death, With spiders' webs inwoven. But it hung Impenitent blasphemer, in thy sins!" He spoke; and, covering at a single bound His white locks o'er the pillow streaming loose, Then, calm and grave, he reverently bends Thou, who wert brave and well born, and for Over the corpse, and readjusts the sheet, crest Didst bear a hydra blazoned, thou wilt be Vainly thy crippled limbs would hold thee back; As might a mother o'er her sleeping babe ; Lifts and relights a lamp thrown down; and, kneeling IT was in eighteen hundred-yes—and nine, "Amen!" replied the Margrave. "Monk, go That we took Saragossa. What a day forth, Offering thy keys of paradise, I tell thee, To yonder boors so busy with their chants; Of untold horrors! I was sergeant then. Thanks to the sword, there's more than one of Raining down shots upon us from the windows. them Will need anon that heaven its gates unclose! Passing within the shadow of my tomb!" And Gottlob, panting as the maniac pants, Turned his black looks to a panoply of arms, Where swords a score in iron posy ranged ""Tis the priests' doing!" was the word passed round; So that although since daybreak under arms— If shovel-hat and long black cloak were seen With bayonets dripping red, their bloody fingers Foes lurking in our rear. There was no drum beat, No ordered march. Our officers looked grave; Blossomed portentous, shimmering hard and The rank and file uneasy, jogging elbows bright, As do recruits when flinching. All at once, Rounding a corner, we are hailed in French With cries for help. At double-quick we join Our hard-pressed comrades. They were grenadiers, A gallant company, but beaten back His lifted arms seemed as the spread of wings; Than if before him the devout were ranged. Inglorious from the raised and flag-paved square weapons Enormous crucifixes, so well brandished This terrible group of heroes, no more soul The captain's order Set upward, and indomitably stern. Came the words. What frenzy, What maddening thirst for blood, sent from our ranks Another shot, I know not; but 'twas done. The foul deed done-deliberately done- cense Gave out its perfume. At the upper end, And there the altar brilliant as a shrine; The monk with one hand on the altar's ledge Held himself up; and, strenuous to complete In silver at her breast. Her piano closed, Of what was done, unheeding what was said, When he learned Our first defeat, the Viscount, as a man Impassible, and speaking But Roger wrote; nor were Irene's fears, Whence by the war the sons had been with drawn. Then came the siege of Paris-hideous time! Spreading through France as gangrene spreads, invasion Drew near Irene's château. Uhlans foraged II. Wakened, one morning, with a start, she heard Been a mere skirmish-that, and nothing more. Thrown out as scouts, a few Bavarian soldiers Had been abruptly by our Franc-Tireurs Surprised and driven off. The distant glades Resumed their wonted silence. ""Twould be well," Remarked Irene, "that an ambulance Were posted here.” In fact, they had picked up Just at that moment, where the fight had been, A wounded officer-Bavarian was heShot through the neck. And, when they brought him in, That tall young man, all pale, eyes closed, and bleeding, Stretched on a mattress, without sigh or shudder put The wounded man to bed, she carried out And, when the doctor dressed the wound, lent aid, With her own hands. The officer at last, Evening came, night; Fever, delirium, and the rest that follows!" "But will he die?" with tremor on her lip Irene asked. "Who knows? If possible, I must arrest the fever. This prescription Often succeeds. But some one must take note Of the oncoming fits; must watch till morn, And tend him closely." "Doctor, I am here." "Not you, young lady! Service such as this One of your valets can—' 'No, doctor, no! "So be it," Answered the doctor, offering her his hand. "You will keep watch, then, through the night. The fever Must not take hold, or he will straightway die. At daylight." Then he went his way, and left III. Scarcely a minute had she been in charge, "Hush!" she said. Sleep if you can. Do not excite yourself. Your life depends On perfect quiet. "No," he answered-" no! I must at once unload me of a secret That weighs upon me. And I would keep it. “Speak, then,” Irene said, “and ease your soul." I a promise made; Death may be at hand." 'The war. . . . oh, what an infamy is war! It was last month, by Metz; 'twas my ill fate To kill a Frenchman." She turned pale, and lowered The lamp-light to conceal it. He continued: "We were sent forward to surprise a cottage Strengthened and held by some of yours. We did As hunters do when stalking game. The night Was clouded. Silent, arms in hand, in force, Along the poplar-bordered path we crept Up to the French post. I, first, drove my saber Into the soldier's back who sentry stood Before the door. He fell; nor gave the alarm. We took the cottage, putting to the sword Every soul there.” Touched with compassion sudden and supreme, name, Mistress or bride affianced, was not told By that poor Frenchman. Seeing blazoned arms Therewith He the medallion handed her; and on it Irene saw the Viscount's blazoned arms. Then her heart agonized with mortal woe"I swear it, sir!" she murmured. "Sleep in peace!" IV. Solaced by having this disclosure made, The man who murdered him! Yes; he has boasted How in the back the traitorous blow was dealt. So that he die not! And the man himself And there the flask upon the table stands What! while she feels creeping and growing on her Up toward the antique Christ in ivory At the bed's head suspended on the wall Irene raised the martyr's look sublime; Then, ashen pale, but ever with her eyes Turned to the God of Calvary, poured out The soothing draught, and with a delicate hand Gave to the wounded man the drink he asked. Thou, Lord, and thou alone, didst see what passed Beside that couch in those funereal hours. Couldst only at the last find strength to say, But when the doctor in the morning came, And saw her still beside the officer, Tending him still and giving him his drink With trembling fingers, he was much amazed. Moved, ill at ease, and, feverish, begged for drink. Irene had white hair! "I THEOPHILE GAUTIER. WAS born to travel and to make verses," sighed Théophile Gautier, thinking of the number of columns in a daily newspaper which he was bound to fill up somehow or other, for the sad consideration of so many centimes a line -a moral slavery more galling than the whip and the chain of the debased South African. For the indignant journalist, who had to hatch up improbabilities, scurrilities, and rubbish of any kind to furnish "copy" for a penny periodical, and expend his time and his brain-power on something which brought him neither fame nor fortune, but simply a dinner and a lodging, was a poet of rare genius. And, like all poets, he loved his ease and the ever-changeful aspect of nature, and burned to behold the fabled marvels of faroff lands. And, like all poets again, or at least a great many of them, he had fewer bank-notes than illusions—which are unfortunately a kind of lettre de change that bankers can not be found to honor, and with which one does not get far upon one's travels in these degenerate days, when troubadours are at a mournful discount, and when even Geoffrey Rudel might bawl himself hoarse without getting so much as a supper of bread and cheese, if his purse were minus a silver lining! The Fates, however, were more propitious to this poet pining for the sandal-shoon and the cockle-shell of the roving pilgrim than to many others of his gifted brotherhood, who seldom obtain what they most sigh for until the desire of it has passed away, and its possession can no longer bring the happiness it might have done had it come when it was wanted. Théophile Gautier not only found leisure by and by to make the verses for whose especial fabrication he was first introduced into an unromantic world (and what |