Mrs. Vandeleur’s reply was inaudible; but her hand, though it fluttered for a moment, was not withdrawn. Twilight By Olive Custance Mother of the dews, dark eyelashed Twilight! Low-lidded Twilight o’er the valley’s brim. MEREDITH. SPIRIT of Twilight, through your folded wings I catch a glimpse of your averted face, And rapturous on a sudden, my soul sings “Is not this common earth a holy place?” Spirit of Twilight, you are like a song That sleeps, and waits a singer, like a hymn That God finds lovely and keeps near Him long, Till it is choired by aureoled cherubim. Spirit of Twilight, in the golden gloom Of dreamland dim I sought you, and I found A woman sitting in a silent room Full of white flowers that moved and made no sound. These white flowers were the thoughts you bring to all, And the room’s name is Mystery where you sit, Woman whom we call Twilight, when night’s pall You lift across our Earth to cover it. Three Pictures By Walter Sickert I. Collins’s Music Hall, Islington II. The Lion Comique III. Charley’s Aunt [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Tobacco Clouds By Lionel Johnson CLOUD upon cloud: and, if I were to think that an image of life can lie in wreathing, blue tobacco smoke, pleasant were the life so fancied. Its fair changes in air, its gentle motions, its quiet dying out and away at last, should symbolise something more than perfect idleness. Cloud upon cloud: and I will think, as I have said: it is amusing to think so. It is that death, out and away upon the air, which charms me: charms more than the manner of the blown red rose, full of dew at morning, upon the grass at sunset. The clouds’ end, their death in air, fills me with a very beauty of desire; it has no violence in it, and it is almost invisible. Think of it! While the cloud lived, it was seemly and various; and with a graceful change it passed away: the image of a reasonable life is there, hanging among tobacco clouds. An image and a test: an image, because elaborated by fancy: a true and appealing image, and so, to my present way of life, a test.