features seem to be but little changed, now that I can examine them
at leisure; yet it is not the same face. But, really, I never

looked at you for so long a time, in those days. I beg pardon; you
used to be so--so remarkably shy."

Mr. Billings blushed slightly, and seemed at a loss what to answer.
His wife, however, burst into a merry laugh, exclaiming--

"Oh, that was before the days of the A. C!"
He, catching the infection, laughed also; in fact Mr. Johnson

laughed, but without knowing why.
"The `A. C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it

is since we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten
that there ever was an A. C."

"Enos, COULD you ever forget Abel Mallory and the beer?--or that
scene between Hollins and Shelldrake?--or" (here SHE blushed the

least bit) "your own fit of candor?" And she laughed again, more
heartily than ever.

"What a precious lot of fools, to be sure!" exclaimed her husband.
Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, though enjoying the cheerful humor of his

hosts, was not a little puzzled with regard to its cause.
"What is the A. C.?" he ventured to ask.

Mr. and Mrs. Billings looked at each other, and smiled without
replying.

"Really, Ned," said the former, finally, "the answer to your
question involves the whole story."

"Then why not tell him the whole story, Enos?" remarked his wife.
"You know I've never told it yet, and it's rather a hard thing to

do, seeing that I'm one of the heroes of the farce--for it wasn't
even genteelcomedy, Ned," said Mr. Billings. "However," he

continued, "absurd as the story may seem, it's the only key to the
change in my life, and I must run the risk of being laughed at."

"I'll help you through, Enos," said his wife, encouragingly; "and
besides, my role in the farce was no better than yours. Let us

resuscitate, for to-night only, the constitution of the A. C."
"Upon my word, a capital idea! But we shall have to initiate Ned."

Mr. Johnson merrily agreeing, he was blindfolded and conducted into
another room. A heavy arm-chair, rolling on casters, struck his

legs in the rear, and he sank into it with lamb-like resignation.
"Open your mouth!" was the command, given with mock solemnity.

He obeyed.
"Now shut it!"

And his lips closed upon a cigar, while at the same time the
handkerchief was whisked away from his eyes. He found himself

in Mr. Billing's library.
"Your nose betrays your taste, Mr. Johnson," said the lady, "and I

am not hard-hearted enough to deprive you of the indulgence. Here
are matches."

"Well," said he, acting upon the hint, "if the remainder of the
ceremonies are equallyagreeable, I should like to be a permanent

member of your order."
By this time Mr. and Mrs. Billings, having between them lighted the

lamp, stirred up the coal in the grate, closed the doors, and taken
possession of comfortable chairs, the latter proclaimed--

"The Chapter (isn't that what you call it?) will now be held!"
"Was it in '43 when you left home, Ned?" asked Mr. B.

"Yes."
"Well, the A. C. culminated in '45. You remember something of the

society of Norridgeport, the last winter you were there? Abel
Mallory, for instance?"

"Let me think a moment," said Mr. Johnson reflectively. "Really,
it seems like looking back a hundred years. Mallory--wasn't that

the sentimental young man, with wispy hair, a tallowy skin, and
big, sweaty hands, who used to be spouting Carlyle on the `reading

evenings' at Shelldrake's? Yes, to be sure; and there was Hollins,
with his clerical face and infidel talk,--and Pauline Ringtop, who

used to say, `The Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her
shrill voice, singing, `Would that _I_ were beautiful, would that

_I_ were fair!'"
There was a heartychorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's

expense. It harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already
thick over her Californian grave.

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities
of those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them

then. But I was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and
I looked upon those evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at

least, to the symposia of Plato. Something in Mallory always
repelled me. I detested the sight of his thick nose, with the

flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed lips, of the bluish
color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these feelings as

unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing the
admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the

subject of `Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except
Graham bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried,

he considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of
health--or that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his

left temple should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as
the last feeble stand made by the pernicious juices left from the

meat he had formerly eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory
was, that through a body so purged and purified none but true and

natural impulses could find access to the soul. Such, indeed, was
the theory we all held. A Return to Nature was the near

Millennium, the dawn of which we already beheld in the sky. To be
sure there was a difference in our individual views as to how this

should be achieved, but we were all agreed as to what the result
should be.

"I can laugh over those days now, Ned; but they were really happy
while they lasted. We were the salt of the earth; we were lifted

above those grovelling instincts which we saw manifested in the
lives of others. Each contributed his share of gas to inflate the

painted balloon to which we all clung, in the expectation that it
would presently soar with us to the stars. But it only went up

over the out-houses, dodged backwards and forwards two or three
times, and finally flopped down with us into a swamp."

"And that balloon was the A. C.?" suggested Mr. Johnson.
"As President of this Chapter, I prohibit questions," said Eunice.

"And, Enos, don't send up your balloon until the proper time.
Don't anticipate the programme, or the performance will be

spoiled."
"I had almost forgotten that Ned is so much in the dark," her

obedient husband answered. "You can have but a slight notion," he
continued, turning to his friend, "of the extent to which this

sentimental, or transcendental, element in the little circle at
Shelldrake's increased after you left Norridgeport. We read the

`Dial,' and Emerson; we believed in Alcott as the `purple Plato' of
modern times; we took psychological works out of the library, and

would listen for hours to Hollins while he read Schelling or
Fichte, and then go home with a misty impression of having imbibed

infinite wisdom. It was, perhaps, a natural, though very eccentric
rebound from the hard, practical, unimaginative New-England mind

which surrounded us; yet I look back upon it with a kind of wonder.
I was then, as you know, unformed mentally, and might have

been so still, but for the experiences of the A. C."
Mr. Johnson shifted his position, a little impatiently. Eunice

looked at him with laughing eyes, and shook her finger with a mock
threat.

"Shelldrake," continued Mr. Billings, without noticing this by-
play, "was a man of more pretence than real cultivation, as I

afterwards discovered. He was in good circumstances, and always
glad to receive us at his house, as this made him, virtually, the

chief of our tribe, and the outlay for refreshments involved only
the apples from his own orchard and water from his well. There was

an entire absence of conventionality at our meetings, and this,