resina,
They have never seen a rose-bush nor a dew-drop in the sun.
They will dream of the vendetta, Teresina, Fiametta,
Of a Black Hand and a Face behind a grating;
They will dream of cotton petals, endless, crimson, suffocating,
Never of a wild-rose thicket nor the singing of a cricket,
But the ambulance will bellow through the wanness of their dreams,
And their tired lids will flutter with the street's hysteric screams.

Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina,
They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one.
Let them have a long, long play-time, Lord of Toil, when toil is done!
Fill their baby hands with roses, joyous roses of the sun._

THE SILLY ASS

BY JAMES BARNES

ILLUSTRATION BY ARTHUR COVEY

"Marcia," called the admiral, tapping lightly on the state-room door
with the back of his fingernails, "Marcia, my dear, I hope you're
better. Come out with me; it's--oh, ah--where's Miss Marcia?"

The door had been opened by the courier maid, whose wilted and forlorn
appearance was eloquent of her failure to live up to at least one item
in her letter of recommendation.

"Miss Dorn has gone up to--ze deck, Monsieur."

"Humph! I didn't see her. When did she go?"

"Since early zis morning, Monsieur," rejoined the well-recommended one
rather despondently.

Perhaps she might have gone on to say something more, but the admiral
stamped down the passageway. The maid looked on her features in the
glass much as one might inspect a barometer, drew a weak, despairing
breath, and laid herself down on the sofa again, her relaxed person
responding inertly to the steamer's vibrations.

Now, Admiral Page Paulding was as sweet-tempered an old sea-dog as
ever retired from the employ of an ungrateful country; but foggy
weather always worked a bit on his nerves--and what hands he had held
that morning in the smoke-room! As he thumped up the rubber-carpeted
staircase he knew that he was in a thoroughly bad humor, but made up
his mind to conceal it. And there were reasons. When a man has reached
the age when by all rights he should be a grandfather, and finds
himself only a foolish old-bachelor uncle personally conducting a
young niece of marriageable age and attractive exterior on her first
trip to Europe, it may well be said: "Of each day learneth he
experience." Aside from the avuncular privilege of paying bills, he
had known the jealous promptings of a father, indu