"But-" said Nance, hesitating, "but I thought-" "That I'd rather sit on the side-lines and look on? That's what I told you, was n't it?" and for a second Elizabeth lowered her eyes. "Somehow I never could believe you meant it -that you were in earnest," answered Nance. "And I was n't," Elizabeth confessed, lifting her head. "Perhaps I thought I was then, but I know now I was n't. I'm ashamed of myself, and I want to make up for it if I can. I want to do things; I want to do everything." "I understand, Beth!" "I don't suppose you 'd want to play with me?" "I'd love to, Beth." "But, you know, I can't play at all-yet.”

"But it's in you," Nance declared. "Do you remember when I played Miss Winthrop?"

Elizabeth nodded. She remembered the whole episode, and was not proud of her part in it.

"I saw you watching me during the last set," went on Nance. "And I knew then that if you were in my place, you 'd have won that match."

"I know that I wanted you to win," answered Elizabeth, with a laugh. "Oh, Nance! if you were only going to be here all summer."

"I am!" answered Nance. "You are n't going away?" "No. It was decided today. Father can't leave, and so we 're going to try camping out in the city this summer. Mother says we must.

"Then do you mean to say-" "I'll play with you every

"Mrs. Trumbull," Elizabeth called, "I 'm going to play tennis!"

Mrs. Trumbull came out with some sewing in her hands, and her spectacles shoved up on her forehead. "Well," she observed, "I don't see 's that 's anything to get so excited about. Is it, Beth?"

day if you wish-yes, every day all summer long." With an eager, glad cry, Elizabeth seized her friend's hand.

"Would you like to go up to the court now?" Nance asked.

"It-it seems too good to be true," Elizabeth laughed nervously. "It won't take me a minute to get into my tennis shoes. Come in with me, Nance?" Elizabeth led the way into the little house, and Nance followed, a little curiously perhaps.

"Nance is to teach me, and she 's going to be here all summer."

"Well! well! well!" replied Mrs. Trumbull. "I don't believe any one would go away if they had such a nest as yours, Beth," declared Nance, who had been looking around with surprise and interest at the cheerful, sun-lighted little room.

"You like it?" Elizabeth asked eagerly. "It 's like a great big playhouse," answered Nance. "I should think you 'd love caring for it."

STORIES OF TWO VANISHED NATIONS

SOME rainy day when hardly any book seems good enough to make up for the disappointment of not being allowed to get outdoors, suppose you try reading one of Prescott's histories, either the "Conquest of Peru" or the "Conquest of Mexico." I think it won't be long before you have forgotten all about the weather, as you travel back on those delightful pages to a world that has vanished, a people that has died, a civilization picturesque and wonderful in the extreme, but, like a burst soap-bubble, gone with all its radiance and its beauty.

Few, indeed, are the histories written as these are, with such a vivid life to them, so that all the characters are real to you: the proud Incas, the Aztec rulers, the gentle Peruvians and fiercer Mexicans, the desperately brave but all too cruel Spaniards, with their leaders, Cortés and Pizarro, those two great conquistadors mad after gold and careless of danger, who swept the countries they invaded from end to end with death and desolation.

You will find these histories to be as full of breathless interest as any tale of adventure or romance written by Stevenson or Scott, for rarely have these delightful qualities been so combined as they were in these amazing conquests, where the old world overflowed into the new, but a new in name alone, for no one can tell how many centuries had gone to the making of the Peruvian and Aztec nations, to the building of those splendid palaces, cities, roads, and aqueducts, or the development of the arts and sciences and the strange forms of worship and of government. Many hundreds of them-that, at least, is certain-perhaps as many as had gone to the making of Spain. Unluckily the records left by these Western civilizations were few and almost unintelligible to their conquerors, so that the past of these wonderful peoples is lost in fog and darkness, fragments only of their history and their achievements surviving among the shattered temples and ruined towns,-the work of their hands, -fragments wonderful and interesting that make us long for more.

But before speaking further of these two enchanting books, I want to give you some little idea of the man who wrote them. He was odd in some ways, but of singular courage, simplicity, VOL. XXXIX. -82.

and determination, a man not to be deterred from following his intention, a reticent man, confiding little of his hopes, his labors, or his sufferings to any one.

In his youth he was the friend of Marion Crawford's mother, and Crawford's sister, in her volume of reminiscences, tells some amusing things about the strange boy.

It seems that for over ten years Prescott was considered by his family to be a hopeless idler. Apparently he had no ambition or purpose in life, he kept almost entirely to himself, and he said nothing in reply to the criticisms made upon him.

"Don't sit locked up in your library all day long, eating soap," they would cry, in desperation. For the only thing ever seen on Prescott's table besides the ink-well was a cake of soap, at which he constantly nibbled, asserting that, in his opinion, people ought to be clean inside as well as out. But Prescott continued to keep his own counsel, never letting any one into his study unless he were sitting quite idle, keeping all his papers locked up in the deep drawers-and then, finally, his first great historic work appeared, to the admiration of the world, and the tables were turned.

But besides these rather trying characteristics, trying, at least, to an anxious and flustered family, Prescott had a fund of enduring courage and dogged persistence not found except among the truly great. For he suffered from almost total blindness, having lost one eye in an injury in early youth, and spending many years without being able to see at all, though the other eye had periods when it partially recovered its powers. When you remember that all his writing was, of course, based on manuscripts and documents gathered up from many sources and printed or written in many languages, you can imagine what a terrible handicap this misfortune was to him.

