202 



Tllh: AMKnrCAN niCE-KEHPICIt. 



S -/' ' 



her 



these mauy years. I have ■wished that 

 we might meet here, with a certain 

 death quiveriug above us. Can you not 

 guess why?" 



Her voice rises recklessly an inflexion 

 higher. There is a flush of color upon 

 her brow. Her attitude is one of grati- 

 fied revenge. 



"How can I guess, Gisela?" he stam- 

 mers. 



His face is blanched ; his eyes dilate 

 with dread. Ethel, his wife, glances 

 from her husband to the girl with terror 

 stricken amazement. 



"What does she mean, Sydney? Ex- 

 plain it to me." 



"She is mad, Ethel!" he returns, col- 

 lecting himself a little. "Come, we 

 will go back. It is time. " 



"You will not," cries Gisela, raising 

 her voice until it becomes a shriek. 

 "You will not. You will not escape my 

 vengeance so easily." Long smolder- 

 ing resentment at her base desertion has 

 burst forth into the quenchless flame of 

 hopeless jealousy, and she is careless 

 what she does — careless of her own life. 



"You m2de me love you, " she goes 

 on fiejrcely, "that summer so long past 

 now; made me give up Giotto and grieve 

 my parents and estrange my friends for 

 your sake, and now you think to liv-^ 

 happily wiih your English wife. 



"You do not know that Giotto killed 

 hims«lf in his jealous anger, that; my 

 mother died of a broken heart, that my 

 father died poor because I left them to 

 go after you — though my search was 

 vain. You do not hear the cry for retri- 

 bution that rises from the ground where 

 they sleep. You do not, but I do. Ha! 

 ha!" 



The sound of her laughter rings 

 among tlie recks and down the steeping 

 vales and in and out among the vast 

 snow masses piled around the crags. 

 Thsre is a trembling movement on the 

 face of the slope of dazzling white above 

 — an ominous, slipping, sliding sound. 



"Quick! Haslen!" cried Athelstan, 

 seizing his wife's arm. "The balance is 

 disturbed; the avalanche is upon us. 

 There is not a moment to be lost. 

 Hasten!" 



They hurry to the left, where the 

 ledge broadens out upon the plateau — to 

 the right it narrows more and more — 

 leaving Gisela standing motionless, 

 hurling her derisive mirth at them. 



Surely they will escape, xne ajsiance 

 is not far. 



But the great snow sheet, flinging 

 etones and trees and frost spray far be- 

 fore its thunderous advance, is gaining 

 £kst upon them. It rushes headlong, a 

 raass of overpowering majesty, terrible 

 in its might, adown that awful slope, 

 and ere the roar of it in their ears can 

 drown the Found of that mocking mirth 

 the snow foam billow that curls upon 

 its lower edge sweeps them out into the 

 gulf below. 



There is a woman's cry, a man's 

 curse, a mocking laugh cut swiftly 

 short, and the avalanche passes on. 



It roars along, its breath going before 

 it like a def'troying storm, and the gulf 

 in which the three bruised bodies lie is 

 tilled with its snowy whiteness. 



They sleep soundly there, beneath 

 that chilly counterpane — sheltered in 

 Bilence, sh rouded in snow.- — Exchange. 



Wanted, a Ne^w Kind of Eumorist. 



So far from its being possible to "in- 

 ternationalize" humor, we may think 

 ourselves lucky if we can manage to 

 preserve even a national type. The 

 Dickensian humor, it would seem, is 

 "off;" the American droll, after a 

 vof:,uo of a good many years, is appar- 

 ently ceasing to amuse; the "inverted 

 aphorism" had but a short popularity 

 and ultimately perished in calamitous 

 and indeed unmentionable circum- 

 sta)ices, and nothing seems growing up 

 to take its jolace. The new generation 

 "knocking at the doo?" rat tats with 

 quite portentous gravity. This is, no 

 doubt, an improvement on the older 

 generations, who thought it a first rate 

 stroke of wit to wrench off the knocker, 

 but their successors are surely carrying 

 a virtue to excess. 



It seems a pity that they should be 

 unable to laugh, but the most respected 

 and "intellectual" among them can- 

 not. It was the way of certain frivolous 

 old fogies a few years ago to twit them 

 with their supposed taste for what was 

 then called the new humor, but there 

 was really no foundation for the taunt. 

 The new humor turned out to be simply 

 the old buffoonery "writ small, " and 

 whoever its patrons are or were they 

 are not to be found among the thought- 

 ful young men who represent the gen- 

 eration with its hand on the door 

 knocker. — Fortnightly Review. 



