ent
mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted
its hoofs which were swollen like tumors....

Then a doubt, stronger than all the doubts which hitherto had assailed
the soul of Rabbit, pierced him.

* * * * *

This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through
the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of
blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes
in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of
a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His
heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter
like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour
when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained
motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the
grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in
vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did
not let go of him. Rabbit passed away drop by drop.

Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of
summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the
poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted
his beggar's paws; and like unto the gray-brown color with which
September days clothe the hill whose shape he had assumed; like unto
the rough cloth of Francis; like unto the wagon-track on the roadway
from which he heard the packs of hounds with hanging ears, singing
like the angelus; like unto the barren rock which the wild thyme
loves. In his look where now floated a mist of bluish night there was
something like unto the blessed meadow where the heart of his beloved
awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed
were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher
of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death,
like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.

END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT

TALES

PARADISE

The poet looked at his friends, his relatives, the priest, the doctor,
and the little dog, who were in the room. Then he died. Some one wrote
his name and age on a piece of paper. He was twenty-eight years.

As they kissed his forehead his friends and relatives found that he
was cold, but he could not feel their lips because he was in heaven.
And he did not ask as he had done wh