beautiful can not be floated off upon the | the rain; wonderful moonlight and starprinted page. It is a matter of a moment light; and, best of all, the heavens of love here, a moment there the children com- and tenderness opening to you, deep being home upon the loaded hay; the farm-yond deep, in this pure world, as somehow ers driving their teams afield; the cattle they do not, can not, in the great city's coming home at night; sunset enchant- hot and crowded ways, albeit ments that no mortal can describe; the glistening of the trees and grasses after "Only those who in sad cities dwell Are of the green trees fully sensible." MIDNIGHT, JUNE 30, 1879. I. MIDNIGHT-in no midsummer tune And thou hast vanish'd from thine own II. Midnight-and joyless June gone by, But thou art silent under-ground, True poet, surely to be found III. And, now to these unsummer'd skies Far off a phantom cuckoo cries From out a phantom hill; And thro' this midnight breaks the sun Of sixty years away, The light of days when life begun, The days that seem to-day, When all my griefs were shared with thee, And all my hopes were thine As all thou wert was one with me, May all thou art be mine! NOTE.-Charles Tennyson Turner, in whose memory this poem was written, was the brother of Alfred Tennyson, and was himself a poet. He was born July 4, 1808. He graduated at Cambridge in 1832, and became vicar of Grasby. By the will of a relative, who bequeathed him a small estate, his surname of "Tennyson" was exchanged for that of "Turner." He died April 25, 1879. His brother, the poet laureate, says of his sonnets that some of them have all the tenderness of the finest Greek epigram, and that a few of them are among the noblest in our language. "I SAW HER FACE WHITE EVEN IN ALL THAT IMMENSE RUDDY GLARE."-[SEE PAGE 893.] THE DRIFT-WOOD FIRE. T was our last night at the Beach House, be explained. He was wonderfully I and those of us that were left had clus- charming in his appearance; dark and tered round the fire that had been laid on the hearth of the great hall, where all summer we had been wont to do our masquerading and our dancing. We were none of us very gay; indeed, we were some of us very sad. We were just about to separate, and summer was over. It was a wild autumn storm outside, and there was not another house within a half-dozen miles of this lonesome hostelry; but, more than all, it was two days and a night since we had seen or heard of Raymonde, and everybody about the place loved Raymonde, whose royal foreign name only bespoke a royal foreign nature; for how such a tropical soul came out of our commonplace temperate existence and civilization was not pale, with glowing eyes as dark as eyes dare be, and the dark locks falling over a wide low white brow. As you looked up at his face, you were reminded of something of the princes in the halls of Eblis before their hearts took fire, so gentle a melancholy was stamped there. Yet it was not easy to understand this melancholy; he seemed to have almost everything in his life that made other people glad and gay. He was rich, and had no sordid cares; he was so manly that women adored him, and so gentle that men loved him; he had such marvellous pow ers that he could acquit himself well in almost every one of the arts-could paint. could model, could harmonize; and he had such discretion that he contented himself ies. swallow flights, and stretched no canvases, planned no great symHe liked his gun better than of his playthings, and really seemed a little proud of being able to toss a knife in the air, and split a bullet on escending blade, and of nothing else. had been at the Beach House since e, and had unconsciously led all hearts tive, although he cared for nothing s. 889 "Aha, Miss Marion Mercer!" thought , Marion!" he exclaimed again, in a tone that would have rent her heart if she had had any, I thought. "Be so good as to let me pass," she said, very low and distinctly. "No," he returned, "not till I know of what it is that you hold me guilty, why my letters have been returned, unopened, and my name refused at your door." dress me so-you, whose wife I had promised to be, whom I adored, who forsook me for a dancing girl, and left me desolate!" There was one moment's silence. And you believed this!" he gasped. "I suppose it was the dancing girl who stood to me for my picture of the Almée Since you could that innocent little thing, the support of mother and sisters. believe that," he said, in a voice shaking with suppressed passion, "I will not ask you to believe the truth, that, sketching in the Maremma, I was seized with fever, and nursed back to life by the peasants had yours living in a tomb, and came to my reason only to find that you and all of left Rome-had left it with insult and obAs for the dancing girlloquy to me. my God! is it possible? You believe that I ask nothing more of you." of me! And I heard his steps ringing on the shingle; and then Marion had sunk down where she was, in a storm of uncontrollable and unappeasable sobs, from knowledge of which I crept away like a contemptible eavesdropper, for those sobs said more than either she or Raymonde had. But if I had stirred before, it would have only increased the trouble, after all. We were a little interested to see w he would strike Marion Mercer when e arrived, with her mother and aunt, d the maids, and the bird, and the