T

"LOOKING OUT OF THE WINDOW."

HE child was the first to speak, thus breaking the long silence of the afternoon. But she only uttered a few unintelligible words, and then went off to sleep with her chubby little hand lying gracefully across her forehead. She had been sitting in the middle of the floor, playing with a very dilapidated grey horse which, obedient to her commands, went along rather unsteadily on three wheels. The horse had finally lost his equilibrium, and in falling over had injured himself to the extent of breaking off one of his very pointed wooden ears, - a loss which did not tend to improve his already dishevelled appearance. The "Professor," who was sitting at a desk in one corner of the room, looked around and, with a peculiar smile upon his face, folded his overcoat and placed it gently under the child's head. The horse, too, received a share of his attention, and, taking him over to the desk where he looked strangely incongruous among the scientific books and manuscripts, the "Professor" devoted his time to repairing his broken ear and touching him up in general.

They called him the "Professor" partly out of courtesy, partly out of custom, and partly because of his kind, finelooking face. He had been a professor once, a long time ago, so many years ago that the present generation of students at the University knew almost nothing about him. They only saw occasionally an old, white-haired man walking about the college grounds and trying to amuse a sad-eyed, thoughtful little girl. And so quickly does the mind of youth turn from one thing to another that they did not see the pathetic side of it, or if they noticed it at all, they hastened to think of something brighter and more interesting. And so, gradually, he had passed out of the life of the University. He knew that he was part of its past history, and that as such he was really part of the University now. No decree of the Faculty or the Corporation could deprive him of this. But he knew also, and this was a sadder thought, that they called him "half crazy," and that younger men had taken the place he used to fill. But he did not care so much. He had the memories of the old days to console him, and these were very pleasant. Yet there were some things he could not recollect, try as he would, and in a great many things his ideas were different, he feared, from the ideas of other men.

"I wish I could buy Marjorie a new toy," he said, as he critically surveyed the horse he had been mending. Somehow the ink spots he had been putting on with his pen looked anything but lifelike. It was really a very dilapidated toy. "The strangest part of it all," he reflected, "is that she does not seem to mind. But I'd like to get her something new to brighten up her life. But it's not much use thinking of that. I'll never be rich. It isn't the men who think in this world who get rich, and I don't go about things in the right way, I know."

He put the horse back where he had found it, at Marjorie's side, and then he took one of the big dusty books down from the bookshelf in the corner. But he did not read long; his mind reverted to the same subject, to the little girl who was sleeping on the floor. "She ought to go to school, I suppose, and learn all the things they would teach her there. I know that I can't teach her; I haven't been able to teach myself yet. She ought to be taught to be a good, Christian little girl, so that when she grows up she may be like the rest of the world. It does not do to be different from the rest of the world, I find. I did wrong, of course, to refuse when her aunt proposed to send her. Her aunt was a good woman."

The "Professor" wiped his spectacles, and kept repeating the last sentence over and over again, as if trying to convince himself that such was really the case. He seemed to doubt it in spite of himself. His sister was a good woman in her way, he knew, but when she had proposed to send Marjorie to school he had not been able to let her go. He had felt that he did not want to have her taught what he himself did not believe. When he had spent his whole life in thought, trying to solve mysteries which the world considered that it had already solved, he did not want his daughter to believe as the world did just because the teacher said so, and afterwards taunt him, perhaps, for his own unbelief. But he had probably made a mistake. Anyway it was unfortunate that his sister had taken offence at what he had said.

And yet, he reflected, did not the lessons which he taught the girl, on his knee, over there by the big window, do her as much good as the things she would have learned at school? It could not be that he was doing wrong to teach her the strange fancies which came into his head sometimes. It was really a pleasure to him to say the old words which had become a sort of doctrine to him through association, as he sat by the window and watched the last dying rays of the sun, and the moon rising slowly in the sky. It would have been somewhat ridiculous, he thought, to have had his stern sister come in some day and listen to what he said.

Marjorie," he would say, "Do you know that way up there, where you see the stars twinkling, there lives a very lovely Fairy Queen? And whenever you do anything good the Queen puts it down in a golden book. But whenever you do anything bad," and here he would pucker up his face until the child would laugh because he looked so horrid "the King whittles a notch in a big stick which he carries in his hand."

Then he would go on describing the palace and the jewels, and the Queen's dress and the King's crown. After all, he thought, wasn't it as well that she should be taught these things, until she should be old enough to think for herself? Wasn't it better that she should learn to love such tales as these, loving them partly, he hoped, because it was he who told them? But it certainly would not have pleased her aunt.

The "Professor" had forgotten to light the lamp, but the moon shone full in at the window, straight upon the figure of the little girl. It had come all of a sudden from behind a cloud. The inrush of light disturbed her, and with an impatient yawn she awoke. The horse was standing by her side, and the kindly light of the moon made the "Professor's" improvements appear much greater than they really were. The child expressed her delight by running up to the old man and kissing him. Then she drew her horse slowly along the bright path which the moon had made upon the carpet, and when she reached the window the sight in the sky held her almost spellbound.

"Oh! Daddy!" she cried, "Come here! Do you think that is the King's face up there?"

The "Professor" looked up; he had not understood at first what she meant. But it was plain enough. The child had connected the familiar face in the moon with his story. He did not answer, however. Why should he spoil her childish fancy? Besides, her idea had started a train of thought. What Marjorie had said only brought home to him with greater clearness the distance over which he had yet to travel. His religion could be a fairy story to him no longer.

Raymond Sandford White.

T

"THE LAST FLOWER OF THE SALONS."

HERE are

many instances of the lack of dexterity displayed by Napoleon in his dealings with the great women of his day, and it is therefore not strange that he was as unsuccessful with Madame Récamier as the rest. The brusque figure of the First Consul contrasts unfavorably with the most delicate personality of France, but the matter must not be viewed too seriously, as it has its humorous side. It was publicly announced that all who visited Madame Récamier's salon would be considered as enemies of the government, and it is amusing to think of her receiving the dignified foreign ambassadors in her garden in order that they might not violate Napoleon's decree. There is a pretty story told of her early days that perhaps throws some light on this ungraceful hostility. A few years before, a large crowd had assembled in the Chamber of Deputies to see and admire the young Corsican general who was to be on exhibition at a certain hour. At the precise moment when the admiration should have been the most entense, all heads were suddenly turned to catch a glimpse of some one even more attractive than the first man of Europe. Madame Récamier, then only eighteen, had come to wonder with the rest, but was somewhat abashed to find herself the center of interest to a company that apparently preferred grace to strength. This is her first recorded triumph, but Napoleon, lacking a proper sense of humor, to say nothing of gallantry, was deeply offended, and though he afterwards made advances to gain her favor, he never really forgave her the kindly attentions her girlish beauty had at this time inspired.

Her charm was a purely personal one, and we sometimes find ourselves asking just what those traits were that could delight so critical an age, and make us look upon her as a figure nearly ideal. Though her surroundings were distinctively intellectual, she was herself possessed of no particular originality of mind; her only