most looked to see an extended arm raising above the surface of the water, not the sword of the legend, but the vade mecum of the geologist; the shadows cast by the lazily floating cumuli upon the broad, screen-like front of Civita appeared in his eyes as the image of a stubborn and contentious professor on the rostrum; while from every door and window in the piazza at Agordo a determined index-finger seemed threatening to thrust itself, with the intention of arresting the fleeting philosopher, and of having the whole matter argued out then and there.

On from Agordo the road lay through the quicksilver country; and Aurelia West, as she progressed slowly over that bare, scorched, and stifling tract, and experienced the novel sensation of the perspiration drip, drip, dripping from the tip of her nose, reverted longingly to the haymakers' chalet up above Caprile. How cool the wind had been there, how fresh the flowers, how pleasant the shade to the north of that rude and bedraggled wall, how refreshing the milk in its great coarse vessels (for they had found an attendant peasant at last), how glorious the lofty, wide-spread view, how particularly comfortable the seat made by that upturned tub! The Chatelaine, however, went on steadily and sturdily enough, and Zeitgeist, who was coming to regard Aurelia with considerable impatience and resentment, had nothing but admiration for her companion. Thoroughgoing and inexorable mountaineer, he was conceiving a great admiration for a young woman whose powers were so staying, and who was so fully equal to looking after herself. She could disentangle her own stirrups, she could mount her own horse, and she had a knack of helpfully slinging the tea-bottles across her saddle. No hard scrabble could wrench her ankles, no steep climb could altogether take her wind. If she fancied a flower, she scrambled for it instead of weakly yet imperatively demanding that it be brought to her; and a complexion whose soft bloom came from within rather than from without took no querulous and incessant heed of wind and weather.

On the other hand, Miss West had given him no rest. Her unceasing demands, exactions, expectations, all through Switzerland, had buzzed about his head like a swarm of gnats, and her indulgence in the superfine only as far back as Caprile had impelled him to tell her that that sort of thing would never do. She had reduced the willing and painstaking landlady there to a state of tears by her complaints and criticisms, and Zeitgeist had been obliged to tell her that the chief Dolomite innkeepers were not to be treated in any such fashion. They were persons of some means, position, and consequence; they were the possessors of immensely long ge

nealogies, many of them having ranked as noble even as late as the last century; they were independent of travelers' coin, keeping open house less for profit than for public convenience; they maintained the tradition of an old-time hospitality, and were to be treated with more consideration—or at least more forbearance— than she was showing. Aurelia gulped down this information with a stony fortitude; to suffer was bad enough, but to suffer in silence

More suffering awaited her at Primiero, where Zeitgeist, whose rôle was not to fetch and carry, to defer, and to dance attendance, unburdened himself of the vexation and indignation of a month by uttering some very pointed phrases on the tyranny of the American aristocracy. Aurelia was in a state of exhaustion approaching collapse,-a situation where invective might well have given the pas to generosity,—but she plucked up enough spirit to declare that there was no aristocracy in America; the aristocracy of slavery was dead and gone, the aristocracy of intellect had never existed there, or anywhere else, for that matter; and as for the aristocracy of wealth, that, she had once heard her father say to her stupid brother, was a simple matter of the here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow kind. and might well be trusted to dispose of itself. Zeitgeist regarded her with a sinister satisfaction. True, the aristocracy of slavery was as dead as Pharaoh, and the aristocracy of brains was but a poetic mirage, and the aristocracy of wealth had no stability, since the talent and energy of the American usually worked itself out in a single generation; but why should anybody be deceived into imagining that a vast, settled, complicated society-a society largely urban and daily becoming more so- does not develop privilege, draw lines, and bring on the elevation of the aristos in one shape or another? The ultimate reaching of such a state was, under ordinary human conditions, unavoidable, and America, so far as his observation went, was now suffering under the rule of an aristocracy,-novel, indeed, but incredibly wide-spread, close-knit, firm-rooted, all-pervasive, and ultra-tyrannical,-the aristocracy of sex. He stopped in the polishing of his spectacles, and gave Aurelia a sharp and sudden look, as if to ask her what she thought of that. She laid hold of both arms of her chair, and braced herself for the next instalment.

What was American society, mademoiselle, but a magnificent galley in which husbands and fathers toiled at the oars, while wives and daughters sat above in perfumed idleness? He had met a gentleman in New York, the possessor of twenty millions of florins, who had told him that he was working for his board and clothes- he seemed to be employing a recognized phrase. This unfortunate toiled more

of a startling nature are they, certainly, but very welcome for all that. The domestic animals require their lick of salt every week or so, and the farmer, I think, is equally glad to get a taste now and then of the wild life that has so nearly disappeared from the older and more thickly settled parts of the country.

Last winter a couple of bears, an old one and a young one, passed through our neighborhood. Their tracks were seen upon the snow in the woods, and the news created great excitement among the Nimrods. It was like the commotion in the water along shore after a steamer had passed. The bears were probably safely in the Catskills by the time the hunters got dogs and guns ready and set forth. Country people are as eager to accept any rumor of a strange and dangerous creature in the woods as they are to believe in a ghost-story. They want it to be true; it gives them something to think about and talk about. It is to their minds like strong drink to their palates. It gives a new interest to the woods, as the ghost-story gives a new interest to the old house.

A few years ago the belief became current in our neighborhood that a dangerous wild animal lurked in the woods about, now here, now there. It had been seen in the dusk. Some big dogs had encountered it in the night, and one of them was nearly killed. Then a calf and a sheep were reported killed and partly devoured. Women and children became afraid to go through the woods, and men avoided them after sundown. One day as I passed an Irishman's shanty that stood in an opening in the woods, his wife came out with a pail, and begged leave to accompany me as far as the spring, which lay beside the road some distance into the woods. She was afraid to go alone for water on account of the "wild baste." Then, to cap the climax of wild rumors, a horse was killed. One of my neighbors, an intelligent man and a good observer, went up to see the horse. He reported that a great gash had been eaten in the top of the horse's neck, that its back was bitten and scratched, and that he was convinced it was the work of some wild animal like a panther, which had landed upon the horse's back and fairly devoured it alive. The horse had run up and down the field try ing to escape, and finally, in its desperation, had plunged headlong off a high stone wall by the barn and been killed. I was compelled to accept his story, but I pooh-poohed the conclusions. It was impossible that we should have a panther in the midst of us, or, if we had, that it would attack and kill a horse. But how eagerly the people believed it! It tasted good. It tasted good to me too, but I could not believe it. It soon turned out that the horse was killed by another horse, a vicious beast that had fits of murderous hatred toward its kind. The sheep

and calf were probably not killed at all, and the big dogs had had a fight among themselves. So the panther legend faded out, and our woods became as tame and humdrum as before. We cannot get up anything exciting that will hold, and have to make the most of such small deer as coons, foxes, and woodchucks. Glimpses of these and of the birds are all I have to report.

II.

THE day on which I have any adventure with. a wild creature, no matter how trivial, has a little different flavor from the rest; as when, one morning in early summer, I put my head out of the back window and returned the challenge of a quail that sent forth his clear call from a fence-rail one hundred yards away. Instantly he came sailing over the field of raspberries straight toward me. When about fifteen yards away he dropped into the cover and repeated his challenge. I responded, when in an instant he was almost within reach of me. He alighted under the window, and looked quickly around for his rival. How his eyes shone, how his form dilated, how dapper and polished and brisk he looked! He turned his eye up to me and seemed to say, "Is it you, then, who are mocking me?" and ran quickly around the corner of the house. Here he lingered some time amid the rose-bushes, half persuaded that the call, which I still repeated, came from his rival. Ah, I thought, if with his mate and young he would only make my field his home! The call of the quail is a country sound that is becoming all too infrequent.

So fond am I of seeing nature reassert herself that I even found some compensation in the loss of my chickens that bright November night when some wild creature, coon or fox, swept two of them out of the evergreens, and their squawking as they were hurried across the lawn called me from my bed to shout good-by after them. It gave a new interest to the henroost, this sudden incursion of wild nature. I feel bound to caution the boys about disturbing the wild rabbits that in summer breed in my currant-patch, and in autumn seek refuge under my study floor. The occasional glimpses I get of them about the lawn in the dusk, their cotton tails twinkling in the dimness, afford me a genuine pleasure. I have seen the time when I would go a good way to shoot a partridge, but I would not have killed, if I could, the one that started out of the vines that cover my rustic porch, as I approached that side of the house one autumn morning. How much of the woods, and of the untamable spirit of wild nature, she brought to my very door! It was tonic and exhilarating to see her whirl away toward the vineyard. I also owe a moment's pleasure to

the gray squirrel that, finding my summerhouse in the line of his travels one summer day, ran through it and almost over my feet as I sat idling with a book.

