When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Often she thinks, "Were this wild thing wedded, I should have more love, and much less care." Clambering roses peep into her chamber, Jasmine and woodbine breathe sweet, sweet; White-necked swallows twittering of summer, Fill her with balm and nested peace from head to feet. Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely, When the petals fall and fierce bloom is on the leaves? Will the autumn garners see her still ungathered, When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping eaves? Comes a sudden question - should a strange hand pluck her! Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels!. Sometimes the huntsmen prancing down the valley Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth; They see as I see, mine is the fairest! Would she were older, and could read my worth! Are there not sweet maidens if she will deny me? Chattering one note like a brown eve-jar? So I rhyme and reason till she darts before me — Through the milky meadows from flower to flower she flies, Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes When at dawn she wakens, and her fair face gazes Bursting out of bud on the rippled river-plains. Pure from the night and perfect for the day! Happy, happy time, when the gray star twinkles Over the fields all fresh with bloomy dew; When the cold-cheeked dawn grows ruddy up the twilight, I catch her little hand as we listen to the lark. Shall the birds in vain then valentine their sweethearts, Will not the virgin listen to their voices? Take the honeyed meaning-wear the bridal veil ? Fears she frosts of winter, fears she the bare branches? Waits she the garlands of spring for her dower? Is she a nightingale that will not be nested Till the April woodland has built her bridal bower? Then come, merry April, with all thy birds and beauties! With thy crescent brows and thy flowery, showery glee; With thy budding leafage and fresh green pastures: And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honeymoon for me! Come, merry month of the cuckoo and the violet! Come, weeping Loveliness, in all thy blue delight! Lo! the nest is ready, let me not languish longer! Bring her to my arms on the first May night. WIND ON THE LYRE. (From "The Empty Purse.") THAT was the chirp of Ariel PROSPER MÉRIMÉE. MÉRIMÉE, PROSPER, a celebrated French archæologist, histo rian, and critic; born at Paris, September 28, 1803; died at Cannes, September 23, 1870. He was elected to the French Academy in 1844, and soon after to the Academy of Inscriptions. In 1853 he was made a senator, in 1858 president of the commission to reorganize the Imperial Library, and in 1860 Commander of the Legion of Honor. He first published, in 1825, "Le Théâtre de Clara Gazul." His next work was "La Guzla," purporting to be a collection of Illyrian popular songs; "Jacquerie" (1828) and "La Chronique du Temps de Charles IX." (1829) followed. He contributed stories to "La Revue de Paris" and "La Revue des Deux Mondes." Among them are "Tamango," "La Vase Etrusque," "La Vision de Charles XI.," "Mateo Falcone," "La Prise de la Redoute," "La Vénus d'Ille," and "Colomba," a tale of Corsica. In 1841 he published "Essai sur la Guerre Sociale," and in 1844 "La Conjuration de Catilina;" in 1848 "L'Histoire de Don Pèdre ; in 1852 "Les Faux Demetrius." His novels, “Arsène Guillot," "Carmen,' " "Les Deux Héritages," were published between 1847 and 1853, and a collection of his contributions to the "Revue des Deux Mondes" in 1855, under the titles "Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires." Among his later writings are "Les Cosaques d'Autrefois" (1865); "Lokis" (1869); and "Lettres à une Inconnue," published in 1873. A TRAGEDY. (From "Arsène Guillot.") THE last mass had just come to an end at St. Roch's, and the beadle was going his rounds, closing the deserted chapels. He was about drawing the grating of one of these aristocratic sanctuaries, where certain devotees purchase the permission to pray to God apart and distinguished from the rest of the faithful, when he remarked a woman still remaining in it, absorbed seemingly in meditation, her head bent over the back of her chair. "It is Madame de Piennes," he said to himself, stopping at the entrance of the chapel. Madame de Piennes was well known by the beadle. At that period a woman of the world, young, rich, pretty, who rendered the blessed bread, who gave the altar clothes, who gave much in charity through the mediation of her curate, had some merit for being devout when she did not have some employé of the government for a husband, when she was not