of the day, one walks miles and miles, and dances
and skips, and the fatigue is never felt.

In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its stream
of children great and small into the broad channel of Elysian Fields
Avenue, there was a perfect Indian pow-wow. With a little imagination
one might have willed away the vision of the surrounding houses, and
fancied one's self again in the forest, where the natives were holding
a sacred riot. The square was filled with spectators, masked and
un-masked. It was amusing to watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so
fierce and earnest.

Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that Mephisto
and troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.

"Yes; who are they?"

"I don't know the devil," responded the other, quietly, "but I'd know
that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those white hands
like a woman's and that restless head. Ha!"

"But there may be a mistake."

"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it is he. I'll pay him now.
Ah, sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
caressing something long and lithe and glittering beneath his blanket.

In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the
shoulders. Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost
inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed
in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding
to the ground, can any one tell who has given the blow? There is
nothing but an unknown stiletto on the ground, the crowd has dispersed,
and masks tell no tales anyway. There is murder, but by whom? for
what? Quien sabe?

And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted mother sat gazing wide-eyed and mute
at a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long
sweet march music of many bands floated in as if in mockery, and the
flash of rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of
the girl troubadour.

LITTLE MISS SOPHIE

When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling
notes of the organ were dying away in distant echoes through the great
arches of the silent church, and she was alone, crouching in a little,
forsaken black heap at the altar of the Virgin. The twinkling tapers
shone pityingly upon her, the beneficent smile of the white-robed
Madonna seemed to whisper comfort. A long g