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“Did he ?" and again the slight flush | news of his progress, and all he was came to her cheek. "So it does," she added quickly. "It-yes, it distracts me."

"There is no reason, is there," he asked gently," that he should not work in another studio? I mean, of course, if he learned he would have to learn under some one."

doing and learning, she listened with a strong effort of self-repression and forced interest which the boy could not comprehend, and which made him secretly unhappy. They had been in such perfect sympathy, and yet in this, in which it would have seemed that his mother could have entered more fully

"Of course," Mrs. Palgrave replied than in any former interest of his coldly.

young life, she would take no part!

But Heaton, whose praise was hard to win, spoke highly of Geraid, expressing great hopes of him; and at length

"Oh, forgive me!" he said bitterly, perfectly construing her tone. "I know I have no right-I know I am presuming! It is none of my busi-a day came on which it was made ness; and I am impertinent known to Mrs. Palgrave that Gerald

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not.

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No, no, no, you are not," she said, had a subject of his own imagining with quickly changing mood, speaking which Heaton thought him competent with impetuous vehemence 'you are to enter upon, and that he was about to You are good, kind — everything set up the supports and work out the that is good, as you always are to me. plans in a studio of his own. Even Do will you, George?-you who then she would not come to see his have done so much — everything for studio, nor did she wish the subject of me, will you do this too? Find out his first original work to be told to her. from the boy-try him—see if he "Do it all by yourself," she had said can be any good. And if he has any to Gerald, by way of putting him off. bent that way, arrange it—arrange it" Do not tell me a word about it until it for me. Will you? Arrange for hav-is finished; then on the day on which ing him taught, and so on. I cannot." you tell me it is finished, let me go to Florence, what do the studio and find it complete.”

"You cannot !

you mean?”

"Oh, I cannot - don't ask me why! And yet I love him with all my heart and soul. Only, manage this for me as you ever have managed my difficulties and spare to ask me why I beg this of you."

Gerald was, perforce, content with this, and pictured it to himself as his mother's pretty affectionate fancy.

So the two worked away in their separate studios, Heaton coming often to Gerald's help, and speaking to him of the form of Phidias, the weight and She seemed strangely moved so dignity of Michael Angelo, the grace of deeply that the tears stood in her great | Praxiteles; and as Gerald drank in all dark eyes. Heaton had the tenderness the inspiration, his own conception to forbear from further questions, only took shape. By slow degrees, out of promising to do as she wished. But the shapelessness of the lump of clay, for days and weeks and months her it grew to the semblance of living mood was a source of wonder to him; form. It was with him day and night for even when Gerald's school-time was - had full possession of his dreams finished, and he was making arrange-even -was ever between him and all ments for the boy's instruction in the studio of a friend — into all which Gerald entered with enthusiasm - Mrs. Palgrave would listen to no discussion of the plans. She had left all to Heaton, the good angel of her life, she said, with a short laugh, when the subject was mentioned between them. And when Gerald came to her with

sights of sense. He worked upon it with a fury of creation which made him regardless of cold hands and feet and burning head, and of meal-times and bedtime. It seemed, vampire-like, to be sucking the life-blood from him while he gave it life, and he grew pale and hollow-eyed, but still he was sustained by the fever of creation. Once

or twice his mother was moved to rea- the day of battle before the peaceson with him on his excess of zeal; but strings were broken. She laid the though it was sweet to him to hear her book upon her knee, with her finger at speak on this subject, which sometimes the page which she was reading, and seemed to him to lie like a dead thing mused. And in her musing a queer between them, he could not obey. She, fancy came to her overwrought mind. too, was ill, though she would not ad- For it seemed to her that the key upon mit it-torn by an inward struggle. the clock began to hum with a weird song of battle-even as the Wrath of Sigurd had done. The fancy grew upon her as she fought against it, until the whole room was filled with the eerie, hateful humming. She threw down the book and covered her ears with her hands, but still the pagan song rang home to her with a force that grew and grew till it seemed to fill the world. She could resist its appeal no longer.

