"Aren't you an apparition ?" queried Annunciata in the same hushed whisper, stumbling over the long word.

Oh, no," the Tall Man assured her. "I just walked in through the front door. They have to leave it open, you know, it's so hot."

66

Why did you?" asked Annunciata.

"Because,” replied the man, "you look very much like some one I think a great deal of. I didn't have any right to come in Iknow. Saints seldom do just exactly what they want to do, and that's what I did, so you see I'm not one by any means."

Few could have resisted the subtle flattery which little Annunciata's answer carried with it.

"If you aren't one now, you will be sometime, surely," she asserted positively.

For reply the Tall Man touched her curls softly.

66

Why, my dear little girl," he said smiling. Then after a pause, "Now let me show you what to do with my present," he continued, and opened the box.

"In this sawdust," he explained, "are torpedoes, see, these white things, and if you drop them into the English basement under the window they'll hurt no one and go off with such a bang that I'm sure you'll cry no more to-day."

Little Annunciata took him by the hand and pulled him towards the window.

"Let's begin," she said. "Now, quick."

But just as she said this the door which led into the other room opened, and Annunciata's sister, who looked like the little girl grown only a few years older, came in.

"Sister," cried the child, "see what July Fouth brought me, oh, look."

But her sister did not look anywhere save at the Tall Man. She staggered a little, and he ran forward and helped her to the red plush chair.

"Was it fair to me, my darling, was it fair ?" he asked.

Little Annunciatia rushed to her sister and put one arm around her neck, while with the other she clasped close the pasteboard box.

She listened carefully but she could not understand, grown people say such queer things. Surely he was a strange man, this tall one.

"You knew," began her sister.

"No," said the Tall Man bending over her, "I did not. I saw the little girl crying in the window and I came in, she looked so like you. But was it fair not to let me know? The quarrel was so stupid."

"My relatives were to meet us, but they did not for some reason," her sister said. "We were going to wait for them here. So you did not know that my father - "

"No," said the Tall Man. "And were you never going to send me word, here in my own country, too?"

Even to little Annunciata his voice sounded anxious and tired. "Well," answered Annunciata's sister, her voice so low that the child had to strain her ears to hear, "you see they told me artists who came to Ravenna to study, never really cared for anything except the mosaics. So I did not intend to let you know" She smiled at the Tall Man through her tears, "at least not at once," she added.

A curious thing happened to little Annunciata. She felt herself lifted suddenly and set down at some distance from her sister, whom she saw the Tall Man had taken in his arms. And Annunciata added another fact to the several she had amassed in her few years' experience. Grown people not only kissed little children, but each other also.

"How odd," her sister was saying, "that you had never seen little Annunciata."

"

She was

"I had no eyes," murmured the Tall Man "save for Annunciata did not hear the rest. No eyes! Blind! astounded. She gravely contemplated the Tall Man. It wasn't so. It was wicked to lie. Her eyes fell on the pasteboard box which she was still closely hugging. Oh, doubtless it was a mistake on his part, she knew how good he really was.

It grew tiresome watching her sister and the Tall Man. Little Annunciata liked more variety. So she walked over to the window again and started to play with the contents of her box as the Tall Man had told her before her sister came in. Her father had not come, nor did she know that some one had, who would fill his place for her as best he could. Yet as the white objects dropped one by one from her hands, the report which followed, though by no means comparable to the cannonading in the street, nevertheless satisfied the soul of little Annunciata. LUCIE SMITH LONDON.

It occurred during one of Priscilla's partings with the man. This time, she said, the separation was final. She had discovered not that she no longer loved

A Mission of Reform him, for she announced that upon an average of twice a month — but that she no longer cared about his loving her. She was simply indifferent.

It was at this juncture that the other man appeared. Priscilla had known him a long time but had never thought of him as the other man before, and her doing so now was illuminating. The other man was a great many things, some of them desirable. He was very tall and dark, with a patrician profile and a properly indifferent manner; he possessed a great share of this world's goods, and a greater knowledge of the way of the world, and to make him more interesting, there was inherent insanity on his mother's side and intermittent immorality upon his father's side. Therefore when the other man began to go the way of gilded youth, society was alarmed and declared some nice girl ought to take him in hand.

