"Heavens! I should think not!" involuntarily exclaimed her listener, adding quickly, to cover her blunder; "What strange creatures we women are! Here I am ready to envy you the money that gives you that pretty gown and enables you to keep young and prettyno, lovely! How do you manage it, Dot? I am only three years older than you are, and you do not look a day past twenty, while I-sometimes I feel like hiding the mirrors."

The discontent vanished from Dorothy's face at the complimentary words. She was young, she was beautiful, she had money-why should she not be happy? But as she mentally contrasted her empty, restricted life with the full, free life of her friend, the cloud came back to her brow.

"If I had done what you have done, should I be as I am?" she inquired, fixing her troubled eyes on her friend. The friend read more than the owner of the eyes would have desired, and she was conscious of a deep pity for the woman who had everything but the one supreme gift.

"But what do you do?" she insisted. "How do you spend your time? Where do you go?"

"I do nothing and I go nowhere-at least, I might as well go nowhere," she corrected.

"But haven't you got your home and your child?" asked Aurelia.

"My home is not large, and we keep a maid. As the laundry is done outside, and Maurice sends up a man to do the scrubbing and chores, there would be nothing for the maid to do if I assisted. with the work. As for the baby, he likes to stay with his grandfather, and since Maurice has begun to keep a horse I seldom see them during the day. Father likes to drive into the country; and as he thinks the baby should have fresh air, and the baby is better satisfied with him, I really might as well have no child."

"Why don't you go with them?" inquired Aurelia, who was thinking hard and fast.

"What pleasure would there be driving down country roads?" asked Dorothy, pettishly.

“If I had a child, Dot, I should think it very pleasant to spend some of my time with him," remarked Aurelia, and, after another close survey of her friend's face, she began to sip her coffee reflectively.

"I see there is only one thing left you, Dot," she said, finally.

"What is that?" asked Dorothy, with pathetic eagerness.

"Play society," replied her friend.

"Yes, you can afford to laugh at me,” said Dorothy, bitterly. "You despise the woman whose idea of happiness is no higher than that afforded by society, as I half believe you despise the woman who has not sense enough to advance beyond the plane of nurse and housekeeper."

"You accuse me unjustly, as you so often did," complained Aurelia, although she was laughing. "You used to say that I did not like to make doll dresses, when in reality I should have been highly pleased to do so, only I could never learn to set the seams properly, and rather than see my dolls gowned badly, I preferred that they should continue to wear the clothes made for them by more skillful fingers. When we were grown, you used to accuse me of being proud because I would not mingle in all the gaieties of the neighborhood, while I should like to have attended the dances and picnics, but a shyness which I have scarcely yet overcome made it painful for me to go among people. I fear you have not yet learned to see beyond your very classical nose, my dear Dot," and again Aurelia's laugh sounded sweetly clear and girlish.

"At least your laugh is the same, Aurelia," said Dorothy.

"The only thing you find unchanged, eh? That laugh has carried Tom and me through many a bad day. Tom calls it his blood tonic."

Dorothy felt the tears in her heart at the perfect comradeship the few words showed. In all their married days had Maurice, by word or sign, showed that he felt the influence of her wifehood? He praised her beauty now, as in other days he used to praise her cooking, but neither her good looks nor her culinary skill had proven the slightest incentive, now or then. His whole mind was filled with the making of money for the purpose of buying more saloons and houses.

"So I was really in earnest," continued Aurelia, "when I suggested that you should try society for a change. Candidly, Dorothy," and she leaned back in her chair and surveyed her companion, "you were intended to fill a high place in the social world. You have youth, beauty, wealth, and, above all, you have good taste. You could not wear anything unbecoming. You would appreciate this gift more fully if you were to behold the atrocities perpetrated by some women in the name of fashion. In addition, you have the air of one born to pass her days in the social whirl. You would know instinctively which fork to use, what word to say, and the presence of a prince would not disconcert you."

"My dear Aurelia! what is not society missing in debarring me!" exclaimed Dorothy with pretty sarcasm, which her shrewd listener knew was not entirely sincere. Dorothy felt she was all this, perhaps more, and deep in her heart was the regret that others had not Aurelia's penetration and appreciation.

"Oh! society's loss is not bothering me," observed Aurelia, lightly. "It is of you I am thinking. I hold that we should exercise our talents, whatever they may be, a woman no less than a man. If, for instance, my mother-in

law has a talent for housekeeping, and has perfect health for performing its duties, she should not be debarred from employing them simply because custom, which is merely the outgrowth of some early necessity, decrees that the wife should keep her husband's home. If I have a talent for professional work, I should do it in preference to sweeping and dusting, which two things my soul abhorreth. And why, if you are fitted for a place in society, should you not go to it and exercise your gifts of mind and body in the sphere for which you were born? My mother-in-law finds her entire happiness in the work of the home; I find mine by my husband's side in the office; if you would find yours at balls and banquets-as I know you should-why should you not be there?"