I am sure my power of digestion was improved that cold winter morning when, just as we were sitting down to breakfast about sunrise, a red fox loped along in front of the window, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and disappeared amid the currant-bushes. What of the wild and the cunning did he not bring! His graceful form and motion were in my mind's eye all day. When you have seen a fox loping along in that way you have seen the poetry there is in the canine tribe. It is to the eye what a flowing measure is to the mind, so easy, so buoyant; the furry creature drifting along like a large red thistledown, or like a plume borne by the wind. It is something to remember with pleasure that a muskrat sought my door one December night when a cold wave was swooping down upon us. Was he seeking shelter, or had he lost his reckoning? The dogs cornered him in the very doorway, and set up a great hubbub. In the darkness, thinking it was a cat, I put my hand down to feel it. The creature skipped to the other corner of the doorway, hitting my hand with its cold, rope-like tail. Lighting a match, I had a glimpse of him sitting up on his haunches like a woodchuck, confronting his enemies. I rushed in for the lantern, with the hope of capturing him alive, but before I returned the dogs, growing bold, had finished him.

I have had but one call from a coon, that I am aware of, and I fear we did not treat him with due hospitality. He took up his quarters for the day in a Norway spruce, the branches of which nearly brushed the house. I had noticed that the dog was very curious about that tree all the forenoon. After dinner his curiosity culminated in repeated loud and confident barking. Then I began an investigation, expecting to find a strange cat, or at most a red squirrel. But a moment's scrutiny revealed his coonship. Then how to capture him became the problem. A long pole was procured, and I sought to dislodge him from his hold. The skill with which he maintained himself amid the branches excited our admiration. But after a time he dropped lightly to the ground, not in the least disconcerted, and at once on his guard against both man and beast. The dog was a coward, and dared not face him. When the coon's attention was diverted the dog would rush in; then one of us would attempt to seize the coon's tail, but he faced about so quickly, his black eyes gleaming, that the hand was timid about seizing him. But finally in his skirmishing with the dog I caught him by the tail, and bore him safely to an open flour-barrel, and he was our prisoner. Much amusement

my little boy and I anticipated with him. He partook of food that same day, and on the second day would eat the chestnuts in our presence. Never did he show the slightest fear of us or of anything, but he was unwearied in his efforts to regain his freedom. After a few days we put a strap upon his neck and kept him tethered by a chain. But in the night, by dint of some hocuspocus, he got the chain unsnapped and made off, and is now, I trust, a patriarch of his tribe, wearing a leather necktie.

The skunk visits every farm sooner or later. One night I came near shaking hands with one on my very door-stone. I thought it was the cat, and put down my hand to stroke it, when the creature, probably appreciating my mistake, moved off up the bank, revealing to me the white stripe on its body and the kind of cat I had saluted. The skunk is not easily ruffled, and seems to employ excellent judgment in the use of its terrible weapon.

Several times I have had calls from woodchucks. One looked in at the open door of my study one day, and, after sniffing a while, and not liking the smell of such clover as I was compelled to nibble there, moved on to better pastures. Another one invaded the kitchen door while we were at dinner. The dogs promptly challenged him, and there was a lively scrimmage upon the door-stone. I thought the dogs were fighting, and rushed to part them. The incident broke in upon the drowsy summer noon, as did the appearance of the muskrat upon the frigid December night. The woodchuck episode that afforded us the most amusement occurred last summer. We were at work in a newly planted vineyard, when the man with the cultivator saw, a few yards in front of him, some large gray object that at first puzzled him. He approached it, and found it to be an old woodchuck with a young one in its mouth. She was carrying her kitten as does a cat, by the nape of the neck. Evidently she was moving her family to pastures new. As the man was in the line of her march, she stopped and considered what was to be done. He called to me, and I approached slowly. As the mother saw me closing in on her flank, she was suddenly seized with a panic, and, dropping her young, fled precipitately for the cover of a large pile of grape-posts some ten or twelve rods distant. We pursued hotly, and overhauled her as she was within one jump of the house of refuge. Taking her by the tail, I carried her back to her baby; but she heeded it not. It was only her own bacon now that she was solici tous about. The young one remained where it had been dropped, keeping up a brave, reassuring whistle that was in ludicrous contrast to its exposed and helpless condition. It was the smallest woodchuck I had ever seen, not