according to one somewhat questionable statement made before the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House of Representatives, last Congress, burns any vessel found therein to the sea, after removing officers and crew.

By notice dated November 15, 1881, the Russian Consul at Yokohama issued a notice containing the following:

At the request of the local authorities of Behring and other islands, the undersigned hereby notifies, that the Russian Imperial Government publishes, for general knowledge, the following:

(1) Without a special permit or license from the governor-general of Eastern Siberia, foreign vessels are not allowed to carry on trading, hunting, fishing, etc., on the Russian coast or islands in the

Okhotsk and Behring Seas, or on the northeastern coast of Asia, or within their sea boundary line.

(5) Foreign vessels found trading, fishing, hunting, etc., in Russian waters without a license or permit from the governor-general, and also those possessing a license or permit who may infringe the existing by-laws on hunting, shall be confiscated, both vessels and cargoes, for the benefit of the Government. This enactment shall be enforced henceforth, commencing with A.D. 1882.

(6) The enforcement of the above will be entrusted to Russian men-of-war, and also to Russian merchant-vessels, which, for that purpose, will carry military detachments and be provided with proper instructions.

What Russia's claim is, thus appears clear. Russia has assented to Mr. Bayard's suggestion of an international agreement, and it is to be hoped that something of the kind can be concluded. Protection to the fisheries ought, if possible, to be extended beyond Behring Sea down below the Aleutian Islands. There are difficulties, however, in the way of an agreement, and it is as well not to blink them. It is hard to see just what concessions Canada will willingly submit to, and, indeed, from suggestions in the correspondence already published, there seems to have been, as has been said, some opposition in that quarter to Lord Salisbury's assent to a conference. Moreover, unless all nations agree, it will be possible to register a vessel under a non-concurring government, and thus defeat the regulations of the concurring governments. We ought not, in any event, to yield up the doctrine of mare clausum, even if an international agreement is effected, and indemnity is paid for seizures already made. The nations may not always work harmoniously together, and we do not want to compromise ourselves, so that we shall be estopped from

acting in the future. The doctrine of mare clausum is not so very absurd, considering the position of the sea, and the necessity of the nations to have recourse to it; and without holding the sea as a mare clausum, we may argue for a right to resort to the waters beyond the three-mile limit for the necessary protection of rights within it.

There is now the act of March 2, 1889, and then we shall have covered the whole subject. February 27, 1889, the Senate passed a bill in reference to the salmon fisheries in Alaska, and February 28, the bill came up in the House. Mr. Dunn, of the Committee of Merchant Marine and Fisheries, offered the following amendment, to form section three of the bill:

§ 3. That § 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States was intended to include and apply, and is hereby declared to include and apply, to all the waters of Behring Sea in Alaska embraced within the boundary lines mentioned and described in the treaty with Russia, dated March 30, 1867, by which the Territory of Alaska was ceded to the United States; and it shall be the duty of the President, at a timely season in each year, to issue his proclamation, and cause the same to be published for one month in at least one newspaper published at each United States port of entry on the Pacific coast, warning all persons against entering said territory and waters for the purpose of violating the provisions of said section; and he

shall also cause one or more vessels of the United States to diligently cruise said waters and arrest all persons and seize all vessels found to be, or to have been, engaged in any violation of the laws of the United States therein.

The bill as amended passed the House, and was returned to the Senate. Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Hoar thought that the amendment raised a grave question of international law, and advised a reference to the Committee on Foreign Relations. the amendment, and it was non-concurred March 1, this committee reported against in. Mr. Sherman, in presenting the committee's report, said:

I was directed by the committee to state, that the subject matter, the merits of the proposition proposed by the House, were not before us and not considered by us, and we are not at all committed for or against the proposition made by the House. We make this report simply because it has no connection with the bill itself, and it ought to be disagreed to and abandoned and considered more carefully hereafter.

A conference committee was then appointed on the part of the Senate, Sherman, Edmunds, and Morgan; and on the part of the House, Dunn, McMillin, and

Felton. This committee reported the following amendment, which was adopted by the Senate and House, and the bill was then signed by the President, March 2:

2:—

§ 3. That § 1956 of the Revised Statutes of the United States is hereby declared to include and apply, to all the dominion of the United States in the waters of Behring Sea, and it shall be, etc. [The rest of the section is substantially as given above, with only slight necessary or unimportant changes.]

