which were meant to pass for oleander-blossoms, and did, still, wet
with the drops of the afternoon shower, which had not dried away when
all was in place. When it comes to rain and dewdrops, dear Dr. Holmes,
a "fresh-water college" has an advantage. First, it was given under
gas; then, the hall being darkened, a magnesium-light gave a moon-like
radiance, in which the dew on the buds glistened, and the mignonette
seemed to exhale a double perfume, and a dreamy melody of Mendelssohn
sung by two sweet girl-voices floated out about the "pleached bower,"
like a song of nightingales. Then toward the end came the scene of the
chapel and Hero's tomb. No lovelier form was ever sculptured than that
of the beautiful Queen Louisa of Prussia, as she lies in the mausoleum
at Charlottenburg, carved by Rauch, asleep on the tomb in white
purity. To the eye, our Hero's tomb was just such a block of spotless
marble seen against a background of black, with just such a fair
figure recumbent upon it, whose palms and lids and draping the chisel
of an artist seemed to have folded and closed and hung,--all idealised
again by the magic of the magnesium-light. As the crimson curtain was
drawn apart, an organ sounded, and a far-away choir sent into the hush
the _Ave Verum_ of Mozart, low-breathed and solemn.

It was not Munich, Fastidiosus. They were American young men and young
women, with no resources but those of a rural college, and such as
their own taste and the woods and gardens could furnish; but the young
men were shapely and intelligent, and the young women had grace and
brightness; their hearts were in it, and in the result surely there
was a measure of "sweetness and light" for them and those who beheld.

You fear it may beget in young minds a taste for the theatre, now
hopelessly given over in great part to abominations. Why not a
taste that will lift them above the abominations? Old Joachim Greff,