st the cherubs. O God," he broke off
suddenly, letting fall the sheets of manuscript and stretching out his
hands in prayer, "make me a child again, even before I die; give me
back the simple faith, the clear vision of the child that holds its
father's hand. Oh, little Lucy, it takes me like that sometimes, and I
have to cry for mercy. I dreamt I _was_ a child the other night, and
saw my dear father again. He was putting on his wig, and I saw him as
through a cloud of powder. I rushed joyfully to embrace him; but, as I
approached him, everything seemed changing in the mist. I wished to
kiss his hands, but I recoiled with mortal cold. The fingers were
withered branches, my father himself a leafless tree, which the winter
had covered with hoar-frost. Ah, Lucy, Lucy, my brain is full of
madness and my heart of sorrow. Sing me the ballad of the lady who
took only one spoonful of gruel, 'with sugar and spices so rich.'"

Astonished at his memory, she repeated the song of Ladye Alice and
Giles Collins, the poet laughing immoderately till at the end,

"The parson licked up the rest,"

in his effort to repeat the line that so tickled him, he fell into a
fearful spasm, which tore and twisted him till his child's body lay
curved like a bow. Her tears fell at the sight.

"Don't pity me too much," he gasped, trying to smile with his eyes; "I
bend, but I do not break."

But she, terrified, rang the bell for aid. A jovial-looking
woman--tall and well-shaped--came in, holding a shirt she was sewing.
Her eyes and hair were black, and her oval face had the rude coloring
of health. She brought into the death-chamber at once a whiff of
ozone, and a suggestion of tragic incongruity. Nodding pleasantly at
the visitor, she advanced quickly to the bedside, and laid her hand
upon the forehead, sweating with agony.

"Mathilde," he said, when the spasm abated, "this is little Lucy of
whom I have never spoken to you, and to whom I wrote a poem about her
dark-brown eyes which you have never read."

Mathilde smiled amiably at the Roman matron.

"No, I have never read it," she said archly. "They tell me that Heine
is a very clever man, and writes very fine books; but I know nothing
about it, and must content myself with trusting to their word."

"Isn't she adorable?" cried Heine delightedly. "I have only two
consolations that sit at my bedside, my French wife and my German
muse, and they are not on speaking terms. But it has its
compe