ly murmur of their loves,
Envied by the passers-by;
One by one their flight they take,
Bought and cherished for her sake,
Leaving so reluctantly;
Till the shadows close approach,
Fades the pageant, foot and coach,
And the giants in the cloche
Ring the noon for Picardie.

Round the village see her glide,
With a slender sunbeam's pace!
Mirrored in the Oise's tide,
The gold-fish float upon her face;
All the soldiers touch their caps;
In the cafes quit their naps
Garcon, guest, to wish her back;
And the fat old beadles smile
As she kneels along the aisle,
Like Pucelle in other while,
In the dim church of Saint Jacques.

Now she mounts her dappled ass--
He well-pleased such friend to know--
And right merrily they pass
The armorial chateau;
Down the long, straight paths they tread
Till the forest, overhead,
Whispers low its leafy love;
In the archways' green caress
Rides the wondrous dryadess--
Thrills the grass beneath her press,
And the blue-eyed sky above.

I have met her, o'er and o'er,
As I strolled alone apart,
By a lonely carrefour
In the forest's tangled heart,
Safe as any stag that bore
Imprint of the Emperor;
In the copse that round her grew
Tiptoe the straight saplings stood,
Peeped the wild boar's satyr brood,
Like an arrow clove the wood
The glad note of the cuckoo.

How I wished myself her friend!
(So she wished that I were more)
Jogging toward her journey's end
At Saint Jean au Bois before,
Where her father's acres fall
Just without the abbey wall;
By the cool well loiteringly
The shaggy Norman horses stray,
In the thatch the pigeons play,
And the forest round alway
Folds the hamlet, like a sea.

Far forgotten all the feud
In my New World's childhood haunts,
If my childhood she renewed
In this pleasant nook of France;
Might she make the blouse I wear,
Welcome then her homely fare
And her sensuous religion!
To the market we should ride,
In the Mass kneel side by side,
Might I warm, each eventide,
In my nest, my pretty pigeon.

THE DEAF MAN OF KENSINGTON.

A TALE OF AN OLD SUBURB.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

THE MURDER.

Between the Delaware River and Girard Avenue, which is the market street
of the future, and east of Frankfort Road, lies Kensington, a
respec