But one object broke the monotonous sameness of the scene, a white-covered wagon, its flapping canvas top giving scant shelter to the emigrant and his wife crouched within. Their journey has been long, fever throbs in the woman's veins.

Suddenly the man looks up, startled. Their search for a home is over.

"See!" he cries in joy.

They have come out on the edge of a wide-reaching valley. Lines of dense-leaved, billowy forest, bend and 3way in a gentle breeze. A lake with here and there a touch of foam to relieve the sparkling blue of the waves restlessly tosses and wrinkles its waters. Broad meadows suggesting clover and golden-rod are near by, and the undulations of the grass are like those of the lake. Yonder, along the beach, they catch a glimpse of dwellingsseeming palaces whose bold frontage awes their simple minds.

"See!" calls out again the glad husband, and his strong arm lifts the fainting wife that she may get a better view.

Rest is there and hope and joy. The burdens of the past have been so great! In the fierce race of life they have been left so far behind; but now the journey over the thin-grassed prairie is almost ended--the haven is in sight. They can almost taste the fruits of the deep-foliaged trees and catch a scent of the clover and of the sea. Hungrily, earnestly they feast their eyes as they gaze through the opening in the flapping canvas.

A passing cloud drifts suddenly before the sun.

A cry of pain and disappointment surges to the woman's lips as she sees again a dreary length of plain whose level lines had so long fatigued her eyes. The torrid wind finds not a leaf to stir. She falls back on her heatfilled pillow.

The mirage has lifted.

The emigrant is alone on the prairie with his dead.

-Detroit Free Press.

LADY JANE.

Down the green hillside fro' the castle window
Lady Jane spied Bill Amaranth a-workin';
Day by day watched him go about his ample
Nursery garden.

Cabbage thrived wi' mort o' green stuff,—
Kidney beans, broad beans, onions, tomatoes,
Artichokes, seakale, vegetable marrows,
Early potatoes.

Lady Jane cared not very much for all these.
What she cared much for was a glimpse of Willum,
Strippin' his brown arms wi' a view to horti-
Cultural effort.

Little guessed Willum, never extra vain, that
Up the green hillside, i' the gloomy castle,
Feminine eyes could so delight to view his
Noble proportions.

Only one day while, in an innocent mood,
Moppin' his brow ('cos 'twas a trifle sweaty)
With a blue kerchief-lo, he spies a white 'un
Sweetly responding.

O delightsome Love! Not a jot do you care
For the restrictions set on human inter-
Course by cold-blooded speculative old folks;
Nor do I, neither.

Day by day, peepin' fro' behind the bean sticks,
Willum observed that scrap o' white a-wavin',
Till his hot sighs out-growin' all repression
Busted his weskit.

Lady Jane's guardian was a haughty duke, who
Clung to old creeds and had a nasty temper;
Can we blame Willum that he hardly cared to
Risk a refusal ?

Year by year found him busy mid the bean sticks,
Wholly uncertain how on earth to take steps.
Thus for eighteen years he beheld the maiden
Wave fro' her window.

But the nineteenth spring, i' the Castle post-bag
Came, by book-post, Bill's catalogue o' seedlings
Marked wi' blue ink at "Paragraphs relatin'

Mainly to pumpkins."

“W. A. can,” so the Lady Jane read,

"Strongly commend that very noble gourd, the Lady Jane, first-class medal, ornamental,

Grown to a great height."

Scarce a year arter, by the scented hedgerows-
Down the shorn hill-side, fro' the castle gateway-
Came a long train, and, i' the midst, a black bier,
Easily shouldered.

"Whose is yon corse that, thus adorned wi' gourd leaves, Forth ye bear with slow step?" A mourner answered, "'Tis the poor clay-cold body Lady Jane grew

Tired to abide in."

"Delve my grave quick, then, for I die to-morrow,
Delve it one furlong fro' the kidney bean sticks,
Where I may dream she's goin' on precisely
As she was used to."

