[And so ended the second letter, which aroused my curiosity not a little, and caused me to look forward for another. But it was two months before I heard from Kate again. Then she wrote:]

Dear Lizzie:-If you are waiting for the conclusion of my romance to make a magazine article out of, just write-The heroine, after hanging suspended by the slender thread of hope for eight mortal weeks, fell into the dismal abyss below, from which she finally crawled out bruised, sore, and miserable, but game still;

and has now resumed business at the old stand of Lehang & Morgan.

That is enough. That is all there is of it. When I met Mr. Taft after his accident he spoke to me with much restraint; and at each subsequent meeting his manner was cooler and cooler, until the sight of him sent my heart below zero, and chilled the very marrow of my bones. He has learned to hate me, Lizzie. No doubt my preference for him, so boldly manifested, disgusted and alarmed him. There is a paragraph going the rounds of the papers about some woman who chloroformed and married a man in spite of himself. I'll bet she was a grass-widow; and I'll also bet that if Mr. Taft

has read it he has the same conviction.

I left this in his room one evening, and went home with a heart as heavy as lead. Going up Clay Street hill on the cars, the moon shone high above the domes and spires of the city so beautiful, so serene. I don't believe she cares whether school keeps or not; she takes no interest in stocks; the banks can break as they please, it don't disturb her. In this respect she and I are Siameses, but we differ in other particulars. For instance, she is satisfied with the lonely royalty of her position, which I am not. She has no thought for any other moon of the male persuasion, in which she also differs from

me.

BUT, AFTER ALL, IT IS BECAUSE THERE IS

NO OTHER MOON ON HER BEAT.

Now I think of it, I am positive that, if there was another, and if she is of the female sex, as represented (alas! on no better grounds than her changeableness), no amount of centripetality, centrifugality, polarity, and the rest of it could keep her in her orbit twenty-four hours.

Bah! She's a humbug, "Chaste!" "Vestal!" She's an old maid from circumstance, and not from choice.

I went to my own room, where I battled with myself all night; but it was no use. In the morning I was as blue as the picked shank of an old turkey-hen, with a face as long as three rainy days.

tiful young girl, and resents the encroachments of a poor faded thing like me.

At all events, it is over, and I am free again. I don't mean that my heart is free, for I love him better than ever, but I mean the danger of marrying is past, and I think I ought to be glad of it. I have done something, however, that had better been left undone. I have writ

ten him a note. I am forced to meet him in

the hall, and on the stairs, several times a day; and at last these meetings actually frightened me, his face was so stern and cold, his manner so repellant, his hatred and disgust were so visible. I could not bear to remain in the house. So I hunted another place, but without success. At last, utterly discouraged, I wrote him something like this:

singing a bewilderingly joyous carol, just like a bird. A neighboor looked out of another door and said:

"Hello, Jack! You're happy this morning, ain't you?"

Then Jack laughed-such a laugh; as happy and natural as a child. He didn't seem to need anything to laugh at, but just laughed because he was "laffy;" and I laughed too. The clouds vanished from my sky, the stiffening came into my back, and I went sailing down to Sansome Street as breezy as a nautilus. Therefore I say, he that laughs gives, and the world is better for it.

But presently the prison-house of four bare walls closed around me, and the Taft influence pervaded everything again. I long for sunshine and music more than I ever did in my life. I think they would cure me, bodily and mentally.

I am too far gone in this folly even to hold myself up to your ridicule. Poking fun at the "Widder" Ellis is dull work. I am getting sorry for the poor thing. Do you remember

the old fairy story, in which the king lost his wife, and in the violence of his grief beat his head against the wall five days? I never could imagine what good it did him under the circumstances; but I would have faith in the remedy if applied to myself.

You don't know how much I regret having written that note. Mr. Taft takes me at my word, and speaks to me no more. And yet there is something in his manner, or the atmosphere about him, that makes me think he has me on his mind.

When I wrote that note, it was in a desperate attempt to end my love and suspense. I thought if he ceased to speak to me I should soon become indifferent. But it is not so. He enslaves my thoughts to a greater extent than before-for now I am sick, sick for even the cold greetings I used to get. As I look back from the iceberg on which I am wrecked, I seem to see in all our previous intercourse the flowers and sunshine of the tropics. I have ruined even the small hope I had. I have no alternative but to grin and bear it. I am glad I had not the power to hurt him as I hurt my

self.

I would not tell you all this, dear Liz, but that I must tell some one. Oh, if my baby had only lived, as an outlet to her foolish mother's heart, I should have escaped this. And yet yet what she has escaped by dying!......

How different the effect of the sights on the streets now and three months ago! I was out at the park one day when I was happy and hopeful, and I shall never forget my feelings. Under the influence of the pure, vital air, the trees and flowers, the fountain, with its arching rainbow, together with the sight of temple, dome, and minaret, and the music that spiritualized it all, I went into a strange mood. “I saw men as angels walking." Every living soul was idealized, each after his or her own type. All had come up out of their baser lives into a semblance of that which was angelic within them. Even the hard, ugly clothes of men and women lost angularity, and flowed in graceful outline, and blended in harmonious color. But nothing can describe the children. They were angels-angels swinging, angels floating on the lake, angels in goat-carriages, angels in the gymnasium, angels swarming everywhere. If ever I go to Heaven, I shall see no sight more truly angelic.

