ung with a truer story than pleasure tells, and when I married it was
with the prelude of my lost years related and forgiven. With children's
faces the earnestness and beauty of life returned; for this, for more,
for all, may your reward be bountiful!"

There is no curse like the dream of old age. Ralph Flare felt, with the
sudden whitening of each separate hair, the sudden remembrance of each
separate folly; and the moments of grief he had wrung from the little
girl of the Quartier Latin revived like one's mean acts seen through
others' eyes.

"Pardon you, child, Suzette?" he said; "to me you were more than I
hoped, more than I wished. I asked your face only, and you gave me your
heart. For the unfaithfulness, for the wrath, for the unmanliness, for
the tyranny with which I treated you, my soul upbraids me."

"How thankful am I," she answered; "the terror to me was that you had
learned in the Quartier lessons to make your after-life monotonous. I am
happy."

Their hands met; to his gray beard fell the smile upon her mouth; they
forget the Quartier Latin; they felt no love but forgiveness, which is
the tenderest of emotions. The whistle blew shrilly; the train stopped;
Ralph Flare awoke from sleep; but the old couple were gone.

He went to Paris, and, contrary to his purpose, inquired for her. She
had been seen by none since his departure. He wrote to the Maire of her
commune, and this was the reply:

"_Ralph, Merci! Pardonne!_

"SUZETTE."

He felt no loss. He felt softened toward her only; and he turned his
back on the Quartier Latin with a man's easy satisfaction that he could
forget.

THE PIGEON GIRL.

On the sloping market-place,
In the village of Compeigne,
Every Saturday her face,
Like a Sunday, comes again;
Daylight finds her in her seat,
With her panier at her feet,
Where her pigeons lie in pairs;
Like their plumage gray her gown,
To her sabots drooping down;
And a kerchief, brightly brown,
Binds her smooth, dark hairs.

All the buyers knew her well,
And, perforce, her face must see,
As a holy Raphael
Lures us in a gallery;
Round about the rustics gape,
Drinking in her comely shape,
And the housewives gently speak,
When into her eyes they look,
As within some holy book,
And the gables, high and crook,
Fling their sunshine on her cheek.

In her hands two milk-white doves,
Happy in her lap to lie,
Soft