In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound, his finger closed in the unread prayer-book.

The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight and after nightfall Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be with it enough.

One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he merely noticed it casually: but at length the plant grew so tall, and was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he examined it with

care.

How straight and graceful and exquisite it was When it swung to and fro with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little Anglice were standing there in the garden!

!

The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what sort of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face

like a sailor's, leaned over the garden rail, and

said to him:

"What a fine young date-palm you have there, sir!"

"Mon Dieu!" cried Père Antoine, "and is it a palm?"

"I had no

"Yes, indeed," returned the man. idea the tree would flourish in this climate."

"Mon Dieu!" was all the priest could say. If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He watered it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were Emile and Anglice and the child, all in one!

The years flew by, and the date palm and the priest grew, together-only one became vigorous and the other feeble. Père Antoine had long passed the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in an isolated garden; for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. But he clung to it, and refused to sell.

Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he laughed none the less.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile.

Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit under the pliant, caressing leaves of his tree, and there he sat till the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Père Antoine was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harm the date-tree.

And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may the hand wither that touches her ungently.

"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, tenderly.

A WORD FOR THE TOWN.

A City Idyl.

ORYDON may neglect his flock, if he will, and burst an oaten pipe for Phillida, if he wants to; Amyntas may lie on a sunny hill-side in Arcady if such is his pleasure, and bake himself as brown as a bun; but as for me, I will have none of

the country.

The country is rainy and muddy in spring, hot and dusty in summer, and unendurable in winter. It is true, there is a bit of Indian summer, run in parenthetically, at the close of the year. And this is is pleasant, providing you have bright com

pany, picturesque scenery, and the prospect of returning to town before Nature begins her annual world-cleaning and whitewashing.

But when the autumnal pageant has passed; when the ochre and crimson, and chocolate-colored leaves are rotting under foot; when the trees about the house shiver and moan in the twilight, like rheumatic old ladies; when the wind whistles down the chimney, and up your coat-sleeves; when you can no longer walk with Mademoiselle Sylvia in the moonlight; when, in short, the Indian summer has gone off in a whiff, then it is time for you to be out of the country. You should not linger there for winter to tuck you up under its white coverlid.

But the Town!

Ay, that is the place not for a day, but for all time. That we have rain and mud in spring, and wretched snow in winter, is not to be denied; but then we have sidewalks, and Amaryllis is particu larly tempting during these periods. The grace, care, and coquettishness with which she keeps her