I doubt if the man who said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," knew half the meaning of what he said. Beauty is forever unfolding out of the commonest things to him whose soul unfolds to meet it. And LOVE is the unfolding power.

I learned enough in that day to know that perfect love, reciprocal between God and man, can renovate this world in an hour.

And, for the first time in my life, I raised to the conception of how the beautiful, goldenhaired Nazarine, child of the sun as he was, for the, love of a fallen race renounced the shining halls of his native Heaven, to walk with bleeding feet the hills of Judea, with none for his companions but fishermen and harlots.

So I sat for hours looking upon the scene, the passing crowd, the angelic children, all from some exquisite retirement of soul, with one thought undulating upward like a prayer: Most sweet and pitiful!—most sweet and pitiful!-behold these ruins and restore.

[After this letter, which I have left unfinished to avoid one of Kate's sudden transitions from fore she wrote again. But the letter, when it the sublime to the ridiculous, it was weeks became, was Kate all over; and I submit it, as I have all of them, without change. I hold that through the formality of set phrases that it is our style of writing has grown so fossilized becoming impossible to express much diversity of character through it. And I both hope and believe that the literature of the Far West, by the unfolding of native talent, will break up the rules of long established usage, and inaugurate a style so elastic as to meet the demand of even the most extravagant originality, and that, too, without degenerating into coarseness.]

Dear Lizzie:-It has been a long time since I wrote you, and a sorry time, too, though that is forgotten now. Why, it was only yesterday I thought I could never write another line to any one.

What are we to think of a sentiment that enslaves us like love? I believe it is a disease, and expect to see it handled as such by practicing physicians before long. The way science is advancing, it will hardly be a hundred years until we shall see flaming placards announcing to the love-lorn the curative properties of "The World Renowned Anti-magnetic Obfusticator," or "The Chain Lightning Exterminator," warranted to abolish the necessity of suicide by restoring to a healthy condition the victims of this awful malady.

In this emergency, however, while the world waits its development, we must use such palliative remedies as we find at hand; and at the present time, THE ONLY ANTIDOTE FOR LOVE IS MARRIAGE. And I am going to be married to Claude Lorraine Taft. (Out upon Caleb ! Didn't I tell you his name wasn't Caleb?)

These sects are three in number, and are called the Molokans, the Doukobortsi, and the Scoptsi. Far above the other two stand the Molokans. Their creed is principally distinguished by a rigid adherence to the moral teachings of the Bible, and a rejection of all the ceremonials and the idolatry of the Russian Church. In the home of an Orthodox Russian, Byzantine pictures of saints stare at one from every corner; with the Molokans they are never to be seen. The Molokans also dispense with priests, and the simplicity of their service is almost Puritanic. They are notorious for the sobriety of their lives and the uniform honesty of their dealings. I can testify, from my own visits to their villages, that I have never seen greater cleanliness and neatness of dress among any peasant population. In comfort and in cheerfulness, their homes give evidence of an order of living wholly unknown to Russian peasants. To step from the barbarism of Armenia into one of their villages is like getting back again to civilization; and even Tiflis, with all its attempts to be thought European, can offer nothing comparable to the delightful freshness of a Molokan village. The people constantly impress one as men who have learned to hold religion and conduct in mutual counterpoise, so that their daily lives are, in large measure, a realization of all that their religion urges them to follow.

The Doukobortsi resemble the Molokans in setting aside the ceremonies and priestcraft of the Orthodox Church, while they attach great importance to the moral teachings of the Evangelists. They reject the doctrines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ, and they forbid oath-taking and military service. Civil marriage is common, if not universal, among them, and many communal institutions exist, which it would be interesting to describe if I had been able to gather information enough to render the description trustworthy. The head of the sect is a woman, but the precise authority she exercises seems a matter of doubt.

The Scoptsi, or self-mutilators, found their religion on the necessity of avoiding the lusts of the flesh, and pretend to have discovered in their interpretation of a Biblical text,* divine

*See Matthew xix, 12.

