guileless Hindoo maiden who rolled her eyes at me as we knelt together at prayer rises before me. She had an uncanny fascination for me. She made me think of Thugs and things. Hardly less awe-inspiring was that fine specimen of the untamed British governess who announced herself as a lady by birth every morning before breakfast, probably for purposes of personal and social invigoration,-like a hard rubbing with a bath-mitten. Another exponent of the Britannic desire to rule the waves on small capital was the London æsthete of noble lineage whose "intense" garments called forth the jeers of the Philistine populace.

I hate reduced gentlewomen. They whine so. I love shop-girls. Were I a man I should be always running after them. They are so deliciously naïve and so jolly independent. I have often thought that there are only three things worth being, in this unsatisfactory human condition. One is a duchess, another an artistic bohémienne, and the third a shop-girl. There is one public nuisance against which the American shop-girl protests, and with reason, and that is the American female philanthropist. What pleasure the shop-girl takes in snubbing her would-be patroness! and, oh, how strongly my sympathies are with

her!

Wherever there is a shop-girl, there will a "gentleman friend" be found also! The woods, that is, the front parlor of the "Home," were full of them. Some of them were Chinese laundrymen who were great swells as to clothes and had charming manners and glossy shirtfronts. Of course, as they got up their own linen, they could afford to be decent.

In time I wearied of the somewhat coarse and gregarious pleasures of the working-woman's home. The close communion of the phalanstery told upon my health. I picked up a dress-maker's cough, and a needle-woman's stitch in my side. The Rabelaisian conversation of dress-makers' apprentices palled upon me. When my h's began to fall with the leaf, I thought it time to go; and I went.

Several years later, I returned to the working-woman's home. I really don't know why I went. I think it was because I had grown tired of boarding-houses, tired of festive dry-goods clerks and dazzling drummers, tired of idle, overdressed, scurrilous women who speculated as to whether Mrs. G. D. Hotter was really going on the stage, or Mrs. Barren Leavings drank!

I had been at the "Home" but a few hours when a woman approached me and inquired, sweetly, "Be you that same lean, scrawny girl that was here three years ago and was always so full of the Old Nick ?"

"I am that same hair-pin," I replied, in the graceful dialect of the lower classes of American society. "I found I was growing stout. I have had too many square meals. I have come here to bant, as it were."

"Well, you've come to the right shop for that," rejoined the goodnatured dress-maker.

Having accomplished my avowed purpose of reducing myself to a dime-museum skeleton, I again left.

Charlotte Adams.

THE NIGHT COMETH.

FOLD up the work wherein, hour after hour

(Only to sew my shroud, then, was I born?),
I've wrought faint pictures, look, of many a flower
And many a thorn.

Yea, many a flower. Some bridal blossoms; some
Spell my dead children's names in their sweet way;
One blew in Eden ere the Snake was come;-
And there are they,

Yea, many a thorn. Behold, my hand hath bled,
Even in tracing them, so sharp were they,
On this long, shining garment. Did His head
Wear such, that day?

I can but think me how, before the dew
Melted in sunrise, and when noon was hot,
Till on the dusk my coffin's shadow grew,
I rested not.

Working forever on this one white Thing!
Why, of a truth, it should be fair to see
And sweet to sleep in. Love, you need not bring
Your lamp to me.

Look you, the graveyard moon ariseth. So,-
That light is for the blind. Now let me be.
Listen! The graveyard wind. There! I will
It calleth me.

go.

Sarah M. B. Piatt

CLEON

THE MAN OF THE GOLDEN FILLET.

I.

CON, the son of Democles, was the youngest member of the Athenian Senate. Twice he had borne off the Olympic prize, and he had been a victor in the Pythian games. He had through his own talents won many distinctions, such as the front seat in the theatre, at the festivals, and on all public occasions; a crown conferred by the Senate; and an entertainment in the Common Hall. He was no less renowned as a soldier than as a statesman; and as a poet his fame was spread through all Hellas. A certain tranquil gravity of countenance

distinguished him. Neither triumph nor grief had ever been known to disturb the serenity of his features. He had never married, nor even so much as sought a maiden in marriage; and this would have wrought much against him, but for his extraordinary powers of intellect and his personal attraction. His very coldness seemed like to a burning-glass formed of ice, which, while itself remaining without heat, kindled the affections of men, and, it was whispered, of women also.

