arms and upon the faithful breast.

And so Druse, not having lived and died in vain, passed away forever
from the Vere De Vere.




A LAMENTABLE COMEDY.


I stood one July noon on the platform of the desolate station at
Wauchittic, the sole passenger waiting for the stage. The heat was
quivering in the air. I watched the departing train, whirling like a
little black ball down the narrow yellow road, cut between the green
fields, and was vaguely glad that I was not going to the end of the
Island on it. This was somewhere near the middle, and it was quite far
enough from civilization.

The village, like so many Long Island villages, was distant from the
railroad. Only one or two farm-houses were in sight. There was hardly a
sound in the hot noonday air, now that the train had gone, except the
whistling of a cheerful station agent, who sat in the window of the
little oven-like Queen Anne structure, in his shirt sleeves, looking out
at me with lively interest. I had sought for a quiet country place in
which to finish my novel, the book which would decide beyond doubt
whether I had a future as a writer, or whether I was doomed to sink to
the level of the ordinary literary hack, for into it I had put, I knew,
all that was my best.