and held firmly together by cement.  Nothing could have reproduced so exactly the rough reddish stone of which the old Sleepy Hollow Church is built.  The window-glass is represented by carefully framed pieces of tin foil; the gray stone of the gate-posts is imitated by sand rubbed on wooden pillars with a coating of cement.  The streets are paved in much the same clever fashion.  The well, the pond, the stream, are filled with water each day by the chatelaine’s own careful hands.  Many of the mimic creatures, human and otherwise, are automata, manufactured to order; the others are wooden or china figures selected with extreme care as to their fitness for their purpose.  So rare and so exceedingly pretty are some of these little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and now a person is employed to live in the cottage just beyond us, and do little else than take care of these unique possessions.

“No, you need not start.  The woman is probably there at her post, and surveying our operations from time to time.  But we have behaved like decent people.  We are taking away nothing but a remembrance of a singularly interesting hour, and an admiring impression of the originality, the ingenuity, the industry, and the independence of one of our own sex.

“Is it not so, my friend?  And now, by the length of those cedar shadows, it is time for us to rise up and be gone.  Else the moonlight will have met and parted with the sunset ere we reach home.”

There was nothing to be said; the tale had been told, and with one last, lingering glance, one parting smile, half amused, half touched, I rose, and together we walked home in somewhat pensive mood.  Was it not our last day in Fairyland?—­Kate J. Hill.

* * * * *

WINE AND KISSES.

TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF MIRTSA SCHAFFY.

  The lover may be shy—­
  His bashfulness goes by
        When first he kisses.

  The bibber, though so staid,
  Gets bravely unafraid
        When wine his bliss is.

  Yet he who, in his youth,
    No wine nor kiss hath tasted. 
  Will some day think, in truth,
    That half his joys were wasted.

—­Joel Benton.

* * * * *

I have heard it asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified praise:  of the living, always with certain reservations.  It may be answered, because we have nothing to fear from the former, while the latter may stand in our way:  so impure is our boasted solicitude for the memory of the dead.  If it were the sacred and earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and animate our intercourse with the living.—­Goethe.

THE QUEEN’S CLOSET.