dogs, "You wish to know!" she cried out, as ithout which Mrs. Mercer never travled. Apparently he struck her no more if repression suddenly ceased, and the han if he had been the shadow of some-flood-gates were opened. "You dare to adody else. She never had any color, and o none rose to her cheek, and no fresh ight came to her eyes, as-when hailed and saluted on the piazza, as she came in, by Sallie Worthen-Mr. Raymonde, standing near, was presented by Sallie with the air of treasure-trove; and Miss Mercer bowed in her slow, graceful way, and passed on, while Mr. Raymonde lifted his hat as indifferently. We wondered a little that Marion did not give so extraordinary a person, as we had come to consider him, a second glance, and at Mr. Raymonde's languid carelessness as well in the presence of Marion, who had never known anything but conquest; but perhaps we were just as well content, although, for my part, nothing of the sort made any difference to me-a sick old maid, on the outside of all such matters. But sometimes the lookers-on in Vienna have a better time than the players in the pageant; and I realized it one evening, after a week had gone by, in which no one saw Raymonde looking over Marion's sketching book, or asking her to dance, or exchanging a single glance with her, or Marion's eye once flashing in his direction. I had taken a longer walk on the lonely beach than I had intended, and, quite tired with hurrying, I had stopped to rest, on my way back, in the shadow of the cliff, and I think I must have fallen asleep a few moments; for all at once I started, shivering, to think what had happened, and finding that it was quite dark, and to hear a voice-a voice that I knew was Raymonde's-exclaiming, Marion, how long do you think I can endure this?" at once 46 "I don't know what you mean, sir,' was the cold reply. VOL. LXI.-No. 366.-57 It was the night for the band to play; but I did not see Marion that evening among all the gay couples, till, just before eleven o'clock, she was visible, leaning against an open window-way, in her creamy crape, and her shawl of red Madeira lace like a crimson cobweb round her hair and shoulders, not a trace of tears or of any emotion on her proud and lovely face, as she listened rather dreamily to the music, took one turn down the room with Mr. Munson, and going up the stairs, in her slow, calm way of doing ev erything, passed Mr. Raymonde coming | ing for him, and after she re-appeared she in wild and wet from the sea. I kept my probably said nothing, and they passed own counsel, and rather pleased myself and repassed with the customary indifferwith the idea of being the single spectator ent inclination. of the spectacle. It was a day or two before Mr. Raymonde appeared upon the scene-delving at his sketches in his own rooms, they said-and then as naturally as ever he sauntered down among the bathers, and took his dip, and frolicked with the children as usual. Water did not make him look as it does some people; the more he was wet, the closer curled the dark rings of his hair, that had only a long wave in it when dry, and the rich color lighted his cheek, that was always so pale on shore. Marion, too, was one of those women that are not ruined by sea-bathing; she came down to the brink completely wrapped in her long thick white cloak, which one of the Mercer maids became useful for once by taking, and the moment that she was in the water the waves all seemed to flow down from her shoulders like the folds of a garment about her, and as she swam away she was more like a Nereid than a boarder at the Beach House. But I suppose even a Nereid might have had a cramp, or a shark or other sea-monster seize her beautiful foot, or something of the sort; for one morning, as I sat on a rock sketching the bathing scene, there was a cry from Sallie and Charlotte and the rest, but none at all from Marion, who had thrown up her arms and gone under. Arthur Santley was swimming to the spot directly, followed by young Maybank, and almost before one knew it a boat was putting out from shore, when Mr. Raymonde, who had been playing with the children at the other side of the little bathing cove, and had dived at once, now appeared swimming in, with Marion's head over his shoulder; and wading up the sands, he delivered her to the howling maids and Mrs. Mercer, and stalked away to his dressing-room. Of course Mr. Raymonde was a hero for the rest of the day, though he begged off from some of the worship by declaring that it was nothing to him, for he spent his days rescuing drowning maidens. But Marion was not down stairs. I confess I was a little curious to know what Marion would say to him when they met, or if she would send for him to thank him. But my curiosity was not likely to be gratified, and nobody knew of her send "I declare," exclaimed Sallie once, as she witnessed the movement, and before Raymonde was really out of hearing, "I don't believe she has ever thanked the man for saving her life!" "Perhaps she doesn't thank him,” said Miss Carmen. "Miss Mercer always acts as if life were a gift not worth the taking." Still I saw that Marion did not go into the water again without a shudder, and presently ceased to go at all, although she went down to the shore with the rest. She was standing alone at the head of the cove, looking out seaward, not far from my sketching-block, when Raymonde