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2 For Woman’s Work. DISAPPOINTED. We walked abroad one pleasant morn, (My heart and I), And stood amid the tasseled corn That (rew so high We ecaree could touch the topmost blades Os polished green Mid pumpkin’s gold our footsteps strayed, The curling vines between, That grew and lengthened in the summer sun. Then on through fields of bearded wheat I'hat, wave on wave, In circles swept around our feet; Where each breeee gave New impetus to seas of green Whose abb and swell Seemed changing to a golden sheen, Where sunshine fell, We walked with new and strange delight. No workmen ploughed among the corn That summer’s day, And social grew the blades of corn And full of play. No reaper wrought in barley seas With sickle keen, Or from the wheat about his knees Sought sheaves to glean. ’Twas nature's holiday, yet all things grew. Earth was a goodly sight to see: No noxious weed Or worthless tares had mingled with The winnowed seed That grew, and promised soon to show Fresh stores of grain In well filled sheaves, set row on row Across the plain To wait the swing and fall of flail. All nature blended happily. O’er full of song, My heart and 1 sang merrily The whole day long. We sought the dell whose minstrelsy Was all our own. There set Love’s promise tenderly Upon a throne, And shrined it as a sacred thing. The days sped on. The thirsty fields Sent up a cry. , , The tun beat down, the clouds were sealed, Ihe streams grew dry. The corn stood smitten in the field, The waving wheat, Its vigor sapped, shrunk grain by grain In drought and heat, Till naught was left of green or gold to glean. And we, oh heart, who walked that morn So joyously. Have lost our songs, although we scorn Less royally To wear our grief. No sackcloth gown To curious stare Betrays where disappointment's frown And fierce despair Enwreathes the altar of dead Love. Ourselves and nature seem to be In harmony. No tears, oh heart, for thee and me, Tho’ bitterly We seek their blessed rain to cool The pent up fires. As from the stream and thirsty pool All life expires, So love lies dead, and hope lies low. Matilda J. Meader Smith. For Woman's V ork. I2STIG-O._ An Extravaganza in Prose. BY B. A. RONZONE. IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. N the winter of the year 18—, in the latter part of the month of Febru -1 ary, early in the morning, I called A upon a friend of mine at his studio. I shall call him Inigo. He was a man of about sixty years of age. His hair was almost all white and contrasted remarkably, though with pleas ing effect, with his dark, bright eyes. The movements of his well proportioned body, however, were quick and sure, like those of a man in the spring-time of life. His features, as is the case with most persons whose profession requires an uncommon amount of brain work, bore a striking ex pression of thoughtfulness, verging on sadness. Inigo was a thorough decorative artist. The principles of geometry, architecture and perspective were as well known to him as the letters of the alphabet; color and drawing might be said to be a part of his very nature, while music and literature were the principal subjects of his recrea tions. He was born with a deep, quenchless love for the art which he followed, and his life was devoted to its unlimited studies. To Inigo the art of painting was a re ligion ; its mission wastodo good, to bene fit, to elevate mankind by the purity of its suggestiveness. With him it was not a matter of school or mode, it was entirely a matter of object in view. Home decoration was to his mind the most important branch of painting, for upon it largely depended the formation of a nation’s taste; it was the model from which the budding generation was to draw, and which would have the power of influencing its very morality for good or for evil, according to its aspects. You could no more make him admit that a composition which did not at once express refined simplicity, purity, propriety and unity, was correct, than I could make you believe, my dear reader, that the sun rises in the west. One of his frequent utterances was: “I would follow the graceful lines of beautiful woman, en riched with delicate tinted flowers, and the soft hues of the summer morning skies for the ornamentation of the home.” I entered my friend’s studio just at the moment when he was giving the last touches to a design intended for the draw ing room of a very costly mansion. ‘■Ah, my dear friend,” said Inigo, ris ing and coming to meet me with his hand extended, “you are welcome. I have just completed that design for Mrs. . This,” he continued, as still holding my hand, he led me to the drawing table upon which was the design mentioned, “will give us work enough to take us into the busy season, and out of our misery. What do you think of it ?” he added as he took it up and handed it to me. The design represented a spacious draw ing room, reduced in perfect scale, com plete in all its appointments, and finished with such skill as to render it a perfect miniature painting. Who that has any soul can look upon such a work, the outgrowth of many years of patient study—a work in which the individuality of a refined man is observable in every detail—and restrain himself from giving utterance to his admiration ? Who that has any appreciation at all for the beauties of nature, can help showing his pleasure as his eyes feast upon perfect curves and graceful coutours ; upon color ing stolen from rainbow hues; upon mel low tinted flowers and soft golden lights of various tones, all blending in a dreamy harmony ? “Good! Excellent!” I exclaimed as I held the design from me in an eyen more advantageous light. “My dear friend, this is indeed a master-piece. I congratulate you with all my heart.” “I am glad you think so well of it,’ said Inigo, losing some of the timidity which