an intenser gleam was advancing along the road, and the sound of languid footsteps came with it; the aroma of tobacco graced the atmosphere, and a tall figure walked up

to the gate.

"Come in, come in," said Peter Giles, rising, and tendering the guest a chair. "Ye air Tom Pratt, ez well ez I kin Waal, Tom, we hain't furgot ye

make out by this light. sence ye done been hyar."

The young man took leave presently, in great depression of spirits. Clarsie ascended the ladder to a nook in the roof which she called her room.

For the first time in her life her slumber was fitful and restless, long intervals of wakefulness alternating with snatches of fantastic dreams.

And

then her mind reverted to Tom Pratt, to old Simon Burney, and to her mother's emphatic and oracular declaration that widowers are in league with Satan, and that the girls upon whom they cast the eye of supernatural fascination have no choice in the matter. "I wish I knowed ef that thar sayin' war true," she murmured, her face still turned to the western spurs, and the moon sinking slowly toward them.

With a sudden resolution she rose to her feet. She knew a way of telling fortunes which was, according to tradition, infallible, and she determined to try it, and ease her mind as to her future. Now was the propitious moment. "I hev always hearn that it won't come true 'thout ye try it jes' before daybreak, an' kneelin' down at the forks of the road." She hesitated a moment and listened intently. "They'd never git done a-laffin' at me, ef they fund it out," she thought. [She went out into the road.] She fixed her eyes upon the mystic sphere dropping down the sky, knelt among the azaleas at the forks of the

road, and repeated the time-honored invocation: “Ef I'm a-goin' ter marry a young man, whistle, Bird, whistle. Ef I'm a-goin' ter marry an old man, low, Cow, low. Ef I ain't a-goin' ter marry nobody, knock, Death, knock."

There was a prolonged silence in the matutinal freshness. and perfume of the woods. She raised her head, and listened attentively. No chirp of half-awakened bird, no tapping of wood-pecker or the mysterious death-watch; but from far along the dewy aisles of the forest, the ungrateful Spot that Clarsie had fed more faithfully than herself, lifted up her voice, and set the echoes vibrating. Clarsie, however, had hardly time for a pang of disappoint

ment.

While she still knelt among the azaleas, her large deerlike eyes were suddenly dilated with terror. From around the curve of the road came the quick beat of hastening footsteps, the sobbing sound of panting breath, and between her and the sinking moon there passed an attenuated onearmed figure, with a pallid sharpened face, outlined for a moment on its brilliant disk, and dreadful starting eyes, and quivering open mouth. It disappeared in an instant among the shadows of the laurel, and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutching at her heart, sprang to her feet. the ghost stood before her. She could not nerve herself to run past him, and he was directly in her way homeward.

"Ye do ez ye air bid, or it'll be the worse for ye," said the "harnt" in a quivering shrill tone. "Thar's hunger in the nex' worl' ez well ez in this, an' ye bring me some vittles hyar this time ter-morrer, an' don't ye tell nobody ye hev seen me, nuther, or it'll be the worse for ye.”

The next morning, before the moon sank, Clarsie, with a tin pail in her hand, went to meet the ghost at the appointed

Morning was close at the leaves fell into abrupt

place. hand. commotion, and he was standing in the road, beside her. He did not speak, but watched her with an eager, questioning intentness, as she placed the contents of the pail upon the moss at the roadside. "I'm a-comin' agin ter-morrer," she said, gently. Then she slowly walked along her misty way in the dim light of the coming dawn. There was a footstep in the road behind her; she thought it was the ghost once more. She turned, and met Simon Burney, face to face. His rod was on his shoulder, and a string of fish was in his hand.

“Ye air a-doin' wrongful, Clarsie," he said sternly. "It air agin the law fur folks ter feed an' shelter them ez is a-runnin' from jestice. An' ye'll git yerself inter trouble. Other folks will find ye out, besides me, an' then the sheriff 'll be up hyar arter ye."

The tears rose to Clarsie's eyes. This prospect was infinitely more terrifying than the awful doom which follows the horror of a ghost's speech. "I can't help it,” she said, however, doggedly swinging the pail back and forth. “I can't gin my consent ter starvin' of folks, even if they air a-hidin' an' a-runnin' from jestice."

DANSKE DANDRIDGE.

1859-—.

MRS. DANDRIDGE was born in Copenhagen, when her father, Honorable Henry Bedinger, was minister to Denmark. In 1877 she was married to Mr. Stephen Dandridge of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Her first name, Danske, is the pretty Danish word for Dane, and is pronounced in two syllables.

WORKS.

Joy, and other Poems.

Mrs. Dandridge's poems are as dainty and airy as if the elves themselves had led her to their bowers and discovered to her their secrets; and this is truly what her poetic sense has done, for the poet is a seer and singer of the secrets of

nature.

THE SPIRIT AND THE WOOD SPARROW.

(From Joy, and other Poems.*)

'Twas long ago:

The place was very fair;

And from a cloud of snow
A spirit of the air

Dropped to the earth below.
It was a spot by man untrod,
Just where

I think is only known to God.
The spirit, for a while,

Because of beauty freshly made
Could only smile;

Then grew the smiling to a song,
And as he sang he played

Upon a moonbeam-wired cithole

Shaped like a soul.

There was no ear

Or far or near,

Save one small sparrow of the wood,

That song to hear.

This, in a bosky tree,

Heard all, and understood

As much as a small sparrow could

By sympathy.

'Twas a fair sight

That morn of Spring,

When on the lonely height,

* By permission of the author, and publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y.

The spirit paused to sing,

Then through the air took flight

Still lilting on the wing.
And the shy bird,

Who all had heard,

Straightway began

To practice o'er the lovely strain;
Again, again;

Though indistinct and blurred,

He tried each word,

Until he caught the last far sounds that fell
Like the faint tinkles of a fairy bell.

Now when I hear that song,

Which has no earthly tone,

My soul is carried with the strain along

To the everlasting Throne;

To bow in thankfulness and prayer,

And gain fresh faith, and love, and patience, there.

AMELIE RIVES CHANLER.

1863

MRS. CHANLER, or AMÉLIE RIVES as she still styles herself in writing, was born in Richmond, Virginia, but passed her early life at the family place in Albemarle County, called "Castle Hill." She is a granddaughter of William Cabell Rives, once minister to France and author of "Life of Madison"; and her grandmother, Mrs. Judith Walker Rives, was a woman of much ability, and left some writings entitled "Home and the World," and "Residence in Europe."

She was married in 1888 to Mr. John Armstrong Chanler of New York and has since spent much time in Paris, studying painting for which she has as great fondness as for writing.