A great many nice girls had laid this unction to their souls with unvarying lack of success, when Priscilla became interested in the game, and felt herself an instrument of Providence. Now Priscilla was very pink and white with fluffy hair and dancing eyes, and the other man developed a sudden interest in his case and called frequently to discuss the situation.

It was worse than Priscilla thought. He was in a very bad way indeed. He drank and smoked and gambled, and kept hours and company that were equally shocking. He had never had any religious instruction in his youth and it took Priscilla some time to convince him of the error of his way, and even then he frequently went it just the same. But Priscilla believed in counter attraction, and kept a rose light burning in the back parlor, and soft cushions in the cosy corners, in fact created the "home atmosphere" of stage illusion.

All this had its effect upon the other man, and he was perfectly sure that he could be perfectly good if he had Priscilla always with him for assistance.

This of course Priscilla could not agree to, but she dared not withdraw the hope that she was effecting his conversion until that conversion had taken place, so she put him on probation, and pledged him to all sorts of things. The reformation completely engrossed her, even the man was forgotten.

3

Her whole sympathy was with the other man in his brave struggle for a higher life; she fairly convinced herself that she was undergoing all the pangs that a maiden might undergo whose lover was struggling with such conditions.

She really did make herself sick over the business, for the other man broke his word frequently and became despondent and helpless, and there was a great deal of cheering up to do, and encouragement to give, when she really didn't feel any herself. It was about this time that she became most lavish in her promises; there was nothing she wouldn't sacrifice to his great need. Suddenly there was a change; her efforts were blessed with success; the other man walked the path of peace and virtue. Strong waters and strange amusements, all forms of riotous living he forsook. Everything rebounded to the praise of the girl, and she began to feel that she had discovered her career, and to glance, tentatively, among her acquaintances for another victim, when the other man came to see her.

He announced that he felt reformed through and through and as worthy as he would ever be of such a treasure, and he would ask her father that night.

Priscilla experienced a violent change of heart without exactly understanding it. She had accomplished her every aim and should be enjoying the deepest happiness, -as a matter of fact. she was frightened to death. She had offered her support to the other man, very much as a benevolent spectator extends a ladder to a man in a pit; she had never realized that the man would insist upon retaining the ladder when he had recovered firm ground.

But what was she to do?

She dared not destroy his faith in her at one fell swoop; she demurred, hesitated, but he had fulfilled her conditions and overruled her objections. Off he went to the library to seek her father, and left a thoroughly scared, shaking girl in the front hall.

"Hello, central-West 125-in a hurry, please! Hello, is this 125 West? Oh, papa,—this is Priscilla, and for goodness sake, refuse Bob say you don't want him yourself. Never mind. what he says about me-I can't explain-but say NO!"

"Well, certainly," came a man's slow drawl, the drawl of the man, "I'll tell your father what you say. He isn't here now.

I was here waiting for him when Bob came in, but he didn't wait, he's gone back to look for you, probably."

There was an inarticulate gasp from Priscilla.

"Suppose you see your father yourself and fix it up," went on the man, "and I'll come in to-night about eight, and talk it over with you."

It may be added that the man was the only one of the three male participants to whom the situation was exactly clear. The other man was bewildered and aggrieved at Priscilla's support of her father's refusal and her firm resolve to do her parental duty, and Priscilla's father was bewildered and aggrieved at Priscilla's mysterious performances and the impertinence of the other man in considering himself at all worthy of Priscilla— but the man remarked succintly to Priscilla that night, that bluffing was never worth while,- you were always liable to have your hand called.

MARY WILHELMINA HASTINGS.

HEIGHO! AND A HEIGHO!

Heigho! aud a heigho!

Oh sing, little bird, yes, sing!

Cling on to the branch

As the great winds blow,

And don't let go,

Just cling and sing,

With a heigho, and a heigho!

For love is in that grand old tree,

It guards thee round protectingly,

Ah! would the world give such to me.

But heigho! and a heigho!

For once it did, 'twas long ago,

And when the winds began to blow,

I did not cling, I did not sing,

But I let go.

Heigho! Heigho!

FLORA JULIET BOWLEY.