"What is there none can do without? I love him more than bread!"

Then said the second princess, with her bright blue eyes aflame,

"Than bread? A common thing like bread! Thou hast not any shame!

Glad am I it is I, not thou, called by our mother's

name.

"I love him with a better love than one so tame as thine;

More than-oh, what then shall I say that is both bright and fine,

And is not common? Yes, I know-I love him more than wine!"

Then the little youngest daughter, whose speech would sometimes halt

For her dreamy way of thinking, said, "You are both in fault;

'Tis I who love our father best-I love him more than salt!"

Shrill little shrieks of laughter greeted her latest words,

And the two joined hands, exclaiming, "But this is most absurd!"

And the King, no longer smiling, was grieved that he had heard,

For the little youngest daughter, with her eyes of steadfast gray,

Could always move his tenderness, and charm his care away.

"She grows more like her mother dead," he whispered, "day by day.

"But she is very little, and I will find no fault That while her sisters strive to see who most shall me exalt,

She holds me nothing dearer than a common thing like salt."

The portly cook was standing in the courtyard by the spring;

He winked and nodded to himself: "That little quiet thing

Knows more than both the others, as I shall show the King."

That afternoon at dinner there was nothing fit to eat;

The King turned, frowning angrily, from soup and fish and meat,

And he found a cloying sweetness in the dishes that were sweet.

"And yet," he muttered, musing, "I cannot find the fault;

Not a thing has tasted like itself but this honest cup of malt."

Said the youngest princess, shyly, "Dear father, they want salt."

A sudden look of tenderness shone on the King's dark face,

As he sat his little daughter in the dead Queen's vacant place;

And he thought, "She has her mother's heartaye, and her mother's grace.

"Great love through smallest channels will find its surest way;

It waits not state occasions, which may not come,

or may;

It comforts and it blesses hour by hour and day by day."

Margaret Vandergrift (From the German).

THE JUDGMENT OF ST. PANCRATIUS.

GREAT Diocletian in his judgment court Appeared, by all his pomp of majesty Compassed and guarded; lion-like his port; Then whispered man to man: "That terrible

eye

Without yon lictors' axes or their rods

Will drive the renegade to his country's gods."

Pancratius entered-entered with a smile;

Bowed to the Emperor; next to those around, First east, then west. The Emperor gazed awhile On that bright countenance; knew its import; frowned:

"A malefactor known! Yet there you stand! Young boy, be wise in time. Hold forth your hand!

"Yon censer mark! It comes from Jove's chief fane;

See next yon vase cinctured with flower-attire:

Lift from that vase its smallest incense-grain; Commit it softly to yon censer's fire:

Your father, boy, was well with me; and I Would rather serve his son than bid him die."

Pancratius mused a moment, then began:

'Emperor, 'tis true I am a boy; no more: But one within me changes boy to man,

Christ-God and Man: that Lord the just adore. A pictured lion hangs above thy head:

Say, can a picture touch man's heart with dread?

Thou, too, great Emperor, art but pictured life: He only lives who quickened life in all:

Men are but shadows: in a futile strife

They chase each other on a sun-bright wall. Shadows are they the hosts that round thee throng; Shadows their swords that vindicate this wrong.

"What gods are those thou bidst me serve and praise?

Adulterers, murderers, gods of fraud and theft. If slave of thine walked faithful in their ways

What were his sentence? Eyes of light bereft; The scourge, the rope! Our God is good. His

name

Paints on His servant's face no flush of shame.

"Exteriorly, 'tis true, thy gods are great,

They and their sort: this hour they rule the lands:

Ay, but, expectant at an unbarred gate,

A greatness of a different order stands,

The Babe of Bethlehem's. He thy gods shall slay, Though small His hand, and rend earth's chain away."

The Emperor shook: as one demon-possessed He glared upon that youth; his wan cheek burned:

With wonder dumb panted his struggling breast:
Silent to that prætorian guard he turned—
He pointed to Pancratius. "Let him die!"
Pancratius stood, and pointed to the sky.

Aubrey de Vere.

THE GOLDEN BRIDGE.

LET him listen, whoso would know,
Concerning the wisdom of King Tee Poh.

Fair is Pekin, with round it rolled

Wave on wave of its river of gold;

They gird its walls with their ninefold twine, And the bridges that cross them are ninety and nine.

And as soon as the wind of morning blows,
And the gray in the East takes a fleck of rose,
Upon each bridge 'gins the shuffle and beat
Of hundreds of hoofs and thousands of feet;
And all day long there is dust and dinne
And the coolie elbows the mandarin,
And gibe is given and oath and blow-
'Twas thus in the time of King Tee Poh.

It grieved the King that it should be so ;
Then out of his wisdom spoke King Tee Poh :