"You say, doctor, as it's the only chance to save my poor Louisy's life?" he asked then; and the doctor answered firmly, "Most emphatically I do."

"Then, doctor," he said, "I'd thank you kindly to do your best." And with that he put up his sleeve across his eyes to wipe the tears and went out of the room, Miss Carey following to give him such words of consolation as her kindly heart might suggest.

"Poor fellow, poor fellow," the Vicar said pityingly. "We may be sorry for him, even if he is-what Miss Carey tells me you suspect."

"Even if he is a thief," the doctor remarked, putting the dots upon the "i's." "Yes, your Scripture, I think, gives you some high authority for showing pity even on a thief."

The while the doctor and the Vicar exchanged these words the former was busied with taking out from his black bag the instruments he needed for the operation; but at his last sentence he glanced up and looked keenly at the clergyman. The words seemed to give him a new thought. "You do not understand the nature of this operation, I suppose?" he said.

"Very vaguely," the Vicar admitted. "It consists," the doctor explained, "in making an incision down to the inflammatory centre, inserting a tube, and extracting, so far as is possible, the poison by means of suction."

The Vicar nodded, not yet perceiving the full significance of the explanation.

"The matter is highly poisonous," the doctor said.

The Vicar began to take his meaning. "Do I understand you to imply that the operation will be attended with risk?"

"That is my meaning," said the doctor. "It will be attended with considerable risk, with very great risk, to the person-not necessarily to the person who performs the operation in the

sense of making the incision and inserting the tube, but to the person who shall suck the poison through the tube."

"I see," the Vicar said meditatively, "I see."

He told us afterwards that he thought he ought to have been astute enough to perceive that a trap of some sort was being laid for him, for it was wholly unlike the doctor to insist on the danger that he was about to incur, unless his insistence had some special motive. As it was, the Vicar's thoughts were engaged in a direction which did not lead to the detection of the motive.

The doctor watched him curiously.

Presently the Vicar said: "I suppose this is a thing-this sucking the tubethat could be done just as well by an unskilled person as by a practised surgeon?"

"Just as well-oh, every bit as well," the doctor replied, still closely watching him.

There was silence again, while the doctor went on with his arrangements. Subsequently the doctor has stated that these moments while he thus waited were among the most intensely interesting, the most exciting, of his

life. And then, at length, came that which he had been expecting-a hand was laid heavily, yet not without a tremor, on his shoulder, and the Vicar said, in a voice that he tried to steady, though it shook a little despite himself, "Doctor, I should esteem it a great favor if you would let me be the one to suck the tube."

The doctor laughed with a little chuckle of irony. "What," he said, "you would risk your life for the daughter of a thief?"

The other just nodded. "Yes," he said. "I am willing to do it if you will let me."

The doctor laughed again, without any note of irony this time. "You are

a good fellow," he said. "Perhaps it is a pity you are a parson. I don't know. But at all events I beg your pardon most sincerely for the words I said to you the other day, and I certainly won't let you suck that tube. That is my business. I am in charge of this case. It is my operation, and I am going to see it through. You may make yourself easy on that point. I want no help with it."

His tone assured the Vicar, if he had required assurance that there was no good arguing with him.

"Well," he said, "if you say so, it must be. I am sorry."

The doctor laughed, a laugh of genuine amusement then. "Oh no, you are not," he said. "You are not sorry. You are very glad, immensely relieved. You are a good fellow and a plucky fellow, and I am sorry for what I said to you, but look into your heart and tell me what you find there, honestly. You find, I know very well, that you are very much relieved."

It was the Vicar's turn to laugh, in a slightly embarrassed way, at that. "Certainly, doctor," he said, “you are the one man that makes me wish sometimes that I was not a parson, for you are the one man that makes me want to swear."

"Is that so, really," the doctor replied briskly. "Why, there are a score of men a day that make me want to swear. And I generally yield to the inclination. Now I must get to business and that poor girl."

If the doctor had found it difficult to effect this reconciliation with the Vicar, I am sure he had his reward in Miss Carey's pleasure when he related to her all the circumstances, for, as Miss Carey herself said to him, it was a reconciliation which was likely to be lasting because based on mutual esteem.

The doctor had concluded his concillatory words to the Vicar by saying

that he must get "to business and that poor girl." It is a business into which we certainly do not want to follow him too closely. It was told us afterwards by Mrs. Copman and by the Vicar, who showed a nobly forgiving spirit, that his coolness and cheerfulness were wonderful while he made his preparations. The Vicar had volunteered his services in administering the anæsthetic, but the doctor had preferred to put his faith in Mrs. Copman. "It takes a woman, my dear fellow, to have the nerve for a thing of this kind. A man is no good in it, unless he is used to it."

