an issue does not always arrive. It may happen that the perverse babe flatly refuses to listen to the mother's voice, sing she never so sweetly. Perhaps he might have something to say for himself could he but speak, at any rate in the matter of midday slumbers. It must no doubt be rather trying to be called upon to go straight to sleep just when the sunbeams are dancing round and round and wildly inviting you to make your first studies in optics. Most often the long-suffering mother, if she does not see things in this light, acts as though she did. Her patience has no limit; her caresses are never done; with untiring love she watches the little wakeful, willful culprit:

Chi piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia.

But it is not always so; there are times when she loses all patience, and temper into the bargain. Such a contingency is only too faithfully reflected in a Sicilian ninna which ends with the utterance of a horrible wish that Doctor Death would come and quiet the recalcitrant baby once for all. We ought to add that this same murderous lullaby is nevertheless brimful of protestations of affection and compliments; the child is told that his eyes are the finest imaginable, his cheeks two roses, his countenance like the moon's. The amount of incense which the Sicilian mother burns before her offspring would suffice to fill any number of cathedrals. Every moment she breaks forth into words such as "Hush! child of my breath, bunch of jasmine, handful of oranges and lemons; go to sleep, my son, my beauty: I must take thy portrait." A little girl is described as a spray of lilies and a bouquet of roses. A little boy is assured that his mother prefers him to gold or fine silver. If she lost him, where would she find a beloved son like to him? A child dropped out of heaven, a laurel garland, one under whose feet spring up flowers? Here is a string of blandishments prettily wound up in a prayer:

IIush, my little round-faced daughter; thou art like the stormy sea.

Daughter mine of finest amber, godmother sends sleep to thee.

Fair thy name, and he who gave it was a gallant gentleman. Mirror of my soul, I marvel when thy loveliness I scan.

Flame of love, be good. I love thee better far than life I

love.

Now my child sleeps. Mother Mary, look upon her from

above.

The Hungarian nurse tells her charge that his cot must be of rosewood and his swaddling clothes of rainbow threads spun by angels. The evening breeze is to rock him, the kiss of the falling star to awake him; she would have the breath of the lily touch him gently, and the butterflies fan him with their brilliant wings. Like the Sicilian, the Magyar has an innate love of splendor. There is an almost absurd difference between this ambitious style of lullaby and the quaint little German song, of which we owe a translation to "Hans Breitmann:"

Sleep, baby, sleep.

I can see two little sheep;

One is black and one is white;
And if you do not sleep to-night,
First the black, and then the white,
Will give your little toes a bite.

Corsica has a ninna-nanna into which the whole

genius of its people seems to have passed. The village fêtes, with dancing and music, the flocks and herds and sheep-dogs, even the mountains, stars, and sea, and the perfumed air off the macchi, come back to the traveler in that island as be hears it sung. Corsican lullabies are often prophetical. An old grandmother predicts, that when her grandson grows up the sea-water will turn to balm, then adds that if he is driven into a corner he will make a splendid bandit.

Japan, as is well-known, is the paradise of childhood, and a Japanese cradle-song shall be the last of our illustrations. By the kindness of the author of "Child Life in Japan," we are enabled to print it in the original.

Nén-né ko yō-nén-né ko yo

Nén-né no mori wa-doko ye yuta
Ano yama koyété-sato ye yuta
Sato no miyagé ni—nani morota
Tén-tén taiko ni-sho no fuyé
Oki-agari koboshima inu hari-ko.
Signifying in English:

Lullaby, baby; lullaby, baby.

Baby's nursey where has she gone?
Over those mountains she's gone to her village,
And from her village what will she bring?
A tumtum drum and a bamboo flute,

A “daruma” (which will never turn over) and a paper dog.
The lullabies of America do not differ from

those of Europe. The same cradle-songs, words and tunes alike, may be heard in the peasant's cottage by the Rhine and in the settler's cabin in the far West.

DR. GLENN died of disease contracted in the service. He went out as surgeon of the Second Volunteer Infantry. He died poor, after twenty-one years of hard work and good work, leaving his already motherless girls nothing but the little home and some such legacy as "Mr. F's aunt' was to "Flora," with the difference that Cousin Emma was sweet-hearted, serenefaced, and helpful. May and Valley, twins, were eighteen at the father's death. The doctor's regiment moved in their behalf, and, working through the organized Army of the Tennessee, got May appointed postmaster of Middle Bend. Family arrangements were readily adjusted to the new business, for the Glenn residence was up-town among the shops, and in the same yard, opening on the street, was the doctor's office, just the room for the post-office.

more.

