ting,
And then comes peace--to tell us we are old--
Desire of joy and tears--ah, gifts of gold!

THEODOSIA GARRISON.

ON LOVE TOKENS

By FRANK S. ARNETT

Recent excavations outside Pompeii's Stabian gate brought to light the
bodies of a hundred hapless fugitives smothered two thousand years ago
within actual sight of the fleet that came to save them. Necklaces
were still borne on the charred but once beautiful necks of the women,
and bracelets encircled their slender wrists. Thrice around the
skeleton arm of one wound a chain of gold, and priceless stones were
set in rings that still clung to the agony-clinched fingers of those
that there had faced the fatal fumes of Vesuvius.

As one reflects upon these discoveries, he is at first inclined to
philosophize on the slightness wrought by time in woman's nature. For
were not all these blazing gems and precious metals but proof that the
jewel madness that burns in her veins to-day has coursed through
woman's veins throughout the ages?

But such a reflection is only partly correct. Among those bracelets,
chains of gold and sparkling rings were many that proved no love of
luxury, no mere desire for barbaric bedecking. Surely some were tokens
of love, seized at that last moment when a hideous death approached;
seized, too, when the choice lay between objects of far greater
intrinsic value and these precious trinkets--precious because speaking
with silent eloquence of long gone throbs of ecstasy, and of a bliss
such as these women, even had they escaped, could never again have
known. Glance around the room in which you are now seated, and,
whether you are gray haired and dignified, or with youthful happiness
are anticipating to-night's cotillion, dare you deny that the
supposition is probable? Is there not somewhere near you, in sight,
where occasionally your hand may touch it with regretful love, or
hidden in some secret drawer whence you rarely trust yourself to take
it--is there not a jewel, a scented glove, a bit of ribbon, a faded
violet, or a lock of hair? Whatever it is, in time of a
catastrophe--hastened flight--would it not first be seized in
preference to your costliest treasure?

If you have no such possession, doubtless you are more peacefully
content than those of us that have, but you have missed the supreme
and most agonizing happiness with which the race is cursed.

For long before those Pompeiian days, wh