BALLAD OF THE "TRENT.”

In the year of '44,

The "Trent" left the shore,
The church bells were a-ringing
And the people ran to see.
The sailors were a-singing
And the gallant-yards a-swinging
As the good ship "Trent"
Started out across the sea.

In the year of '45

There was none left alive,
For a storm it came a-sweeping,

As many storms there be.

And the women are a-weeping

For the true brave souls a-sleeping

With the good ship "Trent"

At the bottom of the sea.

R. C. S.

A TALE OF TWILIGHT.

The Boy ran through the long, terraced orange-groves with light, bounding steps, and dashing through the open postern-gate threw his cap high in air, shouting gayly. The work with the glum, sleepy old monk at the musty books was over for the day, and for two hours his soul and his body and the very forests that covered the low hills roundabout were all his own. The Abbot himself did not know the woods as he knew them, and the cheery minstrel he had met once in the village when he had stolen away from the monastery for a look at the great world, could conjure up no stranger shapes than those that accompanied him on his twilight wanderings.

"Languir me fais sans t'avoir offensée plus ne m'es cripz

The minstrel's song was on his lips. It was very wonderful to him with its bright trills so different from the sonorous chants of the monastery and its mysterious words that spoke of beautiful and incomprehensible things. He had never dared to sing it inside the walls, but here on the hills he was free, and the song was his as much as were the friendly nodding oaks and the tall, whispering grasses. Free? What an odd little word it was. His brows knit and for a moment the dark eyes were serious. Then he broke into his

song again.

The sun had sunk into a bank of myriad gilt-edged islands to the west and the Boy rested at last, sitting down among the grasses on a knoll, where he could watch the stream of fire sink from cloud to cloud, now drowning all in a shower of gold, now hiding here and there to show up each isle in copperedged purple. Below him lay the monastery, white and still; beyond dozed a tiny hamlet of thatched, clustered houses, bathed in the lavender mists of the

sunset.

The world, the minstrel and the song were all forgotten. The Boy was dreaming, and a voice first low and far away, yet coming ever nearer, did not stir him. Its full, rich tones were beside him, yet still he did not move, but smiled-a vague, mystic smile-as he blended them unconsciously with his dreams. The voice was still. Without a word a girl sat down beside the Boy. Thus for a long time they sat together, gazing into the half-shrouded auburn of the west. At nightfall, as they rose, their eyes met in a flash of fellowship that bound them by a strange, close bond. They went their ways and in a moment were lost to each other in the dusk.

Slowly the Boy walked homeward. The singular meeting on the hill-top had scarcely astonished him. In his circumscribed life where vision and reality blended like the colors of twilight, it excited him no more than had the thousand and one apparitions, less tangible but no less vivid, that his fancy had brought before him in other hours of solitude. He believed in nymphs and dryads as firmly as ever did shepherd in Thessaly, and he would have doubted the existence of the woods themselves as readily as the existence of

their soft-footed denizens. They were not creatures of dreams to him: his wide-open eyes seemed to see, in the haze where beeches closed the vista like a wall, lithe forms flitting from trunk to trunk, dancing a moment, then fading again into the mist.

Yet none had come so near to him as this slender, fair-haired maid, none had gazed at him with eyes so strange and clear. Would she come again? The question startled him and spread a soft flush over his features. Then he threw back his head as if to shake off the wood-dreams, and closed the posterngate noiselessly behind him.

A day and many days passed, and to the Boy the vision became always more real and beautiful. The girl came again, at first merely to sit in silence beside him; then speaking to him of things that brought vague recollections. He felt he had always been with her, for the words they spoke to each other seemed the expression of an interrupted thought-an old thread, lifted unbroken. And so when their lips met the touch seemed the awakening of a slumbering kiss. Twilight drifted into night, the silver horn of a waning moon hung cold over the dark village, yet still they sat on the hill-top, gazing peacefully into the dim-remembered past.

