dying man in Italian, looking far off to the eastern horizon, upon which was the royal gilding of the setting sun.

The next instant an ominous rattle sounded through the big, bare room, and in his eyes there shone a sudden and overwhelming surprise. Instinctively understanding that he suffered, his wife raised his head in her arms; but before she could speak even an endearing word his soul had departed upon its journey, "without the sound of wings or footfall." In a single moment he had reached Italy, the eternal Italy which lieth "beyond the Alpine heights of great pain."

We lifted his head from the faithful arm which had raised his struggling spirit into heaven and laid it again on the pillow of shawls.

The wife did not at first understand what had happened; but as she looked at the white face of the dead man, upon which still lingered the trace of that wonderful surprise which swept over him when his soul confronted the vision of its new life, the awful truth revealed itself. She did not cry out. She did not weep. She did not speak. But upon her kind face there was a look of awe inexpressibly agonizing. She sank slowly to her knees, with her startled eyes turned upward as if trying to follow the soul that had so suddenly vanished from the earth.

She stretched out her rough, kind hands and clasped those of her dead husband, and laid her head upon them with a dumb anguish that was heartrending.

We turned away without speaking. The awful silence that walks close upon the footsteps of Death settled upon the place. Every person was standing, every head bent. Two majestic presences, Death and his twin brother Grief, had transfigured the mean and dingy depot and made it a place where the human heart felt the presence of the unchangeable God.

The round clock on the wall ticked off the seconds with ceaseless energy, emphasizing the unnatural stillness of the room.

Tick! Tick! Tick! Over and over, again and again, the clock told the story of the speeding moments. From the distance came the rumble of an in-coming traintheir train and one by one with bowed heads the waiting travelers walked out upon the platform: but the Italian woman neither moved nor spoke.

Over her kneeling figure and the breathless body of her husband the dying sun threw a flood of glory, draping both Death and Grief in a mantle of bright beauty.

An old woman who stood by went close to the stricken wife and bent to raise her head. "See!" she said in a startled voice, "See! she has followed him to Italy."

It was true. The hands that clasped the dead man's with such tender love were as cold as his own. The head that rested on his breast was heavy and lifeless. The kind eyes were glazed and vacant, the sweet face rigid, the soft voice stilled forever.

"Beyond the mountains and the sea," beyond all heights, beyond all pain they had suddenly journeyed together.

THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA BROWN.

COROEBUS GREEN.

Though I met her in the summer, when one's heart lies off at ease,

As it were in tennis costume, and a man's not hard to please, Yet I think at any season to have met her was to love, While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of the dove.

At request she read us poems in a nook among the pines, And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines; Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader's wise,

Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes.

As in paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand

That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand,

Might, as stated oft in fiction, become a sable pall,
When she said that she should study Elocution in the fall.
I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein;
She began with "Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against
the paayne,

And the beacon light a-trrremble"-which, although it made me wince,

Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she's rendered since.

Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an,

And the way she gave "Young Grayhead" would have liquefied a stone.

Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ,

And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew "The Polish Boy."

'Tis not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll;

What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain

That she rose in social gatherings, and Searched among the Slain.

I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb, Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least

As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast.

Once, ah! once I fell a dreaming; some one played a polonaise

I associated strongly with those happier August days: And I mused, "I'll speak this evening," recent pangs forgotten quite.

Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: "Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy, warm ro

mance;

Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in

France?

Oh, as she "cull-limbed" that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down.

I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown.

GOWANS UNDER HER FEET.-FRANCES W. GIBSON,

In one of bonnie Scotland's homes

"Tis many a year ago—

When through the valleys swept the wind,
And the hills were clad with snow,

At a window sat a fair young girl,

And gazed on the landscape bleak;
Her brow was pale with suffering,
While the hectic flushed her cheek.

She listened to the wailing wind
That dreary winter day,

And longed for summer's warmth and light,
The buds and bloom of May.

The mother watched her darling child,
With sad and wistful eyes;

A bright-faced brother mused the while
With all a child's surprise:

"Why does my sister sit so still?

She sings no longer now;

Her eyes are bright, her cheeks are red,
But sadness clouds her brow.

"My brothers and I are well and strong,
We scarce stay in the house;
And sister's merry laugh I mind,

When she ran and played with us.

"I know what will make her strong again,
For I heard a neighbor say:

'She'll be well with gowans under her feet,
In the bonnie month of May.'

"So in the fields some gowans I'll get

As soon as ever they grow,

And lay them down beneath her feet,
Then she'll get well I know."

The south wind with its balmy breath
Melted the snow on the hills;

And bright and green was the tender grase
Beside the sparkling rills.

Then day by day the boy was seen,

Seeking in meadow and dell,

Down in the grass for the star-like flowers
That would make his sister well.

At length, one bright and sunny day,
His cap brimming o'er with bloom;
His face aglow with happiness,

He flew to the sick girl's room.

Her fair head pillowed against her chair,
On her lips a smile so sweet;

With wonder she watched the eager hands
Place the flowers beneath her feet.

Though never again those tired young feet
Life's path shall travel o'er,

Nor ever Spring's sweet influence
Her blighted bloom restore;

Though never more, 'neath her foot-fall light,
The gowans fair shall rise;

She's well-for flowers are under her feet
In the fields of Paradise.

THE POTTER'S FIELD.-GEORGE M. VICKERS

A gown of haze hung round the sleepy sun
As slowly down upon the hills he sank;
Soon, like a giant with full face, rubicund,
He paused, looked out upon the scene,
Then slipped beneath the quilts of purple gold
That lay in folds above his rocky couch.
The gauge of time had gone, for time is naught
To them that sleep; and nature ever wise
Ne'er gives a thing in vain: man's time is day.
Deep fell the shadows from the sombre trees
That fringed a flowing stream on either bank,
While weird and ghostly as a winding sheet
An ashy mist ascended slow.

Anon

Came forth the host nocturnal; wheeling bats,
The myriad swarm of insect life, the owl, and last
The stealthy quadruped.

Beside the stream

Looms up a withered yew, whose gaunt bare arms
No longer shelter give; and right beneath