flush predicted pomps to be,
Or spoke of morning loveliness to me.
But for those happy birds the night was gone!
Darkling they sang, nor guessed what care consumes
Man's questioning spirit; heedless of decay,
They sang of joy and dew-embalmed blooms.
My doubts grew still, doubts seemed so poor while they,
Sweet worshippers of light, from leafy glooms
Poured forth transporting prophecies of Day.

FLORENCE EARLE COATES.

NOS PENSIONS.

They have been many and of a widely various character. We tried them in
England, in France, in Italy; we tried them likewise in Germany, Sweden,
and Spain, but the result of that trying was, in these last-named
countries, far more trying to our digestions and tempers than rich in
such recollections as would add to the interest of this paper.

Our first European _pension_ was, naturally, a London one. It was one of
the innumerable host in the pale realms of Bloomsbury. Like others of
its kind in that region, it prided itself upon its "connexion,"--or,
less euphemistically, its _custom_,--and made a specialty of an
Australian "connexion," as the next number upon the right made a
specialty of Germans, the one upon the left of South Americans and
Spaniards, the one opposite of Russians, and uncounted ones all over
London of our countrymen. Although our house was largely frequented by
Australians, it did by no means confine its privileges to them. Like
every other London boarding-house, it was a perfect caravansary of
foreigners of almost every nation and every shade of color. At one time,
with a Danish landlord and an Irish landlady, we were Norwegians,
Swedes, Russians, Spaniards, Germans, Italians, and East Indians. Also
we were several Americans, as was proved one notable day. That day we
heard the arrival of new-comers in the hall below. We saw not their hue,
but we recognized their cry as that of our countrypeople. We are not
madly enamoured of our countryman in foreign climes. There his least
adorable qualities--his bumptiousness, his provincialism, his strident
tones and "_costume de Yank_"--are always more strikingly conspicuous
than the chivalry toward women and the self-respecting manliness we
always recognize so emphatically in him when we return to our own land
after a prolonged absence. Hence we panted not for the dinner-hour, that
should show us the faces whose voices we recognized as to our own manner
born. That hour came, however, as all