chance to express sympathy. "Do you go alone?" she asked. "Yes; without my husband." Madame Merle gave a low, vague murmur; a sort of recognition of the general sadness of things. "Mr. Touchett never liked me; but I am sorry he is dying. Shall you see his mother?" "Yes; she has returned from America." "She used to be very kind to me; but she has changed. Others, too, have changed," said Madame Merle, with a quiet, noble pathos. She paused a moment, and then she said, "And you will see dear old Gardencourt again !” "I shall not enjoy it much," Isabel answered. "Naturally-in your grief. But it is on the whole, of all the houses I know, and I know many, the one I should have liked best to live in. I don't venture to send a message to the people," Madame Merle added; "but I should like to give my love to the place." Isabel turned away. "I had better go to Pansy," she said. "I have not much time." And while she looked about her for the proper egress, the door opened and admitted one of the ladies of the house, who advanced with a discreet smile, gently rubbing, under her long, loose sleeves, a pair of plump white hands. Isabel recognised her as Madame Catherine, whose acquaintance she had already made, and begged that she would immediately let her see Miss Osmond. Madame Catherine looked doubly discreet, but smiled very blandly and said "It will be good for her to see you. I will take you to her myself." Then she directed her pleasant, cautious little eye towards Madame Merle. "Will you let me remain a little?" this lady asked. "It is so good to be here." "You may remain always, if you like!" And the good sister gave a knowing laugh. No. 264.-VOL. XLIV. She led Isabel out of the room, through several corridors, and up a long staircase. All these departments were solid and bare, light and clean; so, thought Isabel, are the great penal establishments. Madame Catherine gently pushed open the door of Pansy's room and ushered in the visitor; then stood smiling, with folded hands, while the two others met and embraced. "She is glad to see you," she repeated; "it will do her good." And she placed the best chair carefully for Isabel. But she made no movement to seat herself; she seemed ready to retire. "How does this dear child look?" she asked of Isabel, lingering a moment. "She looks pale," Isabel answered. "That is the pleasure of seeing you. She is very happy. Elle éclaire la maison," said the good sister. Pansy wore, as Madame Merle had said, a little black dress; it was perhaps this that made her look pale. 66 They are very good to me-they think of everything!" she exclaimed, with all her customary eagerness to say something agreeable. "We think of you always-you are a precious charge," Madame Catherine remarked, in the tone of a woman with whom benevolence was a habit, and whose conception of duty was the acceptance of every care. It fell with a leaden weight upon Isabel's ears; it seemed to represent the surrender of a personality, the authority of the Church. When Madame Catherine had left them together, Pansy kneeled down before Isabel and hid her head in her stepmother's lap. So she remained some moments, while Isabel gently stroked her hair. Then she got up, averting her face, and looking about the room. "Don't you think I have arranged it well? I have everything I have at home." "It is very pretty; you are very comfortable." Isabel scarcely knew what she could say to her. On the one hand she could not let her think E E she had come to pity her, and on the other it would be a dull mockery to pretend to rejoice with her. So she simply added, after a moment, "I have come to bid you good-bye. I am going to England." Pansy's white little face turned red. "To England! Not to come back?" "I don't know when I shall come back." "Ah; I'm sorry," said Pansy, faintly. She spoke as if she had no right to criticise; but her tone expressed a depth of disappointment. "My cousin, Mr. Touchett, is very ill; he will probably die. I wish to see him," Isabel said. "Ah, yes; you told me he would die. Of course you must go. And will papa go!" "No; I shall go alone." For a moment, Pansy said nothing. Isabel had often wondered what she thought of the apparent relations of her father with his wife; but never by a glance, by an intimation, had she let it be seen that she deemed them deficient in the quality of intimacy. She made her reflections, Isabel was sure; and she must have had a conviction that there were husbands and wives who were more intimate than that. But Pansy was not indiscreet even in thought; she would as little have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother as to criticise her magnificent father. Her heart may almost have stood still, as it would have done if she had seen two of the saints, in the great picture in the convent chapel, turn their painted heads and shake them at each other; but as in this latter case she would (for very solemnity's sake), never have mentioned the awful phenomenon, so she put away all knowledge of the secrets of larger lives than her own. "You will be very far away," she said presently. "Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter," Isabel