'CHECK," said Robespierre's opponent, who was no other than the ubiquitous Melville, the official-looking person who had impressed de Fournier at the Cercle des Boutons Blancs; a man of distinguished manners, who had succeeded in keeping outside the category of the suspected, an habitué of many years' standing at the famous café, and who had frequently been invited by Robespierre to join him at his favorite game. "Check," said Melville, taking a silver box from the pocket of his capacious waistcoat and refreshing himself with a pinch of the lightest of golden-looking dust, part of which he brushed with a white hand from his broad coat-collar. "Kings will get into trouble," remarked Robespierre, with a cynical smile. "Can't move but by virtue of an ecclesiastical diversion. Well, we must humor him." And he brought a bishop to his majesty's relief. Check," again said Melville, taking the bishop with his knight. From "When Greek Meets Greek." Copyright, 1895, by J. B. Lippincott Co. 64 MARIE WAS AT WORK ON A MINIATURE OF JAFFRAY ARRIVED." ROBESPIERRE WHEN Then, turning to his opponent, he said Thank you, citizen, for a lesson in strat egy. I must now go home and resume that other game in which kings and queens are taken, but not so easily put away as these counterfeits," whom the victorious player was now dropping, one by one, into a box by his side. "These can be restored, monsieur,'" Isaid the other. "My own thought," said Robespierre. "In that respect your king lives to fight again. It was not so when Charles of England fell to the Brewer's pawns." "But they made a new one," was the bantering re ply. 46 'Royalty in France will die with Capet, and have no succession." "We shall call it by some other name, by your leave, most illustrious citizen," said the ubiquitous and daring official of the Buttons, tendering his snuff-box to Robespierre. "Do me the honor, citizen." "Robespierre smiled in a painful kind of way. His smile was more of a sneer than a smile. It had a threat in it. You did not know that it might not turn to a snarl. Thank you," he said, taking a light pinch. "We shall call it the people, monsieur, and it will be the people." Then turning to Grébauval, Robespierre walked aside with his friend, and they left the café together. THE SUN CUP. From Kimball's" Soul and Sense." (Copeland & Day.) the sailors, That he filleth at morning with wine, And at night when his journey is done, And then, as he passes to sleep. Still full of the feats that he did Of its slow-turning luminous lid, The Cliffs of Old England. From Goodwin's "White Aprons." (Little, Brown & Co.) WHEN Penelope woke, she felt herself so refreshed that she was able to creep on deck, where to her great joy and bewilderment she saw a flock of land-birds flying overhead, and the great cliffs of England looming up in the blue distance. It is scarcely possible for any with English blood in their veins to look upon those cliffs for the first time without a deep emotion. 'Tis a home-coming even to one born thousands of miles away; for this little island is the homestead of the race, and rich in all the traditions which are very part and parcel of the lives of its children. As Penelope looked upon its still distant shores, a thousand recollections of tales heard in childhood at her father's knee rose in her mind, and for an instant blotted out the insistency of her private trouble. To the soul wearied and harassed by the present there is no balm like that distilled by thoughts of the past. Steeped therein our little lives assume more nearly their true proportion, and unconsciously we find ourselves less at war with Fate. So it proved with this sorrowful young maid. Sitting on a coil of rope upon the deck, with both arms on the rail and her chin propped thereon, she drew in deep draughts of consolation and sustaining power from the broad seas around her and the nearing shores of her father's old home, which seemed to stretch out arms of welcome to her as his child, and to bid her take courage, for that she was coming not among aliens, but to friends and kindred. In spite of itself youth is beguiled and cheated of its grief by the passing show; and when at the end of another day the White Lady had come through the swelling channel and threaded her way into the calm waters of the Thames, Penelope was absorbed in watching the new life about her. To her eyes, accustomed to the broad Virginia rivers, this muddy stream, filled with boats of every sort and size, and spanned by bridge after bridge, seemed so narrow and insignificant that she could scarce be lieve it was the same Thames which had played so great a part in history, borne pageants on its bosom, welcomed queens, and wafted great men to yonder gate of London Tower which loomed grim above them. The grating of the ship against her pier, the smell of tar along the docks, the