"`Let me try it on YOU!' cried Shelldrake. `You, now, have some

intellect,--I don't deny that,--but not so much, by a long shot, as
you think you have. Besides that, you're awfullyselfish in your

opinions. You won't admit that anybody can be right who differs
from you. You've sponged on me for a long time; but I suppose I've

learned something from you, so we'll call it even. I think,
however, that what you call acting according to impulse is simply

an excuse to cover your own laziness.'
"`Gosh! that's it!' interrupted Perkins, jumping up; then,

recollecting himself, he sank down on the steps again, and shook
with a suppressed `Ho! ho! ho!'

"Hollins, however, drew himself up with an exasperated air.
"`Shelldrake,' said he, `I pity you. I always knew your ignorance,

but I thought you honest in your human character. I never
suspected you of envy and malice. However, the true Reformer must

expect to be misunderstood and misrepresented by meaner minds.
That love which I bear to all creatures teaches me to forgive you.

Without such love, all plans of progress must fail. Is it not so,
Abel?'

"Shelldrake could only ejaculate the words, `Pity!' `Forgive?' in
his most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking

violently in her chair, gave utterance to that peculiar clucking,
`TS, TS, TS, TS,' hereby" target="_blank" title="ad.凭什么；靠那个">whereby certain women express emotions too

deep for words.
"Abel, roused by Hollins's question, answered, with a sudden

energy--
"`Love! there is no love in the world. Where will you find it?

Tell me, and I'll go there. Love! I'd like to see it! If all
human hearts were like mine, we might have an Arcadia; but most men

have no hearts. The world is a miserable, hollow, deceitful shell
of vanity and hypocrisy. No: let us give up. We were born before

our time: this age is not worthy of us.'
"Hollins stared at the speaker in utter amazement. Shelldrake gave

a long whistle, and finally gasped out--
"`Well, what next?'

"None of us were prepared for such a sudden and complete wreck of
our Arcadian scheme. The foundations had been sapped before, it is

true; but we had not perceived it; and now, in two short days, the
whole edifice tumbled about our ears. Though it was inevitable, we

felt a shock of sorrow, and a silence fell upon us. Only that
scamp of a Perkins Brown, chuckling and rubbing his boot, really

rejoiced. I could have kicked him.
"We all went to bed, feeling that the charm of our Arcadian life

was over. I was so full of the new happiness of love that I was
scarcely conscious of regret. I seemed to have leaped at once into

responsible manhood, and a glad rush of courage filled me at the
knowledge that my own heart was a better oracle than those--now so

shamefully overthrown--on whom I had so long implicitly relied. In
the first revulsion of feeling, I was perhaps unjust to my

associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries,
which originated in a genuineaspiration, and failed from an

ignorance of the true nature of Man, quite as much as from the
egotism of the individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society

were made about the same time by men of culture and experience, but
in the A. C. we had neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-

truths, which, in their minds, were speedily warped into errors.
I can laugh over the absurdities I helped to perpetrate, but I must

confess that the experiences of those few weeks went far towards
making a man of me."

"Did the A. C. break up at once?" asked Mr. Johnson.
"Not precisely; though Eunice and I left the house within two days,

as we had agreed. We were not married immediately, however. Three
long years--years of hope and mutual encouragement--passed away

before that happy consummation. Before our departure, Hollins had
fallen into his old manner, convinced, apparently, that Candor

must be postponed to a better age of the world. But the quarrel
rankled in Shelldrake's mind, and especially in that of his wife.

I could see by her looks and little fidgety ways that his further
stay would be very uncomfortable. Abel Mallory, finding himself

gaining in weight and improving in color, had no thought of
returning. The day previous, as I afterwards learned, he had

discovered Perkins Brown's secret kitchen in the woods.
"`Golly!' said that youth, in describing the circumstance to me, `I

had to ketch TWO porgies that day.'
"Miss Ringtop, who must have suspected the new relation between

Eunice and myself, was for the most part rigidly silent. If she
quoted, it was from the darkest and dreariest utterances of her

favorite Gamaliel.
"What happened after our departure I learned from Perkins, on the

return of the Shelldrakes to Norridgeport, in September. Mrs.
Shelldrake stoutly persisted in refusing to make Hollins's bed, or

to wash his shirts. Her brain was dull, to be sure; but she was
therefore all the more stubborn in her resentment. He bore this

state of things for about a week, when his engagements to lecture
in Ohio suddenly called him away. Abel and Miss Ringtop were left

to wander about the promontory in company, and to exchange
lamentations on the hollowness of human hopes or the pleasures of

despair. Whether it was owing to that attraction of sex which
would make any man and any woman, thrown together on a desert

island, finally become mates, or whether she skilfully ministered
to Abel's sentimentalvanity, I will not undertake to decide: but

the fact is, they were actually betrothed, on leaving Arcadia.
I think he would willingly have retreated, after his return to the

world; but that was not so easy. Miss Ringtop held him with an
inexorable clutch. They were not married, however, until just

before his departure for California, whither she afterwards
followed him. She died in less than a year, and left him free."

"And what became of the other Arcadians?" asked Mr. Johnson.
"The Shelldrakes are still living in Norridgeport. They have

become Spiritualists, I understand, and cultivate Mediums.
Hollins, when I last heard of him, was a Deputy-Surveyor in the New

York Custom-House. Perkins Brown is our butcher here in Waterbury,
and he often asks me--`Do you take chloride of soda on your

beefsteaks?' He is as fat as a prize ox, and the father of five
children."

"Enos!" exclaimed Mrs. Billings, looking at the clock, "it's nearly
midnight! Mr. Johnson must be very tired, after such a long story.

The Chapter of the A. C. is hereby closed!"
FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER.

I.
The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitch-

enor reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to
allow his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of

satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the
Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown

patches of corn-land, its snowy masses of bloomingorchard, and the
huge, fountain like jets of weepingwillow, half concealing the

gray stone fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home
only six days, but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three

years' cruise to a New Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion
and pastoral beauty of the scene did not consciously appeal to his

senses; but he quietly noted how much the wheat had grown during
his absence, that the oats were up and looking well, that Friend

Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and Friend Martin had built his
half of the line-fence along the top of the hill-field. If any

smothered delight in the loveliness of the spring-time found
a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers of his heart,

it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible lines of his
face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and waistcoat have

flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson.
Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world--that is, so

much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his
own sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on

its borders, he neither knew nor cared to know much more of the
human race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun.

In the discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged
to sit on the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the

travelling brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County,
invariably blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was

one of the best on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed