"Yes," he answered, quite simply.

"I'm sorry."
"Why?"

"Because I can't bear to see you waste yourself, locked up with your own needs and your own thoughts and your own selfishness, when there's a world that's crying aloud for men!" She had risen on her elbow; her voice was vehement and low.

"I shall work among the poor in Wilmington, of course; that's part of it."

"Oh, what good will you do there? Can't you see that your field is among the men and women of your own class, who understand you as well as you do them? Can't you see that there never can be any live sympathy between you and those people? I met you only three months ago, but I know that a clergyman who reads Meredith and sings Richard Strauss can succeed with one class where he'll fail with another. Stay here! Tell Father Ellis you've changed your mind! Do it for your own sake as well as for"

"Well?" he asked.

"Your friends," she finished, in a low voice.

"I can't," he said steadily, "it would be backing out."

"It would be the beginning of your real life!"

"My real life-I want all that ended! Just four white walls and a bare table, with the sunshine pouring through the window-that's what I want! That means peace!"

"Or rather weakness!" she pleaded.

"If you could only understand! I don't dare stay out any longer. I've felt it for two years."

"What?"

"Oh, I'm so bored and tired and angry with it all!"

"You mean"

"Yes; I mean the church and fussy clergymen and kind old ladies and working-girls' clubs and sermons packed with quotations from Browning. I'm afraid, if I stayed on any longer, I should-should -why, there come times I can't trust myself in Boston alone! When

I think of my life in college, I simply have to hold on with both hands! It's coming back here that's done it-I should have known better—oh, what a fool, what a miserable fool!" He struck the turf beside him. savagely, then looked up and caught the inspiration of her face.

"Oh," she whispered, "that's what I've been waiting for! I'd almost given up hope, and now-I'm so glad-so glad!"

"You ought to despise me," he said.

"You can't go now," she continued in triumph. "You've got to stay and be a man, not a monk!"

"Don't look at me like that!" he commanded.

"I will-I will," she laughed. "Because I admire you now for the first time!"

"Admire me?" he repeated. "Only that?"

She did not draw away her hand as he took it. "You must telegraph Father Ellis to-night. You must leave the church altogether, and then"

"Then?"

"There isn't a thing in the world you can't do!"

"There's only one thing I want to do!"

She laid her other hand upon his upturned head, and he saw the tears come with her smile.

Suddenly he struggled to his feet with a strong shudder. "I shall telegraph him to-night that I'm coming." His voice sounded curious. even to himself.

"Why-what do you mean?"

"Violet-I can't"

"Yes, yes you can, when I tell you that I"

"Don't say it!" he broke in; then walked off a little wildly.

"I thought you had the courage"

her sides, her hands closed.

Her arms were stretched by

Once he turned. Her white figure was motionless in the moonlight; the shadow of the lilacs had finally engulfed her face. He did not dare look back again.

Edward Brewster Sheldon.

A SONG AMONG RUINS

If I had a conjurer's staff

Not the old walls would I raise, Not the sob and the sigh and the laugh And the glamor of ancient days

But only a minstrel slight

With his lute tucked under his arm,

To sing for a day and a night
With the old, forgotten charm.

To sing of war and tourneys,
To sing of the grand Crusades,
Of love and perilous journeys,

Of lords and of blushing maids!

To sing from a full heart, throbbing
With love that is boundless and free,

To sing like an Orpheus, robbing
The depths, of Eurydice!

Alas for the minstrel lithe,

Who sleeps by the crumbled wallThe song and the love so blithe

They throb not to my call.

For the walls are broken and battered, And the chambers chill and mute,

And love and faith lie shattered,

And shattered are song and lute.

For the world is too old and too knowing

Wild love has grown tame with the years,
And singing lips that were glowing
Are pallid with doubts and fears.

And the joy of life for the living
Is dead with the minstrel slight-
The lips sing of pain and forgiving,
The heart is silent quite.

Hermann Hagedorn, Jr.

MISS ELLEN TERRY- AN APPRECIATION

Some time ago a little boy in the West End of Boston, speaking of Miss Maude Adams as Peter Pan, said, "The gracefulness in the way she flies is simply wonderful, though we all know there is a scheme to it." By substituting the word "acts" for "flies" in this truism, Miss Ellen Terry's method of acting is summed up. We all know there is a "scheme to it," of course, but the scheme is so cleverly concealed, so carefully wrapped in naturalness, charm and simplicity, that the casual observer is unable to tell why he is so pleased and interested; he can only say, "It is simply wonderful." Often the vague, much-abused term, "personality," is used to express the secret; and in connection with Miss Terry the word does assume a certain appropriateness-at least, it fits her better than it does any other contemporary actress. Bernhardt has power, strength, intelligence and ease; Miss Adams has charm, magnetism, vivacity and grace; but Miss Terry possesses a combination of both, and something stronger than either-intelligent charm, easy grace, the magnetism of womanly strength. Bernhardt commands her audiences-she dominates them; Maude Adams looks up childishly to her public, and in return it pets

her and loves her; Ellen Terry stares her audience squarely in the face -her smile is sweet, but strong-she forces it to love her and to respect her.

The distinction between Madame Bernhardt and Miss Terry is significant. Contemporaries in every sense of the word, these two women illustrate perfectly the difference between the French and the English standards of dramatic art, as well as the difference in temperament between the two peoples. With essentially the same ideals as regards the stage, each endowed with grace, ease, naturalness and a remarkably well-modulated, expressive voice, with physical beauty and great intelligence, Bernhardt appeals to the emotions, Ellen Terry to the mind. I do not mean by this that the English actress is cold or even reserved-on the contrary, she is magnetic because of her warmth-but that she approaches her characters from the mental side.

Gaining her experience in the finest dramatic school of the nineteenth century, Miss Terry brings to her work saneness, temperance and thoughtfulness. In the thirty years that have passed since that memorable evening in December, 1878, when Hamlet was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, she has portrayed no less than forty characters, ranging from Beatrice to Lady Macbeth, from Portia to Juliet, from Ophelia to Lady Cecily Waynflete; and in all these years she has never once permitted herself to fall into a "rut" nor to cultivate any striking mannerism. Indeed, her method of presenting a character is such that annoying mannerisms are impossible. But of that I shall have occasion to speak later.

The result of keeping in the "straight road" is that her acting is as fresh, as spontaneous and as convincing to-day as it was twenty years ago. Of course, she does not appear in the old parts any longer; but this fact, far from being a confession of weakness, is rather an acknowledgment of her age and an acceptance of it-the hesitancy to present, as a woman past her prime, a character in which she was successful years ago when her great colleague took the place that some young, mediocre actor would probably have to assume to-day. Evidently Miss Terry does not believe in a woman of sixty appearing as