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LOVE ETERNAL.
Itechangirg sky hath glories ever new;
the evening splendors bring afresh delight;
fhe morning rises clothed in new born light
Thesun each day creates his throning blue;
The stars at evening shine upon the dew,
lot with those rays which broke primeval
night;
Those leaves return not which last year were
bright.
This spring hath others of the self same
hue.
{Yet j the same law reneweth flower and
spray;
et are the sun and stars the same al way;
In the same heavens their wonders they
proclaim.
And such is love, in times past and to-day,
Delighting still fresh deeds and songs to
frame,
But in its, inmost heart abiding still the
same.
—Edgar Eoskett
iERAPHINE’S ROMANCE.
BY EVELYN TllOItP.
She irresistibly suggested a bird. Not
a ing plump, consequential, prosperous-look
robin. Not any sort of bird with
gay plumage quite (Mile. Seraphine’s plumage
was of the dullest and the most
modest). Not a dapper little sparrow,
either. Mile. Seraphine was small
enough. fighting But there was no spark of the
neverhave propensity held in her; she could
her head up again if she
had had hot words with any one. The
bird Mile. Seraphine, with her faded
yellow hair, was always suggestive of was
a canary—the meek, underfed variety cf
canary which passes its existence in a
wooden cage at a high rear window
where the sun never shines. The other
kind which pearls its beaming notes
behind gilded bars, and is fed by her own
dainty longs fingers in madam’s boudoir, be
of course to quite a different class
of as one knows.
It was Mile. Seraphine’s fate, shy, re
served, delicately refined little spirit that
she was, to be lodged in a large, clamor
ous boarding house in a down-town
cross and street, far over east, filled early
late with the effluvia of cooking
and the boisterous slamming of doors,
, To be sure, she did not hear much of the
1 -clamor during the day. She had her
lessons to give. She taught her native
tongue in various educational establish
ments where the daughters of our
Gotham families are instructed in the
last refinements of civilization, and where
her faded yellow hair (they thought it
was brella a wig) and her water proof and iim
.hilariously (a cotton one, these young ladies
of much particularized) were the cause
sible that abiding Mile. merriment. It is pos
conscious Seraphine was quite un
of these graceful little jests,
She was a trifle nearsighted and absent
minded, too, at times. One rainy night,
a night when the wind made wild
clutches at one’s umbrella and the street
lamps flared, Mile. Seraphine came in
laferand more weary than usual, and met
her landlady on the stairs.
“There’s no use,” said that worthy
person, whose equanimity seemed to have
suffered a most serious shock, “that fel
low’s got to go.”
“Is he no better? Oh!” murmured
Mile. Seraphine. not so wet or tired but
that she could stop to listen to this tale
of woe. Oh, yes, he’s better! But he’s
got to go all the same. I can’t keep him
no more. I’ve got my own interests to
look after. And he ain’t got a cent to
pay his board with, and I’ve lost ten dol
lars by him already.”
“Oh!” murmured Mile. Seraphine
again. She went to the dining-room,
where she ate, without appetite, the rem
nants of a cold dinner, and then back to
her own little room, where she took out
books and the pile of exercises waiting
to be corrected. But she could not fix
her mind and her heart was heavy with
in her. She finally rose and, extracting
a worn old purse from her little leather
trunk, counted over its meagre contents.
This much had been laid aside to buy a
against new pair of shoes and a heavier cloak
the Winter. But there were
more urgint needs even than her own.
Alas! How full the world was of
trouble!
