiful all are Texhibition or pictures at the Academy, but to be before we reach it there are some pleasant "receptions" of which every Easy Chair should take note, for they are the most unique and picturesque assemblies in the city. The new building, a festal Venetian palace, is peculiarly designed for gay society, and no hosts are more gracious than the artists. Diedrich Knickerbocker would have disbelieved his eyes he would have fancied himself deluded by some vision of his untoward imagination, if, pressing far out upon the island beyond the Bowery or familiar farms of his everyday wandering, he had still found himself upon the pavement, and amidst the roar, and throng, and spacious stateliness of a great city. But if, amidst the glittering rows of street-lamps, and the inconceivable miracle of street-cars, and the mosque without a minaret of Twentieth Street, and the imposing wooden Gothic spires of Twenty-first Street, and the smooth, white massiveness of Twenty-second Street, suggesting what he could not have comprehended-that Methodism had begun to conform-if, passing all these bewilderments, he had suddenly seen at the noble corner of Twenty-third Street the shining palace of art, its broad, romantic steps thronged with ascending groups of guests dressed for a holiday, its marble walls gleaming with reflected lights; had he caught the brilliant glimpses through the doors, and the gusts of alluring music that come pulsing into the night as those great doors open and close again, the good old burgher would have been fain so far to forget his faith as to cross himself after the superstitious habit of Rome, and utter an anathema, very gentle and in pure Dutch, against the seductive sorcery that reared Venice again for a night in the remote, solitary, and utterly Dutch Reformed outlying fields of Nieuw Amsterdam. Yet when once he had crossed the enchanted threshold he would have surrendered himself wholly to the entrancing spell, and have emerged toward midnight a wiser and a better man. Nowhere else in the country is there so picturesque a scene of the kind. The great central staircase rises broad and imposing to an upper gallery, the roof of which is supported by columns of various marble, and the Along the railing which separates the gal lery from the staircase there are clusters of gaily. dressed figures talking, and smiling, and leaning over and looking down upon those who are coming up. Doors open from the gallery into the various halls, which are connected with each other, and which are lively with a murmuring, moving crowd. Through the whole building, loud and triumphant in the lofty hall, softened and mellowed in the rooms, the music swells and breathes. The light is rich and full, falling from above; and around the walls of the gallery and along those of each room there is a line of pictures, sent for the evening by the academicians. But to-night they are for ornament rather than for observation. Lovely landscapes, careful sketches, vivid portraits-yes, but look at these men and women who are passing before them! Here is the beauty that inspires-the genius that creates! Here are the singers of the songs! Yes, here they are-the painters and sculptorsand there-how came he here, our friend of the tomahawk? Mark how placidly he moves about! It is the very one of whom we were speaking in March, who slaughters in the Tribune, who can not come among the brethren of the brush, but-fee, faw, fum, he smells the blood and will have some! Yet he seems to be tractable. There is no blood dripping from his hand or skirts. And these N. A.'s and A.'s-they, too, seem to be in sound health and high spirits. Their well-broadclothed arms bave hanging on them what seems the semblance of delicate muslin or of sumptuous silk. They have all the appearance of happy life. They are smiling toward the muslin. They are murmuring toward the silk. And yet Monsieur the Tomahawk has cut all their heads clean off! If we could only see things as they are we should discover that those innocentseeming skirts of his are really enormous bags full of the heads he has lopped off-game-bags; and these cheerful hosts of ours are headless trunks! Horrible thought—the scene is becoming spectral! Are the lights actually burning blue? The Easy Chair begins to feel with the shadowy old Diedrich of whom we were speaking, like resorting to the superstitious usages of Rome, and crossing himself to ban uncanny spirits. try. But the music smooths and sweetens all. We own glory, but for the honor of art and our counstand and gaze and listen. The crowd circles slowly around. There is some pretense of looking at the pictures, but somehow the lookers look as if MR. H. Y. THOMPSON, a recent graduate of Camthey were chiefly conscious of being looked at. And bridge, England, a gentleman whose University cawhy not, please? Why should any human creat-reer was honorably distinguished, came to this counure or is it Sabrina fair risen marvelously coiffed from out the glassy, cool, translucent wave?