Among many other things worthy of attention there are several factories, in which native workmen may be seen at the tedious task of manufacturing their far-famed filagree work in gold and silver. This jewelry is of rare beauty and delicacy, and is in great demand. The process is simple, yet interesting. The pure metal is drawn into very fine wires, two wires are twisted together after the manner of twine, rolled between steel rollers, and when flattened into a thin wire with nicked edges the artisan takes it and forms such designs as he may wish or his taste dictate. With a small blow-pipe he then solders it all together in a frame of heavier metal. The designs are very delicate, and some of them as fine as lace-work.

From Santa Fé we passed westward by railroad through growing towns and a country producing excellent fruit of all kinds, including grapes, peaches, pears, cherries, and apples. It is all accomplished by irrigation; but as a fruit-producing country it is destined to rival California, both in the size and flavor of its fruit.

The land is also excellent pasture, and part of it is peopled by the Pueblo Indians, who are thrifty

and hard workers. To a certain extent they are under the supervision of the United States Government, and are liberally supplied with machinery for their agricultural pursuits. Ignorance prevails, and they are, therefore, naturally superstitious.

Their theory of the railroad is, that God himself gave man the locomotives, for it is beyond their conception how a man could make one; but they acknowledge human agency in laying the rails, since they have seen it done. They visit neighboring towns to sell produce, and also blankets, for which they are famous. The women do most of the work, but not all, and many of the older women have a voice in council. Their council-chambers are built of adobe, circular in shape, without windows, and with a single small door; here all things of importance are decided.

From San Marcial, a rough, new town,-new, even in Western phraseology, we took the stage for a trip of over two hundred miles. Of all invented vehicles, I think there is more discomfort compressed into a stage-coach than in any other mortal conception.

Ours carried fifteen passengers.

I rode with the driver by the advice of an experienced friend, and was squeezed in between him and another traveler on the box. The four stout mules had a good load, yet over fair roads we made reasonable time and rather enjoyed the mule-nature of the driver's favorite, "Lazy Loafer."

For a stretch of forty miles over what is known as the "Journey of Death" there is no water except what is hauled to tanks at each station where we changed mules. At Aliman, after various failures, both by the Government and by private enterprise, water was struck at a depth of one hundred and eighty-four feet; and the lucky digger was rewarded with a grant of five miles square around the well and the right to sell water there. A pretty windmill flaps its wings over the well and keeps a large tank constantly full.

For another fifty miles further on the country is not much better; but once across this we reach the Rio Grande Valley, rich in all kinds of fruit. Wheat, too, blesses the cultivator's labors, and the soil also produces the El Paso onion, which for size and delicacy of flavor is without a rival. These onions are pure white, and often as large in diameter as a breakfast-plate.

I was here treated to some native wine, which possesses a delicious taste. The vineyard of Thomas Bull, a pioneer, is considered as producing the best wine in that section.

I noticed among the peculiarities of the place the mud fences, with cactus of a small spherical variety known in Spanish as pitalla planted along the top much the same as broken glass is used elsewhere to prevent trespassing. This cactus, however, bears a very valuable fruit.

Once again in the stage, we rolled toward Silver City, a distance of one hundred miles. On the way we stopped at the Hudson Hot Springs. These springs gush from what seems to be the crater of an extinct volcano, and maintain a temperature of 140°. The flow of water is rapid, and after passing through a house on the hill-side, where it is conducted in a wooden trough, it flows on and is used for irrigation. Its qualities are presumed to be highly medicinal.

From here to Silver City are many pretty springs, and quartz-mills run by water-power for extracting the silver from the ore.

Silver City itself, the centre of a fine mining section, is a thriving town of about twenty-five hundred inhabitants, and unlike other towns of New Mexico, is thoroughly American in every respect. It is bustling and busy, has several prosperous mills, and you can see here the coveted gold dust, the silver bricks, and great pigs of copper without number. This place is the only incorporated town in the Territory, and lies at its extreme boundary.

Near here are the old Santa Rito copper mines, which were centuries past worked by convicts in the interest of the Spanish crown. Remains of the stronghold still exist, and the immense pile of copper refuse-ore testifies to the extent and value of the labor. It is a relic eloquent with memories of the mighty power of the Spanish conqueror and the wrongs of conquered victims. These suffering workmen were Indians, and in one of their successful rebellions the patient creatures made as a condition fundamental to their submission the provision that thenceforward the mines were never again to be worked.

