without pausing here the resolute girl, who must have had a foreboding
of the awful truth by this time, passed on into the gambling-room in
the rear. There, stretched upon the floor, shot through the heart, lay
the stark form of the man she had journeyed so far and so patiently
and hopefully to find. He had grown muscular and brawny since she
parted with him. His face, too, had changed, and not for the better:
it was flushed, sodden and bearded, and the beard was dyed black. She
knelt down beside the corpse and took one of the great hands in her
own. It was still warm! But the chill of death crept over it as she
held it to her heart, and thus her last ray of hope expired.

She sat still by her dead till the man's former companions came to
prepare the body for burial. As it was borne to the lonely grave upon
the hillside she walked beside the rough coffin. And when the grave
was reached she dropped upon her knees beside it, and poured forth in
a clear voice a fervent petition to the Most High to receive, for the
sake of the dear Saviour who died for all the world, the soul of this
poor sinner.

They had said that she might bear up till the funeral was over, but
that then she would break down. She did not. The next morning she set
her face to the East, and began again, for the fourth time, that
awful journey across the Plains. We need not follow her throughout its
length. She reached her home worn and sick, but nevertheless at once
took up her old school and went on with it a few weeks. And then the
end came.

LOUIS A. ROBERTS.

* * * * *

FRANCESCA'S WORSHIP.

In the deep afternoon, when westering calms
Brooded above the streets of Rome, and hushed
Their noisier clamor, at her orisons,
In San Domenico, Francesca knelt.
All day her charities had overflowed
For others. Husband, children, friends had claimed
Service ungrudged; the poor had gotten their dole,
Doubled by reason of her soothing hands;
Sick eyes had lifted at her coming, as lifts
The parcht Campagna grass at the cool kisses
Of winds that have been dallying with the snows
Of Alban mountain-tops. And now, released
From outward ministries, and free to turn
Inward, and up the solemn aisle of thought
Conduct her soul, she bowed with open page
Before the altar: "_Tenuisti manum
Dexteram meam_."
On her lips she held
The words caressingly, as she would taste