And who shall favour anyone
Despoiled of bright array?
Ah, simple souls, beware of loss,
Time's finger changeth gold to dross!

Good lack! we talk, yet all the same
We throw our words away!
The smiles, the gold, the tears, the shame,
Each tries them in his day.
And Time, with vengeful finger, makes
Of fondest goods our chief mistakes!

G.B. STUART.

MISS KATE MARSDEN.

In this practical age we are inclined to estimate people by the worth of
what they do, and thus it happens that Miss Kate Marsden and her mission
are creating an interest and genuine admiration in the hearts of the
people such as few individuals or circumstances have power to call
forth.

The work she has set herself to do, regardless of the dangers and
difficulties she will have to encounter, seems to us, who look out from
the security of our homes in this favoured land, almost beyond human
power to perform. It is, in fact, appalling.

Even Miss Nightingale, who never exaggerates, writes of this lady:
"Surely no human being ever needed the loving Father's help and guidance
more than this brave woman." And in this the readers of THE
ARGOSY will fully agree.

Her purpose is to travel through Russia to the extreme points of
Siberia, chiefly for the purpose of seeing the condition of those
affected with incurable disease, and what can be done to improve their
surroundings and mitigate their sufferings.

This, if it stood alone, would be a grand work; but it is by no means
all she hopes to do.

It is her purpose to join the gangs of exiles on their way to Siberia,
to note their treatment, to halt at their halting-stages, and see if it
be true that there is an utter absence of all sanitary appliances; that
filth and cruelty are in evidence; and that the strongest constitutions
break down under conditions unfit for brute beasts. She will investigate
the assertions that delicate innocent women and children are chained to
vile criminals, and so made to take their way on foot thousands of miles
to far-off Siberia; often for no other crime than some careless words
spoken against the Greek Church or the Czar.

She hopes fully to inspect the prisons and mines in those far-off
regions, described by the Russians themselves as "living tombs." She
will, if possible, go into the cells of the condemned exiles, whose
walls are bare, except for their living covering of myriads of insects;
and, lastly, she in