rude song of "How! How! Rum below!" as they made fast the ropes which bound her to the dock, the rumbling of carts, the cries of the Thames watermen, and that strange overwhelming roar made up of many indistinguishable sounds, and resembling the voice of some live creature, at last forced upon Penelope the consciousness that this was London. and that her journey of three thousand miles was come to an end. A Usurer. From Balzac's" Gobseck." (Roberts. IMAGINE vividly that pale, wan visage, to which I wish the Academy would allow me to apply the word "moonfaced"; it looked like tarnished silver. My usurer's hair was flat. carefully combed, and sandy-gray in color. The features of his face, impassible as that of Talleyrand, had apparently been cast in iron. His little eyes, yellow as those of a weasel. had scarcely any lashes and seemed to fear the light; but the peak of an old cap protected them. His pointed nose was so pockmarked about the tip that you might have compared it to a gimlet. He had the thin lips of those little old men and alchemists painted by Rembrandt or Metzu. The man spoke low, in a gentle voice, and was never angry. His age was a problem; it was impossible to say whether he was old before his time, or whether he so spared his youth that it lasted him forever. All things in his room were clean and shabby, resembling, from the green cover of the desk to the bedside carpet, the frigid sanctum of old maids who spend their days in rubbing their furniture. In winter, the embers on his hearth, buried beneath a heap of ashes, smoked, but never blazed. His actions, from the hour of his rising to his evening fits of coughing, were subjected to the regularity of clock-work. He was in some respects an automaton, whom sleep wound up. If you touch a beetle crossing a piece of paper, it will stop and feign to be dead; just so this man would interrupt his speech if a carriage passed, in order not to force his voice. Imitating Fontenelle, he economized the vital movement and concentrated all human sentiments upon the I. Consequently, his life flowed on without producing more noise than the sand of an ancient hour-glass. Occasionally, his victims made great outcries, and were furious; after which a dead silence fell, as in kitchens after a duck's neck is wrung. Towards evening the man-of-notes became an ordinary mortal; his metals were transformed into a human heart. If he was satisfied with his day he rubbed his hands, and from the chinks and wrinkles of his face a vapor of gayety exhaled, for it is impossible to otherwise describe the silent play of his muscles, where a sensation, like the noiseless laugh of LeatherStocking, seemed to lie. In his moments of greatest joy his words were always monosyllabic, and the expression of his countenance invariably negative. Such was the neighbor whom chance bestowed upon me at a house where I was living, in the rue des Grès, when I was still a second clerk and had only just finished my third year in the law-school. Cocoa-Nuts and Birds. From Melville's "Typee." (American Publishers Corporation.) SOME of the young men, with more flexible rames than their comrades, and perhaps with nore courageous souls, had a way of walking ip the trunk of the cocoa-nut trees which to ne seemed little less than miraculous; and v hen looking at them in the act, I experienced hat curious perplexity a child feels when he eholds a fly moving feet uppermost along a ceiling. This mode of walking the tree is only practicable where the trunk declines considerably from the perpendicular. This, however, is almost always the case; some of the perfectly straight shafts of the trees leaning at an angle of thirty degrees. The less active among the men, and many of the children of the valley, have another method of climbing. They take a broad and stout piece of bark, and secure either end of it to their ankles; so that when the feet thus confined are extended apart, a space of little more than twelve inches is left between them. This contrivance greatly facilitates the act of climbing. The band pressed against the tree, and closely embracing it, yields a pretty firm support; while with the arms clasped about the trunk, and at regular intervals sustaining the body, the feet are drawn up nearly a yard at a time, and a corresponding elevation of the hands immediately succeeds. In this way I have seen little children, scarcely five years of age, fearlessly climbing the slender pole of a young cocoa-nut tree, and while hanging perhaps fifty feet from the ground, receive the plaudits of their parents beneatht who clapped their hands, and encouraged them to mount still higher. What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would the nervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display of hardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nations might have