Tenderly to my side: The bridegroom's form you may not see In the dim eve, but he will be Fast by his bride. Soft with your chaplet move. And lightly lay it on my head: Be sure you wake not with rude tread My jealous love. Kiss me, then quick away; And leave us, in unwatched repose, With the lily and the rose Waiting for day! But hark! the cry of the clamorous horn Breaks the bright stillness of the morn. From moated wall, from festal hall The banners beckon, the bugles call, Already flames, in the lists unrolled O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold. A hundred knights in armor glancing. Hurry afield with pennons dancing, Each with a vow to splinter a lance For Christine, the Lily of Provence. "Haste!" cried Christine; "Sisters, we tarry late. Let not the tourney wait For its Queen!" And, toward the castle gate, They take their silent way along the green. TO BE CONTINUED ------ {183} From The Literary Workman. JENIFER'S PRAYER. BY OLIVER CRANE. IN THREE PARTS. PART II. Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned. Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.