uneasy smile. "Ah! I see we mustn't drop him. Is he out there?" he added trying to follow the direction of her eyes.

But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. "Is that all?" she asked after a pause.

"Well-there's that solemn schoolmaster, who cut me out of the waltz with you that Mr. Ford."

Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples and eyes, which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room, But he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but languid play of expression and colour came back and she turned her head lazily towards the speaker. "There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before you try it on me?"

"Certainly not," said Stacey, by no means displeased at the prospect of having so pretty and intelligent a witness in the daughter, of what he believed would form an attractive display of his diplomatic skill and graciousness to the father. "Don't go away. I've got nothing to say Miss Cressy could not understand and answer."

The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of McKinstry and his shotgun falling at this moment between the speaker and Cressy, spared her the necessity of a reply. McKinstry cast an uneasy glance around the apartment, and not seeing Mrs. McKinstry looked relieved, and even the deep traces of the loss of a valuable steer that morning partly faded from his Indian-red complexion. He placed his shot-gun carefully in the corner, took his soft felt hat from his head, folded it and put it in one of the capacious pockets of his jacket, turned to his daughter, and laying his maimed hand familiarly on her shoul

"Stop there!" said McKinstry, in a voice dull but distinct. He took his hat from his pocket, put it on, walked to the corner and took up his gun, looked at Stacey for the first time with narcotic eyes that seemed to drowsily absorb his slight figure, then put the gun back half contempt uously, and with a wave of his hand towards the door, said; “We'll settle this yer outside. Cress, you stop in here. There's man's talk goin' on."

"But, Paw," said Cressy, laying her hand languidly on her father's sleeve without the least change of colour or amused expression. "This gentle

man has come over here on a compromise."

"On a-which?" said McKinstry, glancing scornfully out of the door for some rare species of mustang vaguely suggested to him in that unfamiliar word.

"To see if we couldn't come to some fair settlement," said Stacey. "I've no objection to going outside with you, but I think we can discuss this matter here just as well." His fine feathers had not made him a coward, although his heart had beaten a little faster at this sudden recollection of the dangerous reputation of his host.

"Go on," said McKinstry.

"The plain facts of the case are these," continued Stacey, with more confidence. "We have sold a strip of this property covering the land in dispute between you and Harrison. We are bound to put our purchaser in peaceable possession. Now to save time we are willing to buy that possession of any man who can give it. We are told that you can."

"Well, considerin' that for the last four years I've been fightin' night and day agin them low down Harrisons for it, I reckon you've been lied to," said McKinstry deliberately. "Why -except the clearing on the north side, whar I put up a barn, thar ain't an acre of it as hasn't been shifted first this side and then that as fast ez I druv boundary stakes and fences, and the Harrisons pulled 'em up agin. Thar ain't more than fifty acres ez I've hed a clear hold on, and I wouldn't hev had that ef it hadn't bin for the barn, the raisin' alone o' which cost me a man, two horses, and this yer little finger."

"Put us in possession of even that fifty acres, and we'll undertake to hold the rest and eject those Harrisons from it," returned Stacey complacently. "You understand that the moment we've made a peaceable entrance to even a foothold on your side, the Harrisons are only trespassers, and with the title to back us we can call on the whole sheriff's posse to put them off. That's the law."

"That ar the law?" repeated McKinstry meditatively.

you a

"Yes," said Stacey. "So," he continued, with a self-satisfied smile to Cressy, "far from being hard on you, Mr. McKinstry, we're rather inclined to put you on velvet. We offer fair price for the only thing you can give us actual possession; and we help you with your old grudge against the Harrisons. We not only clear them out, but we pay you for even the part they held adversely to you."

Mr. McKinstry passed his three whole fingers over his forehead and eyes as if troubled by a drowsy aching. "Then you don't reckon to hev anythin' to say to them Harrisons?"

"We don't propose to recognize them in the matter at all," returned Stacey.

66

Nor allow 'em anythin'?"

"Not a cent! So you see, Mr. McKinstry," he continued magnani

mously, yet with a mischievous smile to Cressy, "there is nothing in this amicable discussion that requires to be settled outside."

