The souls are gone; the midnight shadow casts
Oblivion o'er them, till I see alone

The Future shining through the dark in robes
Of untried innocence. O fair and strong,
Whose is the promise of the great world's past,
Still budding brave amid the blighting winds,-
Alone by ceaseless struggle shalt thou keep
Its tender bloom unsullied by the storm;
Life never grants a championship unfought for.
I leave thee now the blessing and the curse
Which I received to guide my pilgrimage.
The blessing seize, and hold it fast; it is
Thy heavenly charter to thy life and God.
The curse seize too, and grapple it with might,
And it shall be thy bondslave. Living thus,
Thy life shall be at once its own reward
And hope's fulfilling unto us who wait
Within the chambers of the past until
Thou come, and many more, to bring the day
When æon after æon shall have built
The consummation of the time-born age.
Till then we wait, nor do we grieve to see
That others reap where we have hardly sown.
Our service is not ours; we are but blest

If in the palace-halls of Time our toil
Has carved one fretted scroll the more, or set
One pillar firmer on its noble base,

Or polished brighter one prophetic gem.

The open portals now invite my feet

To rest. while thou pursue the upward path.
Yet shall my spirit be alert, and keen
My ear to catch the first faint trumpetings
Of that great, conquering Eternity

That shall set free the servants of the years,
And shape their palace to the grander mold
Of tabernacles fashioned not with hands.
Sometimes as in a dream I thought to hear
The distant echo of the victor's tread.
It may be thine to greet his hosts afar.
But gone or still to come, our passing years
Have been or are to be, only to serve
The splendor of the coming of the King.

CHARLOTTE BURGIS DEFOREST.

CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB

CONSERVATIVE

Times are changed; and to me it's sad,-
This watching the good old ways decline.
I'm willing to have what my fathers had,

And grant that their needs were the same as mine.
Old things surely are still the best;

Why should our century let them go?
And a negligence worse than all the rest
Is the desuetude of the mistletoe.

Look at Bess, with the magic spray
Nestling sly in her sunny curls,
Laughing up in her teasing way.

(Oh, the wiles of these wicked girls!)

I silently curse in a helpless rage

The desuetude of the mistletoe.

Fie on the bonds of our modern age!
Oh for the days of long ago!

ETHEL WALLACE HAWKINS.

The Poster Man stood in front of his little dwelling, singing to his guitar and gazing at the rising moon and the Poster Girl. He could look in no other direction for indeed A Tragedy he had been so painted; however it was a pleasant way to face, and he would not have objected even had he been able. Surely he was well situated. Behind his little house stretched a greenish purplish sea from which rose a round orange moon into a sunset sky of rose pink and yellow. On the left stood a grove of deep magenta pines from whose tops flowed a little blue stream, winding across the lawn until it ran plump into the lavender mountains on the right, where it wisely stopped its course. In front of the house lay a gravel path, and here stood the Poster Man, clad in gay vermil

lion, his eyes amorously gazing over the top of his tiny dwelling at the rising moon and the Poster Girl.

Ah, she was fair, was the Poster Girl! Her features were somewhat irregular, in truth, but what cared he if her nose was decidedly "pug," one eye crooked and her hair an impossible shade of red? Love is blind, and he loved her. Even though she always bowed and smiled sweetly at the passers-by, did she not always look at him from the corners of her eyes? Poor fellow, he never once dreamed that like him she could look no other way.

And when the night came what happy, happy times they had; for he used to sing her little serenades all about the purple sea and the magenta pines, how they would walk some time. under their shade by the blue river and the purple sea. He sang about himself, how hard it was to live all alone; and he sang about her, how sweet she was and how happy she was; and he asked her, Was she always happy? Didn't she ever feel lonesome and want to walk with him under the pines? The Poster Girl said she was always happy, and smiled into But the Poster Man knew that sometime it would all be well, for "everything comes to him who waits."

