see my friend and neighbor, Robert Dinnerly. He's a sensible man-his wife's a little prig.

"Oh, Mr. Dinnerly," cried Miss Milton, "how funny that you should come just now! I was just trying to remember the name of a man Mrs. Dinnerly told me about. I was telling Mr. Carter about him. You

know him."

"Well, Miss Milton, perhaps I do. Describe him."' "I don't believe Annie ever told me his name, but she was talking about him at our house yesterday. "But I wasn't there, Miss Milton." "No," said Miss Milton, "but he's got the next place to yours in the country."

I positively leapt from my seat.

"Why, good gracious, Carter himself, you mean!" cried Dinnerly, laughing. "Well, that is a good 'un— ha-ha-ha!"

She turned a stony glare on me.

"Do you live next to Mr. Dinnerly in the country?" she asked.

I would have denied it if Dinnerly had not been there. As it was I blew my nose.

"I wonder," said Miss Milton, "what has become of Aunt Emily."

"Miss Milton," said I, "by a happy chance you have enjoyed a luxury. You have told the man what you think of him."

"Yes," said she; "and I have only to add that he is also a hypocrite."

Pleasant, wasn't it? Yet Mrs. Hilary says it was my fault! That's a woman all over!

"Doctor Faustus." By CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

A

H, Faustus,

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day: or let this hour be but

A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente, currite, noctis equi!

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd!
Oh, I'll leap up to my God!-Who pulls me down?-
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop! ah, my
Christ!-

Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet will I call on Him: Oh, spare me, Lucifer!-
Where is it now? 'tis gone! and see, where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
No, no!

Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Earth, gape: Oh, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,

My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven!

(The clock strikes the half-hour.) Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon.

O God,

If Thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,

Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;

Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
Oh, no end is limited to damnèd souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?

Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,

Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
(The clock strikes twelve.)
Oh, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!

(Thunder and lightning.) Oh, soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,

And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!

[Enter Devils.]

My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!-Ah, Mephistophilis!

[Exeunt Devils with Faustus.

Tale of The Attendant of Orestes.

O'

By SOPHOCLES.

He is dead. I will tell all as

it happened. He then journeyed forth to those great games which Hellas counts her pride, to join the Delphic contests; and he heard the herald's voice, with loud and clear command, proclaim, as coming first, the chariot race: and so he entered radiant, every eye admiring as he passed. And in the race he equalled all the promise of his form in those his rounds, and so with noblest prize of conquest left the ground. And, summing up in fewest words what many scarce could tell, I know of none in strength and act like him; but one thing know, for having won the prize in all the five-fold forms of race which they, the umpires, had proclaimed for those that ran the ground's whole length and back, he then was hailed, proclaimed an Argive, and his name Orestes, his son who once led Hellas' glorious host, the mighty Agamemnon. So far well. But when a God will injure, none can 'scape, strong though he be. For lo! another day, when, as the sun was rising, came the race swiftfooted, of the chariot and the horse, he entered there, with many charioteers; one an Achæan, one from Sparta, two from Libya, who with four-horsed chariots came, and he with these, with swift Thessalian mares, came as the fifth; a sixth with bright bay colts came from Ætolia; and the seventh was born in far Magnesia; and the eighth, by race an Ænian, with white horses, and the ninth from Athens came, the city built of God; last, a Boeotian, tenth in order, came, and made the list complete. And so they stood-when the appointed umpires fixed by lot, and placed the cars in

order; and with sound of brazen trump they started. Cheering all their steeds at once, they shook the reins, and then the course was filled with all the clash and din of rattling chariots, and the dust rose high; and all commingled, sparing not the goad, that each might pass his neighbour's axle-trees, and horses' hot, hard breathings; for their backs and chariot-wheels were white with foam, and still the breath of horses smote them; and he, come just where the last stone marks the course's goal, turning the corner sharp, and, letting go the right hand trace-horse, pulled the nearer in; and so at first the chariots keep their course; but then the unbroken colts the Enian owned rush at full speed, and, turning headlong back, just as they closed their sixth round or their seventh, dash their heads right against the chariot wheels of those who came from Barkè. And from thence, from that one shock, each on the other crashed, they fell o'erturned, and Crissa's spacious plain was filled with wreck of chariots. Then the man from Athens, skilled and wily charioteer, seeing the mischief, turns his steed aside, at anchor rides, and leaves the whirling surge of man and horse thus raging. Last of all, keeping his steeds back, waiting for the end, Orestes came. And when he sees him left, his only rival, then, with shaken rein, urging his colts, he follows, and they twain drove onward, both together, by a head, now this, now that, their chariots gaining ground; and all the other rounds in safety passed. Upright in upright chariot still he stood, illstarred one; then the left rein letting loose just as his horse was turning, unawares he strikes the furthest pillar, breaks the spokes right at his axle's centre, and slips down from out his chariot, and is dragged along,