joined. Weakness and fever were both to be guarded against, but if all went well, the enforced care and repose might, so said the great authority, restore his health, which evidently had been much shaken.

"Dear Nell," wrote Elton, "I cannot leave Herbert; his exertions to-day have ended in a broken blood-vessel. Do not be frightened; great care is required, but the worst of the danger is over. He was in great peril for some hours. I shall not leave him for a day or two. Take care of yourself. I will send you another bulletin to-morrow. How he loves you, Nell! he had got some preposterous nonsense into his head before; but when he thought it was all over with him, he held me to him and whispered, with what we all thought was his last breath, Tell her how I loved her. Darling Nellie.' Will this bring back the color to your cheek, and the light to your eyes? It was all a mistake before!"

The leader of a forlorn hope, the martyr in his shirt of fire, have rarely overcome self more nobly and entirely than did James Elton when he wrote the last few sentences of his letter. He despatched it at ten o'clock, and composed himself for the night, leaving the door between the bedroom and studio half open, that a little air might enter the room during the warm May night.

Herbert continued asleep: the exhaustion was so great, and nature was also asserting her right to replace the rest he had so mercilessly robbed himself of for so many months and years. Elton was dozing, too, be it said; in fact, good, patient Elton was tired out, but it was a very slight doze, for he started to his feet on hearing a sound of a passer by in the street. All was quiet again. He had heard about ten minutes after the movement in the street, a slight rustle in the curtains at the opposite side of the bed, but he fancied it was the window, or some outer door beyond, which had admitted a little air, and he did not move.

About dawn Herbert awoke. He moaned a little, and with the vague unrest of weakness, stretched out his arms. A hand held cup with a cordial to his lips.

a

"Thank you, Jim," he said, and pressed

the hand. It was so soft and small that he involuntarily opened his eyes.

A female figure was bending over him; there was tender compassion, but there was something more solemn and more exalted in those divine eyes.

"Notre Dame de bon Secours! Oh, if I dream may I never wake again." His senses seemed swaying to and fro on the verge of delirium.

It was a low but mortal voice which replied

"Was all the debt to be mine, John? were you to save my life twice, and this time at the risk of your own, and was I never to prove that I was grateful to you-that I loved you?"

The last words were added in compliance with the wild and questioning ardor in the hollow eyes which were fixed on her, and

then she bent low over his hand, and Herbert felt Nellie's tears fall fast on it.

Six months afterwards John Herbert was painting at his great picture. He was paler, thinner, but the whole man looked vivified into health and happiness. He and Nellie had been married a month. It was November, and they had returned to Rome. "How are you getting on, Herbert ?" said Elton.

"Famously; but when did you arrive?" "Only last night. I am en route to the East."

"Nonsense," said a voice from the loggia, and there, framed in by the hanging tendrils of the tardy vine, Nellie looked down upon them, radiant with beauty and beautiful with joy.

66

'I will not hear of your going, dear old Jim," she said; "you must stay this winter with us. We will make you so happy."

"You have the right model at last, John," said Elton, with a strange wistful look. "Yes, thanks to you, Jim, a model and a wife. I owe you both."

John Herbert never attained to great precision or order, but he became a great painter, and in all his pictures there was the same noble head, with its deep and spiritual eyes, and its lovely, loving mouth. He and Nell were happy though married.

I. B.

THE SHORE.

SUBTLE distinctions, qualified assents,
Classifications not to be transgressed,
Theories of science and disputed facts,
Religious squabbles, philosophic schools,
Historic ages, periods of geology,
Artistic jargon, progress of the species,
Classic and Gothic-endless oppositions,
Wherein the memory faints, the reason reels,
The imagination frets-I put them all
Behind me; for I stand upon the shore,
And they are of the land-the man-marred
land-

Not of the sea. The waters know them not,
But draw their level leagues against the sky,
And heaving ceaselessly through formless forms
Their ever-changeful, never-changing bulk,
Come dancing, flashing, rolling to my feet.
Their murmurous speech I cannot coin in
words,

Nor grasp the meaning of that doubtful smile:
Of Christian moral or of Pagan creed
They make no mention, but ignore mankind,
And disregard with even countenance
Plesiosaurus or excursion train;
Awful in every mood-a molten mass
Of boiling chaos, as a week ago,
Green monsters lighted by the flying storm,
Or creeping, as they crept but yesterday.
Raggedly bannered by the coiling mist,
With dull and leaden cadence to the shore.
To-day the azure canopy above

Is mirrored azure in the brine below;
The breeze that clears the brightness overhead
Just wakes the "countless laughter" of the
deep.

