knack for rhyme and rhythm that sets your brain a-jingling for weeks, who saw peasants as they are. They must have been the very ones we have here. In his pages no honeysuckle clambers picturesquely about their path, no simple virtues shine in their faces. Their hearth is not snowy, their wife not neat and nimble. They do not gather round bright fires and tell artless tales on winter evenings. Their cheer is certainly homely, but that doesn't make them like it, and they never call down blessings upon it with moist uplifted eyes. Grandsires with venerable hair are rather at a discount; the young men's way of trudging cannot be described as elastic; and their talk, when there is any, does not consist of praise of the local landowner. Do you think they do not know that they are cold and underfed? And do not know they have grown old before their time through working in every sort of weather? And do not know where their rheumatism and fevers come from? I walked back through the soaking, sighing woods thinking of these things and of how unfairly the goods of life are distributed and of the odd tendency misfortunes have to collect themselves together in one place in a heap. Old thoughts, you'll say,--old thoughts as stale as life, thoughts that have drifted through countless heads, and after a while drifted out of them again, leaving no profit behind them. But one can't help thinking them and greatly marvelling. Make the most, you fortunate young man, of freedom, and Italy, and sunshine, and your six and twenty years. If I could only persuade you to let yourself go quite simply to being happy! Our friendship, in spite of its sincerity, has up to now been of so little use to you; and a friendship which is not helpful might just as well not exist. I wish I knew what words of mine would help you most. How gladly would I write them. How gladly would I see you in untroubled waters, forging straight ahead toward a full and fruitful life. But I am a foolish, ineffectual woman, and write you waspish letters when I might, if I had more insight, have found out what those words are that would set you tingling with the joy of life. Yours sincerely, ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.