that glorious prairie. The exercise and the perfect afternoon brought back the color to her cheeks. "I think I shall be much better to morrow," she observed, as we trotted home. "What a country this is, and what horses!" slipping her hand down her mount's glossy neck. "I did right to come back here. I do not believe I will go away again." And she smiled on Jack and me, who laughed, and said she would find it a difficult thing to attempt. We all three came out on the veranda to see the sunset. It was always a glorious sight, but this evening it was more than usually magnificent. Immense rays of pale blue and pink spread over the sky, and the clouds, which stretched in horizontal masses, glowed rose and golden. The whole sky was luminous and tender, and seemed to tremble with light. We sat silent, looking at the sky and at the shadowy grass that seemed to meet it. Slowly the color deepened and faded. "There can never be a lovelier even ing," said Aunt Agnes, with a sigh. "Don't say that," replied Jack. "It is only the beginning of even more perfect ones." Aunt Agnes rose with a slight shiver. "It grows chilly when the sun goes, she murmured, and turned lingeringly to enter the house. Suddenly she gave a startled exclamation. Jack and I jumped up and looked at her. She stood with both hands pressed to her heart, looking"The child again," said Jack, in a low voice, laying his hand on my arm. He was right. There in the gathering shadow stood the little girl in the white dress. Her hands were stretched towards us, and her lips parted in a smile. A belated gleam of sunlight seemed to linger in her hair. "Perdita!" cried Aunt Agnes, in a voice that shook with a kind of terrible joy. Then, with a stifled sob, she ran forward and sank before the baby, throwing her arms about her. The little girl leaned back her golden head and looked at Aunt Agnes with her great, serious eyes. Then she flung both baby arms round her neck, and lifted her sweet mouth Jack and I turned away, looking at each other with tears in our eyes. A slight sound made us turn back. Aunt Agnes had fallen forward to the floor, and the child was nowhere to be seen. We rushed up, and Jack raised my aunt in his arms and carried her into the house. But she was quite dead. The little child we never saw again. THE UNRETURNING. BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER. E Though the ages unceasing are evermore thine, ARTH, knowing not eld, in thy youth all divine, Once more be birth thrilled, until forth from thy womb Earth, mother undying, thy tender arms keep The insistence of growth, the fair crown of the leaf, Our hearts are nigh breaking with bliss and with dole; MR. HENRY G. MARQUAND. BY E. A. ALEXANDER. started out in the beginning with such men as Gilbert Stuart, Copley, Trumbull, and others almost as well known to lead it, men well worthy to be ranked with the best painters of their time in the Old World, and although it appears from the number of their productions that they were liberally patronized by our educated classes, no efforts seem to have been made to cultivate or foster the æsthetic taste of our people during the early years of our existence as a nation. An English gentleman visiting New York in 1796 writes the following account of the only New York museum: "After breakfast I walked to the museum, the only kind of exhibition yet to be seen in America. It was older and more extensive than the one at Philadelphia. It consisted principally of shells and fossils and arms and dresses of the Indian tribes. There was also a machine said to exhibit perpetual motion. ... I was sorry," adds the writer, after minutely describing this machine, "I had no Eastern curiosity for this collection."* The fact that this collection of curiosities was the only public exhibition then existing in New York is easily explained when we remember the period of storm and stress through which the young republic passed during the years that immediately followed the close of the Revolutionary war, a period when the attention of all our most intelligent citizens was fully occupied in the arduous task of permanently building up the nation. Immense labor was involved in the accomplishment of this task, and this sufficiently accounts for the public neglect of the fine arts; but it is much harder to account for the subsequent lapse of taste in a people who began so well, or how, having before them as models the simplicity and elegance of our so-called Colonial architecture, and the refinement and dignity that lent interest to even the inferior painters of the early school, they could give us in their place for architecture the hideous mansarded and cupolaed constructions that in some places still dis This letter was quoted by Mr. Marquand in one of his inaugural speeches at the Metropolitan Museum. monotonously ugly façades of brownstone are only broken by that modern monstrosity the high stoop; and for art were satisfied with the vapid productions of the intermediate school, or sugary copies of famous pictures-copies that offered scarcely a hint of the great originals. Even in New York no general awakening to the importance of having something better than a museum of shells and curiosities seems to have taken place for thirty or forty years after the Englishman's visit, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to form a gallery of fine arts in the Rotunda near the City Hall. Later the National Academy was founded, but this institution did not include a permanent collection of works of art, and was established principally to give instruction; and with these exceptions the cause of art languished, finding encouragement only in the