She wrapped what the purse contained
in an envelope and then stole across the
hall. At the sick man’s door she paused
with a beating heart. It was very hard
to do these things. How should she
avoid offending? Perhaps he was asleep,
and then she could slip the envelope
under his hand and leave the room again
unnoticed. The door was partly ajar,
and she pushed it very asleep. softly. His But
the sick man was not eyes
were wide onen and seemed twice too
arge for his wasted face. The fever
had left him, but he looked so feeble
and spent that Mile. Seraphine’s pity
welled up in her eyes in a look so beauti¬
ful that it made her for the moment al¬
most than lovely. He was much younger
she, and she felt like a mother to
him. Besides, it suddenly seemed easier,
seeing him lie there, a fellow-creature,
friendless, ill and in distress, to offer
simply and earnestly that helping hand
the good Samaritan would not have with¬
held. As for Stephen Holme, when lie
understood what she wished to do for
him in his weak state, after his long
loneliness and hopefulness, it was too
much. For a few seconds he could not
speak. ‘Mile. Seraphine,
‘ if ever I get on my
feet again-”
clasping “Oh, please, thin please!” she pleaded,
her little hands softly in
her French way, “do not say anything
more. Of course you will be well again,
soon. But now you must think of noth¬
ing And but that.” she hurried
then away.
Youth and the one ray of sunshine,
the one token of human good-will, shin
ing on the darkness and misery that had
closed all around him, did their work,
And the young man got better, and
finally well enough last mild to crawl days out the of doors
on one of the of early
winter and to look for other quarters,
“’Cause if he ain’t got no situation,
and no money cornin’ in I can’t keep
him,” announced Mrs. Brady, conclus
ively. “There’s other parties that’ll take
that room, and sure pay. And I can’t
take no risks.”
Mile. Seraphine shrank away a little,
and flushed faintly over her sallow cheek,
as she often did at Mrs. Brady’s words,
But then she upbraided herself brutality, for men
tally accusing the landlady of
She was a poor woman, too. Once more
she had recourse to another little fund
tucked away in the leather trunk, and
this time it was the last there saved
“It is very little. But it may do for
the first few weeks till—” she added
eagerly, seeing the young man’s flush,
you get something to do.” from
“I can’t take anything more you,
Mile. Seraphine. God bless you!”
“You will hurt me,” she said, “if you
refuse.”
thing And so he took it. But getting any
to do was hard. And the days
passed on. And once, coming back
footsore and dejected and faint, for he
was not yet strong, to the room over a
shop on the avenue hard by, where he
lodged, ing he met Mile. Seraphine return
from her lessons,
“Where is it you live?” she asked,
The following day there was brought a timid
knock at his door. She had
him sorae copying to do. trouble,” she
“I got it without any
said, with could her deprecating eagerness, thought be
fore he speak; “they it
was for myself.”
After that, one day, while giving her
lesson in the house of a French resident,
who had married an American lady, and
to whose children she had been nursery
governess, she heard the son,, who
happened to be at home, casually remark
that his father needed an extra clerk. An
idea implanted itself little then faded under yellow Mile,
Seraphine’s germinated queer
curls, and on the morrow.
The French gentleman’s office was on
Bowling Green. Poor little Mile. Ser
apliine entered its precincts with a tre
mendous spirit and a faltering step,
Her whilom employer looked up with
a scowl which changed recognition to a good-hu
mored smile upon his of her.
He ing had always Seraphine, liked thisgrotesque-look- Mile. Seraphine
little and.
found heart to state her errand,
“Well, what sort of references has he,
this young protege of yours?” he asked
at length.
“Oh, I am sure they will be found of
the very best!” cried Mile. Seraphine,
clasping her hands most earnestly,
The French-American laughed and
looked down at her quizzica they would ly. be if
“It’s evident that
you had the giving ol them,” he cried
with jocose intent on. And Mile. Sera¬
phine blushed crimson, and was so over¬
whelmed with confusion that she turned
the wrong way to go out.
“This way,” said the gentleman, tak¬ the
ing her with playful good nature by
arm.
In the little side office into which she
had blundered a young girl sat over a
type-writer. She raised her eyes for a
second, and Mile. Seraphine thought she
had never seen a more lovely face. creature!”
“Oh, what a beautiful young
she wispered as she went out. “But how
sad she looks!”
“She has reason to be, poor child!”
said her pilot sympathetically. “It is
one of those reverses of fortune which are
much too common with us over here.