March 22, 1889, President Harrison issued a proclamation, in conformity with this act, and the seizures have been made presumably in pursuance thereof. Neither the Senate nor the House by the act affirmed or denied our jurisdiction over Behring Sea, but left it to be settled by the administrative departments, or by themselves at more leisure, and after maturer consideration.

M

I.

IRANDA walked down the village street. It was broad and homelike, with long elm-shadows playing against the white houses on either side of the way. She walked with the typical New England girl's air of half-conscious rectitude, her back straight, her head steady, her hair smoothly twisted at the back, her brow as clear as day. Intelligence, conscience, and energy were written on her wholesome face; the complexion was blond, the eyes direct and blue, the nose straight. Her muslin dress was immaculately ironed and crisply looped behind, and the lace at her throat was as snowy as the skin against which it lay.

"It does do me a sight o' good to see that girl walk by," was poor Miss Titcomb's remark, as she sat at her usual window, very naturally observing the gait of each passer, her own limbs being paralyzed. Miranda intuitively turned her head and sent a bow and a bright smile to the window.

The girl, in truth, was full of a desire to cast abroad into the world some of the joy of which her own heart was full; and, as she walked on, one of those moments came to her which make an epoch in life. She always afterwards remembered how, as she stepped along under the familiar elm-trees, on that particular afternoon, a great wave of harmony suddenly swept across her soul

and she experienced an inward awakening which made her feel that she had never known before what it was just to live in this green and glorious world, full of people with answering eyes and voices that respond

to our own.

There had been, it is true, some new and startling words spoken to Miranda the evening before perhaps it always needs a hand to bring out these subtle melodies; but on this afternoon she did not connect her happy mood with these words nor with him who had spoken them. She only thought how delicious was the air, how broad and smooth and shady the familiar street. Miranda was the teacher of the village school, which was at present closed for the summer vacation. She was on her way to the public library to return the book she had been reading. Next to the church and the school-house West Topham was proud of its public library. It was a tiny frame building, standing behind a fence and a small plot of grass. A modest latticework encircled the door, where vines clambered luxuriantly, as if they, too, shared the villagers' pride in the words upon the sign beneath, Public Library." This small building was the link between the village and the world. Here the studious found statistics for their Natural History Society, the meditative found romance to feed their dreams, the gay found fashions for their gowns. The railroad had not yet reached them, but their public library prevented the inhabitants of this little village from

being quite left behind by the march of civilization.

Several young women with books in their hands approached as Miranda turned in at the gate. There were among them one or two heavy, long chins and ungainly figures, and several of the faces were thin and keen-eyed, as if thirsting for knowledge in an untrained fashion. Of this latter class was Lizzie Thorpe, the village milliner and Miranda's fidus Achates. Her bonnets were said to be delicate and conscientious structures, with really a spiritual quality about them. A city visitor to the little West Topham church had once declared that its bonnets alone were enough to educate the natives and redeem the place from barbarism.

Lizzie Thorpe's figure was as slender and graceful as a willow, but her face was plain, sallow, and sad. The attitude of her mind towards the pretty schoolmistress was a species of worship. Miranda had been the brightest part of her existence; and many a gay twist had been given to a ribbon bow, as the milliner, in her lonely corner, thought with a smile of the rosy face at the other end of the village. Of late there had been some happenings which Lizzie could not quite understand; and as the two young women walked away from the library together, after a half-hour's rummaging among the books, it seemed a good chance for a confidential talk. Lizzie felt that she could easily find out what she wished to know, and if necessary she was ready to be a loving protector for her friend against the threatened danger.

"Dick Terry is going away soon, I suppose?" she began quietly.

The quick blood surged into Miranda's face, but she said nothing. Lizzie continued, with firm persistence :

"And I am glad enough that he is going away; for they say that he is a great flirt, and I don't want him to do any harm in this neighborhood. He is gay and lively, you know, and a stranger in town, and

she went on, with much dignity, "and I should not allow them to be interrupted by anybody's nonsense or selfishness."

Miranda's aspect was severe, and she did not seem in a mood for further disclosures. Lizzie became the victim of a distressing sense of loneliness. There was something new and indescribable about Miranda, something that her friend could not fathom. Lizzie thought herself filled only with anxiety for her friend's welfare; in reality she was undergoing the common, hard ordeal of being one who is left behind, one who must look with longing and uninitiated eyes towards the beautiful, veiled country, into which another has sailed serenely.