And so the happy days passed on, while the streets became more and more crowded and the air more crisp. At last, one day, the curtain of the Poster Man's window was drawn down, the walls cleared, and everything decked with evergreen and holly. Alas! the next day found a great pile of books between the Man and the Girl. What a dreary existence he now lived! The day was very long to the Poster Man, but he busied himself with thoughts of how surprised the passersby would be when the Girl no longer smiled at them. For of course she could not smile when he was not there! And the passers-by would feel sad too, but he did not care, for they could look at her and he could not. Yet at night he might sing to her, though it was not half so nice, for he could not see her face.

On the day that the clerk began to unpile the books, the Poster Man's little heart gave a terrible thump. Such a thump that it hurt him and he cried out, "Oh!" for he knew that he should now catch a glimpse of the Poster Girl! Then his heart fell suddenly down, down, down at the sight that met his eyes. The Poster Girl was still bowing and smiling at the passers-by,

but she was looking—yes, actually looking from the corners of her eyes at a new Poster Man in a smart yellow dog-cart.

He looked longingly at the purple sea, but he could not reach it.

Yet more was to come, for the clerk who had disclosed this treachery had a particular friend across the way, and to him he presented the Poster Man, who was hung upon the wall opposite a window and there, seeing but unseen, he looked upon the outrageous flirtations of the Poster Girl. All day he gazed upon her and all night he reflected upon the cruelty of fate and the vanity of mankind. Indeed he became quite a philosopher, but the strain told upon him and his beautiful colors began to fade until he became in very truth the mere shade of himself.

One night he sang a little song to himself, all about a man who had loved a beautiful girl, and how happy they were; how another man had told her falsehoods about her lover, and she, because she was innocent and knew naught of the world's ways, had believed in him and his yellow dog-cart; and how the hero of the song had saved the life of the man with the dog-cart, who had confessed all; how the hero had forgiven him and the Girl had come back to the hero and then-then-then-. But the friend put an extra pin in the poster to stop its rattling. So time went on and the Poster Man was growing paler and paler, when one day he was taken from the wall to be shown to a visitor.

The window stood open and a gust of wind came through the room. The Poster Man writhed and twisted about until at last he leaped, free from the hand that held him, upon the breeze, and it bore him out through the window, across the street, and for one instant flattened him against the glass in front of the Poster Girl.

For that one instant the smile on the Poster Girl's face changed to a look of horror and dismay. For that one instant her eyes left the dog-cart Man and stared fixedly before her. Then the wind swept the Poster Man down into the street and he was crushed into the mud by the wheels of a passing dray. The Poster Girl bowed and smiled sweetly to the passers-by, but she looked from the corners of her eyes at the Man in the smart yellow dog-cart.

ALICE MERCHANT.

Upon the hot, dusty road to the Pier there stands a small, oldfashioned house, covered with a rank profusion of cinnamon

As The Shadows
Lengthened

roses. As is usual in old yards, lilacs bloom everywhere as though trying to hide the shabbiness of the exterior with their sweet-scented beauty. In the garden a little old lady knelt, known to all the rude fisher-folk as "Miss Phoebe." She was the daughter of a former minister, and had spent her quiet life within a stone's throw of the garden. And now she was caressing the soft, velvety faces of the pansies, while she whispered shyly to them lest the haughty larkspurs should hear. With loving fingers she gathered a bunch of her favorites and turned back to the house.

As she walked down the garden path, her old heart, beneath the blue and white sprigged muslin gown, beat as high as when- but that was all past, leaving no token save a few finely pencilled lines about her mouth, and a pressed pansy or two in the family Bible. At present, her steps seemed youthful, and her eyes shone with unwonted happiness, for was not he, her only nephew, going to stop over a train to see his old aunt?

She hummed a tune of her childhood as she lifted the latch and entered the cottage. Passing through the dining-room, where her best preserves and pound cake awaited the arival of her guest, she gazed with satisfaction upon the spotless linen