Now tender twilight lays a cooling palm,
In gentlest blessing, on Earth's fevered brow,
Soothing her into silence,-save for low,
Sweet warblings, rippling o'er the utter calm,
Of birds, outpouring their soft evening psalm.
Still-as some wearied soul, half-dimmed in death,
Scarce seeming e'en to breathe, so faint each breath-

She lies, this Earth. The limpid dew, like balm,
Falls on her fondly with a mute caress;
While the low wind 'mid the laburnum strays,
And with its drooping locks enamored plays,
Parting with ling'ring touch each golden tress,
As loth to leave it in its loveliness,-
And all things wait the night, which still delays.

drooped and a flood of crimson rushed over her face. She took up her pencil and began to work rapidly. Mark Delavan smiled again, and rising, after a moment's pause, walked away quite to the other end of the piazza, and stood for full ten minutes looking far away across the valley. Kathleen was outwardly composed again when he came back and stood by her side, but she went on with her sketching persistently, not trusting herself to look up.

Her companion waited, watching the small, nervous hands for a moment; then he said gently, and quite in his ordinary tone:

"Miss Kathleen, are you never going to speak to me again? Because in that case it becomes my pressing and painful (?) duty to remind you that nine A.M. was the time fixed for our walk to the Ridge, and it is precisely that time now," holding his watch before her eyes as he spoke.

Kathleen looked up with a little smile.

"I was trained up in the good old way, Mr. Delavan, to speak when spoken to," she answered gayly. "Thank you for reminding me. I will be ready in five minutes." And she sprang up and ran swiftly into the house.

The five minutes were not quite expired, when Miss MacLeod came tripping down the stairs in her short walking-suit of navy blue flannel, and a broad sun hat of coarse straw covering her golden braids and shading her bright face.

As the two went down the path, Mrs. Arbuthnot, watching them from her chamber window, smiled, and called her husband to see.

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How well they look together!" she said. Mark Delavan was a fine type of manhood. superb figure, six feet in height, broad-shouldered, and erect; a pure, Saxon face, with clear, straight, glancing eyes, and a fine, resolute mouth; a rather stern face to the casual observer, but lighting up wonderfully when he smiled, as he was smiling then, upon the girl at his side.

Kathleen's head scarcely reached his shoulder. Her short skirt, just reaching the top of the high walking-boots, and the loose "sailor" waist, were wonderfully becoming to the slight, graceful figure, and the dash of brilliant cardinal in the trimmings and the loose knot of soft silk at her throat lighted up the expressive face. In the highest sense, Kathleen was beautiful at that moment with the beauty of health and youth and happiness.

They walked away with a rapid, easy pace.

Both were good walkers, and had had much practice in pedestrianism-and other things too—that

summer.

Kathleen MacLeod was an orphan, and had taken care of herself from childhood—that is, she had lived with an old aunt of her father's, who nominally had the care of her; but Kathleen was very young when she began to take care of Aunt Mary and herself too. She had little property. It barely sufficed to give her the education she so eagerly craved, but she had graduated from Vassar with health and energy and girlish ambition enough to insure to her success in whatever she chose to undertake. She had rare artistic talent, and meant to be an artist some day; but she could not leave Aunt Mary, now old and feeble, to pursue her studies abroad; so for two years, at the time our story opens, she had taught drawing and painting in the Young Ladies' Seminary at Quinticook, her childhood's home, taking lessons all the while of a celebrated artist in the neighboring city.

Mrs. Morris, the mistress of Content Cottage, was an old friend of Kathleen's dead mother, and had invited the young teacher to spend the long vacation at her home among the New Hampshire hills, Aunt Mary meanwhile going to her sister's, in Connecticut.

Among the mountains everybody who does not keep a hotel takes "summer boarders," and when Kathleen arrived at her destination one warm June evening, she found that Mrs. Morris was no exception to the general rule. Early as it was in the season, Professor Arbuthnot and his wife were quietly settled down for the summer under her hospitable roof. With them were their two children, and in a few days they were joined by Mark Delavan, an old friend of Professor Arbuthnot's. The two had studied together in Germany, and were almost like brothers, Mrs. Arbuthnot told Kathleen.

Mrs. Arbuthnot was a merry, chatty little woman, and took a great fancy to Kathleen. The Professor was very kind and courteous to her, and Mark Delavan-well, that gentleman was certainly not indifferent to her. Professor Arbuthnot and his wife were a very devoted couple. They were quite engrossed in each other and in their two. lovely children, and naturally enough Mr. Delavan and Miss MacLeod were often left to entertain each other.