A tumult of questioning voices rose in Miranda, as she took the homeward path alone.

"Gay! Lively! A stranger in town!" It is a comment upon the secluded life led in this little place, that these words should have seemed like indictments. To her the word "gay" might mean the whole gamut of possible evil, down to such depths of depravity as she had shuddered over in books, but had never dreamed of coming into contact with. Was Dick Terry gay in any such sense? The possibility, the whispered hint, gave her so acute a pang that she realized for the first time what an important fact he had become to her. She examined the discovery. How had he done it? She thought of the dancing of her heart at his footsteps and the contagious sunshine of his merry, easy smile, so contagious that her fine lips parted now at thought of it; and she knew that her whole being was in the grasp of something stronger than herself, and that the past two months-just two months she had known him-held more of life than all the quiet years before them. "Do I really know him?" she asked herself. "If I do not, how have I dared to let him know me so well?" But after all, the voice of conscience was just now rather gentle than harsh. A sense of gain, of "knowing things," would steal into the glowing heart and ring its independent chime of music across all duller

notes.

II.

MRS. LORING, Miranda's mother, was known amongst her neighbors as "a char

acter." In her case it was a complimentary term, and meant not only that she was a model housekeeper, a church-pillar, an admirable nurse, the executive head of the sewing-circle, and possessed the best receipts for pickles and strawberry shortcake, but also that she had once practised a profession with a name to it. Years ago, before she had married Hiram Loring, which did not happen until she was thirtythree, she had been the teacher of elocution in a New England boarding-school for girls; and traces of her former occupation still remained in her deep, mellow voice and accurate pronunciation, in her erect figure, in a passion for Shakespeare, and in an occasional gesture of considerable grandeur. In a conversation with Mrs. Loring a gesture might produce itself at any moment, quite unlooked for by either herself or the listener, and it never failed of being effective upon both in recalling the sphere of importance which Mrs. Loring had once filled. She had never been known to express regret at having married an obscure and not very successful farmer; but after Hiram died the farm became more productive than it had been during his lifetime, and Mrs. Loring had not worn the aspect of a heartbroken widow. Was she unfeeling, harsh, or cold by nature? It was a sufficient answer to this question only to cast a glance at her broad and humane face, where every line indicated a combination of energy and kindness which might have sufficed for the propping of a community; and if surroundings, as expressed in household arrangements, are an indication of the occupant's temperament, what could be more hospitable and enticing than Mrs. Loring's sitting-room, where the sun poured at will across a warm red and green ingrain carpet, over chairs whose immaculate freedom from dust defied the most searching of rays?

Miranda was the product of this clean, wholesome dwelling. She had inherited from her mother perfect health, and an observable erectness of figure and of temperament, but she was less tall, less square in shoulder and large in feature, and together with her father's light hair and ruddy cheeks, she had taken from him a certain lightness and simplicity which made her seem attractively vulnerable, while yet safe and strong.

"O Miranda," Dick Terry had said, "you are so different from other girls. There's something about you that makes a fellow afraid of you, and yet dead in love with you. I want to take you back to Boston with me; won't you come, Miranda? You must. I can't stand it if you say no." And his voice had trembled. Say you'll marry me, Miranda.”

66

She had not quite ventured yet to say it; but each time that they met she had been nearer and nearer to saying it. Her own wishes were beginning to join with his pleadings to make her yield. When she feared and drew back, the thought of her mother's cordial liking for the merry young fellow gave her courage again. "Mother knows a great many people, and she trusts him," thought she; "why should not I?"

This was a reversal of the ordinary course of true love; the distrust was with the young daughter and not with the interfering parent! Mrs. Loring frankly liked the merry young fellow. He had had many a talk with her over his business prospects. He was a druggist's clerk, interested in colored liquids, receiving so much a month for pounding substances in a mortar, and with hardly a dollar put by against a rainy day; but he had assured her how willingly he would work, how desperately he would economize, if only Miranda would smile upon him. And the camaraderie which had been established between Mrs. Loring and the young man was pleasant to see. It was refreshing to her, who had never had a son, to pick up his hat, thrown at random on the nearest chair, and he had arrived at such an advanced state of friendliness that he could even follow her into her cool and fragrant "buttery," with a plea for a bit of luncheon. Dick was so nonchalantly handsome that no normal specimen of womankind could have found it other than a privilege to feed him.

