Till the formal speeches ended, and amidst the laugh and wine

Some one spoke of Concha's lover, heedless of the warning sign.

Quickly then cried Sir George Simpson: "Speak no ill of him, I pray.

He is dead. He died, poor fellow, forty years ago this day.

'Died while speeding home to Russia, falling from a fractious horse.

Left a sweetheart too, they tell me. Married, I sup

pose, of course!

"Lives she yet?" A death-like silence fell on banquet, guests, and hall,

And a trembling figure rising fixed the awe-struck gaze of all.

Two black eyes in darkened orbits gleamed beneath the nun's white hood;

Black serge hid the wasted figure, bowed and stricken where it stood.

"Lives she yet?" Sir George repeated. All were

hushed as Concha drew

Closer yet her nun's attire. "Señor, pardon, she died

too!"

Bret Harte.

Sangamon, the River, Ill.

THE

THE PAINTED CUP.

fresh savannas of the Sangamon.

Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the painted cup.

Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not
That these bright chalices were tinted thus
To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet
On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers,
And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up,
Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,

The faded fancies of an elder world;

But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths
Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds
To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns
The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind
O'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour
A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant,
To swell the reddening fruit that even now
Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope.

But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well, -
Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers,
Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves,

Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone,
Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown
And ruddy with the sunshine, let him come
On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,
And part with little hands the spiky grass;
And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge
Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew.
William Culien Bryant.

San Joaquin, Cal.

THE WONDERFUL SPRING OF SAN JOAQUIN.

OF

all the fountains that poets sing, —
Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring;
Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth;
Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth;
In short, of all the springs of Time
That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,

There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.

Anno Domini Eighteen-Seven,

Father Dominguez (now in heaven,

Obiit Eighteen twenty-seven)

Found the spring, and found it, too,

By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
For his beast a descendant of Balaam's ass-
Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.

The Padre thought the omen good,
And bent his lips to the trickling flood;
Then, as the chronicles declare,

On the honest faith of a true believer, His cheeks, though wasted, lank, and bare, Filled like a withered russet-pear

In the vacuum of a glass receiver,

And the snows that seventy winters bring Melted away in that magic spring.

Such, at least, was the wondrous news
The Padre brought into Santa Cruz.
The Church, of course, had its own views
Of who were worthiest to use

The magic spring; but the prior claim
Fell to the aged, sick, and lame.

Far and wide the people came :
Some from the healthful Aptos creek
Hastened to bring their helpless sick;
Even the fishers of rude Soquel

Suddenly found they were far from well;
The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo
Said, in fact, they had never been so:
And all were ailing,

strange to say,

From Pescadero to Monterey.

Over the mountain they poured in
With leathern bottles, and bags of skin;
Through the cañons a motley throng
Trotted, hobbled, and limped along.
The fathers gazed at the moving scene

With pious joy and with souls serene;

And then

a result perhaps foreseen

They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin.

Not in the eyes of Faith alone

The good effects of the waters shone;
But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear,
Of rough vacquero and muleteer;
Angular forms were rounded out,

Limbs grew supple, and waists grew stout;
And as for the girls, for miles about
They had no equal! To this day,

From Pescadero to Monterey,

You'll still find eyes in which are seen
The liquid graces of San Joaquin.

There is a limit to human bliss,

And the Mission of San Joaquin had this:
None went abroad to roam or stay,
But they fell sick in the queerest way,
A singular maladie du pays,

With gastric symptoms: so they spent
Their days in a sensuous content;
Caring little for things unseen

Beyond their bowers of living green,-
Beyond the mountains that lay between
The world and the Mission of San Joaquin.

Winter passed, and the summer came:
The trunks of madroño all aflame,
Here and there through the underwood