no effort was made
to check her: "You, all of you--all heard, all saw, all knew, yet none
had courage to act; and now, c'est moi! c'est moi!" striking her breast
violently with both hands, "la pauvre esclave, qui l'ai vengee!"

She paused: there was a dead silence. Instantly a ring of men closed
round her: she was swept from the church, so swiftly was she borne away,
and the service proceeded.

The priest looked pale, and sent two or three messages to those without,
but they were of no avail. Before he could leave the altar, which he did
as hurriedly as possible, Marcelline was hanging from the limb of an oak
tree within sight of the church, her last words being, "God will forgive
me: I did right." But bitter were the tears Pere Ramain shed when he
found she had gone to her last account unshriven and unabsolved.

ANNIE PORTER.

SYMPHONIC STUDIES.

(AFTER ROBERT SCHUMANN.)

PRELUDE

Blue storm-clouds in hot heavens of mid-July
Hung heavy, brooding over land and sea:
Our hearts, a-tremble, throbbed in harmony
With the wild, restless tone of air and sky.
Shall we not call him Prospero who held
In his enchanted hands the fateful key
Of that tempestuous hour's mystery,
And with controlling wand our spirits spelled,
With him to wander by a sun-bright shore,
To hear fine, fairy voices, and to fly
With disembodied Ariel once more
Above earth's wrack and ruin? Far and nigh
The laughter of the thunder echoed loud,
And harmless lightnings leapt from cloud to cloud.

I.

Floating upon a swelling wave of sound,
We seemed to overlook an endless sea:
Poised 'twixt clear heavens and glittering surf were we.
We drank the air in flight: we knew no bound
To the audacious ventures of desire.
Nigh us the sun was dropping, drowned in gold;
Deep, deep below the burning billows rolled;
And all the sea sang like a smitten lyre.
Oh, the wild voices of those chanting waves!
The human faces glimpsed beneath the tide!
Familiar eyes gazed from profound sea-caves,
And we, exalted, were as we had died.
We knew the sea was Life, the harmonious cry
The blended discords of humanity.

II.

Lo