s, and its buzz of many voices, was a busy spot, and
the pleasures were very cheap ones: and not here could I manage to get a
glimpse of Her face.

I looked in the shops, and I stood beside the hawkers, and I listened to
the sellers and gossiped with those who bought; but the noise, and the
heat, and the dust that rose so thickly, were more than I had bargained
for, and I felt lonely and disillusioned: so I very lamely turned my
back on it all, and went away feeling that I should never find Her
there.

Then I built for myself a study into which I gathered covetously the
most perfect vintage of the human intellect--the ripest fruit our wise
race has garnered during all the years it has been harvesting from time.
And here I sat me down waiting for my Beloved. She will surely show Her
face to me here, said I.

The wind rattled the casement; the lamp-flame shook tremulously; and the
fire burned cheerfully in the grotesque-tiled grate. I could hear the
rain viciously swishing against the window-panes and gurgling
unmelodiously through the gutters and from the pipes, but She whom I
desired came not to keep me company.

For all the feast I have gathered for us, and for all the comfort I have
secured for Her, She holds aloof, and I have never seen Her yet.

And sometimes now I fancy that possibly I may never see Her: but that
one day, when I am lying in my coffin, She will press Her lips to
mine--and I shall never know.

A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT.

"I HAVE here," said the Showman, "the most interesting entertainment to
be witnessed on earth! Walk up! walk up, and judge for yourselves!" And
with that he beat the drum and blew shrilly on the pipes.

The music travelled to the ears of his audience with a difference: or so
it seemed to them, as they stood before the booth. Some heard in it,
through the discordant hubbub of the fair, the rattle of vehicles and
the tramp of feet in the busy thoroughfares of a great city; for others,
it was the whistling of birds in the hedgerows; and to some, like the
restless pulsations of the sea. To each, according to his memories and
his mood. But the music of the Showman was a single tune for all.

"Walk up! walk up!" bawled the grey-coated Showman, blowing at the pipes
and pounding on the drum.

"Darned if I wouldn't go in, if I had the brass!" quoth a lean,
unshaven, shabby-looking man, who stood in front of the booth with his
hands in his pockets.

"I'll stand treat, if y