patronage of a few cultivated persons whose eyes were slowly opening to the importance of educating a taste for the beautiful as well as the practical in our rapidly developing people. Up to this time the few valuable paintings and art objects that were owned in this country belonged either to individuals or clubs, and were nearly if not wholly inaccessible to the general public. The first really important step in the city's æsthetic education was taken when, in November, 1869, a group of influential men met together and appointed a committee of fifty, which was afterwards increased to one hundred and sixteen, and from the work of this body the association known as the Metropolitan Museum of Art was organized. These gentlemen purposed to establish an institution which would eventually combine the functions of the British National Gallery and the art departments of the British and South Kensington museums-a representative museum of fine art applied to industry. The idea of such an institution seems to have originated with the Hon. John Jay, and it was owing to his personal influence with members of the Union League Club that the movement towards organization was started. The institution was legally incorporated in April, 1870, and in April, 1871, the Legis lature appropriated the sum of five hundred thousand dollars for the erection of a building for the new museum in Central Park. In May, 1871, a house on Fifth Avenue was leased to hold the first collections, and these were afterwards removed to the old Douglas mansion in West Fourteenth Street, where they remained until the building in the Park was completed. The history of the museum shows a continued struggle against a lack of public interest, for the trustees did not have the pecuniary assistance they had a right to expect in a city like New York, and their early annual reports continually harp upon the fact that in Boston and Philadelphia similar institutions were liberally supplied with funds by their citizens, and were thus enabled to secure many valuable objects which the Metropolitan Museum was forced to forego for lack of the money to buy them. Civilized European governments, recognizing the importance of the fine arts as an educational factor, look after their interests and spend millions of dollars for this purpose; in America, on the contrary, we have to depend almost entirely upon the liberality of individuals for the furtherance of this important work, and in New York especially the bustle and hurry of commercial pursuits almost exclusively absorb our best and most intelligent element, and all that does not directly bear upon business is apt to be neglected. The pioneers of this finearts movement, when they first commenced their work, found it almost impossible to impress the wealthy people with the importance of the undertaking. Little by little, however, this interest has been aroused, and although the results are not everything that might have been expected in a community representing such a vast aggregation of wealth, they are not actually discreditable. It is certainly encouraging to find that the most liberal patron of the fine arts in New York, and we might even say in the whole country, is a gentleman who has won distinction as a financier, thus setting us a noble example of enlightened citizenship, and proving that a love of art and an active interest in all that beautifies and refines existence are not incompatible with the pursuit of a successful business career. It was not until 1871 that Mr. Henry Marquand became a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, but ever since his elec tion he has been an untiring worker for the institution, and its most liberal bene factor, sparing neither time nor money in who has not the means of studying the pursuit of its advancement. Mr. Marquand's active interest in art matters dates back to a visit paid to Rome in the year 1843. He there made the acquaintance of the American sculptor Brown, and through his influence and that of other artist friends began to frequent studios, and here it is appropriate to remark that the kindly sympathy and foresight that have distinguished Mr. Marquand's public gifts, and that led him to unselfishly relinquish his best possessious to benefit the cause of art in this country, undoubtedly had its origin in this early association with these painters and sculptors in Rome. His intimacy with these men and the knowledge he acquired of their hopes, aims, and aspirations account for the intelligent help he has offered to their successors; for a total outsider, whose interest in art matters is a comparatively trivial incident in a busy life, and not its most important feature, can rarely realize the blighted condition of the artist work of the masters. A student so cut off occupies the position of a child who has been taught to read and thirst for knowledge but is deprived of all but the most elementary books. A realization of what this deprivation really means seems to have impressed itself upon the sensitive young American thrown all at once into an atmosphere of appreciative culture and enthusiasm; for Rome at the time of Mr. Marquand's visit was the Mecca towards which every art student who could afford the journey eagerly pressed, and memoirs and letters of this period bear abundant testimony to the benefit and delight the treasures of the Eternal City conferred upon students whose mother-country afforded them not even the humblest substitute. The impressions made upon Mr. Marquand never dulled or faded, and although shortly after his return to America he became actively engaged in business, he did not allow the sympathy his journey |