Valley did the bulk of the mail-work. She disliked it less than housework, and May disliked it She enjoyed the quiet intervals between the mails, the hiding away behind the pigeonholes while the village folk were busy at home and shop and May and Cousin Emma were baking or ironing, the hiding away to dream or to write; for Valley wrote verses, though she looked too young and girlish and pretty for such engagement. She was very pretty. Her complexion was fresh as a peach-blossom; her hair curled, but not in ringlets. May described it as "meandering"; it waved from root to tip, and was of that kind which is brown when shadowed, but which lights up in the sunshine like burnished filigree or something darker than gold. It was not very long; did not reach to the belt at the stateliest pose of the shapely head, back of which a blue ribbon gathered in the lights and shades. | Valley's eyes were of a peculiar color; they were purple, like the shade of a ripe grape; no-more like the purple of a pansy, though when she faced a window the hue lightened to lilac. They were velvety rather than sparkling, and their prevailing expression was a far-away look.

This was their aspect after reading that brief letter from William Castle, stating that he might VOL. XVI.-17

be expected on the morrow. Here are the facts about Mr. Castle:

A letter had come, addressed to the postmaster, from an artist, who two years before had passed some weeks at Middle Bend making sketches. He wrote to engage board for his friend, Mr. Castle, who wished some weeks of fishing, boating, etc. The postmaster was asked to hand the letter to some one in Middle Bend who could furnish the accommodation. May, with an eye to the needful, proposed that they should take the boarder; and as Cousin Emma favored the proposition, an answer had been sent to this effect, and to-morrow the guest was to arrive. He was to have Valley's room, and she went in from the office to move her ribbons, laces, and things, that the closet and drawers might be free for Mr. Castle's use. She saw the arrival of the evening mail-bag as she crossed the window, her arms laden with dresses, skirts, shawls, etc., and she made haste. She wanted to hear from the office; she was expecting a letter; she had been expecting it for two months.

She found so much to be done in moving, that before it was accomplished May came in, office hours being over. She brought in a letter stamped "Editorial rooms of the 'K― Magazine.”” Valley, sitting by the table, looked up eagerly at the entrance.

"It has come at last," May said. And the letter was skimmed over the table to Valley's hand.

A deep flush spread over the eager face, and the purple eyes grew black. The thickness of the package was bodeful; but there was yet hope, for Valley had sent all nine of her poems to Editor F―. The most of them had evidently come back; but some might have been retained, one at least.

"Have all of them been sent back?" May asked, as the seal was broken and the papers drawn forth.

Valley counted them, touching each with her. trembling fingers. May burst out laughing. "Oh, Vall," she said, "it's too funny for any

thing to watch you count your nine chickens to see if they've all come home—your nine poems, or whatever they are-I don't know what to call them."

In one tide it all came back to Valley. The study and worry to find the rhymes and to get the metre right; the weary, weary waiting for decisions, and at last the bitter, bitter, bitter not availables, until she had come to hate the very words. As the strongest expression of the toil and pain and anxiety and disappointment possible to her thought, she cried out, with the anguish of a mother over a hopeless child, "They are children of my brain !"

"Hail, mother of the nine!" laughed May. Then she checked her banter; great hot tears were pouring from Valley's eyes. "Well, Valley, I should think you'd be hardened to refusal by this time, so that you needn't cry about it. I'm sure you've done your duty by your children. | They've had chances to meet their fortunes; they've traveled our broad land over; they've been to the 'A Magazine,' to the 'B,' to the 'C' to the 'D-,' to the 'F-.' They've been presented singly; they've gone in pairs, in quartettes, in quintettes, and this time you sent the whole nine, from the eldest-born to the baby, and here they are back again. I presume they have passed and repassed each other in their journeyings like that girl and her lover-I've forgotten their names."

May got through a good amount of reading, and usually managed to secure any story or incident it contained, as one does a nut-kernel, while all accessories of names, places, and dates were thrown aside as husks and shells.

"Now, Valley," she went on, "why don't you give it up? I should think that by this time you would be persuaded that the poems-that they are

not-are not

Valley knew the word whose utterance her sister was shirking. "They are good," she said warmly; "they are better than half the poems published in either A, B, C, D, or F. I know they are! I know they are! They haven't had a chance; I doubt if they've been read, even. No good can come out of the West; this with editors is a foregone conclusion. Verily the wise men are all in the East! If I could only once get a recognition, just once make a hit, just get something published, no matter how silly, which newspapers would

copy, why these poems would go off like hotcakes."

