ick' in die Welt,
Bis vom schwimmenden Auge die Thraene mir faellt:
Wohl leuchtet die Ferne mit goldenem Licht,
Doch haelt mich der Nord, ich erreiche sie nicht.
O die Schranken so eng, und die Welt so weit!
Und so fluechtig die Zeit, und so fluechtig die Zeit.

Ich weiss ein Land, wo aus sonnigem Gruen
Um versunkene Temple die Trauben bluehn,
Wo die purpurne Woge das Ufer besauemt,
Und von kommenden Saengern der Lorbeer traeumt;
Fern lockt es und winkt dem verlangenden Sinn,
Und ich kann nicht hin--kann nicht hin!"

As Madelon sang these last words she looked up, and her eyes
met Graham's, as he stood leaning against the piano, gazing at
her face. She blushed scarlet, and stopped suddenly.

"I--I don't think I can sing any more," she said, letting her
hands fall from the keys into her lap. She turned round, and
saw Maria looking at her also, watching her and Graham
perhaps. "How hot it is!" she cried, pushing the hair off her
forehead with a little impatient gesture. "_J'etouffe ici!_" And
she jumped up quickly and ran out of the room.

Out of the atmosphere of love, and suspicion, and jealousy
that was stifling her, into the hall, up the shallow staircase
to the long matted passage which ran the length of the house,
the bed-rooms opening on to it on either side. Madelon paced
it rapidly for some minutes, then opened a door at the end,
and entered the nursery. Nothing stifling here; a large, cool,
airy room, with white blinds drawn down, subduing the full
moonlight to a soft gloom, in which one could discern two
little beds, each with its small occupant, whose regular
breathing told that they had done, for ever, with the cares
and sorrows of at least that day.

Madelon stood looking at them, the excitement that had made
her cheeks burn, and her pulses throb, subsiding gradually in
presence of this subdued, unconscious life. She smoothed the
sheets and counterpane of one little sleeper, who, with bare
limbs tossed about, was lying right across the bed, all the
careful tuckings-up wofully disarranged; and then, passing on,
went into an inner room, that opened out of the larger
nursery. The window was open here to the cool, grey sky, the
moonlight shining in on the white curtains, the little white
bed at the further end.

"Is that you, Cousin Madelon?" says Madge, raising a brown,
shaggy head as Madelon softly opened the door. "Won't you come
in, please? I am not