flowerlike charms. She was very slight, and the beauty of her lips and eyes both haunted and saddened. Every-day folk said she must be delicate; understanding spirits admired and mourned; for the soul that looked out of this girl's dainty, thin body was a hungry and a melancholy soul, a soul that dumbly asked and craved, a sort of soul that seldom finds a mate, yet cannot live happily without one. Honorine wore black, and her hair, uncovered, rose in a dark aureole upon her head. In the midst was a tortoise-shell comb, silver-fretted.

"He is here!" she cried suddenly; and as she spoke a man hastened down the

street.

Hyacinthe Corbetta had come that he might renew a legend set forth on the wall of Laure Vilhon's home. Time had defaced the information, and it became necessary to remind the world that here was a grocer's shop.

"Bonjour! Bonjour, madame; bonjour, mademoiselle! I am late - I am always late; but you must forgive me. Last night I did not sleep for thinking of the best colors; and just at daylight I thought of them. They came with the sun out of the sea. Then I went to sleep. I shall paint in scarlet, like the pomegranate flower, and in black,—deep, shining black, like your eyes, Madame Vilhon!"

"A lot of fuss about nothing! I want none of your flourishes and nonsense,just big letters, like it was before, that you can see from the end of the street; and be quick about it, too."

Laure rose from her stool, shook the charcoal from her brazier into the gutter, and then entered the house, while the man prepared his colors and set about retracing certain letters upon the wall. Honorine stood and talked to him. Her face had changed since his arrival. The furtive sadness was gone; her sallow skin had flushed; she looked healthier, and her eyes shone. A curious likeness existed between Hyacinthe and the girl. He was half an Italian, and lived with his father

at the village of Grimaldi over the border. Feebleness of disposition and love of beauty were his characteristics. He had a handsome face, with moist, mournful eyes. His beard was dressed into two little points that separated like the prongs of a hayfork, and he was very careful of it. Honorine called him an artist, and he claimed that proud name for himself. But few granted it to him. His business was painting of signs and the little wooden memorials of the dead. Sometimes he painted pictures, also. He had a great, untutored zest for color; but he could not draw, and futile sentimentality marked his efforts. Only his Italian mother had liked them, and he buried three of his best pictures in her coffin when she died.

If ever by blissful chance kindred souls were thrown together, it was when Hyacinthe found Honorine. Like the twin shoots of a bryony, they were built by nature to wind together and struggle on life's brief journey, locked, linked, supported in each other's arms.

Honorine loved the weak man with her whole heart, and thought him strong. He made sad little rhymes for her, and read them aloud. In secret they sat sometimes with their long, brown fingers laced together, and sighed tenderly at their beautiful world. He was very ill-informed, but he loved to talk, and she loved to listen. She believed in him, and nobody else did.

"Is the mother out of earshot?" he asked presently, under his breath. Honorine nodded.

He proceeded with his work, and black letters began to stare crudely upon the rich tones of the wall.

"How horrid it looks!" he said; "but when I have lifted it up with scarlet behind you will like it better."

"It is the things, not the words I hate," she answered. "To live with the smell of food in the nostrils; the eternal scent of oil and wine, and tobacco and dried fish!"

Berceau? Say yes; say yes; and I will make a rhyme out of the noise of the men in the trees. They are hard at work now, knocking down the olives. Every tree rustles as though a giant sauterelle sat in it and made merry music."

"What a poet you are! My mother goes to Menton to-morrow, and I must be in the shop."

"On Friday, then?"

"Very well; on Friday."

Hyacinthe soon made an end of his work when Honorine left him. Presently the full advertisement

COMESTIBLES, VINS ET TABAC,

thrown up with scarlet paint, flamed upon the wall, and Madame Vilhon was invited to come out of the house and criticise.

She nodded ungraciously.

"You can read it," she said. "Give Corbetta a drink of wine, Honorine, and let him go."

After he had eaten and drunk, set some tall arundo stems before the fresh paint, to keep off passers-by, and whispered the word "Friday" to Honorine, Hyacinthe departed. He did not sing until out of earshot of Castellar; but as soon as he found himself on a mountain track, alone, Hyacinthe lifted up a fine voice and caroled a Neapolitan love song with many an operatic gesture and sentimental shake.

II

Hyacinthe and Honorine were mountain children both, and best they loved to meet on the high ground where olive and lemon yielded to a hardier vegetation: where the juniper flourished; where the oak and the Aleppo pine prospered, and lavender and lentiscus spread a fragrant mantle upon the middle slopes of the hills. Hither climbed Honorine to the familiar meeting-place, and sat with her back against a little empty sheep-fold that stood perched above the pine woods.