Her father was well to do; he died pen¬
niless. The girls all had to something.”
“Poor creatures!” sighed Mile. Sera¬
phine, whose heart was always bleeding
for some one.
On the evening before the day when
he was to begin liis duties in his new po¬
sition, Stephen Holme asked Mile. Sera
phine to take a walk with him. It was
a soft and balmy starlit night, a respite
and breathing space half way the between
the beginning and the end of winter.
It They silent walked into the adjacent Stephen square.
was and lonely. was
preoccupied and said little for some
time. Then, while they strolled slowly
and no one was in sight, he began tremu¬
lously :
“Mile. Seraphine—”
down Mile. with Seraphine looked up and then
a prophetic emotion which
warned her that something never before
heard of was going to happen.
“Mile. Seraphine, if I get on, will you
marry me
Well, as soon as she could speak she
urged upon him the difference in their
years, her p'ainness, the obvious fact
that, with his way to make, he must not
hamper himself with a wife.
“Perhaps you think it is gratitude
only,” Stephen said gravely. “It is not.
You have been, and are, more to me than
any one else ever was.”
And so they became engaged. And
Mile. Seraphine, who had always looked
older than she really was, seemed to
grow by that much younger, and more,
as the winter spread on and the spring
weather came, when, after Stephen
Holme had had his dinner, he would
call for her, and they would take the
cars to the park, and walk slowly about
under the sweet-smelling trees or sit in
the little summer house and look out on
the small sheet of water.
After with Stephen Holme had been a month
or two his new employer he had seen
a chance for making an investment which
promised good results, and lamented in his talKs
with Mile. Seraphine had his
poverty, which prevented him taking ad¬
vantage of it. Mile. Seraphine had said
nothing. But the next day she had
gone to the savings bank and out of it
drawn all her little hoard, saved up dol¬
lar by dollar, and laid away against sick¬
ness, Stephen. against a rainy represented day, and brought it
to It all her
worldly had possession, dreamed and Stephen, who
not of its existence, re¬
fused to touch it. But Mile. Seraphine
had pleaded allowed so well, himself alas! that be he had
at last to tempted.
At first all had promised well. But one
evening Stephen had come in looking
miserably haggard and white. He said
nothing until they sat in their accustomed
place by the water’s edge in the park,
and then he broke down and, crying like
a child, told her that the money was alt
gone; the investment had proved disas¬
trous.
Then Mile. Seraphine had laid her hand
on his arm and, forcing him to raise his
head, had shown him a face on which
there was only pity for him and a per¬
fectly serene smile. What did it mat¬
ter? Was it his fault? she asked. Were
they not able to work both of them?
Was not one there to help the other?
“Seraphine’’—Stephen put and his arm
about the queer little figure kissed
her—“you are the best woman ou God’s
earth.”
She hoped he would forget the mis¬
chance. And after awhile lie did seem
to brighten again. But within a few
weeks she fancied that he grew paler and
that there was a troubled look in his
eyes. In her delicate soul she shrank
from feared plying that he him thinking with questions, stiff of that the
was
little sum of hers he had taken a> d lost.
In every subtle way she tried to show
her indifference to the loss. And Stephen,
on his side, was constantly more gentle
and tender with this pale, weird-looking his
little creature who was to be wife.
She felt vaguely that it tvas as though he
wished to atone to her for something. advanced,
The summer was now well
and the days and nights succeeded each
other in slow and sultry order. W sps
of straw and greasy waifs of brown
paper invaded the choicer sections of • h -
city, now forsaken of their tenants, and
the heavy air was filled with the d s
cordaiit wail of distant hand organs.
Well, Seraphine s pupils had flown, o e
and all, for the summer, and she h id
made her plans for her ten days’ autoi
at a farm house on Jong Island h eh
constituted her one yearly diversion.
