grand opera, conducted in connection with the New England Conservatory, in existence and doing notable work in training young men and women for the practical life of the stage. Gifts of scholarships for especially promising pupils are beginning to come in; Geraldine Farrar has sent one; so has David Bispham. Added to these, a number of scholarships for $1000 each have been given by prominent women in Boston, who are always interested in furthering the artistic

is the most important step in the operatic history of America.

The Boston opera now awaits the verdict of time. For the present its financial success is assured, and the anxieties that too often beset the first year of an enterprise of this sort will not exist to drag down an artistic endeavor. Whether a New England public will permanently support a system of opera that will not make its appeal with blazing meteors, and that gives a season of many performances

P

HINEAS used to wonder, sometimes, just when it was that he began to court Diantha Bowman, the rosy-cheeked, golden-haired idol of his boyhood. Diantha's cheeks were not rosy now, and her hair was more silver than gold, but she was not yet his wife.

And he had tried so hard to win her! Year after year the rosiest apples from his orchard and the choicest honey from his apiary had found their way to Diantha's table; and year after year the county fair and the village picnic had found him at Diantha's door with his old mare and his buggy, ready to be her devoted slave for the day. Nor was Diantha apparently unmindful of all these attentions. She ate the apples and the honey, and spent long contented hours in the buggy; but she still answered his pleadings with her gentle: "I hain't no call to marry yet, Phineas," and nothing he could do seemed to hasten her decision in the least. It was the mare and the buggy, however, that proved to be responsible for what was the beginning of the end. They were on the way home from the fair. The mare, head hanging, was plodding through the dust when around the curve of the road ahead shot the one automobile that the town boasted. The next moment the whizzing thing had passed, and left a superannuated old mare looming through a cloud of dust and dancing on two wabbly hind legs. "Plague take them autymobiles!" snarled Phineas through set teeth, as he sawed at the reins. "I ax yer pardon, I'm sure, Dianthy," he added. shamefacedly, when the mare. had dropped to a position more nearly normal; "but I hain't no use fur them 'ere contraptions!"

ened and because she was frightened she was angry She said the first thing that caine into her head-and never had she spoken to Phineas so sharply.

"If you did have some use for 'em, Phineas Hopkins, you wouldn't be crawlin' along in a shiftless old rig like this; you'd have one yourself an be somebody! For my part, I like 'em, an' I'm jest achin' ter ride in 'em, too!"

Phineas almost dropped the reins in his amazement. "Achin' ter rid in 'em," she had said-and all that he could give her was this "shiftless old rig" that she so scorned. He remembered something else, too, and his face flamed suddenly red. It was Col. Smith who owned and drove that automobile, and Col. Smith, too, was a bachelor. What if Instantly in Phineas's soul rose a fierce jealousy.

"I like a hoss, myself," he said then, with some dignity. "I want somethin' that's alive!"

Diantha laughed slyly. The danger was past, and she could afford to be merry.

"Well, it strikes me that you come pretty near havin' somethin' that wa'n't alive jest 'cause you had somethin' that was!" she retorted. "Really, Phineas, I didn't s'pose Dolly could move so fast!"

Phineas bridled.

"Dianthy, you wouldn't really-ride in one!" he faltered.

Until that moment Diantha had not been sure that she would, but the quaver in Phineas' voice decided her. "Wouldn't I? You jest wait an'

see!"

And Phineas did wait-and he did see. He saw Diantha, not a week later, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, sitting by the side of Col. Smith in that hated automobile. Nor did he stop to consider that Diantha was only one of a dozen upon whom Col. Smith, in the enthusiasm of his new possession, was pleased to bestow that attention. To Phineas it could mean but one thing; and he did not change his opinion when he heard Diantha's account of the ride.

"It was perfectly lovely," she breathed. "Oh, Phineas, it was jest like flyin'!"

"Flyin'!" Phineas could say no more. He felt as if he were choking-choking with the dust raised by Dolly's plodding hoofs.

"An' the trees an' the houses swept by like ghosts," continued Diantha. "Why, Phineas, I could 'a' rode on an' on furever!"

Before the ecstatic rapture in Diantha's face Phineas went down in defeat. Without one word he turned awaybut in his heart he registered a solemn vow: he, too, would have an automobile; he, too, would make Diantha wish to ride on and on forever!

Arduous days came to Phineas then. Phineas was not a rich man. He had enough for his modest wants, but until now those wants had not included an automobile-until now he had not known that Diantha wished to fly. All through the autumn and winter Phineas pinched and economized until he had lopped off all of the luxuries and most of the pleasures of living. Even then it is doubtful if he would have accomplished his purpose had he not, in the spring, fallen heir to a modest legacy of a few thousand dollars. The news of his good fortune was not two hours old when he sought Diantha.