Dawn feasted on this scene, and twilight lingeringly left it. Far beneath, in gentle undulations like gray smoke, the

olive orchards spread, and the lemons made a brighter green in the glades where they grew; but the terraces of the vine were still naked, and stretched bare in patches and streaks amid the evergreen trees. Winding roads threaded the orchards and forests; a red roof sometimes stood beside them above white walls; and the air bathed everything with sunny mist and softened detail, so that this vision of minor hills melted into itself. Though far nearer, it appeared less distinct and clearcut of outline than the mountains, that sprang and towered and jutted jaggedly in peaks and turrets of scorched stone above it to the sky.

Honorine's sharp eyes could count the windows of Castellar far below, where the hamlet clustered at the apex of a cone of green. Then she turned to the shimmering sea, outspread like cloth of gold, and watched the wake of a steamer, and thought of those that traveled in the ship. Menton shrank to its just proportions and significance, thus seen. At least, so thought the girl. The town dazed and bewildered her when she sought it, passed through the streets and pleasure gardens, heard the blare of the music and the babble of strange languages. But from this uplifted spot, where she sat enthroned in myrtle and wild thyme, the place assumed an aspect very agreeable to her mind. Its stress and tribulation were hidden by distance; its noise was still; she could think of all the sorrow there without sighing; she could look at the cemetery -Menton's crown of human graves and feel that those tombs all scooped out of yellow sand were properly placed upon the very forehead of the town, since death is the end of grief and joy alike, and the inevitable terminus and goal of every earthly road.

"Hyacinthe," said she, as he appeared and flung himself beside her, "here in this mountain nest I am like God, and look down at all things, and judge all, and forgive all. When God's eye falls upon Menton, He must see the poor little graves first; so He forgives."

"When you say these mournful things I feel I feel; but remember what I have told you. You must look up at the mountains, not down upon the graves. A grave is a small thing; a mountain is a big one. I get my beautiful thoughts from the blue shadows that fall off the shoulders of the hills after noon. See how they sweep along! - like a king passing, and his purple fluttering after him."

"And the sea is bigger still," she answered, “bigger still and more wonderful to me. In sunshine or mistral, when she shows her teeth, it is all one. When she is smooth I know she will be cruel again; and when she is wicked I say, 'to-morrow to-morrow she will go to sleep and smile like a baby."

"All ours all this great earth," he said, "our very own to the last ray of sunlight."

“And love and contentment with it?" "No," he answered. "Love-not contentment. Not contentment while there is love and we are apart. What is all the world to me if you are not in my arms?"

"I had it on my lips to say that we were engaged when you went away last week; but I am a coward, Hyacinthe. I am horribly frightened of my mother."

66

‘And an orange hat with a black ball at the top. If I could but think of a dress for you!"

"I should love to wear it; only my mother would not let me go. She has no room for laughter or happiness in her days."

"Happiness is the poetry of life. Your mother is all prose to her flat, ugly feet, and I hate her."

"You must not hate her."

"I love her for bringing you into the world. I forgive everything else for that. But we shall have to run away, Honorine. It will end so."

She liked to hear him hint at such an adventure, but knew, as well as he knew himself, that Hyacinthe could no more run away with her than he could run away with the last granite pinnacle of Le Berceau.

"Brave lover!" she said.

"All the same, I wish you would tell

again.

"Why does your mother not like me?" "Because you are a man. She hates them all. She was very unhappy. My father did not love her much."

woman will take the matter of love."

"You never know; but if you are a woman yourself, you always feel how she will. But she shall hear to-night."

"Tell her that I am a man of iron, and

"When I am up here, I am brave, and I say, 'to-night she shall know.' Then I go down the hill again, and the fire in my mother's eyes soon withers up my poor heart, and I run before her like a mouse.' "Shall I come and tell her?"

"That would be to kill the last hope." "Then do you. Carnival begins next week. You must ask to go with me, and tell her that we mean to be married."

"She will rage horribly. I cannot think what awful fury would fall upon her."

"I am going in black, with orange stars splashed about me, and an orange mask. It will be a wonderful dress. My fat cousin, Giacinta, has made it for me.”

fall into a terrible rage if I am denied. And pray about it with all your might. Break the news to your mother at six o'clock, and when you are telling her, think of me on my knees in our little church at Grimaldi. I will pray as I have never prayed before."

She nodded through tears.

"And you like the thought of my black and orange?"

She nodded again, and spoke.

"It will stand for death and gold,the things that will part us; because I shall die if I may not marry you, and it is because you are so poor that my mother will say no."

"An artist is never poor."

"And never rich; but I promise that I will speak to-night at six o'clock."

They made love then, and built castles higher than the clouds. He would some day paint such pictures as the world had seldom seen; she would inspire them, her spirit would make his painted seas bluer than the sapphire, and set his mountains and valleys and forests throbbing with the very pulse of nature and of life.

At last, after futile farewells, which only found them again and again in each other's arms, Honorine set bravely off, ran down into the pine woods, and vanished. He sang to her while she went; then, when he knew that she was beyond sound of his voice, he ceased and turned along the hill terraces and passed eastward to Grimaldi.

