eyasses" alluded to by Shakespeare in "Hamlet." They
sometimes acted in plays written for them by Lyly and others, and
sometimes in the popular dramas of the day. Ben Jonson wrote a charming
epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, one of these little actors, who died at
thirteen.

[3] The passamezzo, passy-measure or half-measure was a popular
Elizabethan dance, like the coranto and lavolta.

[4] Primero, or ombre, is said to be the ancestor of our modern game of
poker. An interesting account of its origin and variations will be found
in Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer's "Prophetical, Educational and Playing
Cards."

THE CHANGELINGS

Out on the road to Fairyland where the dreaming children go,
There's a little inn at the Sign of the Rose, that all the fairies
know,
For Titania lodged in that tavern once, and betwixt the night and
the day
The children that crowded about her there, she stole their hearts away!

Peaseblossom, Moth and Mustardseed, Agate and Airymouse too,
Once were children that laughed and played as children always do,
But when Titania kissed their lips, and crowned them with daffodil gold
They never forgot what she whispered them, they never knew how to grow
old!

Mothers that wonder why little lads forget their homely ways,
And little maids put their dolls aside and take to acting plays,
Ah, let them be kings and queens awhile, for there's nothing sad or
mean
In their innocent thought, and their crowns were wrought by the touch
o' the Fairy Queen!

Close to the heart o' the world they come, the children who know the
way
To the little low gateway under the rose, where 't is neither night
nor day.
They see what others can never guess, they hear what we cannot hear,
And the loathly dragons that waste our life they never learn to fear.

The little inn at the Sign of the Rose,--ah, who can forget the place
Where Titania danced with the children small and lent them her elfin
grace?
And wherever they go and whatever they do in the years that turn them
gray
They never forget the charm she said when she stole their hearts away!

XVII

THE GARDENS OF HELENE

"Is there not any saint of the kitchen, at all?" asked the serious-eyed
little demoiselle sorting herbs under the pear-tree. Old Jacqueline,
gathering the tiny fagots into her capacious apron, chuckled wisel