had displayed itself in his voice when he first handed me his design—-a timidity which is natural with a true artist, and which generally shows itself when his work is completed. No man enters into an undertaking with more boldness, and with less thought of the many obstacles to be overcome than the artist. No man after having accom plished his undertakings, after having suc ceeded in conquering any number of ap parently unsurmountable difficulties, is the victim of timidity more than he. The reason of this is that his art is one of con stant progression. No sooner has he ac complished his work, and his enthusiasm, sometimes amounting to a passion spring ing from his love of art, has cooled, than he beholds but too plainly and with sink ing heart, how much improvement it is susceptible of undergoing. “Believe me,” I added as I took one more look at it, “I shall deem it an honor to be permitted to assist you in execut ing it.” “Thanks,” he answered, his eyes now beaming with pleasure, “your words re assure me; for, now that the moment has arrived for me to execute it, my courage has almost forsaken me. You see,” he continued, his natural enthusiasm return ing by degrees, “my aim in this instance has been to produce a combination of sim plicity and refinement; a blending of tints suggestive of a summer morning’s sky. I have shut my eyes to the many beauties of ancient and modern foreign styles of decoration, and have depended entirely on the beauties of our own land and sky from which to draw my in spirations. “I will confess that I have followed somewhat the same principles of the best period of Greek art, so far as lines of beauty and repetition of ornament are concerned, but, as you see, I have chosen our charming wild rose, a native of our own soil, as the model for all my orna mentation. And* what,” he continued, full of animation, “could be more in accord with the spirit of our civilization ? What could be more adapted for the embellish ment of our simple homes ? What could symbolize purity and beautiful simplicity with more force ? What could be better calculated for imbuing the minds of our children with a just appreciation for the loveliness of their own land? I know that there are many who, despite the fact that they are natives of this great country, see no beauty but in things whose meaning they cannot understand; who have no smiles but smiles of derision for the art productions of their own country; who are willing to embrace, to adorn them selves with the vulgarisms of other lands, while turning their backs to .what is pure and noble and in harmony with the spirit of their own. I know but too well, alas! WOMAN’S WORK. that many of our own much misunderstood profession will look with contempt upon the man who will dare to lift his voice in behalf of a style of ornamentation truly characteristic of the spirit of our republic; I know also that there are those who will con tend that he who will attempt any such in novation will be ridiculed into oblivion for his pains;but even the knowledge of all this, my dear friend, will not deter me from making the attempt. “Believe me, there is an art spirit lying dormant in the bosom of this great coun try—a spirit full of patriotic ardor, full of common sense—which only needs to be aroused to make it sweep from our land all the trash which false pretenders, under the name of art, plaster upon canvas, ceil ing and wall, and on almost all that enters our homes I A spirit which at no far dis tant day will give to the world a model of ornamentation emblematic of what is truly pure and noble—an ornamentation which will have the power, at least, of making the genuine American heart beat with pleasure wherever met with —” Just at this moment my friend’s flow of patriotism was, much to my regret, sud denly interrupted by the opening of the studio door and the entrance of a man of about thirty years of age, who, nodding his head to us unceremoniously, took off his hat and overcoat, and throwing them on a chair near by, turned his back to the stove and looked up to the ceiling with an expression of countenance which indicated great excitement*of mind. The new comer was Joe. He was what may be called a utility man. He was not an artist. He was not even a thorough decorative painter—that is, one who can execute an artist’s composition, without being able to create one himself. He could, however, put his hand at almost everything connected with the art of painting. He was not born with any love for art. He followed it only on account of the wages which it yielded him. His ambition soared no higher than to be a mere helper while with Inigo. He had, however, aspirations of another sort. He looked forward with great expectations to the day when he would be his own boss; when he would be able to show his card bearing his name as a decorative artist. He used to boast that he would not stay pent up in his studio, racking his brain to get up ideas with which to please the “big bugs.” Not he, indeed ; he would employ others to do his work; he would just go around and superintend, and live on the “fat of the land.” “You will make a fine artist!” I heard Inigo say to him one day, when talking of this subject. You who have never studied drawing; who know comparatively noth ing about the principles of decorative art, and very little about the laws of color I” But Joe brought up such a great num ber of men, who even knew less than him self (according to his own estimation) whose names could be found in directories and on signs as decorative artists, who had managed to amass snug little fortunes by just getting good contracts for decorating, and then sub-letting them at very low figures to needy painters, that Inigo was quite nonplussed. If the word “honesty” can be narrowed down to mean simply not to take with your hand what does not be long to you, Joe was honest. You