ile Helen made the air
Languid with music. Then a step drew near,
And voice of Aunt Ruth broke the spell:
"Dear! dear!
Why Maurie, Helen, children! how is this?
I hear you, but you have no light in there.
Your room is dark as Egypt. What a way
For folks to visit!--Maurie, go, I pray,
And order lamps."
And so there came a light,
And all the sweet dreams hovering around
The twilight shadows flitted in affright:
And e'en the music had a harsher sound.

In pleasant converse passed an hour away:
And Vivian planned a picnic for next day--
A drive the next, and rambles without end,
That he might help me entertain my friend.
And then he rose, bowed low, and passed from sight,
Like some great star that drops out from the night;
And Helen watched him through the shadows go,
And turned and said, her voice subdued and low,
"How tall he is! in all my life, Maurine,
A grander man I never yet have seen."

_PART III._

One golden twelfth-part of a checkered year;
One summer month, of sunlight, moonlight, mirth
With not a hint of shadows lurking near,
Or storm-clouds brewing.

'T was a royal day:
Voluptuous July held her lover, Earth,
With her warm arms, upon her glowing breast,
And twined herself about him, as he lay
Smiling and panting in his dream-stirred rest.
She bound him with her limbs of perfect grace,
And hid him with her trailing robe of green,
And wound him in her long hair's shimmering sheen,
And rained her ardent kisses on his face.

Through the glad glory of the summer land
Helen and I went wandering, hand in hand.
In winding paths, hard by the ripe wheat-field,
White with the promise of a bounteous yield,
Across the late shorn meadow--down the hill,
Red with the tiger-lily blossoms, till
We stood upon the borders of the lake,
That like a pretty, placid infant, slept
Low at its base: and little ripples crept
Along its surface, just as dimples chase
Each other o'er an infant's sleeping face

Helen in idle hours had learned to make
A thousand pretty, feminine knick-knacks:
For brackets, ottomans, and toilet stands--
Labor just suited to her dainty hands.
That morning she had been at work in wax,
Molding a wreath of flowers for my room,--
Taking her patterns from the living blows,
In all their dewy beauty and sweet bloom,
Fresh from my garden. Fuchsia, tulip, rose,
And trailing ivy, grew beneath her touch,
Resembling the li