So the doctor said, softening his rejection of the other's proffered help by his kindly tone and by a hand laid sympathetically on his shoulder. As each instrument had served its turn, in course of the actual operation, Mrs. Copman related that he threw it behind him with an utter disregard of such trifles as the probable turning of its edge or point and the injury it might do any object that it struck. No doubt all lesser matters that might have claimed attention were forgotten when he was concentrated on a task of such delicacy.

Although he accepted with perfect readiness and composure the dangerous task that he had set himself of sucking the poisonous matter from the girl's swollen throat, he neglected no precaution to diminish the risk. It is a risk that has been removed since that date by the invention of a mechanical means of suction, but no such means was in any general use at the time that Dr. Charlton performed the operation. All the while that the dreadful work was in progress, Miss Carey and the Vicar remained below in Mrs. Copman's parlor. William White, the poor girl's father, was walking up and down the village street in a state of agitation that forbade his exchanging even the ordinary courtesies with a gossip.

At another time, both before the actual operation and after, he was ready enough to talk about it, and immensely pleased with the importance that the sad condition of his "Louisy" seemed to give him; but for the moment the trouble of his mind was too great to let him think of words to say, or to let him listen to what others said to him. After a time that seemed interminable to those who were waiting below, the doctor's step was heard descending the stairs.

"Well," Miss Carey demanded breathlessly, "was the operation successful?"

"Oh yes, madam, so far as the operation goes it was successful enough," the doctor replied. "Whether the ultimate result will be a success it remains for time to show and largely for Nature to determine."

"Say rather God, Richard," Miss Carey suggested gently.

"I shall not, Amelia," he snapped back quickly. "I shall say whatever I please."

He went through the parlor and out at the street door without courtesy.

"Poor Richard," Miss Carey said to the Vicar. "What a terrible responsibility, to be sure, for him to bear."

The Vicar accepted the remark and acquiesced in it as an apology for the doctor's lapse of manners.

"I do not know," he said, "that we can do any good by waiting further."

"Perhaps not," Miss Carey agreed. "You, at least, have work that I am sure you want to see to. I will wait here till Phoebe comes, so that Mrs. Copman shall not be alone in the house with the poor girl, if anything is wanted."

For the time being the Vicar went away, but he was not able to stay long absent. In a short while he was back again to inquire what progress the pa

tient might be making, and found Dr. Charlton the only occupant of Mrs. Copman's parlor. The doctor was in a meditative mood, gravely regarding the stuffed fox, but thinking, so at least the Vicar presumed, of his patient upstairs. The Vicar inquired how she was doing, only to be met with a brusque reply that at present it was impossible to tell. The tone of the answer suggested that the question was a foolish one. The Vicar, however, was well used by this time to the other's manner. He showed no resentment of the tone employed, but seated himself in the bird-cage-backed armchair which Mrs. Copman commonly occupied in her rare hours of leisure, and disposed himself to the perilous task of yet further interrogating the doctor on his acts and motives. The moment, however, appeared to be not ill-chosen, the doctor accepting a placid discussion with a comparative amiability which was not as usual with him as many of us in Barton might have wished.

"I cannot conceive," the Vicar began hastily, "how you can endure to face death, to look on the face of death I would almost say, with your theories."

Sud

The doctor rubbed his hand over his stiff-growing gray hairs, which stood up almost en brosse, as if by the friction to electrify them into an even more aggressive demeanor. A caustic answer almost certainly was on his lips. denly, according to the subsequent account of the interview given by the Vicar, he appeared to change his mind, and a like change came over his expression.

"I face death, sir," he replied, in a tone of quiet argument, "as one has to face many things in this life that are inevitable with regret, but without fear. Why should I, with my theories, as you say, fear to face death, which to me (again, as you say) is but another name for annihilation? To me (on

your theory of my views) it is a synonym of sleep-a sleep that has no waking. One may regret, in a busy time, the necessity of a few hours' sleep-a temporary annihilation; but one does not fear it. Why should one fear, much as one may regret, the sleep that is eternal?"

The Vicar shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "It is impossible," he said despairingly, "to argue with you men of science. You will believe in nothing of which you cannot explain the causes and the reasons."

"Oh, pardon me, sir, pardon me," the doctor replied quickly. "There you do me wrong. I throw a stone into the air-I see it fall to the ground owing to a force that we have agreed to call gravity. I believe the fact, but I understand nothing at all of the cause. Show me proofs of a fact, and I will admit it freely, no matter how mysterious are its causes. We live in the midst of mysteries. The greatest of human achievements is to discover truth among these mysteries, and to proclaim it."