Two hours later he knelt and prayed with his whole soul, and endured an ecstasy of devotion. But at Castellar, in the shop that smelt of comestibles mingled, Honorine, having confessed the truth, stared terrified at her parent's wrath, and presently fled before it.

"That thing! That half-baked, forkbearded Italian! Go to the lunatic asylum for your husband! I would rather see you buried than married to Corbetta. Never never mention his name

never

"Come into the house and drop this foolery for a few minutes," said Laure. "Take off your mask and listen to me. If I see you in Castellar again, I shall set the men upon you."

"On me on me! What have I done? Never have I hurt man, woman, or child. I am a harmless artist, Madame Vilhon. I am only busy with beautiful things. "You are busy with my daughter, and that is why I am angry.”

"Oh, Mother of God, soften her woman's heart; make it young again; teach her to remember the first kiss of her husband, so that she may understand and be kind to Honorine," implored Hyacinthe. He prayed till he moved himself to tears; then he rose hopefully and went to his cottage.

III

Three days later Laure Vilhon saddled her mule and solemnly rode by a rocky path to Grimaldi. She arrived in time to meet Hyacinthe just setting forth for Carnival. He wore the black and orange, and walked up and down for a while in the tiny street, that his neighbors might admire him before he started for Menton.

never. If she marries you, she will have not a penny. Therefore give her up for good. Here is your money for painting my sign. And here is a note for a hundred francs. I will give you that note if you will be a good man and promise faithfully to make no more love to Honorine."

"I implore you to let me marry Honorine, madame!"

"I am a stone in the matter. It is enough that I will never consent." "You have told her so?"

"I have."

"Does she resign herself to fate, madame?"

"She is obedient. She will not marry anybody, I hope. It is a vile state for a woman."

"An artist ought to be married."

"Will you take these hundred francs? You can forget this passing disappointment in the joy of making a good picture. Women are all alike, and one's as good or bad as another."

"You will never change?"
"Never!"

The sound of a brass band came up from below faintly.

"They have started from the fountain. I shall have to run to overtake them. My heart will break."

She held out the note, and he took it. "My life is ruined, but I have my art," he said. Then he leaped up, caught his hat and mask, and prepared to hurry down through the olive terraces to the road beneath.

Chance, however, changed his enterprise. Among the trees a woman crouched, and she was picking up the purple olivefruit with both hands as fast as she could do so.

Hyacinthe recognized his cousin, and she stood up and clapped her hands to see her work of black and orange flashing through the shadows and flaming as the sun touched it.

"You have come that I may see you before you go. How good of you! Who would have been so kind as that but you?" she asked.

Hyacinthe did not undeceive her. He stood before her, and looked at her with new eyes. Until that day she had been as a sister; now he regarded her as a possible wife, and the point of view was so novel that he felt quite shy.

Giacinta was a broad and deep-bosomed woman, with round cheeks, a pretty nose, and a big, laughing mouth. She was never angry, never weary, never unduly elated or cast down. She had a fine physical presence, and lacked much imagination.

"You are a very kind and nice girl, Giacinta," said Hyacinthe. "I have come to you to pity me. Madame Vilhon has been here, and she will not let me marry her daughter. She is made of iron."

"The French do not care for us to

marry their daughters, or their sons either. Besides, you are dreadfully poor, Hyacinthe. If you were rich, Madame Vilhon might have felt differently."

"My heart, of course, is broken. I have only my art. I am going to paint a great picture. It will be painted with my life's blood. And Honorine will suffer, too. I know that."

He sat down and began to pick up the olives and put them into her basket.

"Don't!" she said. "I don't like to see you. It is woman's work."

'An artist is man, woman, and child, rolled up in one skin."

"Then he does n't want a wife and children so much as other men, perhaps?"

"More more. He must have them. They are necessary to him part of his education. Come and sit here and let me hold your hand, Giacinta. How shall I live without her Honorine ?"

"There are other women.'

"What do you think of me, Giacinta?" "You are a wonderful man, Hyacinthe. I look up to you, and am proud to be your relation."

"I am wonderful, as you say, but an artist never knows how wonderful he is." "Your pictures are so splendid! They dazzle people with their brightness."

"I believe they are splendid, Giacinta." "You know very well they are, Hyacinthe."

"I cannot tell. A butterfly never sees its own wings. Yet I 'm glad you like my pictures. You may have a sleeping soul, Giacinta."

"We all have souls, Hyacinthe."

"Yes, but the immortal spark is often no more than a red-hot cinder that never breaks into flame. Your soul smoulders; it is nothing. Honorine's spirit burnt with a clear and radiant light."

"I am not clever only a lump of a girl. I have no ideas like Honorine.”

"I knew something was going to happen to me to-day," he said gloomily. "There was a thunderstorm last night. Le Berceau cradled the lightning. Poets are born at such moments. Giacinta, I