lendid breath they had, in spite of their
brave mockery at the winter outside the glass. It was a losing game in
the end, it seemed, this revolt against the homilies by which the world
is run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from his coat and scooped
a little hole in the snow, where he covered it up. Then he dozed a
while, from his weak condition, seeming insensible to the cold.

The sound of an approaching train woke him, and he started to his feet,
remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late.
He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, his
lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced
nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right
moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to
him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone.
There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of
Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands.

He felt something strike his chest,--his body was being thrown swiftly
through the air, on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his limbs
gently relaxed. Then, because the picture making mechanism was crushed,
the disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul dropped back into the
immense design of things.

A Wagner Matinee

I received one morning a letter, written in pale ink on glassy,
blue-lined note-paper, and bearing the postmark of a little Nebraska
village. This communication, worn and rubbed, looking as if it had been
carried for some days in a coat pocket that was none too clean, was from
my uncle Howard, and informed me that his wife had been left a small
legacy by a bachelor relative, and that it would be necessary for her to
go to Boston to attend to the settling of the estate. He requested me to
meet her at the station and render her whatever services might be
necessary. On examining the date indicated as that of her arrival, I
found it to be no later than tomorrow. He had characteristically delayed
writing until, had I been away from home for a day, I must have missed my
aunt altogether.

The name of my Aunt Georgiana opened before me a gulf of recollection so
wide and deep that, as the letter dropped from my hand, I felt suddenly a
stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at
ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I
became, in short, the gang