"The Mussel Gatherers" by Homer Martin N the landscapes of Homer D. Martin there is expressed a deep sense of the stability of earth and a knowledge of its structure, together with subtle gradations of color in field and beach and sky. Before the present generation of landscape painters showed the keenness of their enjoyment of light, he saw the changeable quality of the atmospheric envelope of the landscape and sought to convey its variety by breaking up the notes of color used. He felt the vibration of air, the tremor of light and shade, which other painters have sounded more forcibly since, but it was not in him to indulge in the shrill notes of high-keyed color which have called attention to his followers. He sought to express his vision in a different way. His attitude toward Nature was altogether serious, and there was always a severity in his compositions. His themes are always marked by solemnity, strength, and dignity, with an underlying vigorous masculine sentiment. There is always an interrogation of the actual scene for its emotional interest, through which is echoed the loneliness of his own heart. There is a feeling of reality, but it is reality clothed with the magic of a dream. There is an air of scholasticism about his work, and those whose eyes are wholly accustomed to newer ways have been known to pronounce it a bit oldfashioned; but in art, as in other things, fashions are ephemeral, and in the end it will be found there will remain only that something which satisfies the needs of the reflective man, something of harmony, something of the universal, which for want of a better name we call soul. This quality is shown by all of Martin's pictures. "The Mussel Gatherers," from the collection of Mr. William T. Evans, of New York, like all his best landscapes, shows that broad structural knowledge which carries an air of strength and serenity, with fine harmony of color touched with a dreamy sadness. W. STANTON HOWARD. D The Judgment House A NOVEL BY GILBERT PARKER CHAPTER XXXVI SPRINGS OF HEALING USK had almost come, yet Jasmine had not arrived at Brinkwort's Farm, the urgency of Al'mah's message notwithstanding. As things stood, it was a matter of life and death; and, to Al'mah's mind, humanity alone should have sent Jasmine at once to her husband's side. Something of her old prejudice against Jasmine rose up again. Perhaps behind it all was involuntary envy of an invitation to happiness so freely laid at Jasmine's feet, but withheld from herself by Fate. Never had the chance to be happy or the obvious inducement to be good ever been hers. She herself had nothing, and Jasmine still had a chance for all to which she had no right. Her heart beat harder at the thought of it. She was of those who get their happiness first in making others happy as she would have done with Blantyre, if she had had a chance; as even she tried to do with the man whom she had sent to his account with the firmness and fury of an ancient Greek. The maternal, the protective sense was big in her, and indirectly it had governed her life. It had sent her to South Africa-to protect the wretch who had done his best to destroy her; it had made her content at times as she did her nurse's work in what dreadful circumstances! It was the source of her revolt at Jasmine's conduct and character. But was it also that far beneath her criticism of Jasmine, which was, after all, so little in comparison with the newfound affection she really had for her, there lay a kinship, a sympathy, a soul's rapprochement with Rudyard which might, in happier circumstances, have become a mating such as the world knew in his youth? Was that also in part the cause of her sympathy and VOL, CXXVI.-No. 756.-114 anxiety for Rudyard, and her sharp disapproval of Jasmine? Did she want to see Rudyard happy no matter at what cost to Jasmine? Was it the everlasting feminine in her which would make a woman sacrifice herself for a man, if need be, in order that he might be happy? Was it the ancient tyrannical soul in her which would make a thousand women sacrifice themselves for the man she herself set above all others? But she was of those who do not know what they are, or what they think and feel, till some explosion forces open the doors of their souls and they look upon a new life over a heap of ruins. She sat in the gathering dusk, waiting, while hope slowly waned. Rudyard also, on the veranda, paced weakly, almost stumblingly, up and down, his face also turning towards the Stay Awhile Hospital. At length, with a heavy sigh, he entered the house and sat down in a great arm-chair from which old Brinkwort, the Boer, had laid down the law for his people. Where was Jasmine? Why did she not hasten to Brinkwort's Farm? A Staff Officer from the General