At length there came a day when he burst into her studio with a flush of triumph on his face, and a look of fierce joy in his eyes.

"It is done!" he cried. "It is finished! There is the key, mother. Go and see it before it gets dark."

His

He would not go with her. thoughts were in a turmoil as he rushed out again into the still, frosty evening. The setting sun hung like a great red ruby in the haze. He laughed to it as he sang it good-night. He was almost like a madman with delight. "I don't believe it I don't believe it," he kept saying to himself aloud, "what Heaton tells me, that soon I shall grow dissatisfied with it and hate it. I think it is good, good, good. I believe in it."

v.

She mounted quickly on the chair again, seized upon the key, and hurriedly putting on her things, went swiftly through the streets to Gerald's studio.

At the door she stood with parted lips and wide eyes agaze. "Ah," she exclaimed, with a snatching of the breath, her involuntary tribute of admiration to Gerald's beautiful work. But it was no loving admiration, rather it was of the nature of the tribute which the wife of Antony might have paid the fatal loveliness of Cleopatra. She gazed at the beautiful figure with an

MRS. PALGRAVE remained standing as he had left her, with the key of the studio in her hand. The blood came hotly to her face as she gazed at the innocent little steel thing with the fas-intensity of admiration which grew and cination of horror which harassed Macbeth's vision of the dagger. Her pulses throbbed fiercely through her worn nervous frame, and her breath came thickly. Then moving like one in a dream, she climbed upon a chair, and, reaching to her full height, placed the key on the top of the old clock upon the mantelpiece.

She sighed with relief, as one who has gained the victory in a hard fight with self, and threw herself in her armchair. "I dare not go and see it I dare not," she murmured. "Especially alone."

Then she sat and began to read. The book she was reading was one of the old mythical sagas of the Scandinavian gods and heroes. She read of the wondrous sword of Sigurd-Odin's gift, named the Wrath- which rang in

grew, and as her admiration grew her hate grew with it, until she could bear the sight of the thing no longer. Her mind was filled with pagan stories of the fierce vengeance of white-armed Signy and Brynhild. The blood rushed to her white, set face, the world grew red before her eyes, as when the berserk fit came upon the fighters of whom the saga told, and, with a cry that was fraught with insanity, she rushed like a mad thing upon the clay statue and fought it, dragging this way and that till it bowed itself and fell crashing to the floor. After the first cry she had fought in silence, but now, as her foe fell, she gave another cry, strangely different, which had in it more of a sob than of triumph, and falling forward, lay senseless, with her dark head pillowed upon the white shoulder of clay.

VI.

Now that his beautiful work was finished, Gerald could not bear to be long away from it. It attracted him magnetically; and while his heart sang to him a song of triumph he returned from his walk, almost running, to his studio. There was yet a glimpse of daylight by which he might see the fair god of his handiwork. He gave a glad call to his mother, as the studio door yielded to his hand, showing that she was still there.

On the threshold his word died on his lips unfinished. His feet froze to the ground. His heart stood still in the revulsion of feeling. He stared wildly through the dimness of the studio. His lips opened with uncertain sounds. Then he went feebly forward. The beautiful form which he had left so nobly posed, now lay a shattered ghost upon the floor. Upon the white heap -as ghostly and unlifelike - lay the black-draped figure of his mother prone, her head pillowed on the clay.

"My God!" Gerald exclaimed, and for a full minute stood helpless stunned. Then the need of action roused him. He approached his mother, but she neither spoke nor moved. She was deeply unconscious.

It was his professional duty to humor people.

"What is it, then?" Gerald asked. "I should say it was prolonged mental strain culminating in a crisis," the doctor said; "that is, unless you want it in Latin."

"No, thanks, that will do. I wonder where it struck her."

