head a-stickin' to it, hin'
de chick'n-coop at Mas' Jim's. Now kyar me to jail an' lemme res'. I
boun' he don't spit on no mo' cloze _I_ got ter han'le!"

JENNIE WOODVILLE.

THE IDYL OF THE VAUCLUSE.

A dusky opening in a range of purpling hills; a vision of a cluster of
small white human homes; a shining, murmuring little river spanned by a
wooden bridge; a towering background of bald, steep rock, cleft at its
base into a shadowy cavern,--such is the first of my memories of the
Vaucluse. At the entrance of the little town stands a low white-walled
building, over the door of which is a tablet inscribed thus: "On the
site of this cafe Petrarch established his study. Here he wrote the
lines--

O soave contrada, O puro fiume,
Che bagni 'l suo bel viso e gli occhi chiari."

On the banks of the classic Sorgue I was offered the photographs of
Petrarch and Laura. I took them, and there, with the sweet May sunlight
flooding all the sod, with the fresh spring grass and buds bursting into
life beneath my feet, with the murmur of the glad young river in my
ears, I stood and gazed upon the faces of those lovers of five hundred
years ago, whose love was as a spring-time idyl. For they met in the
spring, they parted in the spring, their intercourse was like the
mingling of young winds with woodland violets; and, dust and ashes
though they have been for centuries, they still prefigure to our hearts
the eternal spring-time of the world.

And yet, could the picture that I held in my hand be a faithful
reproduction of the famous portrait of Laura which was painted at the
request of Petrarch by Simon Menimi and charmed him into verse with its
loveliness? It represented simply the head and bust. The face was
elongated, the cheeks hollow, the hair smoothed down below the ears. The
long, oval, half-shut eyes wore a horrible leer, as though the owner
were making a painful effort to close them. On the head was a stiff,
ungainly jewelled helmet, which terminated low on the forehead in a
triangular ornament. The long, slender throat was encircled by three
rows of pearls. The dress was cut squarely across the neck, and was
checkered off like a draught-board, while over one shoulder was thrown a
small lace scarf. The whole expression of the figure was that of
serious, earnest sobriety and saintliness, as understood by a mediaeval
painter and treated according to his conception of his art, which
recognized no difference bet