Mary, I dare not call thee dear, To earth he fell Like Lebanon's rent cedar, while his breast Heaved with such groans as when the laboring soul Breaks from its clay companion's close em- I felt a pride to name thy name, brace. The mourning mother turned away and wept Till the first storm of passionate grief was still; Then, pressing to his ear her faded lip, She sighed in tone of tremulous tenderness: But now that pride hath flown, How loth to part, how fond to meet, "Thou didst instruct me, rabbi, how to yield At sunset with what eager feet The summoned jewels. See! the Lord did I hastened unto thee! Scarce nine days passed us ere we met In spring-nay, wintry-weather ; Now nine years' suns have risen and set, Nor found us once together. Thy face was so familiar grown, A moment's memory when alone That witching look to trace; When last that gentle cheek I prest Even loftier hopes than ours: THE TRUE LEGEND OF A BILLIARD CLUB. up I. A DANGEROUS MISSION. think you need not fear leaving us the key of the cellar." She is off again in a moment. It is always the way with those women. Before you have your answer ready (and, of course, you wish to give it due consideration, lest it should cause pain) they are round the corner, through the hall, and pretending to count bonbons on the dining-room sideboard. This particular young person never admits that she says anything rude or impertinent or calculated to annoy, but somehow, just after uttering a little sentence or two, she has a trick of disappearing suddenly, leaving the conversation to be continued in our next. What could any one say to the insinuation. about the wine consumed by one's gentleman-friends at dinner?. HAT a strange commotion has prevailed in the house all day! servants hurrying hither and thither, young people nailing elaborate devices in ivy and holly, mysterious packages from town being opened, and even hampers of borrowed silver and crystal coming in from our neighbors across the Downs. It reminds one of the noise and bustle that reign in a theatre when the last rehearsals of a pantomime are being pushed forward; and our stage-manager-she is about five feet three, with a Tower of Babel on her head and a white rose near her neck— keeps whipping about from room to room, making everybody fly before her as if she were a combination of several whirlwinds. But when she comes into this particular room, it is to be observed that there is on her face a subdued expression of triumph and revenge which is not in consonance with wifely sentiment. "Will it please Your Most Gracious Maj-recreation. We dine at each other's houses: esty "this is the way in which it is safest to address Queen Tita when she is in a hurry-" to tell me how much wine you women and children are likely to drink to-morrow night?" "As there are to be no gentlemen of the party," she says, with perfect sweetness, "I And here it may be necessary to explain why, with all these preparations going forward, our party to-morrow is to consist exclusively of women and children. 'Tis a sad story, but it shall be told without concealment or extenuation. We are a small community down here in Surrey, consisting of half a dozen families and pretty well thrown in upon ourselves for amusement and social we listen to each other's wives singing all the well-known songs over again; we fall asleep in the drawing-room, and are then woke up to be driven home to bed. This form of existence is highly moral and proper. but it is not exciting. In the summer-time. of course, we have our walks by the side of the Mole-a stream whose calm and gentle | drove up to the Major's, and, of course, we should be back in time to take them home. In return for his own good offices, the Major, who was the only unmarried man in the plot, was to be let off that dinner when it came to his turn. current admirably typifies the life of those who live on its banks-or we can go up on the Downs, or even muster courage to ascend Box Hill. But on these winter evenings one begins to tire of the pattern of the paper in one's friends' drawing-rooms. You wish that the lady who complains that she cannot sing the old songs would give over trying. The pulse refuses to be stirred even with the excitement of playing vingt-et-un for counters at a shilling a gross. Stereoscopes, backgammon, photographs, all the old devices-vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity. As for conversation, it is impossible to get beyond gabble, except when the Major grows angry over the fate of Arthur Orton. This had been going on for a long time when an evil notion entered into the heart of one of us husbands, who forthwith proposed that we should have a billiard-table bought and sent down from London. Oddly enough, not one of us possessed that indispensable addition to a country-house. This same tempter also proposed that, as it would be unfair to our wives that we should always be playing billiards after dinner, two nights in the week, Monday and Thursday, should be set apart for the purpose. No sooner was the scheme mooted than it was adopted. The details were settled off-hand. The Major offered us a large unoccupied room over his coach-house; we were to club together for the cost of the table, the fittings and lamps. And just as some little compensation to our wives, and so as not to be away from them the whole evening, we were to give dinners in turn on these two evenings; the women would be left together while we All this was satisfactorily settled one evening over our cigars, and then some one airily asked who would explain the project to the inhabitants of the drawing-room when we went in there. Each looked at the other, as if such a trifling duty might be undertaken by anybody. Nobody volunteered. Then the gentleman who is known in the neighborhood as the Squire, and who is portly of person and red of face, suggested that the youngest of us, being most likely to propitiate the ladies, should be our ambassador. The youngest of us happens to be a Prussian gentleman who certainly exhibits no cowardice when he is out with the hounds, but on this occasion he showed an amount of fright that was painful to contemplate. He begged to be let off. He could not explain. His English was not ready enough if he got into a difficulty, but would not the Major, now- At this we all agreed that the Major should undertake the duty. Of course he ought. We were so much indebted to him already, and this would put the climax