my heart, though the shadows were deep,
Till one came and asked me: "Say, why dost thou watch through the
night?"
And I said, "I am watching my joy. They who sorrow may sleep,
But the soul that is glad cannot part with one hour of delight."

Again in the silence I watched, and the moon had gone down;
The shadows were hidden in darkness; the winds had passed by;
The midnight sat throned, and the jewels were bright in her crown,
For stars glimmered softly--oh softly!--from depths of the sky.
And I sighed as I watched all alone, till again came a voice:
"Ah! why dost thou watch? Joy is over, and sorrow is vain."
And I said, "I am watching my grief. Let them sleep who rejoice,
But the spirit that loves cannot part with one hour of its pain."

Once more I sat watching, in darkness that fell like a death--
The deep solemn darkness that comes to make way for the dawn:
I looked on the earth, and it slept without motion or breath,
And blindly I looked on the sky, but the stars were withdrawn.
And the voice spoke once more: "Cease thy watching, for what dost
thou gain?"
But I said, "I am watching my soul, to this darkness laid bare.
Let them sleep to whom love giveth joy, to whom love giveth pain,
But the soul left alone cannot part with one moment of prayer."

MARION COUTHOUY.

SISTER SILVIA.

Monte Compatri is one of the eastern outlying peaks of the Alban
Mountains, and, like so many Italian mountains, has its road climbing to
and fro in long loops to a gray little city at the top. This city of
Monte Compatri is a full and busy hive, with solid blocks of houses, and
the narrowest of streets that break now and then into stairs. For those
old builders respected the features of a landscape as though they had
been the features of a face, and no more thought of levelling
inequalities of land than of shaving down or raising up noses. When a
man had a house-lot in a hollow, he built his house there, and made
Steps to go down to it: his neighbor, who owned a rocky knoll, built his
house at the top, and made stairs to go up to it. Moreover, if the land
was a bit in the city, the house was made in the shape of it, and was as
likely to have corners in obtuse or acute as in right angles.

The inhabitants of Monte Compatri have two streets of which they are
immensely proud--the Lungara, which wriggles through the middle of the
town, and the Giro, wh