ty of
nations is the chief component. Those who admire moral courage and
feel a glow of indignation at the fact that, in order to secure her
natural right to own herself, a woman in the closing years of the
nineteenth century has to spend thousands of dollars, travel thousands
of miles, and sojourn among strangers, may be glad to know that since
her freedom she has married an English gentleman of high character,
and is living restfully in a charming little cottage on the banks of
what Macaulay calls, in his picturesque way, "the river of the ten
thousand masts." The great, feverous heart of London throbs near.

Another very interesting personage in the Sioux Falls Divorce Colony,
is Mrs. James G. Blaine, Jr., now living in a cosy cottage on the
fashionable avenue with her sister, Miss Nevins, her son, James G.
Blaine, 3d, and her maids. When Marie Nevins, piquantly pretty, witty,
and accomplished, made a stolen match with the ungreat son of one of
America's greatest political figures, she little dreamed what the
hands of the Fates--who are sometimes the Furies--were spinning for
her; yet she wears her robes of sorrow with some of that grace of
patience which comes to her sex like an instinct born of centuried
servitude. How her husband ever fascinated so fascinatingly elusive a
creature is a mystery to all who know him and a miracle to all who
know her; but who has ever guessed the riddle of a woman's heart?
Surely no man yet known to the world, except possibly Balzac, and he
only occasionally by some sort of electric, psychological accident.
The true story of Mrs. Blaine's infelicities has been carefully hidden
from the public, although some superserviceable, would-be friends have
now and then busied themselves with starting absurd rumors, as if for
the fun of contradicting them; for instance, a precious yarn spun
lately to the effect that Mrs. Blaine, senior, looked down on her
daughter-in-law as not aristocratic enough to have married a Blaine.
How intrinsically absurd is such an idea in connection with a family
as close to what Lincoln called "the plain people"--and as really
proud of so being--as that of the famous Republican leader! Blaine is
a man so thoroughly democratic that only a very stupid enemy of his
could have invented such a piece of self-convicting nonsense; for if
aristocracy entered into the question, Mrs. James G. Blaine, Jr.,
could make a better showing than her spouse, since, if it confers any
_q