In person he was tall and of a lithe magnificence. Strength and beauty were wed in his supple limbs, and of their union was born a grace which passes description. His head, lofty in shape and carriage, was covered with an abundance of light brown curls which the sunlight seemed to dust as with gold. His eyes, calm, broad-lidded, of a limpid darkness like to the hue of deeply-shadowed water, were set wide apart beneath level brows. Above, in his bright locks and sweeping forehead, was the sunshine of a vast intellect; below, in the sombre eyes and downward curve of mouth and chin, the following twilight of a melancholy nature. It was said that those beautiful, placid lips had never relaxed into even the smile of welcome.

His garments were always of white wool, sometimes edged with purple, as though he who wore them might have dragged them through the blood of an enemy; sometimes with a border of gold thread curiously woven. Always he wore about his brow a golden ribbon, which lost itself in his thick curls, as a stray sunbeam in gathering clouds. This it was which had caused him to be known in Athens as "The Man of the Golden Fillet."

In the month of April, Cleon the senator repaired to his summer dwelling on the Mediterranean. Now, it chanced that on the third day of his arrival, as he was walking on a marble terrace overlooking the blue waters, there came toward him on the fluctuating wind a sound as of children laughing,-a sound as fresh and sweet as though the bells of many hyacinths were to ring out suddenly with a clamor mated to their fragrance. And as he ceased in his long strides and lifted his head after the manner of a stag that listens, it came again, dying away as the sea drew back the wind like a fair woman who breathes inward, for love or fear. Presently, descending by some wide steps, he found himself in a garden, fair with divers flowers, and roofed with peachtrees all in bloom, as though the sky overhead should blush with the love of the sun even in the glare of noontide. And the grass was green and gold beneath his feet, like to a mantle wondrously broidered, because of the sunlight falling through the leaves. And, as he walked, the wind returning a third time stirred the heavy locks about his brow, and left the ripple of far laughter in his ears as the memory of leaping water makes music in a still place. And amid all the spring-time colors he alone walked colorless, clad from head to feet in perfect white, bound as to his brows with narrow gold, majestic as a tall mountain that, garmented in snow, feels on its crest the sunlight, while at its foot the flowers awake or sleep. All the air was sweet with the breath of violets, and of narcissus, and of hyacinths; the coppice all alilt with birds, a song for every blossom,-while from east to west, like a blue cestus unrolled, the laughter of the sea broke through the grimly-twisted

--

branches of the olive-trees, even as youth breaks through the precepts of old age.

Now, all at once, and as a thing desired seems sometimes suddenly to leap into the arms, behold! he came in this wise upon that which he sought.

An oval space there was, in the midst of rose-trees and sweet-olive shrubs, thick with young grass, and broken here and there by the fair gold of narcissus-flowers; and in the centre of this space, as it were gathered into the very bosom of the spring, stood a young maiden. She was clad all in white, and her long golden tresses ran down among the narcissus-cups, as though the gold of the one did magnetize the gold of the other that they so might kiss. And she was very fair, with the fairness of a flower, and her sweeping brows were dark with their own beauty as the stripes on a tiger's flanks. On her head was a crown of daffodils, and from the shadows which they cast her young eyes shone forth, like stars over which a cloud has thrown its veil. Also her lips were the lips of a goddess, and her form more sweet in its flowing lines than the curves of an untrained wild vine.

Moreover, Cleon perceived that there was with her a boy of some eight years old, wind-tossed as to his dark locks, with sturdy chest half bare, and bright eyes wide with merriment. A little bacchanal he seemed, half blinded by a wreath of vine-leaves that fell into his eyes, and having about his shoulders a young leopard's hide. He was seated astride a white goat which the maiden held by one horn, and about the neck of the beast were chains of violets, by which the little Faun did strive to guide him, he the while tossing his head as though in distaste of even such sweet bondage.

