A Little Journey in the World

ns. New York is quite awake by that time, and ready to amuse itself. After the public duty, the public attitudinizing, after assisti

legendary splendor of the stage, and the alluring beauty and wealth of the boxes, and went home to create in dreams the de

reetings and decorous laughter, such a swirl of pleasurable excitement. Never were the fashionable cafes and restaurants so crowded and brilliant. It is not a carnival time;

ho rejected him, and in a year married the handsome and more wealthy woman who sits opposite him in that convivial party. There is a Russian princess, a fair woman with cool observant eyes, making herself agreeable to a mixed company in three languages. In this brilliant light is it not wonderful how dazzlingly beautiful the women are--brunettes in yellow and diamonds, blondes in elaborately simple toilets, with only a bunch of roses for ornament, in the flush of the midnight hour, in a radiant glow that even the excitement and the lifted glass cannot heighten? That pretty girl yonder--is she wife or widow?--slight and fresh a

hestra sounded through it all--the voices of the singers, the hum of the house; it was all a spectacle and a play. Why should she not enjoy it? There was something in the nature of the girl that responded to this for

the city worldliness? I do not suppose that Margaret formulated any of these ideas in words. Her knowledge of the city had hitherto been superficial. It was a place for shopping, for a day in a picture exhibition, for an evening in the theatre, no more

supposing that every act and every new departure has this subtle beginning--we might be less the sport of ci

t. Margaret was cordially civil, and I fancied that Mr. Lyon would have been more content if she had been

d about the simplicity of your American life. It is much the same in Ne

said my wife, "that you kn

almost had a caree

alm

ese days to be not only very clever, but equally darin

active. I did not know you were so satirical, Mr. Lyon. Do you mean tha

Miss Debree, if I say that there is always t

et answered, "does not

schelle's does, either. She appears to be mo

he roses that came that morning. Could she be comparing the Londoner with the handsome American

nterested in New York,

orld is to suffer decorously and make no sign in the midst of a society which insists on stoicism, no matter how badly one is hurt. The Society for First Aid to the Injured hardens its heart in these cases. "I have never seen another place," he continued, "where the wom

ey have no time

talk, and talk intensely. They absorb everything, and have the gift of acquiring intelligence wit

to see a rural American play, an exhibition of country life and chara

igner would understand it; it would be impo

n farm life to see the points of it. I confess that while I sat there, in an audience so keenly in sympathy with the play--almost a part of it, one might s

ple say t

is so

never doubt that he is performing in a play for the entertainment of an audience. You have the same enjoyment of it that you have of a picture--a picture, I mean, full of character and sentiment, not a photograph. But I don't think of Denman Thompson as an actor trained to perfection in a dramatic school, but as a New Hampshire fa

ing to be a tolerab

nge the laws of art," sa

e you again at our h

should like it; but my

e city," my wife said, evidently to Margaret's annoyance. But she could do no less than give hi

sons of those who produce both, may be sources of amusement, or perhaps, to be just, of the enlargement of the horizon and the improvement of the mind. The society mind was never before so hospitable to new ideas and new sensations. Charities, boards of managers, missions, hospitals, news-rooms, and lodging-houses for the illiterate and the homeless--these are not sufficient, even with balls, dancing classes, and teas, for the superfluous energies of this restless, improving generation; there must be also radical clubs, reading classes, study classes, ethical, historical, scientific, literary lectures, the reading of papers by ladies of distinction and g

e; life was a good deal like reading the dictionary and remembering none of the words. And it was all so cosmopolitan and all-embracingly sympathetic. One day it was a paper by a Servian countess on the social life of the Servians, absorbingly interesting both in itself and because it was a c

extreme agony of execution, and a hush of extreme admiration--it was divine, divine, ravishing--when he had finished. The speaker was a learned female pundit from India, and her object was to interest the women of America in the condition of their unfortunate Hindoo sisters. It appeared that thousands and tens of thousands of them were doomed to early and lifelong widowhood, owing to the operation of cruel caste laws, which condemned even girls betrothed to deceased Brahmins to perpetual celibacy. This fate could only be alleviated by the education and elevation of women. And money was needed for schools, especially for medical schools, which would break down the walls of prejudice and enfranchise the sex. The appeal was so charmingly made that every one was moved by it, especi

riosity, and perhaps by a secret feeling of repulsion. Carmen was all candor and sweetness, and absorbingly interested in th

lways longs for the tropics, which to him are a region of romance, as Italy is to the German. In his nature, also, there is something easily awakened to the allurements of a sensuous existence, and to a desire for a freer experience of life than custom has allowed him. Carm

een in a mood that morning to pay extreme attention to her toilet. The result was the perfection of simplicity, of freshness, of maiden purity, enhanced by the touch of art. As she surveyed herself in the pier-glass, and noted the refined lines of the morning-gown which draped but did not conceal the more exquisite lines of her figure, and adjusted a rose in her bosom, she did not fee

n it. It was a life fascinating and exciting, and profoundly unsatisfactory. Yet, after all, it was more really life than that placid vegetation in the country. She felt that in the whirl of only a few days of it--operas, receptions, teas, readings, dances, dinners, where everybody sparkled with a bewildering brilliancy, and yet from which one brought away nothing but a sense of strain; such gallantry, such compliments, such an easy tossing about of every topic under heaven; such an air of knowing everything, and not cari

en into a smile when he met her; he had talked with her lightly, gayly; she remembered the sound of his voice; she had learned to know his figure in a room among a hundred; and she blushed as she remembere

mutual taking-in of the pretty street costume and the pretty morning toilet was the work of a

rs' luncheon. I like to please myself sometimes. Mamma says I'm frivolous, but do you know"--the girls were comfortably seated by the fire, and Carmen turned her sweet face and candid eyes to her companion-

g to read it; I i

bout it. Of course somebody must have read it, to set the thing agoing. And it has been discussed to death. I sometimes feel as if I had changed my religion half a dozen times in

in the city?" Margaret ask

ook is published--really published, as Mr. Henderson says--you don't need to read it. Somehow it gets into the air and becomes common property. Everybody hears t

many French no

unning over in her mind a "situation" in a paper-covered novel turned down on her nightstand. "Mr. Hend

r. Henderso

long time. He is the o

aid

f man provokes your curiosity, for you never can tell

ting upon the nature of men in general, but she did not fai

is your M

me too much honor. I think

as still looking into the fire

on, and she replied, with somewhat the tone of defendi

ma reproaches me that I don't take more interest in philanthropy. That is her worldly side. Everybody has a worldly side. I'm as worldly as I can be"--this with a look of innocence that denied the self-ac

ained that sh

l-Church evangelical. There couldn't be any happine

w quite recovering herself. "It must be

hange of tone, and her face be

--Mr. Lyon. We esteem him as much as you do. How charming you are looking this morning! I wish I had your secret of not letting this life tell on one." And she w

rits. Was everybody worldly and shallow? Was this the sort of woman whom Mr. Henderso