Den many happy days I squandered, Many de songs I sung. When I was playing wid my brother, Happy was I; Oh, take me to my kind old mudder! One little hut among de bushes Still sadly to my memory rushes, When will I see de bees a-humming, When will I hear de banjo tumming Down in my good old home? JESSIE FOTHERGILL. JESSIE FOTHERGILL, an English story-teller, born at Manchester, June 7, 1856; died at London, July 3, 1891. Her stories show a keen faculty of observation; among them are: "Healey, a Romance" (1875); "The First Violin" (1877), in which German life is faithfully portrayed; "Probation" (1879); "Kith and Kin' (1881); "Borderland" (1886); "The Lasses of Laverhouse" (1888); "A March in the Ranks" (1890); "Oriole's Daughter" (1892). "The First Violin" is her best known work. It was immediately successful on publication, reached its tenth edition in 1895, and is rated as one of the best musical novels of the time. It was dramatized in 1897. A SKATING ADVENTURE. (From "The First Violin.") It was December, close upon Christmas. Winter at last in real earnest. A black frost. The earth bound in fetters of iron. The land gray; the sky steel; the wind a dagger. The trees, leafless and stark, rattled their shriveled boughs together in that wind. It met you at corners and froze the words out of your mouth; it whistled a low, fiendish, malignant whistle round the houses; as vicious and little louder than the buzz of a mosquito. It swept-thin, keen, and cutting-down the Königsallee, and blew fine black dust into one's face. It cut up the skaters upon the pond in the Neue Anlage, which was in the center of the town, and comparatively sheltered; but it was in its glory, whistling across the flat fields leading to the great skating-ground of Elberthal in general the Schwanenspiegel at the Grafenbergerdahl. The Grafenberg was a low chain of what, for want of a better name, may be called hills, lying to the north of Elberthal. The country all around this unfortunate apology for a range of hills was, if possible, flatter than ever. The Grafenbergerdahl was, properly, no "dale" at all, but a broad plain of meadows, with the railway cutting them at one point, then diverging and running on under the Grafenberg. One vast meadow which lay, if possible, a trifle lower than the rest, was flooded regularly by the autumn rains, but not deeply. It was frozen over now, and formed a model skating place, and so, apparently, thought the townspeople, for they came out, singly or in bodies, and from nine in the morning till dusk the place was crowded, and the merry music of the iron on the ice ceased not for a second. I discovered this place of resort by accident one day when I was taking a constitutional, and found myself upon the borders of the great frozen mere covered with skaters. I stood looking at them, and my blood warmed at the sight. If there were one thing, one accomplishment upon which I prided myself, it was this very one-skating. In a drawing-room I might feel awkward-confused among clever people, bashful among accomplished ones; shy about music and painting, diffident as to my voice, and deprecatory in spirit as to the etiquette to be observed at a dinner party. Give me my skates and put me on a sheet of ice, and I was at home. As I paused and watched the skaters, it struck me that there was no reason at all why I should deny myself that seasonable enjoyment. I had my skates, and the mere was large enough to hold me as well as the others indeed, I saw in the distance great tracts of virgin ice to which no skater seemed yet to have reached. I went home, and on the following afternoon carried out my resolution; though it was after three o'clock before I could set out. A long, bleak way. First up the merry Jägerhofstrasse, then through the Malkasten garden, up a narrow lane, then out upon the open, bleak road, with that bitter wind going pingping at one's ears and upon one's cheek. Through a big gateway, and a courtyard pertaining to an orphan asylum — along a lane bordered with apple-trees, through a rustic arch, and, hurrah! the field was before me. not so thickly covered as yesterday, for it was getting late, and the Elberthalers did not seem to understand the joy of careering over the black ice by moonlight, in the night wind. It was, however, as yet far from dark, and the moon was rising in silver yonder, in a sky of a pale but clear blue. I quickly put on my skates-stumbled to the edge, and set off. I took a few turns, circling among the people-then, seeing several turn to look at me, I fixed my eyes upon a distant clump of reeds rising from the ice, and resolved to make it my goal. I could only just see it, even with my long-sighted eyes, but struck out for it bravely. Past group after group of the skaters, who turned to look at my scarlet shawl as it flashed past. I glanced at them and skimmed smoothly on, till I came to the outside circle where there was a skater all alone, his hands thrust deep into his greatcoat pockets, the collar of the same turned high about his ears, and the inevitable little gray cloth Studentenhut crowning the luxuriance of waving dark hair. He was gliding round in complicated figures and circles, doing the outside edge for his own solitary gratification, so far as I could see; active, graceful, and muscular, with practiced ease and assured strength in every limb. It needed no second glance on my part to assure me who he was even if the dark bright eyes had not been caught by the flash of my cloak, and gravely raised for a moment as I flew by. I dashed on, breasting the wind. To reach the bunch of reeds seemed more than ever desirable now. I would make it my sole companion until it was time to go away. At least he had seen me, and I was safe from any contretemps- he would avoid me as strenuously as I avoided him. But the first fresh lust after pleasure was gone. Just one moment's glance into a face had had the power to alter everything so much. I skated on, as fast, as surely as ever, but, "A joy has taken flight." The pleasant sensation of solitude, which I could so easily have felt among a thousand people had he not been counted among them, was gone. The roll of my skates upon the ice had lost its music for me; the wind felt colder-I sadder. At least I thought so. Should I go away again, now that this disturbing element had appeared upon the scene? No, no, no! said something eagerly within me, and I bit my lip, and choked back a kind of sob of disgust as I realized that, despite my gloomy reflections, my heart was beating a high, rapid march of-joy! as I skimmed, all alone, far away from the crowd, among the dismal withered reeds, and round the little islets of stiffened grass and rushes, which were frozen upright in their places. The daylight faded, and the moon rose. The people were |