could trust him with anything. The most ex pensive designs, colors and brushes were just as safe in his keeping as under lock and key. But if the word honesty has a broader sense—if it means that when a man makes a mistake he should at once own up to it and thus prevent the blame from being placed upon some one else; if it means that a man should work just as faithfully when alone as when his “Joss” is with him, and if—not to mention many other things—it means that a man should not permit his tongue to give out as facts con cerning men and things, what he has created in his own brain, then I am not of the opinion that Joe was an honest man. The moment that Inigo looked at Joe on the day I mention, he saw that some thing unusual affected him. “What is the matter, Joe, do you feel unwell?” he asked, almost tenderly. Joe did not answer; he simply ground his teeth as if in anger, and turned his dark projecting eyes from right to left and up to the ceiling. Notwithstanding the fact that I was well aware of Joe’s eccen tricity of character, I felt that in this in stance he was not wholly shamming. “Come, come,” said Inigo with a little impatience in his voice, “what has hap pened ?” “Happened ? Why our job is gone!” “What?” “What?” almost shouted Inigo and I in unison. Joe did not answer at once. “Nonsense, man,” I said, “you must have been wrongly informed.” “The work has been going on for two weeks,” said Joe, seemingly very much put out at our want of faith in his infor mation. “You are out of your senses I You have surely made one of your usual blunders!” cried Inigo, his impatience giving way to anger. “Oh, yes," snapped out Joe, “I always make blunders ! Maybe 1 did not speak to the men who are working there ; may be you cannot see the scaffolding from the street I” Inigo and I could only look at one another; the information was so sur prising! “No, no,” said my friend after a mo ment of silence, “it cannot be true —I can not believe it 1” “But I tell you it is true!” exclaimed Joe in a very positive tone of voice, “and if you will go up to the house, you can see for yourself I” Joe’s last words seemed, indeed, to spring from genuine conviction. I began to feel, in spite of myself, that there must be some truth in Joe’s startling informa tion. I arose and, taking my hat, said to my friend: “I will go, with your permis sion, and try to ascertain just how things are—” “No,” said Inigo,—he spoke slowly and dejectedly—“you do me the favor, my friend, to remain here. I will go myself, and if what Joe has told us is true —well”— he did not say what was on his mind, but he gave vent to a long drawn sigh which must have come from, the very depths of his heart. CHAPTER 11. As soon as my friend had departed, my feelings underwent a sad change. I had endeavored for his sake to appear calm, and to put no faith in Joe’s words, but now that he was gone my mind became crowd ed with thoughts and I could not disguise the anguish which they caused me. No painter, surely, could be more in need of money than 1 was at that "time. Never had art seen a duller season. I had relied on my friend’s work as the means of get ting me out of my pecuniary troubles, just as much as he had relied upon it to get him out of his own. The work, however, was gone, and the future seemed hopeless indeed. But, thanks to fortune, I was not one to take things very deeply to heart; so, after a few moments' of intense dejection and bitter vexation, my mind broke through the ominous clouds that enveloped it, and let in the sunshine. This power of con quering feelings arising from adversity, had developed itself all the more in me owing to a habit I had fallen into of com paring things. That is to say, whenever anything of a disagreeable nature hap pened to me, no matter how important, instead of looking up and comparing my unhappy state with that of apparently very happy people, I looked down to those who appeared to be much more un fortunate than myself and thanked my Maker that I was so much better off than they. So, after a few moments I turned to Joe, who seemed to be completely discouraged at the turn of affairs, and I said to him: “Come, Joe, don’t be so cast down ; things might be a good deal worse than they are. A broken leg or a broken arm would be much more unfortunate for any of us than the mere loss of a job. Besides, the winter is nearly over and we will soon be busy enough to get us out of all our present difficulties. Let us be thankful that we are single men and have only ourselves to provide for. Just think if anyone of us had a wife and five or six children to sup port!” And as I uttered these last words I could not help sighing deeply, painfully, for the sweet face of a dear, loving girl, who was all I had on this earth to live for; she whom I hoped to make my own some day, came into my mind. “Oh, it is not for the work I care,” said Joe, “I do not care that much—” snapping his fingers—“for the job. lam afraid the boss is losing his reason.” “Losing his reason ?” I asked in sur prise, forgetting all else for the moment. “Why not ? Look at all the disappoint ments he has had ; see all the misery he has suffered in the past few years. He is no more the man he used to be. He flies into a passion for the least cause, and 1 tell you I can hardly stand it—” I could only stare at the speaker in as tonishment, wondering if he himself was not losing his senses ! I had never placed much faith in Joe’s opinion of men and things, for I had found, to my cost, on dif ferent occasions that his descriptive faculty could not be depended upon for accuracy. “Inigo losing his reason ?” I repeated. “You are talking nonsense! Inigo, the foremost man in the profession, jvith a mind solely actuated by the soundest of common sense, —losing his reason !—” ‘ Oh I know what I am talking about,” cried Joe, rolling his eyes and* assuming a