It is time for a new declaration of independence, and the youth of our land should make it. Let Young America say this: “The woman I cannot honorably woo, whose care at a social gathering is denied me without a policeman and a spy, may find another knight.” Let the maidens of our day, better cultured than their mothers, broader in their training, surer of their social footing, stronger in their poise and presence of mind, bar out the man who comes into their presence under a ban. How long would the hollow mockery of “good form” endure such a strike? As many minutes as it should take to show its utter falsehood and the cruel slander it implies. Until the young people so assert themselves the imitated bars sinister of the most corrupt social heraldry of Europe will be ours—worn with an affectation of pride in the dishonor they blazon. Till then men will be equalized down, not up; and the talk of “emancipated woman” will be an insult. When it is done there will be more marriages of the kind to be desired—the union of true men and self-respecting women. WILLIAM MCINTOSH. THE CHATTER OF A DEATH-DEMON FROM A TREE-TOP. BLOOD—BLOOD AND TORN GRASS— HAD MARKED THE RISE OF HIS AGONY— THIS LONE HUNTER. THE GREY-GREEN WOODS IMPASSIVE HAD WATCHED THE THRESHING OF HIS LIMBS. A CANOE WITH FLASHING PADDLE, A GIRL WITH SOFT, SEARCHING EYES, A CALL: “JOHN!” ... COME, ARISE, HUNTER! LIFT YOUR GREY FACE! CAN YOU NOT HEAR? THE CHATTER OF A DEATH-DEMON FROM A TREE-TOP. STEPHEN CRANE. THE STORY OF THE LITTLE SISTER. When I first knew her she was a very little girl in a white dress—starched very stiff—and she might have reminded me of Molly in the diverting story of _Sir Charles Danvers_. I was devoted to her sister and I remember her galumphing into the room at a most inopportune time, and staring for a moment with eyes very wide open. Then she ran away and I heard her outside giggling quietly all by herself. When the big sister went away for the summer I went out to the house to tell her good-by. The great trunk stood in the hall waiting for Charlie Miller’s man. Seated on top of this was the little sister with two round bottles held close to her eyes. She said she was playing theater, and that the bottles made a lovely opera glass. I asked her what the play was and she said about a pretty lady who was pursued by lions and dragons and things. Then there was a man—a big, nice man—who came with guns and swords and spears and killed all the dragons and lions and then he married the pretty lady. This was her imagination. Then I went away—I forget where—and was gone many years. I came back to be best man at the wedding of my cousin Anthony. I found that the little sister was to be the maid of honor, and at the various functions before the wedding I saw much of her.