-so elaborately dam her stream of pale amber hair until it ripples and wrinkles and crinkles, and finally swelling and surging over the braided barrier, plunges in a torrent of massive curls toward her neck, but never falls, hanging suspended in perpetual plunge, like Terni arrested half-way, unless she meant to be looked at? And behold! it is dusted all over with diamond powder, and sparkles every where. Was it extravagant to speak of Venice, since Venice is outdone? Have we time for pictures on the walls with such pictures on the floor? When that head is placed between human eyes and a small landscape in oils, does that head imagine the eyes are busy with the small land view or the vast water view? Why should human eyes observe a modest sylvan stream upon canvas when they can see an appalling cataract glittering with diamond spray? Ah! Monsieur the Tomahawk, if you must have scalps, look at that! Girdled with that you would be cinctured with glory, for it is the very color of an aureole; and yet saints, even Saint Cecilia, did not look exactly so. try during our war, and evidently felt with another noted Englishman who came at the same time, and who said upon his return from a tour at the West, and after a general observation of the Free States"Well, you may be having trouble, but for all that you have the happiest country going." For Mr. Thompson when he went home, and had proved by experience how universal and foolish is the ignorance of England about this country, proposed to endow with £150 a lectureship at the University of Cambridge for the discussion of American institutions, literature, etc.-a series of lectures to be given every two years, and the lecturer to be appointed by the Faculty of Harvard University in our Cambridge, subject to the veto of the ViceChancellor of the English University. Mr. Thompson is a liberal of the best kind, a friend and disciple of John Stuart Mill; and in common with Mr. Mill, Mr. Bright, Goldwin Smith, Professor Cairnes, and our other truest English friends, is anxious that the educated youth of England shall have some accurate conception of what America is, and what republican institutions mean. Their curious ignorance was most plainly reveal We move along with the throng. The amber-ed within University precincts by the lectures which haired is Anonyma, but we are surrounded by men Charles Kingsley delivered at Cambridge upon our and women of goodly fame. Here are authors, edi- affairs during the war. Mr. Kingsley is Professor tors, connoisseurs; here, too, are the artists whose of Modern History; but if any such professor at any names are known and prized. Yes, good Master American college should have discussed English Tomahawk, such is our ignorance-prized! For contemporary history with the strange prejudice while we smile Mr. Representative Banks, Chair- and want of knowledge which Mr. Kingsley disman of the House Committee of Foreign Relations, played, we should all have sighed over the superis getting ready his speech, in which he will throw ficial knowledge which satisfied our collegiate standdown a prospective challenge to all the world, and ard for a professor. So also a young Cantab, who declare that in the Great Fair and World's Ex- was considered especially wise in the American change of 1867 "we would be represented in land-question, was one day at a London dinner, a little scape painting by Church and Bierstadt, in sculp-more than a year ago, expounding the Constitution ture by Story and Powers and other artists"-others of the United States to a company which received the peers of these. And the Senate of the State is about to offer its homage to the fine arts, of which this pretty palace is the temple, by passing a bill within the month exempting this Academy from taxation. These public acts and words, like this noble building, are all signs of the advancing interest in art and respect for it, which keep pace with the steady progress of the country. Tum-ta! how triumphantly the music swells as if it knew it all-as if it contrasted the little Clinton Hall exhibitions of twenty-five years ago with this jubilee of brilliancy, this festive crowd, which does not come to patronize but to have its taste certified by its presence here. "So his Excellency is playing painter," said the diplomats to the Embassador Rubens when they found him in his studio. "Not quite," smilingly answered the superb Fleming, "the painter is playing Embassador." In this magnificent house art is not patronized; it is the host whose welcome honors the visitor. It welcomes us all, lovers and buyers, and even us critics, with our sharp pens hidden in our pockets. And if we respect ourselves-and that the Easy Chair knows to be your feeling also, incorrigible Monsieur Tomahawk-when the walls blaze with the fullblossomed splendor of the pictures which have been growing in the studios all the year, like roses in a green-house, we shall draw those pens not for our every word he uttered for the plain truth. But there was an American gentleman present who had listened amused to the extraordinary statements made by the young Doctor, until from some absurd remark he saw that the learned speaker was not aware of the existence of that branch of the Government known to us as the Supreme Court of the United States; and quietly pressing him upon the point, exposed his ignorance to the total ruin of his argument and his reputation. The misapprehension of the case by English public men was not less, for certainly we should all prefer to say that the chiefs of the British Government misapprehended rather than misrepresented. Mr. Atkinson, in his interesting pamphlet upon the great public schools of England, shows how entirely whole ranges of the most essential knowledge of contemporary affairs, and of other countries with their institutions and resources, are excluded even from the training of the English youth who are preparing for public life; and Matthew Arnold, in his caustic essay, "My Countrymen," thrusts home the most stinging charge of the same insulation of the mind of England which throws her into the rear rank of truly great nations. The governing class of England is mainly educated at the Universities, and a lectureship such as Mr. Thompson proposes would bear directly upon |