tween them, make up the Island of Samson. This hill slopes steeply seaward to south and west. It is not a lofty hill, by any means. In Scilly there are no lofty hills. When nature addressed herself to the construction of this archipelago she brought to the task a light touch; at the moment she happened to be full of feeling for the great and artistic effects which may be produced by small elevations, especially in those places where the material is granite. Therefore, though she raised no Alpine peak in Scilly, she provided great abundance and any variety of bold coastline with rugged cliffs, lofty cairns, and headlines piled with rocks. And her success as an artist in this genre has been undoubtedly wonderful. The actual measurement of Holy Hill, Samson-but why should we measure has been taken, for the admiration of the world, by the Ordnance Survey. It is really no more than a hundred and thirty-two feet--not a foot more or less. But then one knows hills ten times that height -the Herefordshire Beacon for example-which are not half so mountainous in the effect produced. Only a hundred and thirty-two feet-yet on its summit one feels the exhilaration of spirits caused by the air elsewhere of five thousand feet at least. On its southern and western slopes lie the fields which form the Flower Farm of Holy Hill.

Below the farm-yard the ground sloped more steeply to the water; the slope was covered with short heather fern, now brown and yellow, and long trailing branches of bramble, now laden with ripe blackberries, the leaves enriched with blazon of gold and purple and crimson.

Armorel ran across the green and plunged among the fern, tossing her arms and singing aloud, the old dog trotting and jumping, but with less elasticity, beside her. She was bareheaded; the sunshine made her dark cheeks ruddy and caused her black eyes

to glow. Hebe, young and strong, loves Phoebus and fears not any freckles. When she came to the water's edge, where the boulders lie piled in a broken mass among and above the water, she stood still and looked across the sea, silent for a moment. Then she began to sing in a strong contralto; but no one could hear her, not even the coastguard on Telegraph Hill, or he of the Star Fort; the song she sung was one taught her by the old lady, who had sung it herself in the old, old days, when the road was always filled with merchantmen waiting for convoy up the Channel, and when the islands were rich with the trade of the ships, and their piloting, and their wrecks-to say nothing of the free trade which went on gallantly without break or stop. As she sung she lifted her arms and swung them in a slow cadence, as a Nautch girl sometimes swings her arms. What she sung was nothing other than

the old song:

"Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a maid sing in the valley below:

'Oh! don't deceive me. Oh! never leave me,

How could you use a poor maiden so?'"

In the year of grace 1884, Armorel was fifteen years of age. But she looked nineteen or twenty, because she was so tall and well-grown. She was dressed simply in a blue flannel; the straw hat which she carried in her hand was trimmed with red ribbons; at her throat she had stuck a red verbenashe naturally took to red, because her complexion was so dark. Black hair; black eyes; a strongly marked brow; a dark cheek of warm and ruddy hue; the lips full, but the mouth finely curved; features large but regular-she was already, though so young, a tall and handsome woman. Those able to understand things would recognize in her dark complexion, in her carriage, in her eyes, and in her upright

figure the true Castilian touch. The gypsy is swarthy; the negro is black, the mulatto is dusky; it is not the color alone, but the figure and the carriage also, which mark the Spanish blood. A noble Spanish lady; yet how could she get to Samson?

She wore no gloves-you cannot buy gloves in Samson and her hands were brown with exposure to sea and sun, to wind and rain; they were by no means tiny hands, but strong and capable hands; her arms--no one ever saw them, but for shape and whiteness they could not be matched-would have disgraced no young fellow of her own age for strength and muscle. That was fairly to be expected in one who continually sailed and rowed across the inland seas of this archipelago; who went to church by boat and to market by boat; who paid her visits by boat, and transacted her business by boat, and went by boat to do her shopping. She who rows every day upon the salt water, and knows how to manage a sail when the breeze is strong and the Atlantic surge rolls over the rocks and roughens the still water of the road, must needs be strong and sound. For my own part, I admire not the fragile maiden so much as her who rejoices in her strength. Youth in woman, as well as in man, should be brave and lusty; clean of limb as well as of heart; strong of arm as well as of will; enduring hardness of voluntary labor as well as hardness of involuntary pain; with feet that can walk, run, and climb, and with hands that can hold on. Such a girl as Armorel, so tall, so strong, so healthy, offers, methinks, a home ready-made for all the virtues, and especially the virtues feminine, to house themselves therein. Here they will remain, growing stronger every day, until at last they have become part and parcel of the very girl herself, and cannot be parted from her. Whereas, when they visit the puny creature, weak, timid, delicate-but no-'tis better to remain silent.

How many times had the girl wandered, morning or afternoon, down the rough face of the hill, and stood looking vaguely out to sea, and presently returned home again? How many such walks had she taken and forgotten? For a hundred times? yea, a thousand times-we do over and over again the old familiar action, the little piece of the day's routine, and forget it when we lie down to sleep. But there comes the thousandth time when the same thing is done again in the same way, yet is never to be forgotten. For on that day happens the thing which changes and charges a whole life. It is the first of many days. It is the beginning of new days. From it, whatever may have happened before, everything shall now be dated until the end. Mohammed lived many years, but all the things that happened unto him or his successors are dated from the Flight. Is it for nothing that it has been told what things Armorel did and how she looked on this day? Not so, but for the sake of what happened afterward, and because the history of Armorel begins with this restless fit, which drove her out of the quiet room down the hill-side to the sea. Her history begins, like every history of a woman worth relating, with the man cast by the sea upon the shores of her island. The maiden always lives upon an island, and whether the man is cast upon the shore by the sea of society, or the sea of travel, or the sea of accident, or the sea of adventure, or the sea of briny waves and roaring winds and jagged rocks, matters little. To Armorel it was the last. To you, dear Dorothy or Violet, it will doubtless be by the sea of society. And the day that casts him before your feet will ever after begin a new period in your reckoning.

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON, poet and novelist, was born at Kvikne, Norway, in 1832. He became a student at the University of Christiania in 1852, and almost immediately became a writer for periodicals. Later he managed a theater, edited two papers and traveled extensively. While on his tours he was a voluminous writer of poems, plays and novels. His most important works include "Magnhild," "Arne," Flags are Flying." The best dramas from his pen are Mary Stuart," "A Glove" and "Leonardo."

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THE PRINCESS

HE Princess sat alone in her maiden bower,

THE Princess, sat alone at the foot of the tower.

Why playest thou alway? Be silent, I pray, It fetters my thoughts that would flee far away, As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn,

The lad had ceased to play on his horn.

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'Oh, why art thou silent? I beg thee to play! It gives wing to my thoughts that would flee away, As the sun goes down."

In her maiden bower sat the Princess forlorn, Once more with delight played the lad on his horn. She wept as the shadows grew long, and she sighed: Oh, tell me, my God, what my heart doth betide, Now the sun has gone down."