A white-robed old man laid his hand softly on the Boy's shoulder; when the Boy turned, they were the Abbot's eyes that gazed with unspoken sympathy and tenderness into his own. Half frightened, the girl, too, turned, grasping the Boy's arm and looking up pleadingly into the monk's face. He returned her glance mildly; but without a word drew the Boy to him and walked with him slowly away. Once, by a common impulse, they turned and saw the girl's white figure still sitting among the grasses.

In the Abbot's cell, dark but for a smoking candle before a crucifix, the monk spoke at last. He was sitting on a low bench, the Boy weeping softly at his feet.

"Child, child." The monk's voice was rich and melodious and his eyes were clouded with tears. "I would not chide you, little brother. The love of a boy and a girl is the most hallowed love of all, I think. It is so untouched, so

innocent of the care and the dross of the world that later creeps into even the most chaste and secluded of lives. It knows no passion, no desire, only loveonly love." The last words were scarcely whispered and for a time the Abbot was silent. "I loved long ago," he went on slowly, "and your love could be no fairer and sweeter than mine was then. I was a boy, too, but I was a priest,--as you must be." The Boy trembled and looked up, a dull glow in his eyes. The old man put his hand on the other's shoulder. "Little brother," he said, "it is a great thing to love a woman, but it is a greater to love the Master. Fast and pray and learn; perchance He may grant you forgetfulness-as He has granted it to me."

The Abbot took the Boy's hands and raised them gently. "Brother?" The Boy looked up dazed; then his eyes closed in pain. The Abbot knew which love he had chosen.

Three years passed as slowly and as swiftly as years will, and in the cold walls of his cell the Boy learned. It had been an unceasing torment at first. In the twilight hours, when from his narrow window he had watched a white figure on a distant hill-top, waiting, waiting, day after day, he had often sunk in quivering agony before the crucifix. But slowly strength had come. The white figure, and the tender voice that came on his ear now and then through the night, seemed but to guide him on his way. He had learned faithfully: the end of his novitiate was at hand.

Before his crucifix the Boy was kneeling, offering the last prayer of his freedom. He felt very resigned and very strong now, and the old doubts and longings seemed buried deep in the past. There was a sound of footsteps in the corridor, and the Boy rose to his feet to meet the monks that were to lead him to the chapel. But the sound passed by and he sank to his knees again.

Suddenly, dim and far away as on that first evening on the hill-top, he heard the soft voice of the girl. It came ever nearer until it rested beneath his window.

A sharp pang darted through the Boy's body, but he continued placidly

in his devotions. The voice was still singing. Through the mumbled monotony of his prayers the old memories came back to him, the strange fellowship, the complete understanding,-how wonderful they had been. Surely it was not wrong to linger in these a moment. He was still free. Free? He knit his brows, and shaking the tempting thoughts from him strove to repeat his prayers again.

The voice still sang—a low, shepherd's song that he had loved in the old days. The Boy raised his head and listened. How sweet it would be to see the tender face again, to look for a last time into the chaste depths of those eyes. In the strength of his manhood he smiled at himself for even considering the thought. It would be so preposterous a sin that he dared not even take the temptation seriously. He wondered vaguely if three years ago, if two years, if one year ago, he would have yielded. How strong he was now, surely he had learnt well. But the voice-how little it had changed since that autumn evening of the long ago. Were the eyes, too, the same— unchanged in their unfathomable serenity? He remembered that he had looked into them for hours once and had turned away at length, still puzzled. He had learnt so much,—would he be able to read them now?

Frightened at his worldliness and desire he crossed himself reverently, and prayed once more. Surely to-night he might speak of her in his supplications, to-night, to-night-. God! How he had loved her once!

Some voices came down the corridor and the Boy sank together before the crucifix. But again they passed by.

The Boy attempted to pray, but his thoughts were in mad confusion. The Abbot was right, he cried to himself, it could be the boy and girl love no more,—it was passion now, passion, the world's love-. He sprang up from his knees and dashed to the window.

The dark flush died on his cheeks and his features relaxed. All thought of temptation or worldliness was gone, it seemed itself a wrong before the perfect chastity of the face that looked up to his. His heart beat very quietly now, and his spirit seemed flooded with a strange, unutterable peace. The girl walked slowly away and her song melted into the gloaming.