chain. Then, as she took the last bracelet from her arm, madness
possessed the breathless crowd. The indifferent self-conscious men,
the lanquid coquetting women, the fat drowsy old dowagers, all rushed,
scrambling and screaming, to the caldron, tore from their heads and
bodies the superb jewels and ropes of gold with which they were
bedecked, and flung them into the molten mass, which rose like a tide.
The electric current sprang to the people; their baubles sped like hail
through the air. So great was the excitement that a sudden convulsing
of the earth was unfelt. When not a jewel was left to sacrifice, the
caldron held enough element for five bells--the five sweet-voiced bells
which rang in the Mission of San Gabriel for more than a century.

Exhausted with shouting, the multitude was silent. Delfina de Capalleja,
who had stood with panting chest and dilating nostrils, turned from
the sacrificial caldron, the crowd parting for her again, the Laudate
Dominum swelling. As she reached the cathedral, a man who loved her,
noting a change in her face, sprang to her side. She raised her
bewildered eyes to his and thrust out her hands blankly, then fell dead
across the threshold.

WHEN THE DEVIL WAS WELL

The Devil locked the copper gates of Hell one night, and sauntered down
a Spacian pathway. The later arrivals from the planet Earth had been of
a distressingly commonplace character to his Majesty--a gentleman
of originality and attainments, whatever his disagreements with the
conventions. He was become seriously disturbed about the moral condition
of the sensational little twinkler.

"What are my own about?" he thought, as he drifted past planets which
yielded up their tributes with monotonous regularity. "What a squeezed
old orange would Earth become did I forsake it! I must not neglect it so
long again; my debt of gratitude is too great. Let me see. Where shall
I begin? It is some years since I have visited America in person,
and unquestionably she has most need of my attention; Europe is in
magnificent running order. This is a section of her, if my geography
does not fail me; but what? I do not recall it."

He poised above a country that looked as if it still hung upon the edge
of chaos: wild, fertile, massive, barren, luxuriant, crouching on the
ragged line of the Pacific. From his point of vantage he saw long ranges
of stupendous mountains, some but masses of scowling crags, some green
with forests of m