"It is not why should I not be there, but why am I prevented from being there?" rejoined Dorothy, and her voice was low, while the color deepened in her cheeks. "You know as well as I do," she continued, with a proud lifting of her head and a flashing of the soft, dark eyes, "there is not in the county-no, nor in Kentucky!-one with a better family history than mine!"

"Very true," said Aurelia, thoughtfully, folding a crease in the corner of her napkin as she spoke, "but our society is not built on family histories, but on bank-books. There is Tom's mother --she is a lineal descendant of the Shelby family, which gave the first Governor to Kentucky, but, on the whole, society ignores her existence. If some stroke of fortune were to give Tom half a million of dollars, I, the daughter of poor German peasants, should be of far more importance."

"Still, it counts for something in certain circles," insisted Dorothy.

"Where, pray?" asked Aurelia, looking at her friend with a smile in her eyes.

"In the Society of the Descendants of the Pioneers," said Dorothy, whereat Aurelia laughed softly.

"My dear little innocent Dot!" she exclaimed. "Give me that half a million dollars, and a recently arrived countryman of my father's for a husband instead of an actual descendant of the pioneers, and I should not have the slightest difficulty in finding myself eligible for membership in that most aristocratic society."

"I don't see how you could be received," said Dorothy.

"What would there be to prevent me from giving a donation to one of their pet objects, or setting up a monument over some old Indian fighter's grave?" she asked, with her pretty laugh. "And what is to prevent my dearest friendssince it was not my fault that my forefathers elected to endure the tyranny of the German Emperor in preference to the glorious privilege of sacrificing their comfort, and possibly their lives, to settle Kentucky-getting a resolution passed for my admittance into the society? Anyhow, what are the associate and honorary memberships for but desirable ineligibles?"

"Is that all the society is?" demanded Dorothy, with scorn.

"I do not say it is," said Aurelia. "I simply tell you what can be done, to prove to you that lineage is not worth this bread crumb without money and influence. Of course, society demands certain outward compliances with its regulations," she concluded.

"Have you never attended any of the church affairs?" she finally asked.

"One Sunday it was announced that there would be an ice-cream social for the benefit of the parish school, and a general invitation was extended to the ladies of the congregation to attend and help at the tables," said Dorothy, reminiscently. "I went; nobody knew me, or appeared to want to know me. I was

put to washing dishes with the servant girls."

"I hope you showed them you could wash dishes well," said Aurelia, with a smile.

"I did not! I went home," replied Dorothy, her cheeks looking like a damask rose.

Aurelia studied the cut-glass waterbottle for a few minutes, the smile still hovering around her mouth; then she said:

"But no one would think of looking for you in Donolson Street."

After another pause, she said:

"The Descendants of the Pioneers are going to give a lawn fete next Thursday evening. Will you come with us? I can promise you they will not ask you to wash dishes if you dress your prettiest and bring a big pocket-book. I know some people who will be there, and who knows what may happen?"

IV.

Of all that had passed between them, one remark remained firmly fixed in the mind of Dorothy-Aurelia's brief reference to the location of their home. On her way back that afternoon, she passed through the more fashionable streets, and, as she measured the distance between them and the little flat that had seemed to her the most desirable of places, the veil dropped from her eyes.

"What made Maurice select this neighborhood?" she mentally questioned, as she passed up the narrow stairs and into the close apartments. After her examination of the outside of those spacious houses, the walls of her own seemed to close in on her, and she understood why her father-in-law and husband always seemed in a hurry to get away.

"Yet they thought it was large enough for me!" she cried bitterly, as

she flung open the shutter to let in something of the largeness of the life those other houses had suggested.

The warm sunshine streamed in, and with it came the noise of wagons on the narrow street, the clatter of street-cars and the wrangling voices of children. On the sill of one of the windows opposite, a rug was spread, and on this a young woman, with moist hair hanging around her face and a soiled dressingsacque displaying her neck and arms,. leaned, gazing idly on the uninteresting scene below. Many a time had Dorothy beheld the woman thus occupied; many a time had her ears been filled with these noises; but not until, now did she know the sight and sounds to be disagreeable, for our eyes are holden till the moment ordained by destiny shall arrive.

"It is worse than the farm!" she thought. "At least, there was quiet there. I must leave here or I shall go mad. How have I stood it this long? It is no wonder that. I am moody and discontented. Think of one accustomed to the freedom of the country cooped up in this box! It is very well for father to call it snug, who spends the entire. day in the open air, and for Maurice to say it is a veritable little nest, who is free to come and go as he chooses; but if either of them had to spend day after day here, he would not find it such a paradise. I suppose I shall have some difficulty in convincing Maurice that we ought to move; but we must."

To her surprise, Maurice was amenable to her reasoning. Had she not been so absorbed in her own thoughts, she might have observed that he met her wish to get a larger house with a readiness that seemed to suggest that for many days the place had been unendurable to him.

For some time afterward, the novel experience of house-hunting was Dorothy's. When she found one vacant in the neighborhood in which she most de

sired to live, the rental asked for it was so exorbitant that Dorothy felt she should first confer with her husband.

"I think that the most remarkable price ever asked for a house," commented their father, as Dorothy related her experience with the agent.

"Did he make any inquiry about us?" inquired Maurice, gently.

"Yes, and I told him that you were the proprietor of the Mecca and the Club House," replied Dorothy. "Do you think he advanced the rent on that account?"

"Yes, I think so," said Maurice, with an expression on his face which she did not understand. "Do you like the place, Dorothy?" he asked, after a pause.

"I have never seen a house I like so well," she exclaimed. "It has a beautiful yard, a stable, a flower garden, and the rooms-oh, Maurice, the rooms are so large and well lighted, it reminded. me of the old home. There is no place in Livington I should like so well. But we will not give him that price. It is unjust to ask it, simply because he knows you are rich and able to afford it." A smile, half-amused, half-compassionate, came into the face of Maurice, and for a moment he fancied the expression was reflected on the face of his father. He rose hastily, but before leaving he bade Dorothy not to trouble herself further until he should have an opportunity to call upon the agent.

A few days later he informed her that he had bought the house. When he told her the price he had paid, she marveled that a place which could be purchased so reasonably should command such a high rental. But her husband did not think it necessary to inform her that he had got a friend to buy the house for him, nor that, when it finally became known that the beautiful residence had passed into the hands of a saloon keeper, it had brought consternation into the neighborhood.

(To be continued.)

I

N Ireland some poets are born and a great many are made. The climate makes them; the scenery, with its garniture of ruins, both ancient and modern, makes them in grand plenty; the national songs, legends and traditions help; the general lack of industries and the vast fertile tracts bereft of human beings also afford overmuch room and leisure for poetic meditation, especially of a sombre tinge. Therefore the hackneyed classic saw-which, after all, is more epigrammatic than truthful-does not hold good in the Land of Song.

In Banba of the verdant hills and silvery streams, where the cloud shadows glide over the rippling clover-sweet meadows, while the lark's trill floats down through the perfumed air; where the round towers stand, ollamhs in stone, telling the proud, sad story of the past, and the wind through broken, ivy-clad shrines moans dirges over the graves of saints and warriors; where the long, beautiful Irish twilight casts its spell of witchery over "every haunted mountain and streamy vale below"; where to the eye and ear of poetic faith or fancy the white steeds of the royal fairy train toss their flowing manes in the green moonlight and the elfin music steals from amid the hazels and whitethorns of the ancient rath-in this wondrous Banba, paradise of the Celtic ideal, the sights, sounds and stories are enough to make a poet out of a philistine.

No wonder, then, that in all ages the green isle has produced its bards, and a many of them, that down athrough the long halls of misty centuries float the tinklings of many harps and the chant of sweetest melodies.

From all time the Celts were passionate lovers of music. The minstrel was

to them a national necessity. There was nothing too good for him in their gift. The poet had more social power and influence than the prince-and at times he exercised it more despotically and unjustly. Although the scientific and polished Dananns had several poets among their princes and princesses, the Milesians, subduers and successors of the Dananns, had, on their arrival in Ireland from "the sunny land of Spain," only one poet and one musician in their entire company. When Milesius' chief surviving sons, Heber and Heremon, divided the island between them, they disputed as to who should have these entertainers; the question was settled by lot, Kir, the poet, going to Heremon, and Onna the fair-haired, the musician, to Heber. Presumably, for the sake of pleasant variety, the brothers occasionally swapped the talent or made a combination.

In course of centuries the bards grew in numbers and influence. That ill-fated idol-worshipper, King Tiernmas, who sought to regulate caste by the number of colors in his subjects' garments, decreed that the bards might wear six colors, or within one of the royal number, thus placing them higher than the nobility of the kingdom, who were allowed to wear but five colors in their dress under the new sartorial regulations.

There is a saying attributed to an ancent Grecian sage and also to a modern Scottish patriot, that he who makes a nation's ballads exercises more power than he who makes its laws. The ancient Irish bards did both; together with being poets, musicians, historians and genealogists, they had, as the chief literati of the kingdom, an important part in the business of legislation. The Bardic Order had its mysteries, its cere