Stephen would go out from Saturday
until Monday, and wlmt more con d one
wish? If she had not been so keenly
alive to the sorrows of so many of her
fellow-beings whose wretchedness she
saw continually around her, and think¬
ing of whom it seemed almost sinful to
gladness, be taking ten whole days of idleness rode and
the world, as she down
to Bowling Green one "bright morning to
give Stephen some last direction expedition as to
trains, or what not—for this
was a momentous one—would have been
to Mile. Seraphine more beautiful than
any dream.
The head of the firm was away, as
were many of his subordinates, but a boy
told Mile. Seraphine where she would
find Stephen passed Holme. into the office she
She where
had head pleaded firm Stephen's day, cause and with finding the
of the that
it empty turned toward the other parti¬
tioned inclosure where the beautiful gil l
sat over the type writer.
But then she stood still. She made no
sound. She was only there a moment,
yet it seemed like eternity. Stephen
was in there, and he stood before the
beautiful gill and looked down at her,
with such a passion of love and
sorrow and renunciation in his
face, while she buried hers in
her hands, that a veil tore away before
Mile. Seraphine and she read the secret
of the last few months, troubled of Stephen’s his
altered looks, of his eyes, of
increased devotion—devotion which was
only loyalty that would not permit itself
to swerve, how'ever tempted—as in plainly
as though it had been written fiery
characters before her.
She turned and passed out people again. And who
neither of these two young
loved each other had seen her, so ab¬
sorbed had they- been in their own
The gas flared high in Mile. Seraphine’s And
room that night; dawned high and the late. little
when the morning room
was dismantled, stripped of its few poor
little efforts at grace and prettiness, and
the small leather trunk was had packed.
Many months ago a letter come to
Mile. Seraphine from had a settled; cousin who, letter go¬
ing far cut West, chose a she
telling her that if she something to come there,
might though be French able to might teach still be considered
a
superfluity. The pup’ls had leaving all paid for
their final quarters before town,
and Mile. Seraphine could go now. She
would not leave any trace behind her.
If she did Stephen would still feel him¬
self bound to her. That must not be.
She looked at herself in the g’ass.
What! He, so young, so handsome,
marry such a faded,plain,m she ddlc-aged woman
as "was. One who looked so
wild and haggard in the gray morning
light, hollow with cheeks! her reddened eyes, She had and her
Mo, no. only
been and by, dreaming. It must had never cared be. foi By
because Stephen, who only
her he could not be ungrateful,
would forget and marry the beautiful
girl Ami he loved and he should be happy.
for her there was always enough to
carry her on a few months and then—
who knows?
An 1 that is why a good that natured man,
traveling westward same day,
wondered once or twice whether the
queer-looking little party with the
faded lock of yellow hair who sat next
him could be crying behind her thick
veil, lie fancied so.— New York Mercury.
Remedy for Ivy Poisoning.
W. W. Duffield writes to the Scientific
American as follows: For many years I
suffered terribly from tills cau-o, but re¬
membering that all poisons are acids, acids,
and that alkalies neutralize I
bathed the poisoned member aud in obtained a strong
lye made fiom wood ashes
in-tant relief. Subsequently rubbed I found that the
the dry ashes alone, over
poisoned member, were equally effective.
ince this d seove y, have had no fur¬
ther trouble, and having tried this and sim¬
ple remedy repeatedly w.th like ou good myself results, on I
many otuers, wood
am now thoroughly convinced that
ashes w b in e ery ca e prove a sure aud
severe gn specific for all cases of ivy
poison.
A Novel Scale. ,
Three men of Ohillicothe, Ohio, are
a \> u t-- tieuin the manufacture of a
11( , , 1 sc ale for which they hold patents,
; ail of weighing in pounds and
ounces it indicaies the value of articles
Ueit. For e amp c, if a man buys
|, u;: at 0 cents a pound, li an adjusts indicator the
, r. j a t . s so
p,. , , toe lower indicator shows the
, fatty weigh' o butter at that
p, ; ti.it <s put on the scales. The
' lii this principle will be
a ies on
ni.tnulaciurid to we gh up to tons.—
jy u
The mrikisha, drawn by men, is tha
natimial ' chicle of apan.