is crowned with a wealth of that seldom-seen hair"Golden in the sunshine, in the shadow brown." Presently the lady commences to sing in a sweet, powerful contralto voice. She has scarcely uttered a few notes when a large English deerhound who has been dozing quietly at her feet starts up, and after a long preliminary stretch commences a doleful accompaniment. She leaves the organ, and administering to Uno a reproachful slap, bids him be quiet. The spell is broken. In a moment we are in the nineteenth century, at a country house at one of America's most fashionable watering-places; and the beautiful young woman before us is Mary Anderson, the glory of the American stage, and one of the fairest daughters of that fair land. This is the home to which she retires now and then for a few weeks rest and quiet from the exacting life of a successful actress, whose days are spent in nomadic pursuit of her professor.

"She introdnces you presently to the family circle. The introductions are hardly over when Miss Anderson insists on taking you to the top of the house, whose windows command a fine view of the Atlantic, as it rolls majestically on to the shore of Long Branch. Miss Anderson points out to you her bathing-place at the foot of the park. An expert and adventurous swimmer, she will rush down sometimes on a sultry summer's night, and plunge, under the bright moonlit sky, into angry waters, which one less courageous might well fear to breast; and there in the offing is her pretty steam-yacht, in which she often flies seawards, to escape for a few days 'far from the madding crowd' of Long Branch."

SELECT RECITATIONS.

EXECUTION OF MARY STUART.

Yea, I see

Barbara.
Stand in mid-hall the scaffold black as death.
And black the block upon it all around.
Against the throng a guard of halberdiers,
And the axe against the scaffold rail reclined,
And two men masked on either hand beyond,
And hard behind the block a cushion set,
Black, as the chair behind it.
Mary Beaton.

When I saw

Fallen on a scaffold once a young man's head,
Such things as these I saw not. Nay, but on:
I knew not that I spake: and toward your ears
Indeed I spake not.

Barbara.

All those faces change;
She comes more royally than ever yet
Fell foot of man triumphant on this earth,
Imperial more than empire made her born
Enthroned as queen sat never. Not a line
Stirs of her sovereign feature: like a bride
Brought home she mounts the scaffold; and her eyes
Sweep regal round the cirque beneath, and rest,
Subsiding with a smile. She sits, and they,
The doomsmen earls, beside her; at her left

The sheriff, and the clerk at hand on high,
To read the warrant.

Mary Beaton.

None stands there but knows

[45]

What things therein are writ against her: God
Knows what therein is writ not.

All.

God forgive

Barbara. Not a face there breathes of all the throng But is more moved than hers to hear this read,

Whose look alone is changed not.

Mary Beaton.

Once I knew

A face that changed not in as dire an hour

More than the queen's face changes. Hath he not
Ended?

Barbara. You cannot hear them speak below:
Come near and hearken: bid not me repeat

All.

Mary Beaton. I beseech you-for I may not come. Barbara. Now speaks Lord Shrewsbury but a word

or twain,

And brieflier yet she answers, and stands up

As though to kneel, and pray.

Mary Beaton.

I too have prayed

God hear at last her prayers not less than mine,
Which failed not, sure, of hearing.

Barbara. And now they lift her veil up from her head. Softly and softly draw the black robe off,

And all in red as of a funeral flame

She stands up statelier yet before them, tall,
And clothed as if with sunset; and she takes

From Elspeth's hands the crimson sleeves, and draws
Their covering on her arms, and now those twain
Burst out aloud in weeping; and she speaks:
Weep not; I promised for you. Now she kneels;
And Jane binds round a kerchief on her eyes:
And smiling last her heavenliest smile on earth,
She waves a blind hand toward them, with Farewell,
Farewell, to meet again: and they come down
And leave her praying aloud, In thee, O Lord,
I put my trust: and now, that psalm being through,
She lays between the block and her soft neck
Her long white peerless hands up tenderly,
Which now the headsman draws again away,

But softly too: now stir her lips again-
Into thine hands, O Lord, into thine hands,
Lord, I commend my spirit: and now-but now.
Look you, not I, the last upon her.

Mary Beaton.'

Ha!

He strikes awry; she stirs not. Nay, but now
He strikes aright, and ends it.

Barbara.

Voice below.

Hark, a cry.

So perish all found enemies of the Queen!
Amen.

Another Voice.
Mary Beaton,

I heard that very cry go up

Far off long since to God, who answers here.

SWINBURNE.

“BY THE SEA, SEPTEMBER 19, 1881."

Watchman! what of the night?

The sky is dark, my friend,

And we in heavy grief await the end.
A light is burning in a silent room,
But we we have no light in all the gloom.

Watchman! what of the night?

Friend, strong men watch the light

With the strange mist of tears before their sight,
And women at each hearthstone sob and pray
That the great darkness end at last in day.

Watchman! how goes the night?

Wearily, friend, for him,

Yet his heart quails not, though the light burns dim. As bravely as he fought the field of life,

He bears himself in this, the final strife.

Watchman! what of the night?

Friend, we are left no word

To tell of all the bitter sorrow stirred

In our sad souls. We stand and rail at fate
Who leaves hands empty and hearts desolate.

"Are pure, great souls so many in the land
That we should lose the chosen of the band?"
We cry! But he who suffers lies,

Meeting sharp-weaponed pain with steadfast eyes

And makes no plaint while on the threshold death Half draws his keen sword from its glittering sheath And looking inward pauses-lingering long, Faltering himself the weak before the strong.

Watchman! how goes the night?

In tears, my friend, and praise

Of his high truth and generous, trusting ways;
Of his warm love and buoyant hope and faith
Which passed life's fires free from all blight or scathe.
Strange! we forget the laurel wreath we gave,
And only love him, standing near his grave.

Watchman! what of the night?

Friend, when it is past,

We wonder what our grief can bring at last,
To lay upon his broad, true, tender breast,

What flower whose sweetness shall outlast the rest,
And this we set from all the bloom apart;
"He woke new love and faith in every heart."

Watchman! what of the night?

Would God that it were gone

And we might see once more the rising dawn!
The darkness deeper grows--the light burns low,
There sweeps o'er land and sea a cry of woe!

Watchman! What now! What now!

Hush, friend-we may not say,

Only that—all the pain has passed away.

MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.