"Ain't there?" said McKinstry, in a dull, deliberate voice, raising his eyes for the second time to Stacey. They were bloodshot, with a heavy, hanging furtiveness, not unlike one of his own hunted steers. "But I ain't kam enuff in yer." He moved to the door with a beckoning of his fateful hand. "Outside a minit-ef

them

"Wot," said McKinstry, slowly facing Stacey; "Wot ef I refoose? Wot ef I say I don't allow any man, or any bank, or any compromise, to take up my quo'r'lls? Wot ef I say that low-down and mean as Harrisons is, they don't begin to be ez mean, ez low-down, ez underhanded, ez sneakin' ez that yer compromise? Wot ef I say that ef that's the kind o' hogwash that law and snivelization offers me for peace and quietness, I'll take the fightin', and the law-breakin', and the sheriff, and all h-ll for his posse instead? Wot ef I say

that?"

"It will only be my duty to repeat it," said Stacey, with an affected carelessness which however did not conceal his surprise and his discomfiture. "It's no affair of mine."

"Unless," said Cressy, assuming her old position against the lintel of the door, and smoothing the worn bearskin that served as a mat with the toe of her slipper, "unless you've mixed it up with your other arbitration, you know."

"Wot other arbitration?" asked McKinstry suddenly, with murky

eyes.

Stacey cast a rapid half indignant glance at the young girl, who received it with her hands tucked behind her back, her lovely head bent submis

sively forward, and a prolonged little laugh.

"Oh nothing, Paw," she said, "only a little private foolishness betwixt me and the gentleman. Youl'd admire to hear him talk, Paw-about other things than business. He's just that chipper and gay."

Nevertheless as with a muttered "Good morning" the young fellow turned away, she quietly brushed past her father, and followed him—with her hands still penitently behind her, and the rosy palms turned upwardas far as the gate. Her single long Marguerite braid of hair trailing down her back nearly to the hem of her skirt, appeared to accent her demure reserve. At the gate she shaded her eyes with her hand, and glanced upward.

"It don't seem to be a good day for arbitrating. A trifle early in the season, ain't it?"

"Good morning, Miss McKinstry." She held out her hand. He took it with an affected ease but cautiously,

as if it had been the velvet paw of a young panther who had scratched him. After all, what was she but the cub of the untamed beast, McKinstry? He was well out of it! He was not revengeful-but business was business, and he had given them the first chance.

As his figure disappeared behind the buckeyes of the lane, Cressy cast a glance at the declining sun. She re-entered the house, and went directly to her room. As she passed the window, she could see her father already remounted galloping towards the tules, as if in search of that riparian "kam" his late interview had disturbed. A few straggling bits of colour in the sloping meadows were the children coming home from school. She hastily tied a girlish sun-bonnet under her chin, and slipping out of the back-door, swept like a lissom shadow along the line of fence until she seemed to melt into the umbrage of the woods that fringed the distant north boundary.

FREEDOM as a political, social, or ecclesiastical idea formulated in any constitutions or confessions; the "eversmiling Liberty," "the high-souled maid" of the poets, others shall praise. It is possible that the goddess appears less golden in 1888 than in 1788, when a credulous age thought she was coming down from heaven to take the place of Astræa, and when Madame Roland had not yet died "in her name.' Of the freedom which I propose to describe there was as good commodity under Domitian as under Marcus Aurelius; and no Acts of Parliament nor ballot-boxes can affect it for better or worse.

I mean by it a state of mind, not a political or social condition. It is an inward not an outward growth, and is little affected by circumstances where it already exists, though its development may be checked or forwarded by them.

Among the ancients the question of freedom and its opposite was treated by the analogy of freeman and slave. They had before their eyes a majority of the human race bound to serve with no wages but food and lodging; with no choice of place, employer, or labour, liable to blows, branding, torture, prison, crucifixion, at the pleasure of their owner, and with little chance of any improvement of their condition. These the moralists left out of sight, or only cited them as examples of all that the wise or virtuous man must avoid. The "free" type of character was opposed to the "slavish;" the slave was regarded as a superior beast. He was a neuter in morality. His virtue was called "usefulness," his vice "worthlessness."

This state of things has long gone by; but as we still read ancient writers, our ideas of words are modified

by theirs, and one of the ideas connected with the "slavish" character is that absence of morality which arises from absence of responsibility. A life spent in obedience has no room for choice. One of the characters of freedom, then, is choice of good and evil.

