hen his hands dropped on the keys,
and he began playing a sad and infinitely lovely movement, which crept
gently over the instrument, like the calm flow of moonlight over the
dark earth. This was followed by a wild, elfin passage in triple time--a
sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of spirits upon the lawn.
Then came a swift agitato finale--a breathless, hurrying, trembling
movement, descriptive of flight, and uncertainty, and vague impulsive
terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in
emotion and wonder.

"Farewell to you!" said Beethoven, pushing back his chair, and turning
towards the door--"farewell to you!"

"You will come again?" asked they in one breath.

He paused and looked compassionately, almost tenderly, at the face of
the blind girl.

"Yes, yes," he said hurriedly, "I will come again, and give the young
lady some lessons! Farewell! I will come again!"

Their looks followed us in silence more eloquent than words till we were
out of sight.

"Let us make haste back," said Beethoven, "that I may write out that
Sonata while I can yet remember it."

We did so, and he sat over it till long past day dawn. And this was the
origin of the Moonlight Sonata with which we are all so fondly
acquainted.

UNKNOWN

THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

Black beneath as the night,
With wings of a morning glow,
From his sooty throat three syllables float,
Ravishing, liquid, low;
And 'tis oh, for the joy of June,
And the bliss that ne'er can flee
From that exquisite call, with its sweet, sweet fall--
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

Long ago as a child,
From the bough of a blossoming quince,
That melody came to thrill my frame,
And whenever I've caught it since,
The spring-soft blue of the sky
And the spring-bright bloom of the tree
Are a part of the strain--ah, hear it again!--
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

And the night is tenderly black,
The morning eagerly bright,
For that old, old spring is blossoming
In the soul and in the sight.
The red-winged blackbird brings
My lost youth back to me,
When I hear in the swale, from a gray fence rail,
O-ke-lee, o-ke-lee, o-ke-lee!

ETHELWYN WETHERALD

TO THE CUCKOO

Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy w