“Last month, when you told me about Undine, I hated you,” she said, passionately; “because I thought you meant that she was _me_, all the time. And I was bound to show you that I wasn’t weak and silly like that, and that I didn’t care a single scrap! And I didn’t care then, either--not till that night when I was such a beast to you, and made such a fool of myself, and you almost died--all my fault! So next day I was so ashamed of myself, I didn’t dare even to speak to you, until I had told you I was sorry. And just then I was so afraid you’d see that book, that I made you go away--little fool! As though _that_ made any difference!” She paused a moment. “And then in the evening I came back and found that you were really gone away, without a single word!” She raised her eyes to him slowly, and, to his amazement, he saw that they were bright with the transparent wetness of tears. “Do you remember,” she whispered, brokenly, “how--that night--I told you that I never intended to shed any tears--planning to live like a little brute? And you gave me these pearls, and told me they were the tears that Undine had wept, after her soul had been given to her. Oh, Stephen! There’s not a night since that night that I haven’t cried myself to sleep thinking of you. So now I know that I have a soul, and I have a heart. And the heart is all yours, if you want it, Stephen!” [Illustration] NOW’S THE TIME O’ YEAR Now’s the time o’ year when the deep skies seem (Look where you will) like the dream of a dream; Toss of gold, floss of gold, weed-tip and tree, And purple like the twilight for the lone late bee. Now’s the time o’ year when the cider-stills run Amber--luscious amber--in the round red sun; And the bloom on the grape’s like the bloom on the cheeks Of a maid at the tryst when a low voice speaks. Now’s the time o’ year when the hill-crests call, And the clear rill-music has a tinkling fall; Piper of the South Wind, play up, play! Your hand in mine, love, let us away! CLINTON SCOLLARD. PRIDE of RACE By P. S. Carlson [Illustration] At luncheon Bishop Chalmers, ensconced snugly between his hostess, the handsome widow, Mrs. Patricia Danvers, and her equally charming daughter, Miss Isabel, sublimated from the seclusion of boarding school to society two seasons before, listened quietly to the many laudatory comments on his sermon of the previous evening. The sermon had been delivered in the large and fashionable city church of St. Barnabas. Ostensibly it had been on “Charity”; principally it was a plea for aid for the bishop’s struggling diocese in the South. The bishop had received the invitation to preach from the rector of the rich congregation, a classmate at the theological seminary, who occupied a seat at the left of the hostess.