lated localities which I came across elsewhere. The white did not die out because he could not live and work. He died out because for his ease and profit he wickedly introduced negro slaves whose descendants elbowed his descendants from the land-the process going on at practically the same rate of speed before and after slavery was abolished. Numerically, except in the Spanish islands, the whites are now but an unimportant fraction of the population. They still form almost everywhere the bulk of the small upper class, and a small, but important, element in the much larger middle class; but even in the upper class the colored blood is slowly gaining ground. Nowhere is there a more sincere effort made to do justice, without regard to color, on the merits of each man, in all civil and industrial relations. Such justice can never be done, in the West Indies or anywhere else, unless each man is made to understand and to act on the theory that the full performance of duties should be the prerequisite to any claim for the enjoyment of rights; and that words and combinations of words which do not and are not made to represent facts result in wellnigh unadulterated mischief. For over a half-century in the West Indies the negro has done far better in the islands where the government has been, at least at the top, under predominantly white control than he has done in Hayti, whence the whites were expelled with fire and sword a century and a quarter ago. The whites of Hayti came to complete and utter destruction because their forefathers had introduced slavery, so that for generations they ate their bread at ease in the sweat of other men's brows; and then the blacks of Hayti avenged this crime by a crime of their own as monstrous and as short-sighted, and by so doing condemned their own descendants to lag behind or go backward, while their fellows in neighboring regions struggled painfully upward and onward.

I have made no attempt to give the names of our many kind hosts and friends or tell in detail of their hospitalities and friendly acts. Everywhere we were shown all possible kindness and courtesy; and most in Trinidad, simply because in Trinidad we stayed longest. Our Trini

dad friends were some of British, some of French, others of Spanish, Corsican, German, or Portuguese blood, usually with several of these strains in their veins; and manlier men or more charming women are nowhere to be found. There was in them a note of fine gallantry; for they were indomitably gay and cheerful, carrying their heads high; and yet all had sent their sons and brothers to the war, for they are deeply loyal to the empire. I was much struck by the fact that the Catholics among them, of French, Spanish, or Portuguese extraction, had usually sent their children to Catholic academies in England for their higher education. All of them did everything in their power to make our stay on the island pleasant; and they all came down to bid us farewell on the quay or to accompany us out on the tender and wave us good-by as we leaned over the ship's side.

The morning after leaving Trinidad we were anchored in the beautiful landlocked harbor of Grenada. High hills, brilliant green with wonderful tropical vegetation, and one or two of them crowned with gray old forts, surrounded it on three sides. At the bottom of the bay the little town lay, seeming as if bowered in palm fronds, for everywhere the palms sprang erect and slender above the low white and pink and blue houses. Like so many of these low-built, palmsheltered tropic towns, it was a real little "golden city of St. Mary's"; again and again these little tropic towns made us think of John Masefield.

After a delightful motor ride along the precipitous edge of the island, through scenery both wild and lovely, we took lunch at Government House. As elsewhere so here we were deeply impressed by the gallant bearing of our hosts; we trespassed on their courtesy only because they insisted; for of their nearest and dearest some had died at the front and the others, at the front, were facing life or death with equal hearts. The pleasant, roomy house stood open to the breezes; birds of bright hue flew freely through the rooms and one pair had made their nest in a spot made ready for them.

Grenada has travelled farthest along the road on which most of the West Indian

islands are travelling. Her resident white population, non-official, has almost vanished. It is an island predominantly of black or colored peasant proprietors. They are doing well, thanks to the orderly justice maintained by the representatives of the British Government; they are loyal to the British flag, and in this war have sent nearly five hundred men to join the British army. It is well to face facts. As yet most of the independent states fronting the Gulf of Mexico and the Car

ibbean Sea have failed to make even a beginning in the path of progress trodden by such South American commonwealths as Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. In the lands under English, French, and American (United States) control the conditions of present life and the prospects for the future are immeasurably better, for the people as a whole, and especially for the poorer people, than in most-not all of the neighboring so-called "independent" states.

er.

