She, gleaming like ice, transfixed me coldly, and, slighting with her glance my work, asked: 'Can you do no more?' I answered with weary hopelessness: 'No more.' How cold her laugh was! 'And have I waited on you all these years for this?' I echoed drearily: 'For this.' 'Well, blot it out, and try again, if you would please me,' said Aspiro. With spent strength I cast myself at her feet. 'You see,' I said,'I have mixed these colors with my life-wine.' 'Why, then,' she asked, carelessly, 'with your insufficient strength, were you tempted to woo and follow me?' So my life with its endeavors was a wreck. I thought of the good I had sacrificed, of the hopes that had failed. The Past and Future alike pierced my hands with crucificial nails, till, faint with the pain and the scorning, I lapsed into a long prostration, from which I came at last to the dawn-light of sad, once-forgotten eyes--to the odor of withered rosemary. 'True heart that I spurned,' I cried, 'can you forgive? I will return Aspiro scorn for scorn, and go humbly back, where it is perhaps not yet too late for happiness.' With dreary reproaches came memory, disenthralled. I dreamed of my youth, its love, and its aim. I pictured a porch with its breeze-tossed vines, a rocking boat on a limpid lake, a narrow path through twilight-brooded woods, and each scene the shrine of a sweet face with brown, banded hair, and love-lit eyes. And these pictures were the True. My heart cleaved the eternity of separation, beaconing my sad return to them, and I followed gladly, hope being not yet dead. The summer porch was shady with fragrant vines--but I missed the face. I buoyed my heart, and said, 'Of course she would not have waited so long.' I went to the woods, through the narrow paths where of old the birds twittered, and javelins of sunshine pierced--on, where we had gone together long ago, till I reached the dell where we pledged our love. Ah! I should find her here-- The sweet face where I should kindle smiles--the brown hair I could once more stroke--the lithe form that I longed to clasp--the true heart that should beat for me in a quiet home. No. No waiting eyes--no true heart --no glad smile. But a cross and a grave and a name: 'CHRISTINE.' * * * * * Aspirants of the Age! Offspring of Alo[=e]us I you have chosen a worship that admits not a divided heart. But your faith, like the Mystic's, shall also make your strength; and though _Aspiro_ stoops not to your stature, yet she reigns, and she rewards. Be true. Be firm. Even if it be upon the wreck of some frail, temporal heart-hopes, you _must_ reach higher, till, in the sheen of the approving smile, you read the world-lesson: Salvation through sacrifice. Through strife and suffering--excellence. THE RED MAN'S PLEA. ALMOST LITERALLY THE REPLY OF 'RED IRON' TO GOVERNOR RAMSEY.