t it?"

"Yes."

"And you are quite as bad in another way."

"Oh!"

"Just because, when we hold it in our hands, we hold also that furious
epoch where rioted all monsters and poisons,--where death fecundated
and life destroyed,--where superabundance demanded such existences, no
souls, but fiercest animal fire;--just for that I hate it."

"Why, then, is it fitted for me?"

He laughed again, but replied,--"The hues harmonize,--the substances;
you both are accidents; it suits your beauty."

So, then, it seemed I had beauty, after all.

"You mean that it harmonizes with me, because I am a symbol of its
period. If there had been women then, they would have been like me,--a
great creature without a soul, a"----

"Pray, don't finish the sentence. I can imagine that there is something
rich and voluptuous and sating about amber, its color, and its lustre,
and its scent; but for others, not for me. Yea, you have beauty, after
all," turning suddenly, and withering me with his eye,--"beauty, after
all, as you didn't _say_ just now.--Mr. Willoughby is in the garden. I
must go before he comes in, or he'll make me stay. There are some to
whom you can't say, No."

He stopped a minute, and now, without looking,--indeed, he looked
everywhere but at me, while we talked,--made a bow as if just seating
me from a waltz, and, with his eyes and his smile on Louise all the way
down the room, went out. Did you ever know such insolence?

[To be continued.]

SONG OF NATURE.

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hide in the blinding glory,
I lurk in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In death, new-born and strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of life,
And pour the deluge still.

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the fairest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My apples ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew.

What time the gods kept carn