"Do give me a small piece of your wonderful bread and butter, my dear Mrs. Loring," he would say, and then he would inhale a long breath of that sweet-smelling air, which was so suggestive of wholesomeness that it might have answered for a time. "What a place this is, I declare!" he would exclaim, examining the clean shelves. "I wish I could bottle up some of this perfume to take back to town. I'll warrant it would bring fully five dollars per dozen.

This is what I call a regular poetical pantry."

Now Dick knew nothing whatever of poetry, but he had discovered Mrs. Loring's tender spot, and he was aware that his cordial footing with her had been gained partly by his undisguised admiration of her literary acquirements.

"I never fell in with people like you and Miranda before," said he, with the utmost truthfulness. It was on that same August evening with which our story began. "You don't know what it is to a fellow like me, knocking about a town ever since I was a boy, to come in here and see this kind of home-like thing going on. It makes me want to begin life all over again. Here, let me carry in that plate of doughnuts for you. You're very good to let me stay to tea to-night, for you know in a couple of days my vacation will be over. If I hadn't worked for years without any, I couldn't have had these two months now. What a piece of luck it was, my coming up here!" At this precise moment an erect, girlish figure appeared in the doorway. Miranda came in, still perturbed by her talk with Lizzie Thorpe, the words, "a stranger in town," still repeating themselves within her consciousness, as if they held some subtle reproach in them. The scene which met her blue eyes was like a response to her questionings her tall mother just issuing from the buttery with a pile of biscuits in her hand, followed by the taller lover, with his plate of doughnuts. She stood in the doorway and laughed gayly, and the cloud blew away from her spirit then and there. After tea began the fateful evening. Loring had promised her guest a Shakespearian reading as a parting festivity, in view of his approaching farewell to the village. A few sticks of wood crackled on the hearth. Dick sat in the high-backed armchair, with his heels upon the fender. He tenderly watched Miranda at her knitting, while Mrs. Loring's deep voice in the rhythm of blank verse sounded pleasantly to his unaccustomed ears. As the reading went on, his hand stole out towards the busy white ones near by, in the irresistible desire for assurance and sympathy. The knitting dropped, the hands were imprisoned, and Miranda wonderingly told herself that she was betrothed.

Mrs.

Mrs. Loring was reading The Tempest. Perhaps her elocutionary method was old

fashioned. Probably it was tinged with affectation and obtruded in too marked a degree the rhythm of the verse. But her audience was not critical, and the two young faces, when she had finished, spoke a poetry which needed no interpretation.

Mrs. Loring remembered that the bread was yet to be mixed in the kitchen, and disappeared. Dick turned a bright face to Miranda. He still held her hand, and almost feared to speak lest her awakened consciousness should make her withdraw it. He did not know that to such a girl as she it could never happen that her lover might hold her hand unawares; to her it was a solemn rite entered into intentionally.

"So that is where your pretty name came from, is it?" he asked in a low voice.

Miranda's being was engrossed by the sweet sense of companionship. Her lips parted to answer his question, but no sound escaped them. He gathered courage to

move nearer.

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But you don't speak out plainly, as the one in the play did," tightening his grasp upon her hand. "She gave a fellow some satisfaction. Why, if you said such things. to me, I should - I should

His handsome face was so eager that Miranda wished she might find words with which to please him; but how could she express her half-distrustful adoration?

"She could, of course, in a book," began Miranda, "but —"

"Ah, you are caught, caught!" cried the young man exultantly. "If you feel as she did, no matter for the words!"

And all this happened while Mrs. Loring mixed the bread. When she came back, with the odor of soap and water clinging to her hands, and not a fleck of flour upon her to betray her recent employment, she accepted the state of affairs with much calmness. Unconsciousness of future possibilities had never been one of her failings, and it must be admitted that just this emergency had been foreseen by her, now and again, as her pretty daughter had developed before her pleased eyes. Perhaps she had even hoped that sometime the fair young girl might be called away from the homely village life of West Topham and the monotony of school-teaching. If so, one may rather admire her unselfishness than bewail her ambition. With a serious enjoyment of the eventfulness of the affair,