After the failure of his second eye, he had to work through a secretary, who read to him for hours at a time, Prescott the while taking quantities of notes by means of a sort of writing-machine made for the blind. This machine he always used, for though, at times, he was able to read print as long as daylight lasted, he found more difficulty in writing, and he could not read manuscript. When his history of Ferdinand and Isabella was written and ready for the last revision, he felt that to do this properly he must read it himself, instead of having it read to him.

So he had a single copy printed, and made his alterations and corrections on that. This will give you a notion of how thoroughgoing he was. His secretary was obliged to read his notes to him over and over, while he worked out his chapters; and as his writing was very hard to decipher, this was a slow task.

But he never complained of all this hardship. On the contrary, he wrote a preface to his history of Peru in which he explained his methods of work, saying that he had heard that he was reported to be blind, while on many days he was really fortunate enough to be able to see in a good light. He seemed to want no sympathy, asserting that he had no such difficulties to contend with as the world supposed, speaking in the most cheerful manner, even when he admitted that he could not long count upon even the little sight he then possessed.

It is an inspiring record, that life of Prescott, one that puts a glow into your heart, as heroism always does. And I think you will read his wonderful and exciting books with all the more interest when you know under what a strain they were produced. The books themselves give no hint of this; they read as easily as though each sentence had flowed of itself from the ink-well on that big, empty table. Picture after picture, splendid with color and motion, is painted for you in words of an unforgetable clearness. Surely the writer loved his topic, and was happy in his work. Besides the charm of Prescott's style, he had a fine discrimination, and was most just and unprejudiced in his opinions and conclusions. His chief desire is to set things down with truth. The men whose characters he portrays appear on the page as they must have been in life, with their faults and their virtues-the Incas with their lofty and silent acceptance of whatever fate sent; Cortés, that mighty captain, with his genius, his immense endurance of hardship, his cruel spirit. Pizarro, who, on an earlier expedition under Balboa, had been one of the handful of white men who first gazed upon the Pacific, is shown with all his fierce and dangerous qualities, as well as in his finer moments. Bad he was, and bad his end, for he was murdered by his own people, and buried hurriedly by the few friends left him— buried in the dead of night, for fear of outrage, with no one, as the old chronicle says, to say, "God forgive him." Prescott calls him a "byword for perfidy." He cheated every one, friend and foe, caring nothing for any promise, however sacred, and he disgusted every one. Yet there was some good in the man, and what there was Prescott shows us, as well as the training and environment which made him what he was.

But it is not alone the tale of the invading Spaniards and their new order that is told in these bewitching histories. They also contain a great deal about the strange nations as they were before ever a white man came to conquer and ruin them.

The Peruvian government was remarkable in several ways. There was no such thing as a beggar, or any one without enough to live upon, in the whole country. Neither were there any very rich people. The laws did not permit it, and each man, woman, and child was taken care of by the government, given their work, told whom to marry, where to live-treated as a father might treat his young children, in fact. You see, though no one was allowed to suffer, no one was permitted to have a will of his own, either. Not a soul drew a free breath except the Inca, who was supposed to be descended from the sun (which was worshiped by the Peruvians); and so he was believed to be half divine. Although they were great fighters, the Peruvians were gentle and always mindful of human life, taking wonderful care of their soldiers when in the field, and inducing conquered races to become citizens as soon as possible, much as the Romans did in their time.

Great public works were carried through too. Splendid roads, hundreds, even thousands, of miles long, were made, chasms being filled with solid masonry and bridges swung over dizzy canyons and swift rivers, these bridges being hung on cables made of a particularly tough osier. On these roads posts were established short distances apart, and runners were kept ready to take messages, fruits and viands for the Inca's table, war notes and signs, anything a man could carry easily, from one end of the country to the other. These posts traveled a hundred and fifty miles a day when necessary, while the closest communication between the capital and the most distant villages was maintained by their aid. This same system was in force in Mexico, although the two nations had no knowledge of each other, and both countries were far ahead of Europe in this respect.

There is one thing especially that makes Prescott excellent reading, and that is the story interest. He always makes you realize that the life and death of nations, with the extraordinary changes which have occurred in the world, are more marvelous than any imaginary tale. The past was warm and alive to him, as it was to our other great historian, Motley, who lived at the same time as Prescott. Almost one might fancy that these two men had discovered some magic spell which allowed them to slip back in time as

read the books of either, you certainly feel as though you were right on the spot, looking on at a world different, indeed, from the one we live in nowadays.

There are sad, there are terrible things told in the two "Conquests," for the world has done much wrong and gone through much suffering on its slow and painful march to our time. To-day, even, the nations are still capable of war and bloodshed, after the long centuries of gradual improvement; so we are not surprised to find dark and cruel deeds in a true record of olden times. Cortés and Pizarro invaded countries fair and flourishing, living happily enough under civilizations that may have been barbaric, but which

The civilization that exists there to-day was laid on the hot ashes of two races who had attained a wonderful development, coming from no one knows just where, enduring no one knows how long, mysterious as a dream, and as utterly swept

away.

And yet, in spite of the sadness of the stories, they are also a record of marvelous fortitude and desperate courage, of an unyielding determination in the face of amazing dangers, of many a fine and noble action. And though they are true, they are more full of romance and adventure than any wild west or wild east yarn that ever was spun by a teller of tales or listened to by eager boy or girl.