know where we're a-goin'; she 'll jes' tew," he called after Josiah, while he watched his agile steps with critical admiration, and commented to himself, "He's a chip o' the ol' block! Jozeff took arter his mother in bein' slow an' easy. But she hed judgment, and Jozeff - wal She hed 'straor'nary judgment when she was a gal. Why, she wa'n't on'y sebenteen when she took me. Twenty year she's ben gone! Twenty year, an' me a-hengin' on yit, julluk an' oak-leaf in winter, o' no use for nothin'." His slow thoughts followed his slow, half-wistful gaze to the sumactented burying-ground, and far beyond to the pale, sunlit sky above the moun ́ain tops, and then wandered wearily back. "But I'm wuth a dozen naowerdays young folks yit," he declared, straightening himself energetically, and walking toward the corner of the road. Turning it, he came suddenly in view of Antoine, who was coming up the road, a few rods away.

It was not yet noon when Joseph and Pelatiah reached the hayfield, where Antoine had exchanged a scythe for a fork, and was tossing the swaths as if they were caught in the eddies of a sweetly odorous whirlwind. He took his luncheon in silence, with his employer's laconic remark that "the women folks wa'n't a-goin' tu git no reg'lar dinner tu-day," imagining in Joseph's sober face he read an answer to the question he would ask. If he wondered that the bereaved son should return to labor, when he had so good an excuse for a respite from it, he accounted for this by the fact that toil blunts the edge of grief. The far-resounding dinner-calls of conchs and horns at distant farmsteads faded out in the hot air to the silence which had held languorous sway since the bobolinks' riot of melody had ceased. The song of the oriole was hushed, with the monotonous plaint of his offspring; the sharp, brief note of the meadow lark, like an arrow of sound, was no longer shot athwart NO. 457. 44

VOL. LXXVI.

the noontide heat, and there was no noisier stir of life than the drowsy boom of the bumblebee swelling above, and lapsing again to the voiceless level as the liveried gold-and-black forager blundered homeward or afield.

Antoine retired to the shade to rest and refresh himself. While he munched the generous but dry ration of bread and cold meat, he also slowly chewed the cud of meditation concerning the long life which he supposed had just come to a close, and his thoughts, addressed to himself, shaped themselves in his accustomed French-English speech:—

"De gran'pere was gat great many hol'. More as mos' honded prob'ly, Ah guess. Wen Ah 'll gat so much hol' prob❜ly, Ah 'll been dead great many year. Ah'll hope so if Ah 'll goin' be so hugly like he was! He so hugly Ah'll was 'fraid of it, me! An' Ah'll guess, seh, dis worl' was be more peaceably, for gat de hol' man aout of it! What dey goin' do where he gone prob'ly, hein? Wal, Ah 'll be glad dey gat it, an' Ah 'll hope dey an't send it back."

An overlarge mouthful of bread stuck in his throat, and he was seized with a sudden fear that a judgment had overtaken him. He struggled against it manfully, and, after several gasping elongations of his neck, got the better of the choking morsel, and cried out in bravado, "Yas, sah, Ah 'll glad dat hol' hugly was go, me, an' Ah 'll hope dey an't let it come back!" He could not help casting a scared glance behind him, but he saw only the serene landscape: the shorn meadow dotted with cocks and rumpled with spread hay; the standing grass waving in the fitful gusts of the wind, and tossing the dandelion heads like foam bells on the waterless gray-green billows; the open-doored, gray barn with a row of silent swallows bickering on the ridge; the tasseled cornfield; the rough pasture, and its idle groups of sheep and kine nooning in the shade of scattered trees; and beyond all, the green boundary of

the mountain wall shimmering in the glare of sunlight. If the scene revealed naught to him of its serene beauty but the excellence of an ideal hay-day, there was nothing in it to alarm him, and, after a tepid draught of switchel, he gave himself the crowning consolation of a pipe. The last spark was quenching itself in the moist dregs when he was aroused by Joseph's moderate call.

