ART IS LONG. BY GERTRUDE WARDEN. ICopyright, 1803, by the Author. 1 in haste, repent at leis n ure, my dear." \ So croaked / fewA \ the aunt of ! \ Brandon / her Be l' aWay " Vaugban, with whom she had ' \/I fallen violently \ \ V|l in love, after attending a "pi- j anoforte recital" of his own compo sitions at St. James' halL Paul Vaughan gave music lessons, and had a flourishing connection in Bays water. Young ladies under his tuition took to playing Wagner three hours a day, to the infinite distress of their friends and neighbom within ear shot Fortunately for himself he possessed, also—inherited from Scandinavian and Teutonic ancestors—a pair of dreamy blue eyes and an immense amount of wavy auburn hair. The hair and the eyes brought him pupils and disciples which no amount of musical lore and academic training could have procured him, and among them was Edith Bran don. She was a charming girl; not at all clever, but so high*ly educated as to pass among her own immediate circle for a marvel of artistic and scientific acliieveme nts. She had a charming slender figure and a charming rose and cream oom plexion, and while secretly laving lawn RE LAID DOWN HIS PEN. tennis and waltzing, barrel-organ tunes and afternoon tea parties, she was con sumed by a desire to sacrifice her life and her little fortune on the shrine of a genius. Paul Vaughan wa9 the nearest ap proach to anything in that direction which she had ever met, and she promptly fell in love with him. She insisted upon receiving pianp forte lessons from him, a desire which her indulgent aunt gratified, with the result that iq three weeks' time, moved out of himself by the lovely Edith's sympathetic appreciation of his work and his aims, Paul Vaughan informed her that she was his ideal—the only woman for whom ho had ever enter tained any feeling warmer than (esthetic admiration. . The result of this declaration was that his pupil at once drooped from the music stool into his arms, and that Miss Brandon, senior, entering inop portunely at that moment, her niece announced her intention of marrying no one else but her dreamy-eyed music master; and a conventional Baysvvater wedding, with white brocade, Brussels lace, Buszard's cake, six bridesmaids, two pages, and gifts of checks, but ter-knives, paper-cutters, candlesticks, and volumes of Tennyson bouud In morocco leather, together with a honeymoon trip to Norway, followed in due course with bewildering rapidi ty. Edith's aunt' and guardian, a pleas ant-tempered and sensible old maid, disapproved of the whole thing. "Paul is a genius," she said, "and geniuses oughtn't to marry. Look at Early le." As the sage of Chelsea had been dead some years that was impossible. But looking at Mr. and Mrs. Paul Vaughan they seemed happy enough. Miss Brandon still maintained that all this was a mistake. Edith ought by rights to have married Harry Deni son, a good-looking young stock broker, who for three years had been so much in love with her as to be unendurable when in her society. "Edith wants a lot of affection and attention," Miss Brandon said, "and Paul, with his head full of figures and major fifths, won't be able to give It. She won't let him go on giving music lessons, because she is jealous of him. Consequently, with all necessity for mere money-grubbing removed, he will be more devoted to his Art—with a big A—and less dovoted to anything else than ever. And in time even a woman tires of all give and no take in the mat ter of affection." Miss Brandon was not far wrong. At the end of a year of matrimony Edith and Paul had a fragile, gray eyed infant, upon whom the father gazed wouderingly, and in whose honor he composed a charming rhap sody, in the invention of which he en tirely forgot the subject, and was both annoyed and troubled by the "infant seraph's" squeals. At the end of a second year the gray eyea infant faded out of this world altogether in the course of some prosaic childish ailment, and beautiful Edith nearly broke her heart in dry . eyed agony. Paul was more easily consoled. He wrote a requiem upon the baby's death, which greatly increased his fame. The subject, moreover, sug gested to him a cantata on the "Judg ment of Solomon," upon which he at once set to work with an artist's fervor, while poor Edith, her lovely face aud figure wasted by grief, betook herself every day to that little green grave among tho Surrey hills* beside which she would sit for hours, moisten-i I off the unresponsive earth with her tears. At length, one day as Paul sat in his study surrounded by musical instru ments and musical books of reference, with the manuscript of his precious cantata, now within a few iines of completion, beside him, his wife tapped at the door. Paul did not want to be bothered by anybody at that moment lie had just finished a most admirable air, in which the feelings of a mother over a lost babe were suggested with marvel ous delicacy and truth. Nevertheless, he laid down his pen in a resigned manner on his wife's entrance. She had come to tell him that she was going away from him, for a long time, perhaps. "I don't think you quite know, Paul," she said, with a painful effort to be calm which made her voice sound cold and hard, "how difficult it is for me to go on living here as nothing in your life. lam only twenty-one, you know, just a selfish young woman, I suppose. 