oals. But anon she dropped down
beside him, and beat her forehead with the lower palms o' her hands, and
she saith, "Well didst thou sign me with thy blood! well didst thou sign
me with thy blood!" Then all at once did she peep up at me over her
shoulder with one o' her winsome ways, and fell a-laughing softly.

"Nurse," saith she, "hath he not found a pretty way to punish me? He
feigns it well--by'r lay'kin--doth he not, nurse?"

And she rocked to and fro, as she knelt beside him, laughing softly to
herself, and ever and again she would reach forth one little hand, all
scarred in her struggle with Mistress Marian, and would touch a stray
lock into place, and once she bent over and kissed him, laughing softly,
and nodding to herself very wisely. And she would sit that way, and rock
herself to and fro, and smile upon the ground, and laugh softly, until
the very day that she did die. And the last words that she did ever say
were, "Just once, Ernle--just once."

* * * * *

(Nurse Crumpet rises and stirs the fire, amid a heavy silence, broken
only by the little Lady Dorothy's sobs and the rushing of the wind
outside the great hall.)

THE END.

TONY, THE MAID.

A Novelette. BY BLANCHE WILLIS HOWARD. Illustrated by CHARLES S.
REINHART. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00.

"'Tony, the Maid,' is not only one of the best
pieces of work Miss Howard has yet done, but it is
one of the very best short stories of the year.
Tony herself is an original creation. There is no
maid like Tony in all fiction; and she is,
moreover, the only good thing, which is neither
superlatively beautiful nor emphatically a bore,
or both, that has come out of the Canton of
Lucerne since the days of William Tell. Even the
insatiate archer, when he is not mythical, is a
trifle wearing to the average mind, but Tony is
never tiresome and always grand.

"As a short story Miss Howard's 'Tony, the Maid'
has but one fault. It is too short. There is not
enough of Tony. She makes her exit too suddenly
and too completely. It is consoling to know,
however, that Miss Zschorcher is some day coming
to America as Mrs. Eduard Maler. Perhaps Tony the
Maid may figure as Tony the Matron and Tony the
Mother. Knowing her duty to her gracious