"I cal'late mebbe I'd be gettin' me one o' them 'ere autymobiles this spring," he said, as if casually filling a pause in the conversation. "Phineas!"

At the awed joy in Diantha's voice. the man's heart glowed within him. This one moment of triumph was worth all the long miserable winter with its butterless bread and tobaccoless pipes. But he carefully hid his joy when he spoke.

"Yes," he said, nonchalantly. "I'm goin' ter Boston next week ter pick one out. I cal'late on gittin' a purty good one."

"Oh, Phineas! But how-how you goin' ter run it?"

Phineas' chin came up.

"Run it!" he scoffed. "Well, I hain't had no trouble yet steerin' a hoss, an' I cal'late I won't have any more steerin' a mess o' senseless metal what hain't got no eyes ter be seein' things an' gittin' scared! I don't worry none' bout runnin' it."

"But, Phineas, it ain't all steerin'," ventured Diantha, timidly. "There's lots of little handles and things ter turn, an' there's some things you do with your feet. Col. Smith did."

The name Smith to Phineas was like a match to gunpowder. He flamed instantly into wrath.

"Well, I cal'late what Col. Smith does, I can," he snapped. "Besides,"-airily-"mebbe I sha'n't git the feet kind, anyhow. I want the best. There's as much as four or five kinds, Jim Blair says, an' I cal'late ter try 'em all."

"Oh-h!" breathed Diantha, falling back in her chair with an ecstatic sigh. "Oh, Phineas, won't it be grand!" And Phineas, seeing the joyous light in her eyes, gazed straight down a vista of happiness that led to wedding bells and bliss.

Phineas was gone some time on his Boston trip. When he returned he looked thin and worried. He started nervously at trivial noises, and his eyes showed a furtive restlessness that quickly caused remark.

"Why, Phineas, you don't look well!" Diantha exclaimed when she saw him.

"Well? Oh, I'm well."

"I did." Phineas' voice was triumphant.

Diantha's eyes sparkled.

"Where is it?" she demanded.
"Comin'-next week."

"An' did you try 'em all, as you said you would?"

Phineas stirred; then he sighed. "Well, I dunno," he acknowledged. "I hain't done nothin' but ride in 'em since I went down-I know that. But there's such a powerful lot of 'em, Diantha; an' when they found out I wanted one, they all took hold an' showed off their best p'ints-demonstratin', they called it. They raced me up hill an' down hill, an' scooted me round corners till I didn't know where I was. I didn't have a minute ter myself. An' they went fast, Dianthy-powerful fast. I ain't real sure yet that I'm breathin' natural."

"But it must have been grand, Phineas! I should have loved it!" "Oh, it was, 'course!" assured Phineas, hastily.

"An' you'll take me ter ride, right away?"

If Phineas hesitated it was for only a moment.

"Er

"'Course," he promised. there's a man, he's comin' with it, an' he's goin' ter stay a little, jest ter―ter make sure everything's all right. After he goes I'll come. An' ye want ter be ready-I'll show ye a thing or two!" he finished with a swagger that was meant to hide the shake in his voice.

In due time the man and the automobile arrived, but Diantha did not have her ride at once. It must have taken some time to make sure that "everything was all right," for the man stayed many days, and while he was there, of course Phineas was occupied with him. Col. Smith was unkind enough to observe that he hoped it was taking Phineas Hopkins long enough to learn to run the thing; but his remark did not reach Diantha's ears. She knew only that Phineas, together with the man and the automobile, started off

night.

"Purty slick, I think myself," he acknowledged.

"An' green is so much nicer than red," cooed Diantha.

Phineas quite glowed with joy-Col. Smith's car was red. "Oh, green's the thing," he retorted airily; "an' see!" he added; and forthwith he burst into a paean of praise, in which tires, horns, lamps, pumps, baskets, brakes, and mud-guards were the dominant notes. It almost seemed, indeed, that he had brought the gorgeous thing before him to look at and talk about rather than to use, so loath was he to stop talking and set the wheels to moving. Not until Diantha had twice reminded him that she was longing to ride in it did he help her into the car and make ready to

start.

It was not an entire success-that start. There were several false moves on Phineas' part, and Diantha could not repress a slight scream and a nervous jump at sundry unexpected puffs and snorts and snaps from the throbbing thing beneath her. She gave a louder scream when Phineas, in his nervousness, sounded the siren, and a wail like a cry from the spirit world shrieked in her ears.

"Phineas, what was that?" she shivered, when the voice had moaned into silence.

Phineas' lips were dry, and his hands and knees were shaking; but his pride. marched boldly to the front.

"Why, that's the siren whistle, 'course," he he chattered. "Ain't it great? I thought you'd like it!" And to hear him one would suppose that to sound the siren was always a necessary preliminary to starting the wheels.