S

HE'D be pretty, wouldn't she, if she were dolled up?" Farrell's darkly blue Irish eyes swept appraisingly, not over the girl ahead, but over the speakA modish hat with a fifty-dollar plume floating over a fluff of unnatural gold hair; a piquant face with the youthful color of skilful make-up-not the make-up of the theatre-the Bijou's leading woman was an artist-but of a society woman who must make the least of her forty years; a velvet coat-suit admirably tailored; correct and costly furs of blue fox; an elegant foot shod in made-to-measure shoes of approved fashion. Yet in the tout ensemble something lacked. Appreciation of what he missed sounded in Farrell's voice, the voice of the heavy man, deep and of a throaty richness, with a curious suggestion of nap in it, as of velvet.

of them mounted Mrs. Berry's steps and stood an instant at the mercy of the jeering wind, futilely trying to repress her skirt with one shabbily gloved hand while the other struggled with the door, derision died on her tongue.

"Poor little thing!" she murmured.

The rough March wind had all the cruelty of an ill-timed jester. It whipped up the girl's coat to show a frayed lining and her skirt hem to display the worn, time-scalloped flounce of a silk petticoat no mending could improve. Mending was, in fact, hastening its demolition, the painstakingly cross-stitched slits serving only to break away the tender fabric in new places. Every whip and flirt of the serge skirt revealed fresh devastation above a pair of high-heeled, light-topped shoes, which, with the hat, a coquettish turban with a bit of fur around the crown and a rose of soft, quaint pink nestled in the fur, were the only touches of to-day in a costume otherwise obsolete. Yet, though the foot within the stylish shoe was slim and shapely, and the face, framed by the turban and a cloud of dusky hair, was daintily flushed with the rose of real youth and bewitchingly pretty, the efforts to smarten her appearance only emphasized its general shabbiness.

"Poor little thing!" the actress repeated with transferred stress.

Farrell tossed his cigarette into the

street.

"I'm not so sure of that," he remarked deliberately. "She has youth, beauty, innocence. She's not parted with any of them to the usurer!"

There was a blue glitter under the white, long-fringed lids. But the red curve of Miss Stapleton's lips broke into a smile of infinite dazzle. They were under Mrs. Berry's windows. With professional instinct the actress played to an invisible audience.

"-yet!" she said, between gleaming teeth. "Give her time, Willy!"

He made a gesture of distaste. "Don't malign your sex, Edna!" They were at the steps. She spoke hurriedly an impetuous rush of words. "Why do you say such things to me? When you know! You say she's young and beautiful and innocent. And you mean, so was I-once! And so I was! So I was!"

He turned on the top step and looked at her curiously. The tremor in the beautiful voice was very real. What had glittered in the childishly blue eyes trembled now on the lashes-real tears. Surprise and a certain quick emotion passed like a puff of rosy smoke across the man's face, veiling yet illumining it.

"You were, Edna!"-the even richness of the deep voice was troubled, broken-"all that! And to me-more!"

The woman quivered. He had opened the door for her, but, before passing it, she leaned against the door-frame and lifted brimming eyes, at once childish and maternal, wistful yet yearning.

"You know!" The words, just murmured as she passed him, were poignant as a cry. And the lips, over-red with the rouge of art, were curved with the tremulous sweetness of a hurt child's. There was instinctive gentleness, instinctive reassurance in the hand that touched her

arm..

"I-know!" The significant emphasis, its suggestion of gentle strength, of a strong arm to lean on in trouble, came in with them and reached, like a helping hand, to the stricken figure in the hall. The "blue-serge girl," as they called her because, since she came among them six months before, she had been seen to wear

nothing else, stood facing Mrs. Berry's closing door, her eyes fixed in dumb terror on the lessening slit through which came Mrs. Berry's voice, stiffened uncompromisingly.

"-till Sunday night, then-no longer. I've got my little girl to take care of."

Mrs. Berry's door and the outer door closed in unison; Mrs. Berry's with a decisive click, the outside door with an expressive bang which helped to drown the actor's heartfelt "Damn!"

Miss Stapleton's eyes, quite dry and tearless now, lifted to his in innocent solicitude.

"Oh! Did you pinch your fingers, Willy?"

