years as a dog follows his master, and you have treated me as if I were a dog. You have driven me from you with scorn, and you have sneered at my love. If you do so this time, I will use this paper: I will I swear it!"

A shot might have struck Cleve Preston, he started so. She did not love this man, and never had! But the same dark question, with its same unanswered mystery, haunted him still.

For a little while now he could hear nothing but a confused murmur; the night-wind carried away the sound of their voices. Presently he heard Brownlow again:

"What if your brother was intoxicated when he did it? I tell you the law does not admit that as an excuse."

Cleve heard no more. He could see that the girl was speaking in hot, angry tones, and that the man seemed cowed by her manner; but he could distinguish not a word. In another moment, something especially harsh and cutting must have been said, for Brownlow uttered a fierce oath, raised his arm an instant as if to strike, then turned, and without once looking back, strode rapidly towards his horse.

Cleve came out from the shadow of the oak, and took one step in the direction of the grove where Margaret was still standing; but the sound of the clattering of horse's hoofs in a mad gallop stopped him suddenly. A horrible fear came upon him. Every inch of that steep, precipitous road was known to him; if that mad fool in his blind passion kept on at that rate of speed, certain death would be the result. Already in his mind he saw that proud, spirited horse rearing and plunging in the darkness where the leaf-strewn ground was slippery. The thought came to him that he and Margaret had sent this man to a dreadful death; and his very lips turned white and quivered.

But he might not be too late yet; that thought gave him hope and strength. He waved his hand without uttering a word towards Margaret, who had seen him, and was watching his movements with a look of the utmost surprise and wonder upon her white, tearstained face. Then plunging through the hedge, he dashed at a run along a little by-path that intersected the road near the ravine, into whose rocky depths he had gazed tremblingly such a little while ago. He felt the mists cling to him and chill him as he entered the shadow of the forest. Some startled crows flew up and away, cawing above the trees; then it was so still that he heard a pine-cone dropping in the bushes. On he ran and soon came to the road. He was too late. Not far away in front of him he could see Fred moving at fearful speed, and plunging the spurs into his horse at every stride. At every step they were nearing the narrow part of the road that winds along the top of the ravine, and yet their speed was not for an instant slackened. A moment more, and they had turned

a curve and were out of sight.

What next occurred Cleve never afterwards could tell. He remembers a cry, borne faintly on the breeze, and a dull sound as of a large body falling heavily to the ground, but nothing more until he stood on the edge of the ravine, where he had seen the twilight blackening only a few hours before.

For a moment he looked down; then he turned, followed a footpath that wound steeply down the rocks, and came at last to the bottom. The horse had fallen heavily upon his rider. Fred seemed to have struggled to get free from him, but the creature in his dying agonies held and crushed him. He lay among the tangled underbrush with which the deadliness of the rocks was hidden, the weeds rank about him, the dead leaves in the gullies. A pallid fern shaded his face, which was turned towards the glowless sky. His shapely hand was clenched over his head.

Cleve's face grew gray when he saw it. He knew what it meant that all was over, and that he could do nothing. One long look and then he turned away to bring back aid.

"How long, now, might you reckon he'd been there?" asked one, when they came to the ravine, breaking a silence.

"About an hour," said Cleve, his voice low and changed.

Horse got scared, I s'pose. Terrible place to go off - terrible!" They knelt down and pushed back the ferns. All the lights that quivered through the gloom from their lanterns struck full upon the face. Its ghastliness was horrible, but the life had not all gone from it yet, as they soon discovered.

Cleve laid the injured man's head upon his lap and passed his hand over the clammy forehead, as one might soothe a child to sleep. Then he managed to force some liquor into his throat. The stimulant revived him somewhat, and presently he opened his eyes and fixed them in a stony stare upon Cleve's face. Some more of the liquor was given him, and he recovered strength enough to make a sign towards the breast-pocket of his coat, as if there was something there he wished taken care of. Cleve understood him instantly. Inserting his hand into the pocket, he drew out a paper, which he held up to Brownlow's face. The latter smiled faintly in token of assent, and Cleve quickly hid it away out of sight of his companions in his breast. Before doing so, however, he noticed these words endorsed on the back, in a large hand: "Richard Ware-a forgery."

