to the stage-door to bid her "Good-by."

"What can I do for you to thank you?" she asked earnestly.

Jack hesitated.

"Ef you wouldn't mind, ma'am," he said, "I'd like--to--kiss your hand.
I've got a dear old mother home--ef you wouldn't mind!"

Without a blush or a change of countenance she put her arm around his
neck and kissed his lips.

"Good-by, dear old fellow," she said.

Then Scotty cracked his whip, the crowd on the piazza raised their
hats--even the poor, chagrined Doctor--a subdued cheer was given, and
the lumbering stage disappeared in a cloud of dust, the nodding
mariposas on the hillside looking curiously at it as it went by.

CLARA G. DOLLIVER.

THE PUNISHED.

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.

'Tis they who walk the highways unsuspected,
Yet with grim fear for ever at their side,
Who clasp the corpse of some sin undetected,
A corpse no grave or coffin lid can hide.

'Tis they who are in their own chambers haunted
By thoughts that like unwelcome guests intrude,
And sit down uninvited and unwanted,
And make a nightmare of the solitude.

ELLA WHEELER.

ALFRED DE MUSSET.

It had been known for some time that M. Paul de Musset was preparing a
biography of his illustrious brother, and the knowledge had been
grateful to Alfred de Musset's many lovers; for the author of "Rolla"
and the "Lettre a Lamartine" has lovers. The book has at last
appeared--more than twenty years after the death of its hero.[1] It is
probably not unfair to suppose that a motive for delay has been removed
by the recent death of Mme. Sand. M. Paul de Musset's volume proves, we
confess, rather disappointing. It is a careful and graceful, but at the
same time a very slight performance, such as was to be expected from
the author of "Lui et Elle" and of the indignant refutation (in the
biographical notice which accompanies the octavo edition of Alfred de
Musset's works) of M. Taine's statement that the poet was addicted to
walking about the streets late at night. As regards this latter point,
M. Paul de Musset hastened to declare that his brother had no such
habits--that his customs were those of a _gentilhomme_; by which the
biographer would seem to mean that when the poet went abroad after dark
it was in his o