He caught the cue quickly and shook a gloved hand.

"Not to hurt much," he said in his melodious Irish voice. He glanced over at the girl smilingly. "And little hurts never kill, you know. Good evening, Miss Copeland."

The warmth of color came back into the girl's face. The paralyzing terror left her eyes. They ceased to stare at the closed door, moved, and came to his, clinging with the instinct of self-preservation. Mr. Farrell had been speaking to his wife, but he had meant the words for her, had thrown them to her in her dire need as one throws a plank to a drowning person. She was temporarily buoyed. Whatever might happen to her now would not happen to her alone. In this cold, dreary, hurrying, heartless house she had found friends!

She pulled herself together, Mrs. Berry's bill twisting like a live thing between her reanimate fingers, and attempted to achieve a friendly bow and smile. But to the players' eyes the performance was pitifully overacted. She was too eager, too grateful. They looked after her as she went on up-stairs, the actress winking back sympathetic tears.

"She asked her for her room, Willy," she murmured in awed sotto voce.

Farrell answered with the puzzle of one contemplating an enigma. "The devil!" he said toward Mrs. Berry's door.

His wife answered as enigmatically, with her characteristic little shrug. "Oh, I don't know!"

"You veer, Edna," he remarked as they mounted, "like a weather-vane." "Well, there's Linda!"

The four-year-old was popular with the actor, who had no children of his own. He too shrugged slightly.

"Oh, well!" he conceded.

In her room the blue-serge girl cast Mrs. Berry's crumpled statement on the dresser. It was no longer the most tremendous thing in her life, the awful, unfaceable crisis, the sharp dividing line between life and death, but relegated, by that deep, rich, kindly Irish voice, to its proper place among the little hurts of life. "And little hurts," he had said, "never kill." She had until Sunday night! She would find a way. She might—such miracles do happen sometimes outside the pages of fiction-get a check for a story in the very nick of need. Or, if she didn't, these new friends of hers would help her. She had thought of the theatre before as a possible avenue out of the perplexed maze of the artist's existence the actor's art and the author's are so near akin! She might succeed in the one, though she failed in the other. These new friends would help her to find something to do in the theatre. At least, Mr. Farrell would.

"He is good," she told herself, warming her heart with the remembered sound of his voice. "Mrs. Farrell may drink, as they say, but he is good. I know that he is good. He will help me. He is good!" She felt soothed and uplifted.

In the sitting-room of the Farrell apartment Edna Stapleton whirled to face her husband, those innocently blue eyes fastening to his in childish consternation.

"She has only until Sunday night!" she said dramatically and helplessly. Farrell, divesting his shoulders of his overcoat, shook them uncertainly.

"I suppose we could pay her board for her?"

Instantly the actress's face changed. Alarm sapped its sympathy. They couldn't do that!

"It takes all of your salary to pay ours and buy your clothes. And I'm saving out of mine toward a ruby bracelet."

ing his chief stock in trade, he is constant in conserving it.

"You couldn't offer her money, anyhow," she went on defensively. "She doesn't belong to us. She would resent it."

He lifted his heavy eyebrows over a patch of powder on the cloth. He had worn the overcoat in the last act, and the ingenue's forehead had rested confidingly on his shoulder. "Possibly!"

It was agreement with reservation. What was unsaid nettled his wife more even than the calm overlook of his tone. She passed into her bedroom and sat down at the dressing-table, dawdling first with its gleaming ivory, then with her face. "Of course you want to help her," she remarked, watching his perturbed brow in the mirror while she discreetly powdered her own, "because, you know, she thinks heaven smiles through your eyes."

Farrell dropped his brushes and picked them up, frowning.

"For the Lord's sake, Edna ! You talk as if she were a matinée girl!"

Miss Stapleton, having critically surveyed her face, began subtly transforming it.

"Do you know she isn't?"

He ignored the question, putting one himself. "What did the girl do?"

Edna answered a trifle vaguely. She wrote stories and things. Which she sold when she could. Miss Stapleton was giving careful artistic attention to her lips, which left hiatuses in her conversation. Farrell gathered that the blue-serge girl had "appeared" in a standard magazine or two. "Hoped to" again.

