Lie still! Lie still! Nay, do not rise,

Let this red hate in my hot eyes—

Ha! Ha! So! Through your coward throat
The water gurgles as you float .

There's something yonder drifting slow
And lifeless down; and sinking low
In blood, and seems to swirl around,
As if somebody had been drowned . . .

"What voice is this? This crest of snow?
It is it is my Idaho

Climbs wounded, weary from the wave,
As if from out an opened grave!

Take heart! Take heart! Take hold my hand!
Thy feet are on the solid land!

Thy face is lifted to my face!

And who shall now dispute the race?"

LILIES IN PRISON.

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

I AM going to tell a short story about my sister. I am a boy, and she isn't, and so we looked at it differently. When I say it, I mean this thing that the story is about. It is all settled now, and I was wrong, and she wasn't. I hate to be in the wrong, but I hate more to be mean. And I think it's mean not to own up when you are.

I've been thinking about it, and I thought the best way to own up I could think of, would be to tell the story. This thing we looked at differently I spoke of wasn't much. It was nothing but a parcel of flowers, and it was more than a year ago. It was last June. They grow in a great bed behind our house. They are lilies of the valley, and you always know it's June by their getting along so far.

So then. Day is a queer girl. She isn't like all the other girls. She's pretty as she can live, and she's jolly as time, and she isn't the kind of good you see in Sundayschool books, that slumps through and dies. Then all the poor folks cry at her funeral-in the book. Daisy's fond of poor people too; all sorts of rag-tag and bob-tails. I don't approve of it. I don't like the society she keeps. But she's so jolly you can't say much. She's a hand to carry on, I can tell you, when she feels like it.

Now the time I speak of, my sister came in one day. Father and I were discussing politics in the library. Day, she came in from the garden, and she had on a white dress, and her straw hat, and her hands were just heaped with those lilies I told you of. It was a pleasant day. She came and stood in the door, and I and father stopped talking politics to look at her.

"Father?" said Day. She always speaks up like that when she speaks his name, as if she were asking him a question. "Father, I want to go to Wenham Prison." "What?" says father. "I want to carry some lilies of the valley to Wenham Prison," said Daisy. "I want to give them to the poor men. We have more than we can possibly use. I can go in the noon train, and be back to tea. Have you any objections, sir? May I go?" "Certainly not," said I. I didn't wait for father. I was so kind of shocked and mad with Day. But father paid no more attention to me than if I'd been a grasshopper candidating for town clerk. He just sat and looked at Daisy. "Aren't you afraid, my dear?" he said. "They are pretty rough men." "Oh no, sir," said Daisy. "I am not afraid." "Do you suppose they will care for your flowers?" asked father. But he spoke low, kind of, and lower. "Oh yes, sir," said Daisy. "I am sure they'll care. "They'll

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make fun of you!" said I, I was so mad. "Be still, sir!" said father, like a shot. And my gracious! when I looked at him, I saw father was most ready to cry-if he hadn't been a man-two real, genuine no-mistake tears in his eyes, for looking at Daisy. And he said, "Come here, my daughter," and he kissed her, and he said, "Go and take your flowers to the poor fellows, Daisy, and Heaven bless you!" and then he said no more about it.

But I couldn't stand it, don't you see? for I never did agree with Day about those things; and I thought this wasn't proper; none the other fellows' sisters did it, so I up and said I wished Day was like other girls, and I thought it was disreputable going to prison and places. "You do keep such disgraceful company, Daisy!" said I. Then my father turned on me, and he looked like thunder-and he says to me, Robert!" (my name is Bob). "You will put

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on your hat and accompany your sister to Wenham, and take care of her till she gets back, and if I know of your saying one breathing word to make her uncomfortable, I'LL TAKE AWAY YOUR POCKET-MONEY FOR SIX MONTHS!"

But Daisy didn't seem to care. She only looked at me as if she'd been trying not to laugh; the way she looked once when I was a little boy and told her I wanted a Bible, one Sunday, with the Hypocrisy in it. I meant the Apocrypha, and she thought she wouldn't hurt my feelings. So she never laughed and never got mad; she only just stood there with her lilies, and not one of 'em looked sweeter than my sister, if she does keep such society. We call 'em Daisy's "set," all the scalawags she looks after. And when we went to the train that day (for I had to go), I called back to mother, "Daisy's going into society! You ought to come to matronize her. Daisy and I are going to make our" (de-e-how do you spell it? D-a-)

(Daisy's day-boo is what I wish to say.) But Day only laughed, and mother never said anything (she never does), and father wasn't round. "The select circle of Prison Point!" said I. "I hope they won't snub us."

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Now Day ought to have snubbed me, but she didn't; only pretty soon when I was most across the road my father overtook us, and he said, "My son, your sister keeps a kind of society the rest of us might be glad to keep at the Judgment Day. Daisy won't be ashamed of her 'set' then," says father. And so then he went to the station with us, and he gave Day a letter of introduction to the warden, and then he said good-by as if she'd been going to heaven instead of to prison, and so we started off and went, I as mad as mad (but I didn't durst show it on account of father), and Day as sweet and still as if she'd been a live lily herself.

For all Day had on her traveling clothes, which were so plain and modest, yet she seemed to grow whiter and whiter-maybe she was a mite scared-when we came nearer to the prison; and before we got there, which was the whitest, she or the lilies, nobody could have said, and a great many people looked at her.

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Well, and so we went on, and we came to the prison. And it was very large and dark. And they let us in. And the warden kind of smiled over my father's letter. And he looked at Daisy, and he looked at the flowers, and he said, There are four hundred and seventy pretty rough, bad men in this place, miss. Do you think they will care for your flowers?" May I try and see, sir?" said Daisy. "I've no objections," said the warden. He was a big man. But he spoke in a soft voice. So he let us in. went together.

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But I went ahead of my sister to protect her.

And we all

And tho

And he walked beside Day,
And Daisy kept hold of her

warden asked how old I was. close beside her, all the way. flowers. And all the men were coming out of dinner. So the warden let us stand on a pair of stairs and look down at 'em. So they filed along, four hundred and seventy of ’em—and Day, she leaned and looked at 'em. Day has such a pitiful way with her, it's enough to break your heart. I never knew a girl look so. And she clung on to the flowers. But one dropped. And a beastlylooking fellow, it hit him on the forehead, and he looked up, and there he saw my sister looking over—and the flowers. And he had red hair. And he stood and looked up. But that made the other men take notice. My gracious! what a lot they were, you never saw! And they all began to look up.

So Day she curled up and pulled back, and we walked on, and the warden too. And he never laughed at her. I was afraid he would. I had felt ashamed. Nor the redheaded prisoner didn't laugh. He picked up the flower. And we all went on. Well; and so then they went to their cells, some of 'em, and some to work. And the warden took us to the cells. And Day walked in ahead. She wasn't a mite afraid.

There was a chap there in for murder-had tried to kill the keeper, too, last week. Day gave him flowers first of all. You never saw a chap look as that chap did.. I didn't know but he'd strike somebody, he was so confounded. But he said, "Thank you, ma'am," like a gentleman.

So we went from cell to cell, and my sister gave away her lilies of the valley to the prisoners. I felt kind of mean. They didn't laugh at her. They treated her as if she'd been an angel come from heaven, and they all