"Yes, I do," said Ruth decidedly. "We've been brother and sister ever since we were fifteen or sixteen, and we've been good friends all that time. We're good friends now, I think. I call that a success."

Jack gnawed his pipe-stem. He made no remark even when they rounded the first stake-boat with a comfortable lead. At length he spoke, slowly, as if he had memorized what he was saying.

"It won't do. It's not possible, this everlasting friendship business. I've had enough of it. Ruth, I —”

The girl was very pale, but her voice was steady, though so low that Jack could scarcely hear it.

"Jack, you don't know what you're saying. If you go on, you'll never forgive yourself or me, either. If you say another word, I'll I'll turn home. You wouldn't make me lose the race," she added with a faint smile.

The rest of the race was sailed in strained silence. Ruth gripped the tiller fiercely and stared at the luff of the sail till her eyes ached. Jack sucked his empty pipe and made elaborate knots in the free end. of the peak-halyard. They crossed the finish-line over a minute ahead of the second boat, and, without waiting for congratulations, Ruth headed for her own float. They furled the sail in the same silence, and separated at the end of the wharf, Jack running most of the half mile to his house.

That evening the Yacht Club was lighted from top to bottom for the midsummer hop. It was a gorgeous moonlight night, and the wide piazzas were far more popular than the warm dancing-hall inside. Of all the girls there, Ruth alone insisted on dancing incessantly. She scarcely knew who her partners were, but she made the hottest and weariest of them dance without mercy. Jack was there, according to previous arrangements, with Margaret. Ruth knew that he was dancing very little; she also knew-and the knowledge made her exceedingly uncomfortable that he was spending most of his time standing by the door and watching her. He did not ask for a dance till well on in the evening. Ruth had a wild notion of refusing to dance with

him; she had thought of that precise moment all the afternoon, yet when it came she found herself powerless to do anything. Silently she let him lead her out on the smooth floor. As they passed the door leading to the piazza, on their third round of the hall, Jack almost forced her out into the moonlight. Still she seemed utterly helpless; Jack's confident smile frightened her into dumb submission. As she passed out she caught a glimpse of Margaret's pale face, as if appealing to her, and she only felt her own helplessness the more. Jack led her to a deserted corner of the piazza.

"I made a fool of myself this morning," he began.

A sudden hope, not without a tinge of bitterness, came over her. "I'm glad you've thought better of what you said," she heard herself say, though she scarcely knew her own voice.

"I don't mean that," he broke in; "only, I began at the wrong end. Our friendship has been bully; it's been a wonderful success; it's taught me how I love you."

"Jack," she gasped; "no, no, don't go on. You mustn't."

"But I must," he whispered. His face was very close to hers. "What right has any one to come between us? I love you, Ruth."

She drew back from him. Everything seemed to be whirling round in a hopeless maze. Then for a moment she found her strength. "But, Jack," she said in a slow, clear voice, "I don't love you, and I have never dreamed of it as possible."

He caught at the railing. "You don't love me?" he said painfully. "Nooh, leave me, please. You don't know-leave me."

She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. She listened to his slow footsteps along the piazza till they were lost in the noise within.

"It was the only way," she sobbed; "but oh, if she knew how it hurts."

In the hall Margaret was reminding Jack that he had asked her for the next two-step.

Henry Adams Bellows.

THE RIDE OF THE HILL FOLK

There came a boy adown the plain,
With flying feet and panting breath,
His hair was thick with heavy rain,

His eyes were wide with fear of death;
He cowered by me in affright,

With bowed head, that he might not see
The shattered castle on the height,

And told this tale of dread to me.

Thorwald, lord of the sea folk, longed again for the sea,
Weary of brooks and pastures, of all the land,
Sick for the smell of the sea winds, sick to be free,
Launching his dragon keel to hear it grate on the sand,
So tossing his bright hair back and towering over all,
He smote his thigh with his hand,

And called to his rower folk, and his drowsy band

Of warriors, steel clad and idle, wassailing in his hall,

Once more should they race the surges, obeying the wander call!

He tossed his hand as he stood on the carven prow,

And the slave men groaned at the oars, pointing her beak for the West, Then great sword clashed upon sword; they cared not now,

These sea-bound vikings, neither for wife nor sire,

For friend nor foe, nor the crying child at the breast,

But on they swept to where the western sea was on fire.

And Thorwald saw on the cliffs his new-wed wife,

Won with anger and sin, now lonely biding at home,

And watching the galley vanish far on the foam,

She laughed aloud to the winds and prayed for battle and strife,

That Thorwald might meet strange peoples, and warring, give up his

life.

The earth was heavy with darkness under the mist,

And the hurrying cloud-rack hid the face of the stars,
The sea was silent, save where the ripples hissed

On the shallow bars.

And no sound else rose where the lady knelt,

The new-wed stranger woman with tawny hair,

Whose eyes were green like gems, and glowed with an evil light, Whose long white fingers picked at her silk weeds rare,

As she stared out into the night,

Chanting softly a magic known of the little folk,

A charm that the distant hills and waters felt,

For she listened as though one spoke,

And signed with her hands and called mysteriously,

Till the distant thunder answered, and over the sea
The billows whitened and leaped in the lightning's glare.

A boy crept under the arras and listened there,
A slender boy, and he feared to hear her sing,
He feared the darkness, the calling upon the wind,
The far-heard stirrings of hosts upon the air,
And her choking laughter as at some evil thing.
He crept away, and sped through the dusk to find
The hoary priest whose head was bending to death,
And poured in a breath,

The tale of the baleful queen and her summoning.

He faced her, tall in the gloom, and she bent to him,

This hoary priest who trembled not at her wierd,

She saw the cross in his hand and the demon within her feared,

And crouching down, lithe and slim,

While the jeweled weed clung to her body sweet,

As she fell at his feet,

She sought to turn him aside with honeyed word,

But he thrust her back and cursed her as one unclean,

An evil thing which his lord did blindly wed;

So she rose with a cry, and turning in anger fled,

Far out of the casement to lean,

Shrilly calling her people, the sea-born hill folk fleet,

That their coursers of storm be loosed and the hosts of the tempest stirred.

They left her calling the unseen things, the priest and the lad,

And ran down the warm dark halls and out at the twice-barred door,

Down by the sleeping garden, over the beaten sand,

To a cave in the cliff, surge-carven, where, hand in hand,

They crouched and their hearts were sad,

To see the rocking towers black on the livid sky,

And the wings of the storm-cloud shadowing sea and shore,

As it rose to the woman's cry.

Over the sea they came, the terrible folk of the hill,

Gleaming in moon-cold arms, forged in the deeps of the earth,

By troll-men, slaves of the fay folk; they laughed with a deathless mirth,

Driving the sea-gulls before them;

And the winged steeds of the hills, white and crested with flame, Mightily swept through the storm, doing the strange woman's will, Over the leaping waves, snorting with fear as they came,

In the teeth of restless winds that drave them ever and back,

But the shouting hosts of the air swerved not from their sightless track, With the strange-woven flag of the hill folk hovering o'er them.

Clear on the wind there came a multitudinous singing,

Music like myriad voices of forests and waters,

As from the coral caves of Ocean, his white-breasted daughters
Lured them to bide and rest;

But never the mad hill-horses stayed their rush,