Hardly died Bill when, fro' the Lady Jane's grave
Crept to his white death-bed a lovely pumpkin-
Climbed the house wall and over-arched his head wi'
Billowy verdure.

Simple this tale !-but delicately perfumed
As the sweet roadside honeysuckle. That's why,
Difficult though its metre was to manage,
I'm glad I wrote it.

HER IDEAL.-KATE MASTERSON.

She wanted to reach an ideal ;

She talked of the lovely in art,

She quoted from Emerson's essays,

And said she thought Howells had "heart." She doted on Wagner's productions,

She thought comic opera low,

And she played trying tunes on a zither,
Keeping time with a sandal-shod toe.

She had dreams of a nobler existence,-
A bifurcated, corsetless place,

Where women would stand free and equal
As queens of a glorious race.

But her biscuits were deadly creations
That caused people's spirits to sink:

And she'd views upon matters religious
That drove her relations to drink.

She'd opinions on co-education,

But not an idea on cake;

She could analyze Spencer or Browning,
But the new kitchen range wouldn't bake.
She wanted to be esoteric,

And she wore the most classical clothes;

But she ended by being hysteric

And contracting a cold in the nose.

She studied of forces hypnotic,

She believed in theosophy quite;
She understood themes prehistoric,
And said that the faith cure was right.
She wanted to reach an ideal,

And at clods unpoetic would rail--
Her husband wore fringe on his trousers
And fastened them on with a nail!

THE COURT OF THE KING.-FLORENCE MAY

The armor hung high in the tapestried hall
Where the knights and the nobles were banqueting all;
Their shields laid aside and their lances insheathed,
And the tall silver flagons with ivy enwreathed;
The fumes of the winecups like incense arose,

While the monarch who drank had forgotten his foes;
And the might of his laugh made the rose-garlands swing.
There was feasting and mirth in the court of the king.

Only one voice was still in the shout or the song,
And one face was sad in the midst of the throng,
Rinaldo, the jester, and Lillo, his son,

Had frolicked together in days that were done;-
But Lillo was looking his last upon earth,

Within sight of the lights, within sound of the mirth,
What wonder the father has no songs to sing,-
Who thought of his child in the court of the king.

The banquet went on and the torches up-flared—
If the son of the jester were dying, who cared?
"Ho, rouse there, Rinaldo," the king said again,
"My minstrels are tiring, take thou up the strain."

The jester advanced to the foot of the throne;
He silenced their stories and told them his own,
And, waiting the mercy his service might bring,
He silently knelt at the feet of the king.

The monarch was frowning (Rinaldo, thy fears
Have cause, for the world has no patience with tears);
"What-Lillo," he answered," this nonsense for him?"
The eyes of the jester were raised now, and dim.
"Why trouble my feasting with thy trifling woes?
Come, sing, I command thee!" The jester arose
And sang, but his voice felt his heart's broken string,
And seemed to drop tears in the court of the king.

The banquet went on, and the winecup went round
Till foes were forgotten, and caution was drowned;
And a stranger pushed in and stole unawares
Past nobles who nodded or slept in their chairs.
With soft steps he crept to the foot of the throne;
The minstrels, too, nodded—Rinaldo alone

Saw the steel in his hand and with one sudden spring
Had saved the king's life in the court of the king.

Descending, the dagger was sheathed in the heart
Of Rinaldo, the jester; who, playing the part
Of a motley-garbed court-fool when living, lay dead
With the crown of a hero. The murderer fled
Past the courtiers startled, who heard, in the dim
Morning light, from the convent the nun's matin hymn.
And Rinaldo, the jester-ah, sweet, solemn thing-
Met with Lillo once more in the court of a king.

LITTLE JACK TWO-STICKS.*-MARION MANVILLE.

'Twas a terrible day, and we spent it fighting the third divi sion of Hill's command

In the Wilderness; then, just as night was falling, we finished the combat hand to hand.

Our ranks were thinned, and the men had fasted hour after hour of the hard-fought day,

With canteens empty, and knapsacks lying on the ground in camp when we marched away.

From "Over the Divide and Other Verses," by permission of the Author.