ut now he noticed a long line of them standing before him,
pointed outward. He heard the puff of a steam fire-engine, and saw that
travel by rail was stopped by a fire. The hose crossed the track, and
the incoming horse-cars were in a long line beyond it. He looked at the
cars which he had over-taken. Midway in the line stood the one he had
been accustomed to take. He caught sight of a familiar head bent over a
book. He stepped into the car and stood before Miss Vila. He bent
forward, and she looked up as he spoke:

"The cars are stopped by a fire. We may be delayed a long while. Why not
walk home from here? It is a fine night."

He spoke somewhat hurriedly. He did not know how appealingly he looked.
She did, however, and she closed her book and followed him.

The story, then, never was written, even though the heroine had been
found. Everything else had disappeared,--the hero, the mystery, the
plot. Nothing was left but the heroine and--love.

HORACE E. SCUDDER.

SHADOWS ALL.

Shadows all!
From the birth-robe to the pall,
In this travesty of life,
Hollow calm and fruitless strife,
Whatsoe'er the actors seem,
They are posturing in a dream;
Fates may rise, and fates may fall,
Shadows are we, shadows all!

From what sphere
Float these phantoms flickering here?
From what mystic circle cast
In the dim aeonian Past?
Many voices make reply,
But they only rise to die
Down the midnight mystery,
While earth's mocking echoes call,
Shadows, shadows, shadows all!

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

ROSES OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY.

It always seemed to me, as a child, that the birds put their hearts more
wholly into their songs in that special little corner of Paradise on the
Hudson River than they did anywhere else. Not that it was really so very
little a corner, being small only in comparison with an entire Paradise,
composed of many such bits, that lines the shore of the beautiful
Hudson.

It was so great a delight to the child who knew little of country
pleasures to be called away from some task or commonplace "every-day"
pastime and to be told that there was an invitation to spend an
afternoon, or perhaps several days, at Professor Morse's place, "Locust
Grove."

There would be the drive, leaning back in the barouche (with a feeling
of easy importance lent by the consciousness of wondrous delights to
come) and