1 didn't quite know what marrying a musician meant. I think you will do your work quite as well and even bet ter without me. Martha will do the housekeeping and spare you All the trouble. It would have been different if baby had lived and—" She stopped abruptly. Her face looked gray and old. Paul was groatly distressed. It was evident to him that she did not love him; while as for him, he had scarcely even looked at another woman. Still, he wished she had not interrupted him just when he was in the vein of compo sition. He was very kind and gentle in his manner. But ever and anon, whilst speaking to her, his eyes went back to his manuscript upon the table, and at sight of this Edith's long pent-up re sentment and jealousy broke out. "You think of nothing in the world but your work," she sobbed. "What do such men as you want with wife or child? Just a housekeeper to see that your ineals are cooked and your clotheß mended, and that you are not troubled in any way. Love and affection are nothing to you, less than nothing!" He gazed at her with a gentle, won dering.resignation, which irritated her still more. The very next day she would leave him, so she said, in order to travel about and try to forget her loneliness and grief. Then she left the room, and Paul, after running his fin gers several times through his long hair, decided with a sigh that he must put aside his work for the day and con sult Miss Brandon concerning her niece's extraordinary behavior. He took the next train to London in order to do this, but only arrived at the Bayswater home to find that Miss Brandon had left for Italy. Tired, dispirited, and annoyed at hav ing wasted a day away from his be loved "score," Paul journeyed home, arriving at the station nearest to his cottage at eight o'clock in the evening. . A short cut through the woods would bring him to his own door in twenty minutes, and as ho strode ovor the first fallen leaves of September, with his hands clasped behind him and his head full of unfinished melodies, he noticed a curious, red, flickering light in the sky ahead of him, through the interlaced branches of the elms and chestnuts. Too soon he was to know the cause of this. Sounds of hurrying feet, of shouts and cries, mingled with the crackle of burning wood and the fall of masonry, appraised him of the scene of riot and ruin awaiting him where, a J|- SAFE WITHIN RRR ARMS WAS TIIE PRE CIOUS MANUSCRIPT. ft few hours ago, his peaceful, rose-em bowered home had stood. A lamp, accidentally overturned by a careless servant, had been the cause of the fire. The local fire brigade had arrived too late, and the cottage was enveloped in a cloud of smoke, through which jets of flame shot up into the quiet evening air. "My wife! Edith!" Paul cried, in frenzied anxiety, as the meaning of the scene burst upon him. His housekeeper, Martha, wringing her hands, cried out to hiin that Mrs. Vaughan had been standing where ho now was, sound and unhurt, only a few short minutes before; but that as though suddenly remembering some thing, she had dashed forward, before her intention could he divined, and h*wi disappeared within the burning house. Her husband, distracted with alarm, would have precipitated himself into the building in Edith's track, but that strgng hands restrained him. He, as well as all present, had given the un happy girl up for lost, when, right through the black smoke, pulling in columns from the front entrance of the doomed house, a slight form staggered forth. Safe within her arms was the precious manuscript—her rival in her husband's love—to rescue which she had risked her life! Paul Vaughan is a great man now. His cantata: "The Judgment of Solo mon," was the first of a series of bril liant successes in the musical world, lie makes more money than he can want and commissions pour upon him. But although he dearly loves his art, every spare moment of his time is de voted to his wife, whom he cannot en dure to have out of his sight, so dear lias she become to him. And his ten der care is needed now, for since that terrible night of the tire Edith Vaughan has been blind. ELLEN OSBORN'S LETTER Tha Salmagundi Colors at the Subscription Tea. Novel Combinations of White an