to perform an act of charity, or to return an
obligation; which, in fact, is not writing for
nothing.

THE CRY OF THE INNOCENTS.

FROM out the depths of misery
There comes a feeble, wailing cry:
'Tis faint at first, and scarcely heard,
Like the last note of dying bird,
When all the forest boughs are bare,
And winter reigneth everywhere.

Again it comes; it gathers strength,
As though throughout the breadth and length
Of this our land—so rich, so bright,
So glorious in her Christian light—
Some woe repressed had found a vent,
In utterance wild, of discontent.

And yet again, on every side
We hear it rising, like a tide
Of shame and sorrow, fear and dread:
Is it the living, or the dead,
That ask for succour and redress
In accents full of wretchedness?

True mothers of fair babes possessed,
Clasp them more tightly to the breast,
And shrink with terror, when they hear
That wail of anguish and of fear,
Which tells how far, and deep, and wide,
Hath spread the crime—Infanticide!

It cometh not from Ganges' shore,
Where woman kills the babe she bore,
And stifles all a mother's love,
Devotion to her gods to prove;
Nor from the isles, where palm-trees wave
Above the infant victim's grave:

From haunts of vice, and homes of sin,
Where most the Tempter souls may win;
From squalid hovels, where no ray
Of light divine bath found a way;
Like beasts where human beings herd,
By vilest passions only stirred.

Yet not alone from scenes like these
Cometh that cry, the blood to freeze;
From homes of comfort, where disgrace
Of secret sin may find no place;
From stately dwellings, where no blame
May rest upon a spotless name.

The reeds that rustle in the mere
Whisper unto the startled ear
The ghastly secret, and the leaves
Tell how the sighing forest grieves
O'er man's depravity, and all
The sad results of woman's fall.

The stream that through the meadow flows
Singeth low dirges as it goes;
And to the shore the angry main
The lifeless form flings back again,
While gentle breeze, and stormy gale,
Bear east and west that piteous wail.

Of murdered innocents the cry!
As when beneath the midnight sky
Migrating flocks from icy north,
Their shrill complainings utter forth,
Which sound, amid the impervious gloom,
Like warning voices from the tomb.

And let them not unheeded be;
They come, my country, unto thee,
To warn, admonish, and refrain;
Shall the old tale be told in vain,
Of luxury and crime, that lead
The way to ruin down with speed?

Of murdered innocents the groan,
To Him upon the great white throne
Goes up, and all those blossoms fair,
Crushed upon earth, are cherished there,
To stand as witnesses, and say,
"Thou didst it!" in the Judgment Day.

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER LII. HELEN RIVIÈRE.

BORN and bred on the top floor of a gloomy
old house in a still gloomier by-street of Florence,
Helen Rivière had spent her childhood in a
solitude almost as far removed from the busy
press and shock of ordinary life as if she had
been reared in a Highland boothy, half way
betwixt the earth and sky. All the circumstances
of her home and her home-life were exceptional.
She had known none of the companionship and
few of the joys of childhood. No rambles in
green fields and purple vineyards, no pleasant
rivalry of school-class and playground, no early
friendships, with their innocent joys and sorrows,
had ever been hers. Her mother was her one
playmate, instructor, and friend. The flat housetop,
with its open loggia, its tubs of orange-trees
and myrtles, and its boxes of nasturtiums
and mignonette, was her only playground. From
thence she saw the burning sunsets and the
violet hills; from thence looked down on dome
and campanile, crowded street and mediæval
palace. This bird's-eye view of the rare old
city, with such echoes of its life as found their
way to her upper world, was almost all that
Helen knew of Florence. Now and then, at
very distant intervals, she had been led down
into that busy lower world, to wander for a few
hours through streets and piazzas stately with
fountains and statues, or galleries so radiant
with Madonnas and angels that they seemed
like the vestibules of heaven; but this was very
seldom.

Yet the child had, as it were, breathed all her
life in an atmosphere of art. She could not
remember the time when its phraseology and
appliances were other than familiar to her. Her
father's dimly-lighted studio, redolent of oil and
varnish, and littered with canvases and casts;
her father himself, in his smeared blouse and
velvet cap, painting his unsaleable Nymphs and
Dryads year after year with unabated
enthusiasm; the lay figure in its folds of dusty
drapery; the shabby studenti with their long
hair and professional jargon, who used to drop
in at twilight to smoke their cheap cigars upon
the terraced roof, and declaim about art and
liberty; the habit of observation insensibly
acquired, and her own natural delight in form
and colour, all combined to mould her inclinations