"It's like with us," his wife paused to say clearly. "If she gets over with one house, she'll get over with another. A waiting game? Sure thing! Every star was once an ingenue, though! And if you keep on climbing, you're sure to get up in the sky some time."

"If you don't starve first," Farrell suggested grimly.

Edna laid down the hare's foot.

"And lose everything!" There was sweeping condemnation in the words. Her restored face forgotten, Edna took it in the hollows of her hands and stared into her reflection with those wide, babyblue eyes, whose dilated pupils had always a curious fixity, as if focussed on distance.

"Youth, beauty, innocence,'" she recapitulated dreamily. "It sounds like everything, but I've an idea you've missed something, Willy. Never mind! It will come to me what. Or, if it doesn't, you'll never know what you've left out; so it's all one." She smiled whimsically, and, despite his frown, Farrell smiled with her. Flippant on the gravest subjects, there was yet a captivating charm in her flippancy. It had a holding power beyond most women's sincerity. He delighted in while he loathed it. But while they smiled together her mood veered. A tragic intentness came into the wide eyes. She rose and went to him, laying both hands on his breast.

"I had to get on," she said in a queer, appealing voice that vibrated and broke with thrilling sweetness. "Dad had been a good actor, but he was played out, worn out, broken. He couldn't take care of us or himself. I had to get on, and to get on I had to have a lot more than myself. I had to have clothes, jewels, all those things that dazzle and draw the public more than good acting-you know! Well, I got them and—” her voice strengthened and hardened: "I got on. And when I no longer needed to get on Icouldn't go back. I couldn't redeemisn't that the word?-youth, innocence, beauty.' They'd gone into the buttonmoulder's melting-pot, I guess. Ever see Cyril Maude's 'Peer Gynt,' Willy?— on the screen, of course. The last act made me cry. Peer had parted with 'youth, beauty, innocence'-everything, as you say, but there was still something that kept him out of the melting-pot!" "The love and belief of a good woman!" said Farrell succinctly.

His wife flinched. A flood of color swept up under the art pink of her cheeks -a woman's burning blush! She turned her face aside.

"I said that you had missed something, Willy! Perhaps Ibsen missed it, too—I

never read him. But Mr. Maude found it and put it in. What? Oh, I don't know-it's hard to name—a sort of a divine sense of shame, maybe."

There was a tap on the door. She looked at him quickly.

"You go, Will!" He went, a trifle disturbed, for again he had caught the glitter of tears on her cheeks. She brushed them off skilfully, listening to the outer room. How Willy's voice had softened from its rigid righteousness of a minute ago! Of course!-it was the blue-serge girl with all that she hadn't taken to the usurer's. Willy had asked her, and she was coming in. Miss Stapleton moved hastily to the door between the rooms, hesitated on the threshold, then went in smiling, a hot little demon in her heart, and offered a cordial hand.

The girl was direct almost to crudity. Since they knew, there was no need for subterfuge. She stated her plight frankly, first thanking Farrell for what he had said about little hurts not killing. She did not mean this should kill her. But to live, one must have some means of livelihood. If stories wouldn't sell-and just now they didn't-she must try something else. Meeting them to-night, she had thought of the theatre. Perhaps he and Miss Stapleton-might know of an opening.

Farrell's handsome face was more than ever disturbed. He looked helplessly to Edna. But the hot little demon in her heart was mocking him out of her eyes. Her words came back. "Of course, you want to help her. . . . She thinks heaven smiles through your eyes.

"I am very sorry, Miss Copeland," he was beginning embarrassedly, when Edna cut in with the ease and sang-froid of the leading woman in a familiar part.

"Willy! Mr. Morley is putting on 'The Yankee Consul' week after next. He'll want a chorus. You," she bore daringly on the pronoun, still sweetly smiling, "could speak to him for Miss Copeland." She turned full to the latter, the smile become radiance. "Mr. Farrell will be delighted to do all that he can."

In the fulness of her relief the girl answered, as the actress intended that she should, with grateful sincerity.

"I knew that he would. Thank you,