I have heard from others that the major and the Begum are still alive and thriving. One day in the times of the Commune I had crept up behind the Arc de Triomphe, during a lull in the fire, to take a look at the Communist batteries at Porte Maillot. Now, the major lived halfway between the Arc and the batteries. Suddenly from my concealment I saw the gateway of his house open, and the major sally forth on Garryowen. He gave merely a glance at the batteries, and slowly rode up toward the Arc. There was not a soul else visible on the highway, and it must have been he who drew the attention of the Versaillais, for their guns opened at once and the shells came spinning around in the neighborhood. Garryowen, the grand, the beautiful, was as accustomed to fire as his rider was: neither was shaken from his equilibrium. With the same easy pace they gradually wound their way up to and around the Arc de Triomphe, and thus calmly down the Champs Élysées. The droll, gallant fellow waved me a graceful good-day as he passed me peeping from behind my hiding-place; and that was my last sight, and a characteristic one, of Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army. RALPH KEELER. THE HUMMING-BIRD. Poised in a sheeny mist Of the dust of bloom, Clasped to the poppy's breast and kissed, Baptized in pools of violet perfume From foot to plume! Zephyr loves thy wings Above all lovable things, And brings them gifts with rapturous murmurings: Thine is the golden reach of blooming hours, Spirit of flowers! Music follows thee, And, continually, Thy life is changed and sweetened happily, Having no more than rose-leaf shade of gloom, O bird of Bloom! Thou art a winged thought Of tropical hours, With all the tropic's rare bloom-splendor fraught, Surcharged with Beauty's indefinable powers, Angel of flowers! JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON. A PRINCESS OF THULE. By William Black, Author of "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON." CHAPTER X. FAIRY--LAND. "Welcome to London--!" He was about to add "Sheila," but suddenly stopped. The girl, who had hastily come forward to meet him with a glad look in her eyes and with both hands outstretched, doubtless perceived the brief embarrassment of the moment, and was perhaps a little amused by it. But she took no notice of it: she merely advanced to him and caught both his hands, and said, "And are you very well?" It was the old and familiar salutation, uttered in the same odd, gentle, insinuating fashion, and in the same low and sweet voice. Sheila's stay in Oban and the few days she had already spent in London had not taught her the difference between "very" and "ferry." "It is so strange to hear you speak in London--Mrs. Lavender," he said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full and proper title.