From Jest to Earnest. Edward Payson Roe

so positively side with him. Thus it will be seen that her conscience was unawakened, rather than seared and deadened.

      As she came to know Hemstead better, she found that he was different from what she had expected. The conventional idea of a theological student had dwelt in her mind; and she had expected to find a rather narrow and spiritually conceited man, full of the clerical mannerisms which she had often heard laughed at. But she saw that Hemstead's awkwardness would wear away, through familiarity with society, and that, when at ease, he was simple and manly in manner. She also perceived that this seclusion from the world, which was the cause of his diffidence, had been employed in training and richly storing his mind. Moreover, to one so accustomed to the insincerity of society, his perfect frankness of speech and manner was a novelty, interesting, if not always pleasing. She read his thoughts as she would an open page, and saw that he esteemed her as a true, sincere girl, kind and womanly, and that he had for her the strongest respect. She feared that when he discovered her true self he would scorn her to loathing. Not that she cared, except that her pride would be hurt. But as she was more proud than vain, she feared this honest man's verdict.

      But soon her old reckless self triumphed. "Of course what I am doing will seem awful to him," she thought. "I knew that before I commenced. He shall not preach me out of my fun in one half-hour. If I could make him love me in spite of what I am, it would be the greater triumph. After all, I am only acting as all the girls in my set do when they get a chance. It's not as bad as he makes out."

      Still that was an eventful half-hour, when they looked out upon a transfigured world together; and while she saw nature in her rarest and purest beauty, she had also been given a glimpse into the more beautiful world of truth, where God dwells.

      But, as the morning advanced, good impulses and better feelings and thoughts vanished, even as the snow-wreaths were dropping from branch and spray, leaving them as bare as before. By the time the sleigh drove up to the door she was as bent as ever upon victimizing the "Western giant," as the conspirators had named him. She was her old, decided, resolute self; all the more resolute because facing, to her, a new hindrance—her own conscience, which Hemstead had unwittingly awakened; and it said to its uncomfortable possessor some rather severe things that day.

      If Lottie were Bel Parton, she would have been in a miserably undecided state. But it was her nature to carry out what she had begun, if for no other reason than that she had begun it, and she was not one to give up a frolic at anyone's scolding—even her own.

      As she tripped down the broad stairs in a rich cloak trimmed with fur, she reminded Hemstead of some rare tropical bird, and De Forrest indulged in many notes of admiration. Lottie received these as a matter of course, but looked at the student with genuine interest. His expression seemed to satisfy her, for she turned away to hide a smile that meant mischief.

      It was quietly arranged that Hemstead should sit beside her, and he felicitated himself over their artifice as if it were rare good fortune.

      Though the sun and the rising breeze had shaken off the clustering snow to a great extent, the evergreens still bent beneath their beautiful burdens, some straight cedars reminding one of vigorous age, where snowy hair and beard alone suggest the flight of years.

      Though the face of nature was so white, it was not the face of death. There was a sense of movement and life which was in accord with their own spirits and rapid motion. Snow-birds fluttered and twittered in weedy thickets by the way-side, breakfasting on the seeds that fell like black specks upon the snow. The bright sunlight had lured the red squirrels from their moss-lined nests in hollow trees, and their barking was sometimes heard above the chime of the bells.

      "There goes a parson crow," cried Addie Marchmont. "How black and solemn he looks against the snow!"

      "Why are crows called parsons, Mr. Hemstead?" asked Lottie, as a child might.

      "Indeed, I don't know. For as good a reason, I suppose, as that some girls are called witches."

      She gave him a quick, keen look, and said, "I hope you mean nothing personal."

      "I should never charge you with being a witch, Miss Marsden, but

       I might with witchery."

      "A distinction without a difference," she said, seeking to lead him on.

      "He means," explained De Forrest, "that you might be bewitching if you chose."

      "Hush, Julian, you leave no room for the imagination," said Lottie, frowningly.

      "Look at that farm-yard, Miss Marsden," said Hemstead. "The occupants seem as glad that the storm is over as we are. What pictures of placid content those ruminating cows are under that sunny shed. See the pranks of that colt which the boy is trying to lead to water. I wish I were on his back, with the prairie before me."

      "Indeed, are you so anxious to escape present company?"

      "Now I didn't say that. But we have passed by, and I fear you did not see the pretty rural picture to which I called your attention. Were I an artist I would know where to make a sketch to-day."

      "I think you will find that Miss Marsden's taste differs very widely from yours," said De Forrest; "that is, if you give us to understand that you would seek your themes in a barn-yard, and set your easel upon a muck-heap. Though your pictures might not rank high they would still be very rank."

      Even Lottie joined slightly in the general and not complimentary laugh at Hemstead which followed this thrust, but he, with heightened color, said, "You cannot criticise my picture, Mr. De Forrest, for it does not exist. Therefore I must conclude that your satire is directed against my choice of place and subjects."

      "Yes, as with the offence of Denmark's king, they 'smell to heaven.'"

      "I appeal to you, Miss Marsden, was not the scent of hay and the breath of the cattle as we caught them passing, sweet and wholesome?"

      "I cannot deny that they were."

      "You have judicial fairness and shall be umpire in this question. And now, Mr. De Forrest, there is a celebrated and greatly admired picture in a certain gallery, representing a scene from the Roman Saturnalia. You do not object to that, with its classic accessories, as a work of art?"

      "Not at all."

      "And yet it portrays a corruption that does in truth 'offend heaven.' Your muck-heap, which did not enter my thought at all, and would not have been in my picture, could I paint one, would have been wholesome in comparison. Have I made a point, Judge Marsden?"

      "I think you have."

      "Finally, Mr. De Forrest, what are we to do with the fact that some of the greatest painters in the world have employed their brushes upon just such scenes as these, which perhaps offend your nose and taste more than they do heaven, and that pictures such as that farm-yard would suggest adorn the best galleries of Europe?"

      "What artists of note have painted barn-yard scenes?" asked De

       Forrest, in some confusion.

      "Well, there is Herring, the famous English artist, for one."

      "'Herring' indeed. You are evidently telling a fish Story," said

       De Forrest, contemptuously.

      "No, he is not," said Lottie. "Herring is a famous painter, I am told, and we have some engravings of his works."

      "And I have read somewhere," continued Hemstead, "that his painting of an English farm-yard is the most celebrated of his works. Moreover, Judge Marsden, I must ask of you another decision as to the evidence in this case. I affirm that I did not call your attention to the farm-yard itself, but to its occupants. Is not that true?"

      "I cannot deny that it is."

      "We all know that many eminent artists have made the painting of animals a specialty, and among them are such world-renowned names as Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. Moreover, in the numerous pictures of the Nativity we often find the homely details of the stable introduced. One of Rubens' paintings of this sacred and favorite subject, which hangs in