Calmly turning down the sleeves that had been rolled above her shining black elbows, she replied with contempt, "I ain't been arter no bail: I dun been home an' finish beatin' de lites outen dat yaller houn'. Dat all de bail _I_ wants! Which ef ennybody's lookin' fur him, dey kin fin' his pigtail, an' maybe a piece uv his head a-stickin' to it, hin' de chick'n-coop at Mas' Jim's. Now kyar me to jail an' lemme res'. I boun' he don't spit on no mo' cloze _I_ got ter han'le!" JENNIE WOODVILLE. THE IDYL OF THE VAUCLUSE. A dusky opening in a range of purpling hills; a vision of a cluster of small white human homes; a shining, murmuring little river spanned by a wooden bridge; a towering background of bald, steep rock, cleft at its base into a shadowy cavern,--such is the first of my memories of the Vaucluse. At the entrance of the little town stands a low white-walled building, over the door of which is a tablet inscribed thus: "On the site of this cafe Petrarch established his study. Here he wrote the lines-- O soave contrada, O puro fiume, Che bagni 'l suo bel viso e gli occhi chiari." On the banks of the classic Sorgue I was offered the photographs of Petrarch and Laura. I took them, and there, with the sweet May sunlight flooding all the sod, with the fresh spring grass and buds bursting into life beneath my feet, with the murmur of the glad young river in my ears, I stood and gazed upon the faces of those lovers of five hundred years ago, whose love was as a spring-time idyl. For they met in the spring, they parted in the spring, their intercourse was like the mingling of young winds with woodland violets; and, dust and ashes though they have been for centuries, they still prefigure to our hearts the eternal spring-time of the world. And yet, could the picture that I held in my hand be a faithful reproduction of the famous portrait of Laura which was painted at the request of Petrarch by Simon Menimi and charmed him into verse with its loveliness? It represented simply the head and bust. The face was elongated, the cheeks hollow, the hair smoothed down below the ears. The long, oval, half-shut eyes wore a horrible leer, as though the owner were making a painful effort to close them. On the head was a stiff, ungainly jewelled helmet, which terminated low on the forehead in a triangular ornament. The long, slender throat was encircled by three rows of pearls. The dress was cut squarely across the neck, and was checkered off like a draught-board, while over one shoulder was thrown a small lace scarf. The whole expression of the figure was that of serious, earnest sobriety and saintliness, as understood by a mediaeval painter and treated according to his conception of his art, which recognized no difference between a man's earthly love and his spiritual patron, and made them equally crude, righteous, quaint and angular.