came down one morning, and joined her so unexpectedly that she started. "Perhaps Miss Carmen's words were true," he said, "and you really do not think life a gift worth thanks." "Oh no," she answered, quietly. "Life is precious. But I did not think of thanking you for what you could not help doing. I do not suppose you would let a dog drown before your eyes." "You flatter me," he said, and remained silent; and if, after a moment or two, either would have said anything more, there was no chance for the scurrying and scampering with which the bathers hurried up the cove, having seen a maneater, or a sea-serpent, or an old log, or something of the sort riding along its outer reach. But if either had spoken, I made up my mind it would have had to be Raymonde: the solid firmament might crack, but since he had said that he asked nothing more of her, nothing was his portion, for all of Marion. She did not thank him for saving her life, I said to myself; she would rather have died than have owed it to him; and I noticed that although her manner was only a shade less haughtily distant to others, yet her smile would sometimes come when Arthur Santley brought her flowers, and she never refused Mr. Munson the dance or the drive he asked, and was possibly a degree kinder to others if Raymonde were seeing it all, kindness from her in her coldness and her sweetness having the effect to them all of kindness from some young queen. I thought it a little singular that Raymonde did not leave the Beach, but then he had established himself and taken his rooms for the season, and it would perhaps have been absurd to allow himself to be driven away. After all, did it signify? Did he care? A month had passed, and he had hardly glanced at Marion, save once or twice with a furtive sparkle in his eye that seemed to break all his melancholy up in anger. "But we escape him," said Marion, lightly, and passed on, as Raymonde stepped aside, stooping presently to caress the spaniel that, by jumping on Raymonde as he stood waiting, had been the cause of the possible disaster. There was no more shooting that evening, but I saw who caught and hid the lock of hair the bullet cut away. Day by day went by, and Marion swept along with the same indifferent beauty, dancing and driving and bowling and rowing and strolling with this one and the other, and never observing Raymonde's existence other than when sometimes that rebellious red again flushed her cheeks, or she laughed more gayly than usual when she felt rather than saw his presence. Meantime all Raymonde's old-time sweetness went; he had neither smiles nor interest for any; he no longer paused to look over my poor sketchingboard, with the old pleasant words, although he sometimes caught Charlotte's baby and tossed it in the air, if the nurse went by with it as he sat on the smoking piazza with his cigar. The children miss Yet she was worth looking at; there are few people of such severe clear beauty as hers. I remember her especially one morning, as we were all on the piazza when the old mail-coach came lumbering in from the post-town, five or six miles away. She had been tossing Charlotte's baby, who had clutched her long dusky brown hair and pulled it all about her face, and the coils were streaming down her white gown, and as she looked up, laughing and dimpling, she saw Mr. Raymonde climbing down from the coach box, and such a red shot over her cheeks and through her smile, such a light into her great hazel eyes, as she stood one instant transfixed under his gaze, and then dropped the baby into Charlotte's lap, and moved away so quietly that it seemed to me I had been dreaming, and had not real-ed him in the bathing cove, and the amaly seen Marion at all, but a vision of her. It was the same evening that there was shooting in the long meadow, when Marion, coming across the field with Mr. Munson and Sallie, stopped, as they did, at the target one moment, to observe the character of the shots, just as Raymondewho had come in from the shore with a bag of birds, and looking like a brigand, in his high boots and slouched hat-had been called and compelled to add his shot to the score, and had just drawn his gun to the shoulder. Maybank shouted to Mr. Munson, and he and his party were hurrying up the field and out of the way, when, like a thunder-bolt from a blue sky, Mr. Raymonde's gun went off. With a single bound, as it seemed, he was by Marion's side. "Are you hurt?" he cried. "By heavens! There is another ball left for me if you are!" on teur players in the hall; and the gossipers I, to Suddenly, in the midst of the pleasuring, we awoke one day to find that there had been a frost; and although, as the sun mounted, it was still warm and genial, everybody felt that summer and pleasuring were at an end. The luggage came down as if it had wings, and the air, so to say, was full of flying trunks. A few, however, yet remained, and among them Mrs. Mercer and her suite, she awaiting her But Marion, with the same hasty red staining her cheeks for the second time since I had known her, had started back, and conscious that all eyes were them, laughing, held up the end of the little lock of hair the ball had sheared. "I heard it whistle," she said. "How tragedy treads on our heels this husband and the cluster of more intimate summer!" exclaimed Sallie. friends. Marion appeared to be in a fever |