"Wal, Antwine, I guess like 'nough, if you're a min' ter, you may gwup an' git the hosses an' the hay-riggin', an' ye can hitch the ol' mare on behind an' tow her 'long daown for tu hitch on the rake, if you're a min' ter; guess the cult'll foller all right!" The call came to him in a deliberate, monotonous tone whose high pitch was maintained with effort.

Antoine knocked the ashes out from his pipe on the toe of his moccasin, and, arising, set forth toward the house, not without some unwillingness to go alone into the dread precincts which, as he approached, seemed the more pervaded by an awed silence. As he turned the corner, he saw the subject of his thoughts materialize before him, and doubted not for an instant that the gaunt, tall figure and stern, pallid face were those of a being now belonging to another world. The recollection of his recent defiance of such a visitation surged back upon him in an overwhelming wave that seemed to drown his heart's life out of him. For an instant he felt his legs weakening and bending beneath him like thawing props of ice. He thought himself dying without time for prayer, and powerless to make the sign of the cross.

Then, with a sudden accession of strength, without force of will, but by mere instinct, he turned and ran as he never ran before. He marveled how and why he could go so swiftly with such terror withering him, even wondered if he were not standing still, while trees, fences, and breeze were streaming past him, with the dread form motionless behind him, or drawing nearer, nearer, with

noiseless steps, and already reaching out to clutch him with cold fingers. But he was assured by the dull pain that the pebbles inflicted on his moccasined feet, and he thanked the Virgin and every saint he could remember for the unasked aid that was invisibly bearing him onward.

The meadow fence was no barrier to his flight; his hand touched the top rail and his feet flew over like two bounding balls, and on he went, never slacking his pace, till he came to where Joseph and Pelatiah stood agape with wonder at his speed, and apprehensive of woeful tidings. Then he dropped upon his knees and began a prayer, whose fervor was not interrupted by the indrawing and outgoing of his labored breath, and rapidly made the sign of the cross.

"Du for land o' massy's sake, Antwine, stop your dumb foolin', an' tell a feller what's the matter. Can't ye, or can't ye?" Joseph demanded in a flutter of anxiety. But he could get no answer till he shook Antoine roughly by the shoulder, and said sharply, "Come, naow, quit your prayin' long 'nough tu tell what ye want, so 't someb'dy nuther c'n understand. What is 't? Is father wuss?"

“Oh, oui, oui, oui, wus as loup garou. Hees ghos' come at me on de road. Oh, he scare me dead. Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Oh, what for you fader an' let me 'lone wen he'll dead! He chase me on de road! Oh, he was awf'ly hugly hol' ghos'!"

A smile of enlightenment dawned upon Joseph's bewildered face after a survey of Antoine's recent course.

"Oh, Sam Hill, Antwine!" his words shaken with laughter. "Father hain't half so dead as you be; don't look 's 'ough he was. "Tain't no aperregotion. He's comin' daown the road naow along wi' bub, smokin' his pipe as carm as a clock. Come, naow. This grass is all a-burnin' up," and he picked up a rustling wisp of hay, twisting it with both hands, while the parched clover leaves drifted out of it in a shower of fragments.

Rowland E. Robinson.

Alumnus. To buy one of the new levers with, now that you women have found the theatre of action where there is standing-room only?

Alumna. You are a little florid, but you are not far from the kingdom, I see. We must have a new gymnasium and athletic field at our college, and I am on the committee to raise the money. I have no objection to disclosing the principle of natural selection I have adopted. Here is a list of all the men of my acquaintance who have been on the crew, or the nine, or the eleven, or have thrown the bar, or sprinted, or beaten the record, or done any of those things that make a man distinguished in college, and I am applying to them. I don't need to argue with them. Now, let me see I have them all alphabetically arranged - Yes, A. Alumnus, you were a short-stop. I've made ever so many memoranda, you see.

Alumnus. Yes, I was short-stop. Is n't that rather a dangerous sort of person to apply to with a subscription paper? And, by the bye, are you aware that the largest givers to colleges are usually those who have missed a college education?