For nearly a week Mrs. Palgrave lay between coma and delirium, but the temperature did not rise to a great height. At length Gerald had the joy of seeing her look forth from her pillow with serene intelligence in her dark eyes. All day she said very little, but lay thinking, as it seemed as though some trouble still weighed upon her.

In the evening, when she and Gerald were alone together, she stretched out her poor, thin hand to him.

"Tell me," she said, "is it true, or is it all an ugly dream?"

"What, mother?"

"What I have dreamed about your statue that—that it is broken."

Gerald paused a moment. "Yes, mother," he then said. "By bad luck it is true. It fell on you as you were looking at it, and brought you to the ground. Don't you remember? I did not support it properly."

Gerald rushed from the studio for "Oh, yes," she said, with a cry of help. pain in her voice. "It is true, then. When he had borne a hand in carry-Oh!" She groaned, and turned her ing his mother home, and was await- head down on the pillow from him. ing, down-stairs, the doctor's verdict," But no, Gerald," she resumed, in a he mused or walked up and down the voice firm with purpose. little room by intervals. A fever of mental and physical restlessness pursued him.

"It is grave, but she will recover," the doctor said, when he came down. "Where did it strike her?" Gerald asked.

"Strike her! Nothing struck her." "Yes, it did," Gerald declared fiercely. "The statue fell on her and carried her down with it."

"You are

wrong. It did not fall on me."

"Yes it did," he said quickly and vehemently. "It fell on you as you were looking at it. We know it did George Heaton and I."

"No, my boy, there you are wrong, both of you. It did not fall on me. I pushed it-pushed, dragged, ever so hard, to pull it down." "Mother!"

There was a dead pause; the mother, with her head down on the pillow, lisre-tening agonizedly for her son's verdict on her sin the son wandering in

"She has suffered no serious blow that I can discover," the doctor peated.

"It must have been a heavy blow-search of charity among his lost faiths. it was a big thing."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"I know," he said quickly; then, "You destroyed it. Yes, you were

quite right, because it was not good; as Flaubert did to the early work of Balzac."

VII.

MORE than a month elapsed before Mrs. Palgrave was able to leave her room, and many months before she had altogether recovered from her nervous crisis. During this while Gerald was unremitting in his kind tenderness and care. It was only on his mother's earnest entreaty that he could be prevailed on to spend a few hours of each day in the studio. Mrs. Palgrave, so soon as she was able to make the nec

He listened with intense eagerness for an affirmation. But a negative came, with a pitiful cry from the poor, sinful woman on the bed. No, no, no, my dear, generous boy," she cried; 'you cannot spare me. It was I who dragged down your beautiful conception and destroyed it. I could not bear it. Oh, Gerald," and as she spoke the tears came cours-essary arrangements, dismissed her ing off her face like rain "oh, Ger- workmen and shut up her studio altoald, if you knew how I had fought gether, declaring that she did not mean you would pity me. But no -I ought to touch clay again. Nor, though both to ask no pity. I deserve none. For Gerald and George Heaton endeavored years I have been trying to fight out of my heart the jealousy of this great genius which God has given you. For that has always been the cross of my life since I took up the modelling that I could do nothing great; and here you Oh, Gerald ! and I could not bear it. The life you had created was so good, so glorious, I could not bear it. I murdered it. Oh, God forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!"

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Mother, mother, mother!" Gerald cried, with a world of pity and love. "Oh, don't, don't, don't, please. I forgive you, dearest, if there is anything to forgive. George Heaton is right. I should have been dissatisfied, and hated the thing long ago if it had lived."

"Gerald," said his mother, "please don't say any more. You will kill me if you are so generous. Even at the first, when George said you had genius, I could not bear you to learn, but I fought down my jealousy so far as to ask him to see about your learning. But when I saw the beautiful thing, and how good it was, then I could not endure it, and a fearful impulse took me. Oh, Gerald !"