approved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics at the sight. At the top of the cocoa-nut tree the numerous branches, radiating on all sides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving basket, between the leaflets of which you just discern From " Typee." the nuts thickly clustering together, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from the ground than bunches of grapes. Birds-bright and beautiful birds--fly over the valley of Typee. You see them perched aloft among the immovable boughs of the majestic bread-fruit trees, or gently swaying on the elastic branches of the Omoo: skimming over the palmetto thatching of the bamboo huts; passing like spirits on the wing through the shadows of the grove, and sometimes descending into the bosom of the valley in gleaming flights from the mountains. Their plumage is purple and azure, crimson and white, black and gold; with bills of every tint - bright bloody-red, jet black, and ivory white; and their eyes are bright and sparkling; they go sailing through the air in starry throngs; but alas! the spell of dumbness is upon them allthere is not a single warbler in the valley! "MOW-MOW AND SOME SIX OR SEVEN OTHER WARRIORS RUSHED INTO THE SEA AND HURLED THEIR JAVELINS AT US." first rank, or who, planted. solitary in an uresplored country, will become one of the lead.ng pioneers of modern progress and discovers Over-study is fatal to originality of character and both clearness of brain and strength of physique are denied to the victims of "cram." Professor Cadman-Gore was an advocate of "cranming"-he was esteemed in many quarters as the best coach" of the day, and he apparent ly considered a young human brain as a sortei expanding bag or hold-all, to be filled with various bulky articles of knowledge useful otherwise, till it showed signs of burstingthen it was to be promptly strapped together. locked and labelled "Registered Through Passenger for Life." If the lock broke and the whole bag gave way, why then so muc the worse for the bag-it was proved to be bad material, and its bursting was not the fessor's fault. "IT is necessary for me to know how far you have actually progressed in your studies, before I set you fresh tasks. Referring to the plan so admirably drawn up by your father, it seems you should know something of Greek and Latin-you should also be considerably advanced in mathematics, and you should be fairly strong in history. Stand where you are, please put your hands behind your back, in case you should be inclined to twiddle your From Caroline Ticknor's “A Hypercritical Rocanc fingers I hate all nervous movements-" the learned gentleman was apparently unaware of his own capacity for the "fidgets"-" and when you give an answer. look me straight in the face, which you will have to accustom od of yourself to.' "Oh, yes!" replied Lionel, cheerfully 'Every tutor has his own special method, and no two methods are alike. It is difficult at first to understand them all-but I always try to do my best." The professor made no response, but set to his work of catechising in terrible earnest, and before an hour had passed was fairly astonished at the precocity, intelligence, and acute perception of his pupil. The child of ten had learnt more facts of science and history than he, in his time, had known when he was twenty. He concealed his surprise, however, under the cover of inflexible austerity, and the more apt of comprehension Lionel proved himself to be, the more the eminent pedagogue's professional interest became excited and the more he determined to work such promising material hard. This is often the fate of brilliant and intelligent children-the more quickly they learn the more cruelly they are crammed," till both heart and brain give way under the unnatural effort and forced impetus, and disaster follows disaster, ending in the wreck of the whole intellectual and physical organization. Happy, in these days of vaunted progress, is the dull, heavy boy who cannot learn-who tumbles asleep over his books, and gets a caning, which is far better than a "cramming"-who is "plucked" in his exams. and dubbed "dunce" for his pains; the chances are ten to one though he be put to scorn by the showy college pupil loaded with honors, he will, in the long run, prove the better, aye, and the cleverer man of the two. The young truant whom Mother Nature coaxes out into the woods and fields when he should be at his books-who laughs with a naughty recklessness at the gods of Greece, and has an innate comic sense of the uselessness of learning dead languages which he is never to speak, is probably the very destined man who, in time of battle, will prove himself a hero of the A Musical Enthusiast. Joseph Knight Co.) "BUT I am getting along much too rap with my narrative. I haven't mentioned wher thrap, Winthrop Van der Water; such