on his services. The Major, who is a very small, thin man with white hair and moustache, pulled up his shirt-collar and looked very stiff. From that moment he maintained a dead silence until we went into the drawing-room. A more ghastly exhibition than the pretended hilarity of this old man when he was addressing these five women I have never witnessed. He tried to witnessed. He tried to persuade them that every attention; they almost seemed delighted with the proposal. But one or two of us, having some experience, feared this unnatural calmness. The weather was too fine; presently the little cloud would arise at the horizon. II. A CONSPIRACY OF WIVES. it was for their amusement that the billiard- this courtesy on the Major's part was aptable was to be brought down, and he joc-parently amply returned. They paid him ularly asked them whether they would not, on the whole, prefer to be left by themselves on these two evenings, to hear the news from each other without disturbance. But the more he perceived that they did not enter into the spirit of the joke, the redder his face grew, and he might have incurred apoplexy in his embarrassment had not the youngest of the wives the whole of us are secretly in love with her; but no matter-suddenly called out, "Oh, you wicked creatures! Who put Who put such a notion into your heads?" You may be sure it was an ingenuous young thing who uttered such an exclamation. The other wives-older hands, all of them were far more diplomatic. When the first stare of astonishment was over, they pretended to be vastly interested in the project. Was it the Major who was going to give the billiard-table house-room? How kind of the Major! There was no real reason, they supposed, why the game of billiards should be associated with pot-houses, gambling and low persons? Doubtless that was merely a vulgar prejudice. People frequently quarrelled over billiards, did they not? Perhaps that was an exaggeration. THESE forebodings were speedily and fearfully realized, but in the mean while everything went smoothly. The big bare chamber up at the Major's was painted and decorated, hot-water pipes put in, a few pictures contributed by the rest of us, and in due course the table arrived from London, was screwed up and made ready for use. It was really a very comfortable room, and we had a long couch placed on a platform at the upper end, so that if any fair ladies came to see the tournament they should be beyond reach of the cues. It now only remained to fix the first day for beginning, and the Squire volunteered to have the first dinner at his house. Next day, however, a sinister rumor got abroad. Some one had met the Squire riding over to Epsom, and he was in a terrible. rage and swore that women were the plague of creation. It seems that when he announced his intention of having the dinner at his house his wife replied calmly that she was very sorry, but she had already accepted an invitation to run down for a couple of days, just at that time, to see her grandmother at Brighton. It was a pity, certainly, but we said the Squire would have his turn come round again. What, however, was the matter with the women? Every one of them had an engagement for that Monday night. Then we began to see how matters lay. We were to be made the victims of a cONSPIRACY. Should we submit to it? Never! The Squire made use of language that would have made you fancy some one had shot a fox in declaring that he would not yield to such tyranny. It was too bad. These women expected too much. Were we doomed for ever to fall asleep in easy-chairs after dinner, listening to idle chatter and the indifferent singing of idiotic songs? He called their singing caterwauling. Some of us, who are rather proud of the singing of our wives, rather resented that term. But then the Squire was in a rage, and vowed that he would endure this sort of thing no longer. Then he asked why the Major had not explained the matter fully, so as to show those women that no harm was intended. than ever friendly among ourselves; Spartans as we were, we would hold this Thermopyla against all comers, our lives and liberty being the stake. The fatal Monday night came round, and from each of these five houses arrived a solitary individual, scarcely knowing whether or not to take the thing au grand sérieux, but feeling just a little uncomfortable. The women had entered into a compact among themselves to utter no word of protest. They would let us do just as we particularly pleased. While apparent confidence reigned in every household, on that one subject a solemn silence prevailed; so that it was quite impossible to explain. When you began to say that it was really a little unreasonable that so ordinary a thing as a game at billiards should be made a bone of contention, Five-Feet-Three would look up with a studied innocence in her big gray eyes and A bone of consuch thing. Of go and play bil you meant. The Major is rather a timid person, and ask you what obviously got into a fright on finding him- tention? There was no self between two fires. He had driven off course, if we wanted to the women, and was now confronted by the liards, we might do so. And then there men. In eager haste he said there would be would be a toss of the head very perilous no difficulty about the matter: he would give to the Tower of Babel on it, and Five-Feetus a dinner-his housekeeper would manage Three would walk off with much dignity; very well—and then we could inaugurate our only that, in throwing a paper-knife on the billiard club. We were, of course, all too table, why should it be flung down as if it brave to refuse this challenge. It had come had been trying to sting? to our ears that in the event of our dining on that Monday night anywhere but in our respective houses the whole of the women had resolved to flock to one particular house and dine by themselves. Let them, we said. Better an open fight than the grudge of an ignoble servitude. Injustice grows apace, and tyranny is never satisfied. We cheered each other with heroic sentiments; we were more We had an excellent dinner at the Major's, and we vied with each other in expressing approval of the comfort of the arrangement. This was an example of what could be done by a good housekeeper. Could we have had as good a dinner at home? Certainly not! And where have you a chance of entertaining an agreeable little party of bachelors if there's always a woman in the house who |