answered; "for so long as you are here I am very far away from you." 66 "Yes; but you can come and see me; though you have not come very often." come because your To-day I bring I can't amuse "I have not father forbade it. nothing with me. you." "I am not to be amused. That's not what papa wishes." "Then it hardly matters whether I am in Rome or in England." "You are not happy, Mrs. Osmond," said Pansy. "Not very. But it doesn't matter." "That's what I say to myself. What does it matter? But I should like to come out." "I wish indeed you might." "Don't leave me here," Pansy went on, gently. Isabel was silent a moment; her heart beat fast. "Will you come away with me now?" she asked. Pansy looked at her pleadingly. "Did papa tell you to bring me?” "No; it's my own proposal." "I think I had better wait, then. Did papa send me no message?" "I don't think he knew I was coming." "He thinks I have not had enough," said Pansy. "But I have. The ladies are very kind to me, and the little girls come to see me. There are some very little ones-such charming children. Then my room-you can see for yourself! All that is very delightful. But I have had enough. Papa wished me to think a littleand I have thought a great deal." "What have you thought?" "Well, that I must never displease papa." "You knew that before." "Yes; but I know it better. I will do anything-I will do anything," said Pansy. Then, as she heard her own words, a deep, pure blush came into her face. Isabel read the meaning of it; she saw that the poor girl had been vanquished. It was well that Mr. Edward Rosier had kept his enamels! Isabel looked into her eyes and saw there mainly a prayer to be treated easily. She laid her hand on Pansy's, as if to let her know that her look conveyed no diminution of esteem; for the collapse of the child's momentary resistance (mute and modest though it had been), seemed only her tribute to the truth of things. She didn't presume to judge others, but she had judged herself; she had seen the reality. She had no vocation for struggling with combinations; in the solemnity of sequestration there was something that overwhelmed her. She bowed her pretty head to authority, and only asked of authority to be merciful. Yes; it was very well that Edward Rosier had reserved a few articles! Isabel got up; her time was rapidly shortening. "Good-bye, then," she said; "I she said; "I leave Rome to-night." Pansy took hold of her dress; there was a sudden change in the girl's face. "You look strange; you frighten me." "Oh, I am very harmless," said Isabel. 66 'Perhaps you won't come back?" "Perhaps not. I can't tell." "Ah, Mrs. Osmond, you won't leave me!" Isabel now saw that she had guessed everything. "My dear child, what can I do for you?" she asked. "I don't know-but I am happier when I think of you." "You can always think of me." "Not when you are so far away. am a little afraid," said Pansy. "What are you afraid of?" Then they held each other a moment in a silent embrace, like two sisters; and afterwards Pansy walked along the corridor with her visitor to the top of the staircase. "Madame Merle has been here," Pansy remarked as they went; and as Isabel answered nothing she added, abruptly, "I don't like Madame Merle !" Isabel hesitated a moment; then she stopped. "You must never say that-that you don't like Madame Merle." Pansy looked at her in wonder; but wonder with Pansy had never been a reason for non-compliance. "I never will again," she said, with exquisite gentleness. At the top of the staircase they had to separate, as it appeared to be part of the mild but very definite discipline under which Pansy lived that she should not go down. Isabel descended, and when she reached the bottom the girl was standing above. "You will come back?" she called out in a voice that Isabel remembered afterwards. "Yes-I will come back." Madame Catherine met Isabel below, and conducted her to the door of the parlour, outside of which the two stood talking a minute. "I won't go in," said the good sister. "Madame Merle is waiting for you." At this announcement Isabel gave a start, and she was on the point of asking if there were no other egress from the convent. But a moment's I reflection assured her that she would do well not to betray to the worthy nun her desire to avoid Pansy's other visitor. Her companion laid her hand very gently on her arm, and fixing her a moment with a wise, benevolent eye, said to her, speaking French, almost familiarly— "Of papa-a little. And of Madame Merle. She has just been to see me." "You must not say that," Isabel observed. "Oh, I will do everything they want. Only if you are here I shall do it more easily. Isabel reflected a little. "I won't desert you," she said at last. "Good-bye, my child." "Eh bien, chère Madame, qu'en pensez-vous? "About my step-daughter? Oh, it would take long to tell you.' "We think it's enough," said Madame Catherine, significantly. And she pushed open the door of the parlour. Madame Merle was sitting just as Isabel had left her, like a woman so absorbed in thought that she had not moved a little-finger. As Madame Catherine closed the door behind Isabel, she got up, and Isabel saw that she had been thinking to some purpose. She had recovered her balance; she was in full possession of her resources. "I found that I wished to wait for you," she said, urbanely. "But it's not to talk about Pansy." Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame Merle's declaration she answered after a moment"Madame enough." Catherine says it's "Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman." "He made me -?" Madame Merle appeared to see herself successful, and she went on, more triumphantly "He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required to make you a brilliant match. At bottom, it is him that you have to thank." She stopped; there was stopped; there was something in Isabel's eyes. It was "I don't understand you. my uncle's money." "Yes; it was your uncle's money; but it was your cousin's idea. He brought his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!" Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to be living in a world illumined by lurid flashes. "I don't know why you say such things! I don't know what you know." "I know nothing but what I have guessed. But I have guessed that!" Isabel went to the door, and when she had opened it stood a moment with her hand on the latch. Then she said it was her only revenge "I believed it was you I had to thank!" Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance. "You are very unhappy, I know. But I am more so.' "Yes; I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again." Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she announced, while Isabel passed out. HENRY JAMES, JR. THE GEYSIRS OF THE YELLOWSTONE. THE traveller by railway across the American continent, after traversing several hundred miles of barren plain and sandy desert, finds at last that the line begins sensibly to descend. The panting engine moves along with increasing ease and diminished noise as it enters a long valley that leads out of the western plains, sweeping by the base of high cliffs, past the mouths of narrow lateral valleys, crossing and recrossing the water-courses by slim creaking bridges; now in a deep cutting, now in a short tunnel, it brings picturesque glimpses into view in such quick succession as almost to weary the eye that tries to scan them as they pass. After the dusty monotonous prairie, to see and hear the rush of roaring rivers, to catch sight of waterfalls, leaping down the crags, scattered pine-trees crowning the heights, and green meadows carpeting the valleys, to find, too, that every mile brings you further into a region of cultivated fields and cheerful homesteads, is a pleasure not soon to be forgotten. The Mormons have given a look of longsettled comfort to these valleys. Fields, orchards, and hedgerows, with neat farm buildings and gardens full of flowers, remind one of bits of the old country rather than of the bare, flowerless settlements in the West. But the sight of a group of Chinamen here and there at work on the line dispels the momentary illusion. Winding rapidly down a succession of gorges or cañons (for every valley in the West seems to be known as a cañon), the traveller finds at last that he has entered the "Great Basin " of North America, and has arrived near the margin of the Great Salt Lake. Looking back, he perceives that the route by which he has come is one of many transverse valleys, hollowed out of the flanks of the noble range of the Wahsatch Mountains. This range serves at once as the western boundary of the plateau country and as the eastern rim of the Great Basin, into which it plunges as a colossal rampart from an average height of some 4,000 feet above the plain, though some of its isolated summits rise to more than twice that altitude. From the base of this great mountain-wall the country stretches westward as a vast desert plain, in a slight depression of which lies the Great Salt Lake. By industriously making use of the drainage from their mountain barrier, the Mormons have converted the strip of land between the base of the heights and the edge of the water into fertile fields and well-kept gardens. So Everybody knows that the Great Basin has no outlet to the ocean; yet nobody can see the scene with his own eyes and refuse to admit the sense of strange novelty with which it fills his mind. One's first desire is naturally to get to the lake. From a distance it looks blue enough, and not different from other sheets of water. But on a nearer view its shore is seen to be a level plain of salt-crusted mud. gently does this plain slip under the water that the actual margin of the lake is not very sharply drawn. The water has a heavy, motionless, lifeless aspect, and is practically destitute of living creatures of every kind. Fish are found in the rivers leading into the lake, but into the lake itself they never venture. Nor did we see any of the abundant bird-life that would have been visible on a fresh-water lake of such dimensions. There was a stillness in the air and on the water befitting the strange desert aspect of the scenery. After looking at the water for a |