Alumna. Well, you have missed Wellesley, you know; you haven't even had the advantages of Cornell or Michigan. You belonged to one of the mediæval institutions. Come, now, be generous. Remember the days of thy youth. Fifty? I am a sibyl. I will not let you off now for less than a hundred.

Alumnus. But tell me, Alumna, you really think, then, your women's colleges have demonstrated their right to perpetual existence? The gymnasium and athletic field are the crowning excellence of ours, you know. We have not

of growth. Are n't you in the experimental stage still? (Aside.) That will fetch her.

Alumna. Experimental ! Have n't we proved in less than fifty years, with centuries of neglect behind us, that women are the equals of men in college work? If I had my other memorandum book with me, I could give you crowds of instances where sisters, with the same preparation as their brothers, have fairly beaten them in college. I have names, sir, and dates.

Alumnus. I know. That is what patent medicine has taught you, Alumna. "Mrs. K., living at 65 East Jefferson St., Chelsea, after taking one bottle of the elixir vitae was able to cook a dinner for fifteen adults. She was before not even able to raise a loaf of bread." No more references to Lady Jane Grey, or even Mrs. Somerville. These records of contemporaneous women are your deadliest weapons. And statistics! Well, as old Dr. Walker used to say, "Statistics? What are statistics good for except to fight other statistics with?" But come: grant that you have demonstrated the mental equality of boys and girls of college age, and that you can make a college for women the duplicate of a college for men, what is the next step in your triumph of ideas?

matched you in camaraderie and social life. But we confess with shame that we are as yet far behind on the athletic side. We have not caught up to you yet there, and that is why I was just saying that I wanted you to subscribe two hundred dollars to our new gymnasium and athletic field.

Alumnus. And until you complete the equipment of your college in this direction, you will be at a disadvantage as compared with us?

Alumna. Most certainly. You will not find me backward in admitting our deficiency. The great wonder to me is that, with our desultory attention to athletics, we should have kept pace so with the men's colleges in intellectual training.

Alumnus. Oh, but consider how much more time you have for study when you have not to practice on the eleven.

Alumna. Nonsense!

Alumnus. And don't your statistics show that women who take a college course enjoy far better health than those who are debarred? Has n't nervous prostration been excluded from women's colleges?

Alumna. Oh, it pleases you to be sarcastic. Let us come back to plain sense. Don't you know that athletics has revolutionized the ideal of the scholar, and that the anæmic, thin man with the scholarly stoop belongs to a past generation? If the gymnasium and athletic field have done this for you, why should not we perfect our college appointments equally? If colleges for women were to be started now for the first time, don't you believe that the gymnasium would be considered as indispensable as the library? You must remember that all this physical development in your colleges has been going on since we began to build and equip our most thorough colleges.

is no reason to suppose that we should be any wiser than we were a generation ago.

Alumna. What do you mean? Which movement are you condemning, — that for the higher education of women, or that for the physical development of men?

Alumnus. Neither. I am simply saying that if we were to begin now to found colleges for women, we should do just what our forbears did a generation ago, make them as nearly like men's colleges as we could; and of course, that, to-day, would include athletics. We too should feel the need, as our fathers and mothers did, of making good the claim that girls in college could and should do the same things that boys did.

Alumna. Well, and why not? Alumnus. You think, then, this has been demonstrated?

Alumna. Certainly, except, as I said, so far as physical education is concerned. We are now to demonstrate that also. I should like your subscription for two hundred and fifty dollars.

Alumnus. Perhaps it may be in the books that we must make this demonstration, also, before we have reached our final q. e. d. But do you seriously maintain that you must duplicate our apparatus and our sports? Would you, if we could give it to you, accept our gymnasium exactly as it stands, and make the same use of it, trapeze and all?

Alumna. Yes, certainly we should accept it. We need n't use all your ropes and things.

Alumnus. And football? You will have football on your athletic field?

Alumna. Our director has invented a splendid game, which includes all the principles of football-play, but leaves out the brutality.

Alumnus. That you leave to us, I

suppose.

Alumna. There will be none left when we women show you what can be done in your own field of athletics.

Alumnus. You admit, then, that your