end. Emasculation is the indispensable condition upon which their creed must be accepted. With those who have suffered thus early in youth the features take a cast which at once distinguishes them from all others—a skin like parchment, colorless, without a beard, and without eyebrows. The voice, too, has the shrill pitch of the eunuch's. When a new member is admitted to the sect he has a choice between the "great seal" and the "small seal." The first is said to involve the complete act of mutilation, the second the simple act of deprivation. Few men who have arrived at maturity survive the first operation, but in case of death they are at once elevated to the rank of saints. No sect in Russia is so rich as this. The interest of its members seems to have concentrated itself in an almost miserly love of money-making, which, however, is always directed to the ends of their religion. Thousands of roubles are known to have been paid to a single man for his adoption of the faith. The Scoptsi are also by far the best organized sect in Russia. At times the members have been so unexpectedly shielded from the penalty of the law that it was suspected by the Russian Government that their organization resembled that of the Free Masons. With these, however, they have nothing in common. The sect is governed by twelve apostles. Who they are, and where they reside, is a mystery known only to the highest members of the sect. When one of them addresses a gathering, his identity remains concealed from all but the select few. Some years ago it is related that an officer of the Russian army undertook to ferret out, on behalf of the Government, the secrets of this sect. For two years he acted as a peddler in that part of the Caucasus where its members are most numerous, and sought, by selling wares in their villages, to attain to a degree of intimacy which would disclose to him the veiled points in their religion. But, inasmuch as he was unwilling to join the sect as a regular member, all his efforts proved vain. Returning to Russia, he continued his investigations there for some time with no better result. But as he was once passing the night in a small inn, he heard two men in the room next to him talking of a forthcoming meeting of the Twelve Apostles, which was to be held on a certain day in Siberia. The officer started in all haste for the town designated. He discovered where the conference was to be held, and made arrangements with the military for the seizure of all its members. But by this time the Apostles had got wind of his plans, and when the capture ought to have taken place all but one were found to have disappeared. Ill

ness had prevented the flight of the single one that remained. He was seized and cross-examined. He admitted at once that he was an Apostle of the sect, but all threats of exile and of physical torture, in case he should refuse to disclose the names and residence of the others, only elicited the reply that he was bound to secrecy by the holiest of oaths, which death itself could not make him renounce. A curious seal ring was found on his finger, and when asked whether it was the mark of an Apostle he admitted that it was. But at the same time he assured his captors that it would be vain for them to use it as a clue to the eleven, since, now that he had been seized, five hundred of his sect would wear the same ring on the morrow. The whole inquiry ended in nothing new being discovered, and the Apostle was exiled to the Caucasus. Thither, in the neighborhood of Poti, all the discovered members of this sect are sent. So numerous is this colony of exiles that those of military age alone form an entire battalion in the army. For obvious reasons they are thus kept separate from the rest of the troops, for, in spite of the hideousness of their religion, their abundance of money often makes easy converts among the needy and uneducated.

Though condemned for propagandism to exile in the Caucasus, it is not to any peculiarities of that region that Molokans, Doukobortsi, and Scoptsi owe their origin. The members of these sects exist all over Russia. Nor are they alone in their heresies. Various sects, like the Jumpers, make their religion an excuse for the wildest erotic excesses. Others combine dances with their religious worship. After prayer, a sort of orgy begins with shouts and dancing, and is prolonged until the worshipers faint away, or fall down foaming at the mouth. At such moments, they are supposed to have visions and direct communication with the Deity. Siberia, which, like the Caucasus, has been chosen as a home for religious exiles, includes, among other heretics, the sect of the Self-burners, who, on having a vision, shut themselves up in a house, and burn up themselves and their families. Lately, several hundred people are said to have destroyed themselves in this way on a single day.

It would be interesting to trace the upgrowth of these various sects, to learn under what circumstances they had their origin, and by what line of persuasion their founders made converts. But for such an inquiry the historical evidence is wanting. In the absence of documents relating to their past history we need not, however, be debarred from inquiring what circumstances contribute to make their further development a possibility to-day.

For they

are a living element of Russian life. They make converts, and are punished by the Government. The Church and the police are solicitous about them. We may seek, therefore, not unprofitably, to determine what elements of Russian society are to be held accountable for their progress.

The cardinal fact common to all the sects is their utter renunciation of allegiance to the Established Church. Let the Russian religion, therefore, be our first object of comment. The Russian State religion is Christianity reduced to fetich worship. It is a pyramid of ceremonials, gaudy with much tinsel, but resting on no moral foundation. To live life nobly is no part of its teachings. It concerns itself with death, and its priests insist that its ceremonies are to be observed for the sake of God's favor in bestowing the ultimate reward of the kingdom of heaven. The sole ground for doing right, or for abstaining from evil, is made the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell; and the chief duties of the good churchman are to propitiate saints, to bow and cross himself devoutly before their images, which confront him in every room of every house, to observe the appointed fasts, to be duly shriven, to receive communion, and to pay his priest the fees he exacts for false certificates that all these duties have been performed. In short, by its appeals to purely selfish instincts in man-his desire to be protected from harm while alive on earth, and to be blessed with immortal happiness thereafter-the Russian religion makes itself preeminently the creed of a people among whom civilization has made little growth. Far different from this is the version of Russian orthodoxy which is found in the rhapsodies of Pan-Slavonian dreamers. But the fact stands unaltered, that its inculcation of the essentially Christian privileges and responsibilities dwindles into nothing by the side of the tremendous importance attached to the talismanic virtue of mere ceremonial. The Russian of the highest society bears the mark of this teaching not less plainly than the lowest peasant. The one, when a sudden thunder-clap rolls overhead, uncovers and crosses himself quickly to keep off the devil. The other, whom education has taught that the formal observances of his Orthodox Church are more Asiatic than European, professes to have discarded them altogether; but let the occasion arise, and he will prove that, with his religion thrown overboard, he has yet held fast to superstitions which would do no discredit to an age of necromancers and witchcraft. He agrees, too, with the peasant in the contempt with which they both treat priests. It is a sorry comment on