last, "it is useless! we cannot play together."

"Ah," wept the butterfly, "we cannot play together."

"Boy Blue," said the farmer, brushing aside the long grass, "you were
asleep."

"Asleep!" said the little boy, jumping up; "I couldn't have been. I
heard every word the fish and the butterfly said."

The indescribable--
Here it is done;
The woman soul
Leadeth us upward and on.

--_From Goethe's "Faust."_

[Illustration:

_By Jules Le Febvre_

LISEUSE]

HOW MARGARET LED FAUST THROUGH THE PERFECT WORLD.

There was once a very great man who understood all of the most
mysterious things in the world. He knew quite perfectly how spiders spun
and how the firefly kept his lantern burning. All of these marvelous
things were plain to him, for he had read everything that had been
written in books, and he had spent his whole life searching and peering
through a strange glass at the most wonderful small things. Always and
always he was thinking in his heart, "When I know _everything_ then I
shall be content, surely!"

So he went on searching and looking and reading, night and day, in his
dim room. Always he was growing older and wearier, but he did not think
of that; he only knew that the strange longing was growing in his
heart, and that he was never any happier than before. But he would say
to himself, "It is because there is something I have not learned. When I
know everything, then surely the joy will come to me."

One night he shut his book and laid aside the strange glass, and sat
quite still in the dim room. He had found that there was nothing more to
be learned; there was nothing of all the mysteries that he did not know
perfectly.

And behold, the longing was still in his heart, and no gladness came. He
only felt how weary and old he was. He thought: "There _is_ no joy in
the world; there is nothing good and perfect in the whole world!" He
closed his tired eyes and leaned his head back. The lamp burned low, and
the place was very still for a long time. And then there suddenly broke
the most beautiful music right under his window; children were singing,
and men and women, and above it all bells were ringing--wonderful,
joyous bells.

"Can it be," said the old man--"can it be that anyone is really joyful
in the world?" He rose up and went to the window, and thrust back the
great curtain.

And lo! it was morning!

The most beautiful, shining morning; people were pourin