with Claire's's kiss warm upon the lips than to live with but the memory of it.

The throbbing music had ended, and the play began. As before, the audience were without enthusiasm at first, but to-night they knew they had but to wait, and they did so patiently; so that when at last Claire's voice died softly away at the close of her opening song, the hushed house was suddenly shaken to its roof with the storm and tumult of applause.

There she stood, serene and glowing, as one that had never known pain. My very eyes doubted. On her face was no sign of suffering, no trace of a tear. Was she, then, utterly without heart? In my memory I retraced the scene of that afternoon, and all my reason acquitted her. Yet, as she stood there in her glorious epiphany, illumined with the blazing lights, and radiant in the joy and freshness of youth, I could have doubted whether, after all, Clarissa Lambert and Claire Luttrell were one and the same.

There was one thing which I did not fail, however, to note as strange. She did not once glance in the direction of my box, but kept her eyes steadily averted. And it then suddenly dawned upon me that she must be playing with a purpose; but what that purpose was I could not guess.

Whatever it was, she was acting magnificently and had for the present completely surrendered herself to her art. Grand as that art had been on the first night of "Francesca," the power of that performance was utterly eclipsed to-night. Once between the acts I heard two voices in the passage outside my box:

"What do you think of it?" said the first.

"What can I?" answered the other.

you? It is altogether above words."

"And how can I tell

He was right. It was not so much admiration as awe and worship that held the house that night. I have heard a man. say since that he wonders how the play could ever have raised anything beyond a laugh. He should have heard the sobs that every now and then would break uncontrollably forth, even whilst Claire was speaking. He should have felt the hush that followed every scene before the audience could recollect itself and pay its thunderous tribute.

Still she never looked towards me, though all the while my eyes were following my lost love. Her purpose and somehow in my heart I grew more and more convinced that some pur

pose lay beneath this transcendent display - was waiting for its accomplishment, and in the ringing triumph of her voice I felt it coming nearer nearer until at last it came.

The tragedy was nearly over. Francesca had dismissed her old lover and his new bride from their captivity and was now left alone upon the stage. The last expectant hush had fallen upon the house. Then she stepped slowly forward in the dead silence, and as she spoke the opening lines, for the first time. our eyes met.

"Here then all ends: all love, all hate, all vows,
All vain reproaches. Aye, 't is better so.
So shall he best forgive and I forget,
Who else had chained him to a life-long curse,
Who else had sought forgiveness, given in vain
While life remained that made forgiveness dear.
Far better to release him-loving more
Now love denies its love and he is free,
Than should it by enjoyment wreck his joy,
Blighting his life for whom alone I lived.

"No, no. As God is just, it could not be.
Yet, oh, my love, be happy in the days
I may not share, with her whose present lips
Usurp the rights of my lost sovranty.

I would not have thee think

save now and then

As in a dream that is not all a dream

On her whose love was sunshine for an hour,
Then died or e'er its beams could blast thy life.
Be happy and forget what might have been,

Forget my dear embraces in her arms,

My lips in hers, my children in her sons,
While I-

Dear love, it is not hard to die
Now once the path is plain. See, I accept
And step as gladly to the sacrifice

As maid
any
upon
One little stroke

her bridal morn

one tiny touch of pain

And I am quit of pain for evermore.

It needs no bravery. Wert thou here to see,
I would not have thee weep, but look
And thus

one stroke,

What

What was that shriek far back there in the house?

was that at sight of which the audience rose white and aghast

from their seats? What was it that made Sebastian as he entered rush suddenly forward and fall with awful cry before Francesca's body? What was that trickling down the folds of her white dress? Blood?

Yes, blood! In an instant I put my hand upon the cushion of the box, vaulted down to the stage and was kneeling beside my dying love. But as the clamorous bell rang down the curtain, I heard above its noise a light and silvery laugh, and looking up saw in the box next to mine the coal-black devilish eyes of the yellow woman.

Then the curtain fell.

QUINTILIAN.

QUINTILIAN (MARCUS FABIUS QUINTILIANUS), a celebrated Roman rhetorician and critic; born at Calagurris, Spain, about A.D. 35; died about 95. He was educated at Rome, where he became an advocate and teacher of oratory, and opened a school, which flourished for more than twenty years under his charge. Among his pupils were the younger Pliny and two grandnephews of Domitian, who invested him with the consular dignity. He also had a large allowance from the imperial treasury, granted by Vespasian, the father of Domitian. He has come down to after ages by his "Institutiones Oratoriæ." This work, which is divided into twelve books, comprises a complete system for the training of a young orator from the time when he is placed in the care of a nurse, through school, and his strictly professional studies, until he is fairly launched into practice.

ON THE EARLY PRACTICE OF COMPOSITION.

(From the "Institutes.")

FROM boys perfection of style can neither be required nor expected; but the fertile genius, fond of noble efforts, and conceiving at times a more than reasonable degree of ardor, is greatly to be preferred. Nor, if there be something of exuberance in a pupil of that age, would it at all displease me. I would even have it an object with teachers themselves to nourish minds that are still tender with more indulgence, and to allow them to be satiated, as it were, with the milk of more liberal studies. The body which mature age may afterwards. nerve, may for a time be somewhat plumper than seems desirable, hence there is hope of strength; while a child that has the outline of all his limbs exact commonly portends weakness in subsequent years. Let that age be daring; invent much, and delight in what it invents, though it be often not sufficiently severe and correct. The remedy for exuberance is easy barrenness is incurable by any labor. That temper in boys will afford me little hope, in which mental effort is prematurely re

strained by judgment. I like what is produced to be extremely copious, profuse even beyond the limits of propriety. Years will greatly reduce superfluity; judgment will smooth away much of it; something will be worn off, as it were, by use, if there be but metal from which something may be hewn and polished off,and such metal there will be if we do not make the plate too thin at first, so that deep cutting may break it. That I hold such opinions concerning this age, he will be less likely to wonder who shall have read what Cicero says: "I wish fecundity in a young man to give itself full scope."

Above all, therefore, and especially for boys, a dry master is to be avoided, not less than a dry soil, void of all moisture, for plants that are still tender. Under the influence of such a tutor they at once become dwarfish; looking, as it were, towards the ground, and daring to aspire to nothing above every-day talk. To them leanness is in place of health, and weakness instead of judgment; and while they think it sufficient to be free from fault, they fall into the fault of being free from all merit. Let not even maturity itself, therefore, come too fast; let not the must, while yet in the vat, become mellow; for so it will bear years, and be improved by age.

Nor it is improper for me, moreover, to offer this admonition: that the powers of boys sometimes sink under too great severity in correction; for they despond, and grieve, and at last hate their work, and what is most prejudicial, while they fear everything they cease to attempt anything. There is a similar conviction in the minds of the cultivators of trees in the country, who think that the knife must not be applied to tender shoots, as they appear to shrink from the steel, and to be unable as yet to bear an incision. A teacher ought therefore to be as agreeable as possible, that remedies which are rough in their own nature may be rendered soothing by gentleness of hand: he ought to praise some parts of his pupils' performances, to tolerate some, and to alter others, giving his reasons why the alterations are made; and also to make some passages clearer by adding something of his own. It will be of service at times, also, for the master to dictate whole subjects himself, which the pupil may imitate and admire for the present as his own. But if a boy's composition were so faulty as not to admit of correction, I have found him benefited whenever I told him to write on the same subject again, after it had received fresh treatment from me, observing that "he could do still better;" since study