"Mother, mother," he said, and he bent and found the poor, sorely penitent face on the pillow, and caressed it again and again. "Mother, let us never speak of it between us again. It is done, gone, buried."

to combat her decision, could they shake it. But it was her earnest hope that some day Gerald would take possession of the studio in which she had worked, and would use it as his own. In the mean time, however, Gerald had again entered upon an original conception-an entirely new one, having nothing in it akin to that one which had been so cruelly destroyed. His mother longed to question him of it, but she could not bring herself to open the subject to him, and Gerald forbore it.

As the weeks went on, and Mrs. Palgrave gained strength, Gerald grew to spend more and more time in the studio, till at length he was working as steadily and eagerly as of old. His eagerness grew and grew as his subject approached completion, and again the fierce fever and delight were with him. Again he worked on regardless of cold and hunger and sleep, and the fire burned in his hollow eyes, ever brighter and brighter, till the glorious day of the accomplished triumph, when he could cry aloud in his joy, "It is perfect!"

Then he hurried home along the streets, seeing nothing but the splendid clay which he had made live, brushing against passers-by and begging no pardons, till he came to his mother's house and said, "It is finished, mother-at last. Here is the key. Will you go and see it? I must go for a walk."

4299

Mrs. Palgrave grew pale, and trem- | was when any in her hearing spoke of bled in the intensity of her joy. her son having received from her a "What!" she exclaimed in amaze- portion of his inspiration in his art, or "Will you trust me with it-in any way suggested a comparison between his genius and her own.

ment.

after

99 he inter"Trust you, mother!" rupted with quick earnestness," with my life!"

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Gerald, Gerald, you are too good to me - you are too good." Then a blinding mist came over her eyes as she threw her arms about his neck and rained on him her kisses and her blessings.

From The Nineteenth Century. THE LIVES AND LOVES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS.1

become

more we are

THE more intimately we acquainted with that vast realm the animal kingdom, the amazed and delighted by the wonderful variety and beauty of its countless elements; and at the same time, amidst the infinite diversity of form, structure, and modes of life which distinguish the several divisions of that kingdom, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to de

Gerald went for a long, long walk. His excitement was less delirious, more assured of success, than at the completion of his first great work. He could bear to be away from it a while, and he would do nothing to make his mother think that he had a suspicion of her. At length he turned home-termine which of them offers to the wards, but, passing the studio, thought he would look in, on the chance that she had not yet left it.

The door was unlocked. Again, as after the completion of his first work, a cry broke from him as he stood on the threshold, but a cry of most different tenor. The noble figure that he had created rose aloft in the studio, with the afternoon summer sun bearing full upon it, and before it his mother knelt, with rapt eyes, as if to the image of a god.

Why, mother!" he exclaimed. "My boy," she answered, rising from her knees, "I was thanking God for his great gift to you of your genius, and for his great gift to me of you."

Gerald was too moved to speak. "But you have made a better thing You in God's eyes than that statue. have made, I hope and trust, a good woman of one who was a very jealous, selfish, wicked one !"

student material at once the most inter

esting and attractive. Probably if the "general reader" were appealed to for a decision, and the subject were put to the vote of a thousand of such, there would be a large majority in favor of that class of vertebrata consisting of birds. The present writer would certainly form one of that majority; and as the Smithsonian Institution has recently presented to the public an especially valuable and instructive volume on the "Life Histories of North American Birds," he gladly avails himself of it to present to his readers a few of the most salient and impressive facts observable in the life and loves of these birds.

Mrs. Palgrave held to her determination never again to touch clay. People praised her as a woman whose own talent and power were sacrificed to the genius of her son. Others, less kindly, said that her nature had lost something of its fire; but if ever, in these latter days, that quick temper to which she had been prone was seen to glow, itton, 1892.

1 Life Histories of North American Birds, with special reference to their Breeding, Habits, and With twelve lithographic plates. By Eggs. Charles Bendire, Captain United States Army (retired), Honorary Curator of the Department of Ology, United States National Museum, Member of the American Ornithologists' Union. Washing