"Now, Valley" (May assumed the tone and attitude of a wrangler), "you say that you do not believe that the editors read your poems. I remember that some editor-I don't know one from the other—said of one of your poems, I don't know which, I get them all in a mix,—that it was too sad or solemn or sombre or mournful or something-I can't remember their adjectives. Now how could the editor have criticised it, or reviewed it, or whatever they call it, if he hadn't read it ?"

"And what a criticism it was !" said Valley, dodging the logic. "Of course the poem was sad. Would he have me write something humorous or fantastic on 'The Empty Cradle' ''?

"Then there was another whatever-you-call-it from some one about the presentation or something of one of your poems-I forget which— being too bare or naked or bald; I don't recall exactly what it was. I know it made me think of that somebody or other taking off his flesh and sitting in his bones, or of what somebody said about some lean fellow, I don't remember either name,—that he hadn't body enough to cover his mind decently with, and that his intellect was improperly exposed."

"I know what criticism you refer to," Valley said, with a little gasping sigh. "It was on this" (a touch of the finger and a blistering tear at once indicated the MS.): "Lines suggested by an Unfledged Robin."

"I should think that subject ought to have a naked treatment," said May, with an inward laugh.

"It is cruel in you to trifle with my feelings," Valley protested. "That criticism was aimed at simplicity. It seems as if editors of this day have their faces set against simplicity. Mine is set against obscurity. I hate metaphysics in verse. I read poetry to be entertained or amused. As for profuse ornamentation, the fabric should be magnificent to justify elaborate embroidery."

"Now you remind me that another editor objected to one of your-what shall I call them? It seems like contradicting the critics to keep on calling them poems."

"Call them things," Valley interrupted, injecting the word with gall.

Well, whoever-it-was said that your whatever

"I do not forget," said Valley. "It was an objection against the ornamentation. So you see one objects to simplicity, the other to ornament." "Why don't you swap? Take the ornaments from one and put them on the simple one." "But," said Valley, "both criticisms are against the same poem, made by two different editors.". "Well, I don't see what you can do about it." "No matter what they say, I know that they publish things that are no better," Valley said. "There is Q- Q-, who writes for the 'CMagazine.' Now-he or she-do you like him or her ?"

"No!" May replied, laughing at the pronouns. "I can't bear him or her. He, she, or it-whichever Q-QQ-is-is forever plainting or wailing or dirging or something, I don't know what to call it; and there's that Will, I forget his other name"

"Chateau," instructed Valley. "He wrote the 'Idyll of the Bobolinks.'

"That's the one. Well, he writes as though he thought he was cunning or cute or sweet or something; makes me think of that horrid old Mrs. Skewton that Bulwer or Dickens or Thackeray or somebody wrote about, I don't remember who."

"There it is, May. If I could only get a poem accepted, it would bring in". "But you see you can't."

Valley said she could, and she would.

The boarder, though not a large man, had a somewhat brawny physique, which hinted at Scotch blood, and the hint was reinforced by a hardly discoverable accent. His large, loose. mouth, which lent itself readily to a smile, one liked if only for its remove from the small mouth which we associate with weakness. He wore his dark hair pushed back from the brow, which was slightly receding and rather high, so that May said there was too much of it on exhibition. His eyes, too, she would have modified: they were too flaring or spreading or wide-open or something, she said. When Valley amended the description with the words, gentle and liquid, May thought he must be what is called ox-eyed, like Venus or Juno or Diana or some of those beings, she didn't remember which.

Mr. Castle was not a great talker, yet he early made the impression on Valley of being an enthusiast.

"Well, I remember some advice that somebodyI forget who gave to a lady writer who sent him a poem and wrote that she had other irons in the fire. He wrote back that he advised her to put the poem with the irons. I commend the advice to you, Valley."

"I will have recognition," said the pretty-girl writer. "If Tennyson had sent those nine poems, the editors would have torn them to atoms in grabbing for them."

"But Tennyson wouldn't have sent them. He would have saved the editors the trouble of tearing them to atoms by doing this himself. But you'll have to stop verse-making for a time, for our boarder comes to-morrow, and I can't do everything."

compared.

"My friend has a way in description of appealing to the fancy and alluring the imagination; it will doubtless transpire that the dreams are fairer. The imagination rules out blemishes and discomforts."

May, who was curious, interrupted at this period, asking if he proposed to take sketches of scenery. He was not an artist, he said. He had overworked, and wanted to spend a few months recruiting; would push on in time to the Pacific coast, then swing around by Cuba, home again. "At what did you overwork ?" Valley blushed at May's prying.

"At various kinds of pen-work," he said.

A few days later Valley decided that he was an extremist.