an attachée of Madame la Dauphine, and when she had nothing to gain but her salvation by frequenting the church. The beadle wished heartily to go to dinner, for people of his kind dine at one o'clock; but he dared not trouble the devotions of a person so well considered in the parish of St. Roch. He moved away, therefore, making his slipper-shod feet resound against the marble floor, not without hope that, the round of the church made, he would find the chapel empty. He was already on the other side of the choir, when a young woman entered the church, and walked along one of the side aisles, looking with curiosity about her. She was about twentyfive years old, but one had to observe her with much attention not to think her older. Although very brilliant, her black eyes were sunken, and surrounded by a bluish shadow; her dead-white complexion and her colorless lips indicated suffering; and yet a certain air of audacity and gayety in her glance contrasted with her sickly appearance. Her rose-colored capôte, ornamented with artificial flowers, would have better suited an evening negligé. Under a long cashmere shawl, of which the practised eye of a woman would have divined that she was not the first proprietor, was hidden a gown of calico, at twenty cents a yard, and a little worn. Finally, only a man would have admired her foot, clothed as it was in common stockings and prunella shoes, very much the worse for wear of the street. You remember, madam, that asphalt was not invented yet. This woman, whose social position you have guessed, approached the chapel in which Madame de Piennes still lingered; and after having observed her for a moment with a restless, embarrassed air, she accosted her when she saw her arise and on the point of leaving. "Could you inform me, madam," she asked in a low voice and with a timid smile, — "could you inform me to whom I should go for a candle?" Such language was too strange to the ears of Madame de Piennes for her to understand it at once. She had the question repeated. "Yes, I should like to burn a candle to St. Roch, but I do not know whom to give the money to." VOL. XV.-5 Madame de Piennes was too enlightened in her piety for participation in these popular superstitions. Nevertheless she respected them; for there is something touching in every form of adoration, however gross it may be. Supposing that the matter was a vow, or something of the kind, and too charitable to draw from the costume of the young woman of the rose-colored bonnet the conclusions that you perhaps have not feared to form, she showed her the beadle approaching. The unknown one thanked her, and ran towards the man, who appeared to understand her at a word. While Madame de Piennes was taking up her prayer-book and rearranging her veil, she saw the lady of the candle draw out a little purse from her pocket, take from a quantity of small-change a five-franc piece, and hand it to the beadle, giving him at the same time, in a low voice, some long instructions and recommendations, to which he listened with a smile. Both left the church at the same time; but, the lady of the candle walking very fast, Madame de Piennes soon lost sight of her, although she followed in the same direction. At the corner of the street she lived in, she met her again. Under her temporary cashmere the unknown was trying to conceal a loaf of bread bought in a neighboring shop. On recognizing Madame de Piennes she bent her head, could not suppress a smile, and hastened her step. Her smile seemed to say: "Well, what of it? I am poor. Laugh at me if you will. I know very well that one does not go to buy bread in a rose-colored capote and cashmere shawl." The mixture of false shame, resignation, and good-humor did not escape Madame de Piennes. She thought, not without sadness, of the probable position of the young woman. "Her piety," she said to herself, "is more meritorious than mine. Assuredly her offering of a five-franc piece is a much greater sacrifice than what I give to the poor out of my superfluity, without the imposition of a single privation." She than recalled the widow's mite, more acceptable to God than the gaudy charities of the rich. "I do not do enough good," she thought; "I do not do all that I might." While mentally addressing these reproaches to herself, she entered her house. The candle, the loaf of bread, and above all the offering of an only five-franc piece, engraved upon the memory of Madame de Piennes the figure of the young woman, whom she regarded as a model of piety. She met her rather often afterwards, in the street, near the church, but never at service. Every time |