a n it was I first met Winthrop; his name is W name: a happy combination of the best in Boston and New York. But to think that. hearsal, leaning against a radiator near should have seen him first at a symphony wall, not far from where Aunt Sophia and were seated. I had been trying to make 20 my mind, during some Russian music, whether to have a girls' luncheon for cousin Louis. a card-party in the evening, when subor me, and I glanced up hurriedly to meet a ce I became conscious that some one was wathe and penetrating gaze which seemed to read r very soul and fathom all my frivolous thoug of card-parties and luncheons. Tall, han back, drinking in every moe some, interesting, he stood with head thr crashy Russian music, as though his life pended upon the verdict of th knew him instantly for one enthusiasts who prefer the conce are no soloists, and who pay a dollar, and, with a dreamy indiff‹ ing people trample on their toes music standing up. of that w he orchestra. those gen Orts when the quarter of rence to b enjoy ther symphony, just to see if my theory rest "I glanced at him once or twice da Muring t his being a true devotee was correct; as enough it was, for he stayed to the very art the final movement. before the second movement myself, but I had intended to cided to stay, just to test my own powers perception in regard to musical types. whom I could satisfactorily analyze. interested me as a clearly defined specime a ponderous looking book under his arm, which he opened from time to time-this was a something down with a pencil occasionallyscore of the music of course; then he wrote these were comments on the rendering of cerclusion that he was studying harmony, and tain passages, no doubt. I came to the contherefore came regularly to the rehearsals. with intelligence and feeling." while he probably played some instrument He ha pertags i ceo eil. e ret ded пр OF A POET. CHOCORUA FROM ALBANY INTERVALE. WRITTEN FOR A CHILD. From Mitchell's "Collected Poems." (Century Co.) He sang of brooks, and trees, and flowers, The wisdom of the starry skies, The mystery of childhood's eyes, Whilst England waged her fiery wars Bent low to whisper or to hear The secrets of her sky and earth The Choicest Mountain Climb. From Ward's "The White Mountains." (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) DIRECTLY at its base on the north lies the Albany Intervale, which extends into the heart of the southern wilderness, and is just enough inhabited by pioneer farmers in the openings along the river bottom to give a human feeling to these delightful meadow lands. This separates Chocorua from the Central White Mountain system. To the east the country is comparatively open, and over the southern spurs of the Moats North Conway village can be seen, while Kearsarge towers up behind it. Southward and to the southeast the highlands of New Hampshire, dotted here with farmhouses and there with crystal lakes, come into view, and present a landscape that is devoted neither to nature nor to civilization, but may be claimed by both. It is by reason of this great variety of outlook that Chocorua loses from its summit the severity and isolation which seem to belong to it when seen from different points in the mountains. It is half-way between the utter wildness of Mount Carrigain and the fascinating beauty of a varied and partially cultivated landscape. In this landscape nothing is more attractive than the lakes, which are seen almost directly below the mountain to the southeast, and whose dark waters glisten in the sunshine. The view of the summer homes which are built around them is not more charming, as seen from Chocorua, than is the view of the granite cone itself, which is always within reach of those who occupy them. In the Picnic Grove. From Simmons's "A Village Drama." (Cassell.) To get to the picnic grove they had to cross a very broad and long pasture of hard, rolling short that it was as smooth as a carpet, but for ground, covered with green sod, nibbled so a tall weed or a bunchy plant here and there which the cattle would not browse. There were scattered oaks, and clumps of shining dark-green bushes, too; the town race-course making a long loop, russet yellow in color, almost from one end of the pasture to the other. Afar, on the other side, was a fence between the pasture and the grove, though the bars were let down in one spot for the day; and today, the pasture near the bars was filling with buggies, saddle-horses, farm-wagons, and the like. Many farmers and such folks had driven six or eight miles, and a number of horses were already staked out near the wagons, some of the good horses looking quite as uncouth and almost as full of wonder as their masters. So full of wonder were the horses that they did not graze, but liked better to stare at each other, and at the procession of newcomers |