To antiquity succeeded the Middle Ages, and to slavery serfdom, mollified and sanctified by Christian feeling. The law did little to help the poor; but the tyrannical master had to fear the Church. Under the patronage of the Church a new sentiment arose. In the eyes of the Church Onesimus was the brother of his owner, and an equal partaker in the same Christian duties and privileges. A sense of personal worth was born in all. mediate personal slavery became extinct by degrees.

Im

The right to cut his own crops and boil his own pot in his own house was conceded to the serf, whereas the slave had to herd in a barrack, and received the daily mess of pottage served out to him and his fellows. Yet from this concession arose that stately manhood which we honour in the liberties of Switzerland and Holland, and which has made our own country the model of all the nations that aspire to freedom. Among slaves there is little sense of brotherhood-though it is one of the miracles of Christianity to have brought brotherly love to perfection in a society of slaves-but raise men ever so little above the state of absolute dependence, give them what they can call their own, and they will combine for mutual defence. Resistance without brotherhood is either a brute instinct or mere rebellion; with brotherhood it becomes divine. Naboth, if he refused the king's request for himself, was a churl, if for the sake

of the rights of his brethren in Israel, he died a martyr. We get here another character of liberty that it must not be for self but for others. Obedience is better than rebellion; but to contend for the freedom of brethren is better than obedience. "Desire and fear," says the moralist," are the two roots of sin." The unselfish man is free from desire of good things for himself. If he is free also from fear of evil he has added another grace to freedom. "Gott steh' mir bei, Ich kann nicht anders (God help me! I cannot do otherwise)," and "Je maintiendrai (I will maintain)," are the mottoes of the Christian and the soldier hero. The sound of fear is absent from both. William of Orange and Luther had renounced the desire of advantage; they had also thrown away the fear of evil. They were contending for the freedom of the world, spiritual or political, and they had done with the fear of devils and kings.

Here then we put down another character of freedom-fearlessness.

But enough of external things. Freedom, if it means the power and right to do as one wills, has nothing noble in itself; but to contend for freedom of choice in things lawful for others is noble, and it can be only well conceived and executed by those who, possessing the power of choice, know also how to use it and are themselves free. What is it then that makes a man free, and worthy to win or defend the freedom of others?

Power of choice, unselfishness, fearlessness on this foundation rises the stately building. But is it not after all a paradox to speak of power of choice at all? As judgment is the recognition of the stronger argument, so choice of action is the submission to the stronger motive. "Reason also is choice," says Milton; perhaps he might have said more truly Choice is Reason." Reasonable choice is not capricious it obeys the right. The sense of freedom is strengthened by the exercise of conscious choice; the

habit of choosing the right seems to be within our own power; and if we act as if we were free we become free, or if not free, servants to the law of liberty. Another character of liberty: obedience to what we believe to be the highest rule. He alone who of his own choice without selfish desire or fear obeys his conscience, is free.

If this is true, it follows that outward circumstance has nothing to do with a free spirit. A man cannot separate himself from circumstance; he cannot always create circumstance, but he can control it. "What is this to me?" is in its better sense the answer of the free spirit to things around. St. Paul could be moved neither by life nor death, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature. "I thank God I have won the victory," said Sir Thomas More, when he was leaving his wife and children and friends, and his house and garden at Chelsea, and place and power, for a dungeon and rude gaolers and the death of a traitor. Weak men have met the stake and the wild beasts. The martyr is sustained by his fellows and by the prospect of the palm and crown, as the soldier is strengthened by honour and comradeship to endure the extremities of war. It requires a higher courage and a finer spirit to lose the love of friends and relations, to be singular, to be despised, to lose usefulness as well as honour in order to obey some rule which seems to others silly and fanatical. It is perhaps even harder to follow an unappreciated ideal in the midst of the petty but endless hindrances of home or society, of local or professional custom. Christian met the lions of the Hill Difficulty with less delay than it cost him to escape from his wife and neighbours.

There are always to be found some who wisely, others who unwisely, give up the world. Those who do it wisely, do it because either they cannot live in the common trade of life without becoming merely unprofitable, or be