Produced by D Alexander, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Stories by American Authors VOLUME III _THE SPIDER'S EYE_ BY LUCRETIA P. HALE _A STORY OF THE LATIN QUARTER_ BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT _TWO PURSE-COMPANIONS_ BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP _POOR OGLA-MOGA_ BY DAVID D. LLOYD _A MEMORABLE MURDER_ BY CELIA THAXTER _VENETIAN GLASS_ BY BRANDER MATTHEWS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1896 COPYRIGHT, 1884-1885, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS _The Stories in this Volume are protected by copyright, and are printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives._ [Illustration: Very truly yours, Octave Thanet] THE SPIDER'S EYE. BY LUCRETIA P. HALE. _Putnam's Magazine, July, 1856._ There are whispering galleries, where, if the ear is placed in a certain position, it takes in the sound of the lowest whisper from the opposite side of the room. But, to produce this effect, the architecture of the apartment must be of a peculiar nature, and, especially, the rules and laws of sound must be observed. I have often thought that, were one wise enough, there might be found, in every room, a centre to which all sound must converge. Nay, that perhaps such a focus had already been discovered by some one who has wished to appear wiser than his neighbors, who has made use of some hitherto unknown scientific fact, and has on any one occasion, or on many occasions, thus made himself the centre of information. These ideas occurred to my mind when I arrived the other night early at the theatre, and was for a time, literally, the only occupant of the house. I fell to marvelling at the skill of the architect who has been so successful in the acoustic arrangements of this theatre. Not a sound, so it is said, is lost from the stage upon any part of the house. The lowest sob of a dying heroine, in her very last agony, is heard as plainly by the occupant of the back seat of the amphitheatre, as are the thundering denunciations of the tragic actor in the wildest of gladiatorial scenes. I wondered if this were one of those rules that worked both ways; if the stage performer, in a moment of silent by-play, could hear the sentimental whisper of the belle in the box opposite, as well as the noisy applause of the claqueur in the front seat. If so, the audience might become, to him, the peopled stage, filled with the varied and incongruous characters.