please.
And to excel in pleasing was to reign,
And, if you sighed, never to sigh in vain.

But then, as now--it may be, something more--
Woman and man were human to the core.
The hearts that throbbed behind that quaint attire
Burned with a plenitude of essential fire.
They too could risk, they also could rebel.
They could love wisely--they could love too well.
In that great duel of Sex, that ancient strife
Which is the very central fact of life,
They could--and did--engage it breath for breath,
They could--and did--get wounded unto death.
As at all times since time for us began
Woman was truly woman, man was man.
And joy and sorrow were as much at home
In trifling Tunbridge as in mighty Rome.

Dead--dead and done with! Swift from shine to shade
The roaring generations flit and fade.
To this one, fading, flitting, like the rest,
We come to proffer--be it worst or best--
A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time;
A hint of what it might have held sublime;
A dream, an idyll, call it what you will,
Of man still Man, and woman--Woman still!

W. E. H.

BEAU AUSTIN

MUSICAL INDUCTION: "Lascia ch'io pianga" (_Rinaldo_), HANDEL

ACT I

_The Stage represents Miss Foster's apartments at the Wells. Doors, L.
and C.; a window, L.C., looking on the street; a table, R., laid for
breakfast_

SCENE I

_BARBARA; to her, MISS FOSTER_

BARBARA (_out of window_). Mr. Menteith! Mr. Menteith! Mr.
Menteith!--Drat his old head! Will nothing make him hear?--Mr. Menteith!

MISS FOSTER (_entering_). Barbara! this is incredible: after all my
lessons, to be leaning from the window, and calling (for unless my ears
deceived me, you were positively calling!) into the street.

BARBARA. Well, madam, just wait until you hear who it was. I declare it
was much more for Miss Dorothy and yourself than for me; and if it was a
little countrified, I had a good excuse.

MISS FOSTER. Nonsense, child! At least, who was it?

BARBARA. Miss Evelina, I was sure you would ask. Well, what do you
think? I was looking out of the window at the barber's opposite----

MISS FOSTER. Of which I entirely disapprove----

BARBARA. And first there came out two of the most beautiful--the Royal
livery, madam!

MISS FOSTER. Of course, of course: the Duke of York arrived last night.
I trust you did not hail the Duke's footmen?

BARBARA. O no, ma