Surely to-day God's Spirit visibly

Moves, as of yore, upon the waters' face;
Man's spirit feels the kindred presence stir
Within, and straightway rends the bandages
Of custom, logic, sense, that swathe him up;
Fares forth in widening circles, till he greet
The dim horizon, lifted to the life
Of harmony with nature and with God.
-Fraser's Magazine.

GONE.

BY ALICE CARY.

T. E. H.

GONE from my hope for him-gone from my trust in him

Broken, borne down in a profitless strifeSpeak his name softly, and mourn for him tenderly,

Ne'er to have come to himself in his life.

His great heart within him forevermore silentNo hand that could gather its music awayHe dwelt in the land of his love like a strangerNot master, but guest in his house of the clay.

Men that saw only with cloudier vision,
Coming up to him, went sturdily past-
How can I choose but weep wild tears of woe
for him,

Heart, head and tongue playing false to the last?

Speak his name tenderly, mourn for him bitterly

Gone, and no token of honor conferredHid in the shadow of beauty immortal, Singing no song that the world ever heard.

Ah, could this dust have been shaped to its

uscs,

What triumphs there were for his spirit to win

Speak from the darkness, my poet, and say

hast thou

Come to thyself in the world thou art in?

speak lest I die of my grief—from the dark

ness

Speak to me, my beautiful poet, and say Thou hast come to thyself, thou hast gone from the twilight,

And walkst in the glad, golden light of the day.

TRUTH.

THOU long disowned, reviled, opprest, Strange friend of human-kind, Seeking, through many years, a rest Within our hearts to find

How late thy bright and awful brow Breaks through these clouds of sin! Hail Truth divine! we know thee now Angel of God, come in!

Come! though with purifying fire And desolating sword!

Thou of all nations the desire,

Earth waits thy cleansing word!

Struck by the lightning of thy glance,
Let old oppressions die !
Before thy cloudless countenance
Let fear and falsehood fly!

Anoint our eyes with healing grace

To see, as ne'er before,

Our Father in our Brother's face,
Our Master in his poor!

Flood our dark life with golden day!
Convince, subdue, enthral!
Then to a mightier yield thy sway,
And Love be all in all!

E. S.
-Anti-Slavery Standard.

IN vain the common theme my lips would shun, All tongues, all thoughts, all hearts can find but one.

Our alcoves, where the noisy world was dumb, Throb with dull drum-beats, and the echoes

come

Laden with sounds of battle and wild cries That mingle their discordant symphonies.

Old books from yonder shelves are whispering "Peace!

This is the realm of letters, not of strife."
Old graves in yonder field are saying "Cease!
Hic jacet ends the noisiest mortals life."
-Shut your old books! What says the tele-
graph?

We want an Extra, not an epitaph.

Old Classmates, (Time's unconscious almanacs,
Counting the years we leave behind our backs,
And wearing them in wrinkles on the brow
Of friendship with his kind "How are you
now?")

Take us by the hand and speak of times that

Unum on our side-pluribus on the other! Each of us owes the rest his best endeavor; Take these few lines,-we'll call them

And wide a splendor streamed through all the sky

O'er land and sea one soft, delicious blush, That touched the gray rocks lightly, tenderly, A transitory flush.

Warm, odorous gusts came off the distant land, With spice of pine-woods, breath of hay new

mown,

O'er miles of waves and sea-scents cool and
bland,
Full in our faces blown.

Slow faded the sweet light, and peacefully
The quiet stars came out, one after one-
The holy twilight deepened silently,

The summer day was done. Such unalloyed delight its hours had given, Musing, this thought rose in my grateful mind, That God, who watches all things, up in heaven, With patient eyes and kind,

Saw and was pleased, perhaps, one child of His Dared to be happy like the little birds, Because he gave his children days like this, Rejoicing beyond words

Dared, lifting up to him untroubled eyes

In gratitude that worship is, and prayer, Sing and be glad with ever new surprise He made his world so fair! -Atlantic Monthly.