Fred Brownlow was borne upon a rudely-constructed stretcher to his hotel in Auburn and placed in bed. He rallied a little during the night, and even recovered his voice sufficiently to call "Margaret! Margaret!" But before daylight he was dead.

It was but a day or two later on that Cleve Preston, on horseback, jogged along once more over that stony Thorndale road, the bluest of skies above him, and the freshest of winds frolicking about him. It was no lazy summer panting this wind; neither was it one of your crabbed northeasters whose wont it is to convert you into a misanthrope in half-an-hour. Nothing of either sort. It was a mad, rollicking, cheery wind, with just sting enough to be exhilarating, and just softness enough to beg pardon for the sting. It inflicted the merriest chastisement on the short crisp grass that obstinately refused to bend in obeisance to its nod; it played the sauciest jokes on the trees that were preparing solemnly for their gorgeous dyeing; it kept Cleve's horse in the most constant and intense excitement by blowing his mane into his eyes, and then blowing it in again as fast as he

nodded it out; it caught Cleve's hat off, and whizzed about his ears, and pulled his whiskers; it lay in wait for him at the corners, and blew the dust into his eyes and covered him with leaves.

When he turned a corner and came in sight of the cottage, the glow which came into his face might almost have blinded one to the change upon it. For a change there was since that Sunday morning when he met Fred Brownlow in the Auburn churchyard. It was graver, and there were lines in the forehead; something about the mouth spoke the look of a soul which has been in deep waters. Such a look may tell a story of either sin or suffering. Though both had left their marks on this man's face, yet there was a smile there that made one think only of the suffering, and that not sadly. It was the smile of one who has struggled fiercely in a combat, and who wore the crown of a victor.

Margaret stood at the gates watching for him, a little rosy cape thrown over her shoulders, the wind tossing her hair all over her face. She had come to meet him.

He was off the horse in an instant, and she stood brushing the bright hair away from her face, turning it up to his, all flushed and warm and happy. Margaret! little Margaret!"

After a while he held her from him and looked down into her face. Margaret, you need tell me nothing; there is nothing I do not know. As I said in my note yesterday, we are never to talk of this affair in all the time to come; but here is something I must give you. Read it, and then, destroy it." He took from his pocket and gave to her a little strip of paper; it was that which Brownlow had given to him.

Margaret opened it, and they both read:

"For value received, we, or either of us, promise to pay on demand to Samuel Greed the sum of five hundred dollars.

A rosy blush spread all over Margaret's face. can you wish me to be the last name is forged."

wife? your

"Richard Ware. "F. Brownlow."

"Oh, Cleve! how

My brother wrote that note,

and

The only answer he made was to take that sweet face between his hands and kiss it until it was covered with smiles.

THE MORAL ELEMENT OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY.

act.

HE performance of the Greek Tragedy was essentially a religious It was a part of the worship of Dionysos. The first religion of the Greeks was a worship of Nature; naturally an impulsive, emotional people, the beauties of Nature in her ever-varying forms were to their glowing imaginations fit subjects for adoration. Many forms of religion grew out of this general worship of Nature, but perhaps the most perfect of all was the worship of the wine-god Bacchus. Into wine, the lovely child of autumn, the Greeks believed that Jupiter had breathed his own spirit, making the god brave and daring. From the old religion of Bacchus sprang the new worship of Dionysos. Of it Smead says :

"It was an art religion: in creed and ritual it was the full recognition and manifestation of the divine spirit in the human being. ... Its religious and moral teachings did not essentially differ from those of other forms of worship. It may be said that particular stress was laid upon RIGHT, founded upon the moral sense and consecrated by custom; TRUTH in its high general sense; religious and political WISDOM; REVERENCE of the gods and obedience to the laws established by them; filial PIETY, and VENeration of the Dead."

