stormily outside the harbour into which the
ships come, many in a day, from every part
of the world, bringing hundreds home. Who
shall say that it is a miserable world, when
one day can hold so much of happiness as
those simple words express—coming home?

There is one ship just coming in, and the
passengers crowd on the after-deck; some
already straining their eyes to catch the lirst
sight of a beloved familiar face on the shore;
some lounging careless, too used to wanderings
to feel much of the sacred joy of return;
some curiously gazing about them, new to
the scene, and their perceptions keenly
aroused to everything around. But one or
two stand apart, with eyes that look outward
but see inwardly, and thoughts that are
trembling, deep, deep down underneath the
outside unrippled calm of aspect—thoughts
that none may guess at, and only One knows
are there.

The erect figure of a man stands out a little
aloof from the rest. He is watching the sun
sink below an English horizon—watching the
soft clouds hovering, over an English land-
scape. His dark hair—you may see silver
streaks in it, though he is not old—is tossed
by the wind about his brow—over his face.
He loves to feel it—to recognise the old
familiar breath on his cheek, for it is part of
the home he had lost so long, but now has
found again. Ten years he has been a
stranger in a strange land, but now—he is
coming home.

You who have never left it never know
rapture like the heart-leap to those words.
Your eyes do not see the glorified beauty
which his drink in with every common sight,
so long unseen till now. The cries of the
sailors among the rigging of the many ships
around—the familiar shouts on shore—the
clanging of bells, the simplest, most
accustomed sounds, come on his ears with a
very anguish of remembrance. He had
never forgotten them. But between the
two verges of remembrance and oblivion
dwells the actuality which is beyond and
above both, in which there is no degree—it
is—complete and full and satisfying.

Our traveller stood so silent that a fellow-
passenger addressed him twice before he
heard. But then he turned round, neither
vexedly nor impatiently.

"Yes; it is a lovely evening for our landing,"
he said, smiling.

"May I ask," for these two had been
companions during the long voyage, and one, at
least, was much interested in the other, "do
you go direct to your own home to-night?"

"No.  I have no abode in England. It is
a wide home that I am coming to. But—it
is home."

"Let us then stay at the same inn
tonight."

"Many thanks; but I am going on farther
at once. I start immediately on landing."

He smiled again,—a courteous genial smile
to his companion; a very strange, wistful,half-
eager, halt-restrained smile to himself.
Involuntarily his eyes seemed to seek the
sunset again. Glowing, golden, ambient, shone
the sky, and the water in which it was
reflected. Far away, on shore, lie could see
woods and fields and rising hills. Perhaps
even, dimly, he could catch the cloudy outline
of one of those hills behind which Rosamond
Bellew was even then watching the last rays
fading behind the birch-trees, and thinking—
thinking.

And perhaps it may be that thought can
leap to thought more quickly—more surely,
than glance responds to glance, or word to
word. Who can tell?

But thus it was that Leonard Ross came
home.

A REMEMBRANCE OF AUTUMN.

NOTHING stirs the sunny silence—
Save the drowsy humming of the bees,
Round the rich ripe peaches on the wall;
And the south wind sighing in the trees,
And the dead leaves rustling as they fall:
While the swallows, one by one, are gathering,
All impatient to be on the wing,
And to wander from us, seeking
Their belovèd Spring!

Cloudless rise the azure heavens!
Only vaporous wreaths of snowy white
Nestle in the grey hill's rugged side;
And the golden woods are bathed in light,
Dying, if they must, with kingly pride:
While the swallows in the blue air wheeling,
Circle now an eager fluttering band,
Ready to depart and leave us
For a brighter land!

But a voice is sounding sadly,
Telling of a glory that has been;
Of a day that faded all too fast—
See afar through the blue air serene
Where the swallows wing their way at last.
And our hearts perchance so sadly wandering,
Vainly seeking for a long-lost day.
While we watch the far-off swallows,
Flee with them away!

A PLAYER'S BENISON.

HARD by the Clink, by the Bankside, near
Winchester House, there lived in the first
years of the seventeenth century a kind-
hearted and prosperous London play-actor,
named Edward Alleyn. He inherited a little
property, received more with his wife,
prospered as to his investments, whether in
theatrical property or land, and prospered
also in his own profession of an actor,
wherein Heywood the poet wrote of him, he

                                            wan
     The attribute of peerless; being a man
     Whom we may rank with (doing no wrong)
     Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue,
     So could he speak, so vary.

At Dulwich he is still to be seen in picture,