Commanding had called to congratulate Jasmine on her recovery, and to give fresh instructions which would link her work at Durban effectively with the army as it now moved on to the relief of the town beyond the hills. Al'mah's note had arrived while the officer was with Jasmine, and it was held back until he left. It was then forgotten by the attendant on duty, and it lay for three hours undelivered. Then when it was given to her, no mention was made of the delay. When the Staff Officer left her, he had said to himself that hers was one of the most alluring and fascinating faces he had ever seen, and he, like Stafford, though in another sphere that of the Secret Intelligence Department had travelled far and wide in the world. Perfectly beautiful he did not call her, though her face was as near that rarity as any he had known. He would only have called a woman beautiful who was tall, and she was almost petite; but that was because he himself was over- tall, and her smallness seemed to be properly classed with those who were pretty, not the handsome or the beautiful. But there was something in her face that haunted him-a wistful, appealing delicacy, which yet was associated with an instant readiness of intellect, with a perspicuous judgment and a gift of organization. And she had eyes of blue which were meant to drown those who hadn't life-belts," he said. as In one way or another he put all this to his fellow-officers at mess, and said that the existence of two such patriots as Byng and Jasmine in one family was unusual. "Pretty fairly self-possessed, I should say," said Rigby, the youngest officer present at mess. "Her husband under repair at Brinkwort's Farm, in the care of the blue-ribbon nurse of the army, who makes a fellow well if he looks at her, and she studying organization at the Stay Awhile with a Staff Officer." The reply of the Staff Officer was quick and cutting enough for any officer's mess. "I see by the latest papers from England that Balfour says we'll muddle through this war somehow," he said. "He must have known you, Rigby. With the courage of the damned you carry a fearsome lot of impedimenta, and you muddle quite adequately. The lady you have traduced has herself been seriously ill, and that is why she is not at Brinkwort's Farm. What a malicious mind you've got! Byng would think so." "If Rigby had been in your place today," interposed a gruff Major, "the lady would surely have had a relapse. Convalescence is no time for teaching the rudiments of human intercourse." Pale and angry, Rigby, who was half Scotch and correspondingly self-satisfied, rejoined stubbornly: "I know what I know. They haven't met since she came up from Durban. Sandlip told me that-" The Staff Officer broke the sentence. "What Sandlip told you is what Nancy would tell Polly and Polly would tell the cook-and then Rigby would know. But statement number one is an Ananiasism, for Byng saw his wife at the hospital the night before Hetmeyer's Kopje. I can't tell what they said, though, nor what was the color of the lady's peignoir, for I am neither Nancy nor Polly nor the cook-nor Rigby." With a maddened gesture Rigby got to his feet, but a man at his side pulled him down. "Sit still, Baby Bunting, or you'll not get over the hills to-morrow," he said, and he offered Rigby a cigar from Rigby's own cigar-case, cutting off the end, handing it to him and lighting a match. "Gun out of action: record the error of the day," piped the thin precise voice of the Colonel from the head of the table. A chorus of quiet laughter met the Colonel's joke, founded on the technical fact that the variation in the firing of a gun, due to any number of causes, though apparently firing under the same conditions, is called officially "the error of the day" in Admiralty reports. "Here the incident closed," as the newspapers say, but Rigby the tactless and the petty had shown that there was rumor, however faint, concerning the relations of Byng and his wife, which Jasmine, at least, imagined did not exist. When Jasmine read the note Al'mah had sent her, a flush stole slowly over her face, and then faded, leaving a whiteness, behind which was the emanation, not of fear, but of agitation and of shock. It meant that Rudyard was dying, and that she must go to him. That she must go to him? Was that the thought in her mind-that she must go to him? "If she wished to see him again before he went!" That midnight, when he was on his way to Hetmeyer's Kopje, he had flung from her room into the night, and ridden away on his grey horse, not hearing her voice faintly calling after him. Now, did she want to see him-the last time before he rode away again forever, on that white horse called Death? A shudder passed through her. "Ruddy! Poor Ruddy!" she said, and |