"And yet," said the Vicar, with a note of triumph in his voice, as though he rejoiced to have detected the man of science in an inconsistency, "and yet you are content to go about in this parish and never by your arguments, I will not say by your example, have ever tried to turn one of my people (so far as I have ever heard) from their faith in a religion which you believe to be an error and a delusion."

The doctor rose to his feet and rubbed his hand yet again over the aggressive stubble of his scalp in some perplexity. He smiled, as though a certain humor in the situation appealed to him. "And you can say this to mecan upbraid me with this?" he said.

"Not upbraid," said the Vicar. "Far from it. I have thanked God often that you were content to leave it so.

But is it not an inconsistent attitude with the theories you have just pronounced?"

I

"It is inconsistent, sir; I admit it," the doctor replied at length, with the air of one who confesses a truth reluctantly. "Man is but human, which is as much as to say that he is inconsistent. Often and often I have put to myself the question that you are practically putting to me now, whether it were not my duty to preach to your people the truth that is in me, even as you preach to them the truth that is in you-that all this religion in which they trust is nothing but a delusion; I will not say a snare. No, it is because I cannot say that it is a snare that I do not preach to them that doctrine. perceive the comfort that it is to them in their lives, and in their deaths. I perceive even that it makes for the decent conduct and morality, as well as for the happiness, of their lives, and I say to myself, is it my duty to take away from them, even for the noble sake of truth, a delusion that works for so much good? I cannot convince myself, sir, I admit it, what my answer ought to be to my question, and until I see my answer more clearly I am content to let the people go, to say no word to turn them from a delusion which works for SO much good. Does that explain my position to you?"

The Vicar sat a moment or two in silent thought. Then he rose to his feet. "Good-night, doctor," he said, holding cut his hand, which the other shook cordially. "You have taught me several things to-day. Yes, I think I understand your position perfectly. I understand you certainly better than I ever did before."

"Thank you, sir," said the doctor, as he showed him out. "I may say that the better understanding is mutual." Then with a returning access of his caustic humor, which for the life of

him he could not help, he added, "I am glad you did not conclude with saying you would pray for me."

He shut the door behind his departing. visitor, and then remarked to himself grimly, "But I am sure he will." Horace G. Hutchinson.

On looking at the plays which have recently been produced in France, we notice a remarkable tendency towards idealism, and a great effort to revive the drama. Besides pieces dealing with social matters and mordant comedies, we often find works of a purely literary value. Dainty plays by Porto Riche, who reminds one of the classical theatre, but with quite modern characteristics, depict the everlasting strength of love which nothing can resist. To the same sentiment, after long wandering, the talented modern dramatist, Maurice Donnay, has also come back in his last comedy L'Escalade. Camille de Saint-Croix sings in its honor in Arminde, which, one may say, is the eruption of love. In those works the subject is love, not degrading or vicious, of which there is plenty in French literature, but a sentiment that ennobles the heroes. The same tendency may be seen in Renarde's comedies; and there is no lack also of successful attempts to return to classical themes. Such is Jules Bois's Hypolite, the author of which has not feared to take up a subject twice treated in tragedies by great masters; and he has come out victorious by creating a character, a little modernized, but thoroughly original and more comprehensible by us. Such a play, again, is Cinthia, by a Provençal poet, Meunier, a work of remarkable value, enchanting us by its harmonious poetry and full of the warmth of the South. Such, finally, is Casquet's Dionysius, a religious and symbolic drama, built up on the back

ground of the old myth of King Pentheus.

The opinion of the critics as to thisrevival is divided, vacillating and often contradictory. Charles Méré, in hisvery interesting, although not too lucid. essay, La tragédie contemporaine, speaks of the modern effort to revive tragedy, and tries to forecast the principal. characteristics of the drama of the future. He shows the progressive devel-opment of tragedy from the most remote times, and its congruity with the milieu. As the tragedies of Corneille or Racine depicted their contemporaries with their aspirations, so the tragedy of the present day is the picture of the people of to-day, whatever the characters it represents. There are some people for whom the classical theatre is alpha and omega; for such the alliance of the two words "modern" and "tragedy" is a heresy and nonsense; but such people are lacking in the historical sense, for every tragedy in its turn was something new; it was the expression of the aspirations and sentiments of the new epoch in which it was written. Consequently tragedy has a large field for its creative power, but its axis is the conflict between the will of an individual and destiny, no matter whether we call it the ancient fate or divine Providence, or social order, or the implacable law of heredity; always the collision of those two moral powers in man's soul is the indispensable condition of the tragic. The moment however, we substitute for that conflict the struggle for an idea, philo