These are the teachings of the religion of Dionysos, and this is the religion of which the Tragedy formed a part, and whose teachings it.

set forth.

The Festival of Dionysos opened with a sacrifice to the god, and closed with a feast of which all the worshippers partook. The intervals between the sacrifice and banquet were occupied with recitations, songs, dances, &c.; and from these sprang the dramatic exhibitions, the chief of which was the performance of the Tragedy. We thus see that the performance of Tragedy was a religious act.

The plots or fabula of the Tragedy contained in themselves a moral element. Previous to the time of the Logographs the Greeks had no authentic history; their only historical records were the myths and legends that had been handed down from generation to generation. The old Epos was the sole repository of religious and historical knowledge. It was the production of the Greek mind through its various stages of progress, and it was the thesaurus of traditionary and mythological record. To every Greek whose heart and mind remained unperverted by the false doctrines of the Sophists, the Epos was the sacred word, containing the divine oracles-the will and mind of God revealed through inspired men, and possessed of the sacredness and power of divine authority. Its myths and fables were surrounded with a mysterious awe and antiquity that made them doubly impressive. From the Epos the plots of the Tragedy were taken, with one exception, the Persae of Aeschylus. We see then that the subject upon which the tragedies were written possessed not only a moral, but a deeply religious character.

As we have stated, the legends of the Epos were sacred; and as a consequence, whenever exhibited in the modified form given them by the tragic writers, they made a deep and lasting impression upon the spectator. Whatever truth was inculcated, whatever wise conclusions that had been arrived at through the bitter meed of human experience, the rewards of virtue and the punishments of vice, taken from the Epos and exhibited in the Tragedy, were believed to be divine teachings given for the guidance of mankind, and were looked upon as the expression of the will and thought of God exhibited through human agency.

In the characters of the Tragedy we have another element of morality. There is a marked difference in the characters portrayed by the three most celebrated writers of Tragedy, viz. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus painted his characters as heroes and demi-gods rather than as ordinary men and women. He clothed them with supernatural, god-like attributes, and surrounded them with a mysteriousness and solemnity that struck his spectators with reverence and awe. Their thoughts were bold, their sentiments lofty and grand; and these were expressed in abrupt, often obscure figures a language befitting heroes and gods. Of the two tragic emotions, Aeschylus excited terror rather than pity, and his characters were impressive rather by their superiority and power than by their misfortunes and sufferings. In general the characters of Aeschylus are of too sublime and superhuman a mould to be fully comprehended by the practical, philosophical mind of the present age; but the very awfulness and gloom that surrounded them were well suited to impress the emotional, imaginative nature of the Greek.

The characters of Sophocles were a modification of those of Aeschylus. The latter portrayed characters unreal and supernatural; the former painted heroes, ideal, but possible. His characters appeal more strongly to our intellect and feeling than do those of Aeschylus. We can easily realise an Oedipus struggling against a fate which in the end subdues him; we can sympathise with the faltering timidity and hesitation of Ismene, and praise and admire the unselfish devotion and heroism of Antigone. The prominent virtues exhibited in this writer's characters are calm, dignified resignation and submission to. the will of Heaven, reverence for the dead, and veneration and respect for the laws and sanctions of immutable justice.

Euripides was more of a philosopher than poet. He painted human nature as it was, and hence his characters possess more of truth and less of beauty than those of his predecessors. Poetic genius delights to clothe its heroes with all the qualities of divinity, to ascribe to them grander thoughts and loftier sentiments than those that actuate the common herd of men, and elevate them high above the crowd. But truth is the goal for which the mind of the philosopher strives and content to remain within the limits of the possible and real, he exhibits man as he is, with all his weaknesses, frailties and passions. Euripides depicts for us the lives of men and women with whom he lived, and whom he met from day to day upon the streets and in the Agora. It has been objected that in the plays of this writer woman occupies a low moral position. It must be remembered that truth to