“Never!  I have the strongest vows that ever man uttered not to revisit the Rhine.  It is an affair of early youth, a solemn promise, a consecration.  You have got me at Strasburg, but you will not carry me to Schaffhausen.”

He was so contrite that I had to console him.  Letting him know that no great harm was done, I saw him depart with his friends for Bale.  For my part, I remained with the engineer, whose professional duties, such as they were, kept him for a short time in the capital of Alsace.  In his turn, however, the latter took leave of me:  we were to meet each other shortly.

It was seven in the morning.  This time, to be sure of my enemy the railroad, I procured a printed Guide.  But the Guide was a sorry counselor for my impatience.  The first train, an express, had left:  the next, an accommodation, would start at a quarter to one.  I had five hours and three-quarters to spare.

One of the greatest pleasures in life, according to my poor opinion, is to have a recreation forced on one.  Some cherub, perhaps, cleared the cobwebs away from my brain that morning; but, however it might be, I was glad of everything.  I was glad the “champanions” were departed, glad I had a stolen morning in Strasburg, glad that Hohenfels and my domestics would be uneasy for me at Marly.

In such a mood I applied myself to extract the profit out of my detention in the city.

Edward Strahan.

[To be continued.]

TWO MOODS.

  All yesterday you were so near to me,
    It seemed as if I hardly moved or spoke
  But your heart moved with mine.  I woke
    To a new life that found you everywhere,
  As if your love was as some wide-girt sea,
    Or as the sunlit air;
  And so encompassed me,
    Whether I thought or not, it could not but be there.

  To-day your words approve me, and your heart
    Is mine as ever, yet that heavenly sense
    Of oneness that made every hour intense
    With Love’s full perfectness, is gone from thence;
  And, though our hands are clasped, our souls are two,
  And in my thoughts I say, “This is myself—­this you!”

Mary Stewart Doubleday.

THE RIDE OF PRINCE GERAINT.

The Ride of Prince Geraint.

And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heard
The noble hart at bay, now the far horn,
A little vext at losing of the hunt,
A little at the vile occasion, rode
By ups and downs through many a glassy glade
And valley, with fixt eye following the three.

Enid.

Through forest paths his charger strode,
His heron plume behind him flowed,
Blood-red the west with sunset glowed,
Far down the river golden flowed,
And in the woods the winds were still: 
No helm had he, nor lance in rest;
His knightly beard flowed down his breast;
In silken costume gayly drest,
Out from the glory of the west
He flashed adown the purple hill.