"Nay, Gelo, I tell thee," saith the maiden, "it is not in such wise that the priest leads the beast to the altar. Thou shouldst dismount and help me to lead him. Moreover, it is unpardonable that thou dost not gild his horns."

Whereat the boy fell grave on a sudden, and ceased from belaboring the goat's flanks with his little bare heels. "Verily, sister," he saith, "it is easy for thee to move thy lips and speak, but where shall I get the gold wherewith to gild Damon's horns? Neither have I any wine for libation."

"As to that," said the maiden, "thou canst make a libation of milk and honey as well."

The boy saith, still solemnly, "It is also easy for thee to talk of milk and honey; but whence will come this milk and honey?"

Upon this, the maiden, lifting one round young arm, swept it with a wide gesture, from her right shoulder outward. "The bees," saith she," we will ask the bees to build us a little comb which shall be all for Damon; and maybe Damon's mother will yield us milk enough;" and forthwith she broke into laughter so clear and sweet that almost it seemed as though the bell of heaven vibrated with it, as crystal beneath the stroke of silver. And so lost was she in her merriment that she knew nothing of what the boy would be at, until he, with a frown. gathering like a mimic storm upon his swarthy little brows, cast himself from the goat, and, lifting his sturdy arm with the violet reins still

clasped within his hand, smote his sister upon the side, with all his might; and a second time he would have smitten her, had not his arm been caught in a moveless grasp and held aloft. Then said a stern voice in his ear,

"Coward! wouldst thou strike thy sister?"

Now, the maid had turned suddenly at the whisper of the grass about Cleon's feet, and the smile was yet upon her face, although her laughter was hushed, even as the glow of vanished day lingers upon night's forehead; but the boy knew nothing until he felt the grasp upon his wrist, so that when he tossed his angry head to see who held him, and perceived the man bending over him, he could say no word for astonishment. Neither uttered the maiden anything. Therefore Cleon spake unto them, loosing the boy and standing erect again. And he saith,

"So thou hast no gold wherewith to gild the horns of thy pretty goat?"

The boy, with a sidelong look, and fingering the goat's silken hair, answered and said, "No." But the maiden, with a sweet red pulsing in her cheek, continued in his stead:

"We cry thee pardon, if this be thy garden, for we knew not that the lord of the place was returned; but we have not gathered of the costly flowers, and these violets that thou seest grow also in the fields."

"Though thou shouldst cull all the flowers that I possess," said Cleon, "giving thee pleasure it could not but give me pleasure also. -And, boy, thou shalt have thy goat's horns gilded, and an altar moreover for thy mimic sacrifice."

Whereat the child, waxing bold with joy, laughed out merrily, saying,

"Fair sir, art thou not very Apollo himself? For truth thou art as like to his statues in the temples as my Damon, here, is to his brother Pythias."

And his sister plucked at his tunic, as in warning that he should be respectful, but Cleon saith,

"Nay, let him say on. Meseems I have not heard a child's voice since I was myself a child." Then to the boy, "To whom dost thou sacrifice?"

"At

The boy, waxing once more valiant, made ready answer. first," said he, "I wanted to offer up a sacrifice to Dionysos, that he might protect the vines in my little vineyard; but Autonoë said rather should I sacrifice to Athene, on her behalf, so that she might remain ever a virgin and we twain be not separated by her marriage. Wherefore not to Hestia?" asked Cleon.

“Nay, as I live," cried the boy, "rather would I have Autonoë marry some great lord than go to tend a fire where is no hearth-stone. Besides, thou art mocking; for in Hellas it is widows who are the priestesses of Hestia."

At this the maiden did pluck him by his tunic, and the blood sought her cheek, for she knew right well that he with whom they spake was a great lord.

The boy, pulling free of her hand, continued: "Our mother would