physician administering an effective medicine. On the contrary, Mr. Sill's influence was a combination of true genius with the warmest sympathy and geniality. His influence was greatest where his friendship was strongest. Few shared this friendship, but those who did esteem it as a precious blessing.

Mr. Sill was but forty-seven years old at the time of his death. The fact that he died at such an early age has been constantly lamented by the friends of English literature, on the ground that his genius had only begun to ripen, and that what he did write, was but the assurance of what he would have done had he lived to maturity. While all who read his verses must share this regret, a real satisfaction should be derived from the poetry he has left, in the completeness of what he did, even in his early days. None ought to feel this satisfaction more than his Alma Mater-his Alma Mater as it embraces all Yale men-for in the forty-seven years of his life, Edward Rowland Sill struck as clear and full and true a note in his poetry as has any alumnus of the University. The editor of a collection of Mr. Sill's verses has written very appropriately that "after his death, month by month, new poems under his familiar signatures appeared in the magazines, as if he went out of the sight of men, singing on the way." The poet himself has still more happily though unconsciously spoken of his own death, prophesying as it were the early end of his useful life:

"And what if then, while still the morning brightened,
And freshened in the elm the Summer's breath,
Should gravely smile on the gentle angel
And take my hand and say

My name is Death."

Charles Cheney Hyde.

TO MOUNT HOPE.

Mountain whose rocky side
Long hast all storms defied,
On whom King Philip died
When friends had fled:

O, from thy rocky heart
That tale to me impart,
How struck by traitor's dart
Philip fell dead.

Down in thy rocky dell

Still stands the chieftain's well,
While mighty oaks soft swell
Death dirges slow:

High on thy head alone

Rises his seat of stone,

Round which the forests moan

As the winds blow.

As ages onward glide,

Still will thy mighty side
O'er the loud-roaring tide
Heavenward tower;

But he who made thy name
Echo in tales of fame,
Lies unavenged in shame,
Gone is his power.

George P. Day.

"THE SOFT ANSWER."

THE mellow afternoon sunlight sifted through the overhanging tree-tops into the shadowy roadway; beams reflected from the river struggled up through the willows and made changing mottled spots of light among the branches.

Mr. Dennis O'Hara, of Washington and Alexandria, and lately of the Albany penitentiary, stepped cautiously out of the underbrush and slipped across the road into the willows by the side of the river. He was attired in a broadly striped suit of black and white that had suffered from contact with the greasy trucks of railroad cars. His black hair-he wore no hat-was short and bristling; his face was dark with a week's growth of beard, and there were berry stains upon his lips. He carried a leather handbag under his arm.

Two hundred miles away a young man was writing to the station agent at Paleytown for a handbag left by mistake on the platform of the station the night before.

In Alexandria a poor old woman was sitting in her doorstep sobbing over a copy of the Washington Evening Star, which said that the authorities had abandoned all search for Dennis O'Hara, the notorious escaped convict, believing that he had been among the unidentified victims of the fire in the Troy freight-yards.

When Mr. Dennis O'Hara walked into the principal street of Paleytown, an hour later, the shadow of the opposite mountain was climbing up the hillside from the river, and a wood-thrush with ringing liquid notes was sounding the curfew of the pine-woods. Mr. O'Hara was now clothed after the manner of the young man who loiters about a summer hotel; he wore a yachting cap; the beard had disappeared, as also had the berry stains about his lips; but his face still had the waxen pallor that comes from long confinement; it was still haggard with hunger and exhaustion.

The first house in the village was the parsonage; it was a small white cottage overgrown with honeysuckles, and almost covered by the overhanging branches of a great elm in the tiny yard. As Mr. O'Hara approached the minister was leaning on the gate watching a child at play in the road. The minister was a very old man; his hand trembled as it lay on the fence.

The convict approached him, hat in hand; "Are you the head of the family," he asked; "if you are I should like to talk with you a minute."

Mr. O'Hara's voice was of such a quality that one more experienced than the minister would have expected it to say "youse" instead of "you" and "wid" instead of "with."

The old man started out of his abstraction, and seeing the speaker, removed his broad brimmed black hat. "This is my home-my wife's and mine," he said gently, at the same time opening the gate, "and I make you very welcome to it." He bowed courteously as he motioned his visitor to enter.

There had been a very unpleasant brutal look in the convict's eye as he observed the minister's feebleness; but it gave way to puzzled embarrassment before this quaintly gracious invitation. He preceded the old gentleman up the narrow gravel walk between the trim geranium beds. At the door they were met by the minister's wife. Her aspect was not as tranquilly trustful as her husband's. She looked on Mr. Dennis O'Hara with anxiety and suspicion. He felt it, and was more at ease.

"Mrs. Goodhart," said the old gentleman, coming forward, "this is a friend who has been kind enough to visit us; he has not yet made known his name, but-"

My name is Harrison Duncan, of Chicago," interrupted Mr. O'Hara.

The minister bowed; "I hope," he continued, "that if he has leisure, Mr. Duncan will do us the honor to break bread with us." Then, as he noticed that his visitor's head was still bared, he added, "Be covered, I beg of you."

"Wha-wh-which?" stammered Mr. O'Hara.

The minister quietly removed his own hat again. The convict shifted his weight from one foot to the other diffidently. Catching at Mrs. Goodhart's inquiring look, "yes, thanks," he said, hurriedly, "I will."

Seated at the supper table between the pastor and his wife, Mr. O'Hara's discomfort abated. He observed with complacency that the silver was solid. His appetite and manner of satisfying it rather tended to increase his hostess's anxiety. He was reminded by her expression he had not explained his errand.

"I am," he said, "an agent of the Ex-Convicts' Aid Association. I have papers of interest in my bag, but I have lost the key. Our present object is to get the churches interested in our work through the preachers ; we want to get public sentiment on the side of the man who is in hard luck, and even to find individual opportunities for their employment."

These words came very easily to Mr. Dennis O'Hara's lips; he had heard them before quite often. He explained that he had once been in prison-a long, long time agofor a technical offense; he went on to tell them long stories of prison life; of the temptations of released convicts and their struggles for respectability. He grew so interested in his subject that he inadvertently made long slashes in the table cloth, in the outlining of explanatory diagrams. Misunderstanding Mrs. Goodhart's expression of horror, he addressed himself particularly to her. In the midst of the conversation he happened to turn to his host. He stopped short. The old man had sunk down in his chair with his hand over his eyes; tears were stealing between the trembling fingers.

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Mr. Duncan," said the minister, touching his eyes with his handkerchief, "pardon my agitation; there is more reason for it than a-," Mrs. Goodhart stirred in her chair; "there is sufficiently great reason for it. Kindly accompany me into the adjoining room."

"Your holy work must require funds, Mr. Duncan," said the minister, drawing an iron box from beneath the threadbare sofa and opening it. "I am very thankful that through the blessings of providence I have more than usual in my little store; I wish I could assist you more—" Mrs. Goodhart tapped him on the shoulder. He acknowledged her touch by an inclination of the head but continued firmly. "I do most sincerely wish it. You need not hesitate to accept, I am well provided for; my home is ample, my garden fruitful. My life is not so busyperhaps I should more properly say not so hurried as it

once was."

Mr. Dennis O'Hara accepted the proffered bank-note. Perhaps when he had first seen the simple treasure box the brutal fire had flashed in his eyes again, but they were wet with tears now.